Vancouver–Last August, a 12-year-old girl found a sneaker on the beach and, intrigued at her discovery, she sat down, untied the laces and out fell the remains of a human foot.
She was likely the last person in British Columbia to pick up a shoe along the shoreline without fearing what they would find.
Since then, four other feet have washed ashore. What was thought to be a sixth foot was found on the shores of Vancouver Island on Wednesday, but investigators quickly discovered it was a hoax, a skeletonized animal paw, packed with seaweed and stuffed inside a sock and a running shoe.
From perfectly innocent explanations to downright diabolical hypotheses, the mystery of the five human feet has sparked countless theories. Speculation ranges from natural disasters, such as the tsunami of 2004, to the work of drug dealers, serial killers and human traffickers.
One theory gaining the most credence is a plane crash off Quadra Island three years ago with five men aboard. Only one of the bodies, that of Kirsten Stevens' husband Dave, has been found.
"No one really thought about this much until these feet started washing up. It's hard to remember what someone was wearing on their feet 3 1/2 years ago, whether our guys were wearing runners or not," said Stevens. "We're fairly certain we know."
Just two weeks before the first foot was found on Jedidiah Island last August, Kevin Decock, the brother of two of the men who died in the crash, trolled the ocean floor looking for clues near Quadra Island, using a fishing camera and equipment he designed himself.
Stevens and Sally Feast, whose brother Arnie was the pilot on the float plane, believe that action was enough to stir up the events that led to the feet washing onto shores down the Strait of Georgia.
"Something happened to make these shoes appear," said Feast. "We don't know what yet and we're hoping that with one door closing, another one will open to tell us what we need to know."
Feast already knows that three of the five feet do not belong to her brother. She is still waiting for the DNA results for the other two feet.
But the plane crash theory, if true, only tells part of the story. Four of the men are still missing, but five feet have been discovered, leaving an extra foot to be accounted for.
Other theorists believe the coastline is being used as a body dump for organized crime activity; a third scenario is a serial killer is at work.
In the past few years, more than 20 men in the Vancouver area have gone missing. Their disappearances have never been accounted for despite pleas from families for information.
This week, the family of two of those men offered rewards, pleading for information on the whereabouts of Gregory Cyr, 40, who vanished in October 2003, and Ron Carlow, 37, who disappeared in June 2007. This year alone, four men ranging in age from 19 to 32 have vanished.
Rob Gordon, head of the criminology department at Simon Fraser University, said it's reasonable to suggest that the missing men may be victims of a serial killer.
That possibility and the organized crime scenario are stronger than the theory about human trafficking, according to Gordon.
"There is every indication that the body parts have been in the water a long time and the feet disengaged from the rest of the cadaver and floated to the surface by virtue of the runners acting like life jackets," said Gordon.
However, human trafficking usually happens along Southeast Asia and China and it's unlikely the feet travelled such a great distance.
That discounts the theory that the severed feet belonged to bodies swept into the ocean by the 2004 tsunami.
Eric Kunze, who conducts research into ocean physics at the University of Victoria, said it would be impossible for the feet to have travelled from Asia to the coast of British Columbia.
"If feet were coming through from there, we would have thousands of feet coming onto the shores of B.C.," he said. "From an oceanographic standpoint, all we can really say at this point is they originated somewhere from the Strait of Georgia."
Dean Hildebrand, a forensic scientist at British Columbia Institute of Technology, who is working with the B.C. Coroners Service, said while the answers may not available yet, progress is being made.
"Forensic science takes time, especially when you're making linkages," he said. "While it's certainly unique to be finding so many feet in a row, it's not that unusual to find bones and human remains washed up on shores."
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