"Severed Foot" Serial Killer At Work In Canada?

The severed foot that washed up on a beach south of Vancouver on Thursday almost certainly belonged to a woman, says the man who found the remains.

It is also extremely unlikely that the latest foot discovery has anything to do with the other three right feet that have washed ashore on Gulf Islands during the last nine months, said Mike Ladislaus, caretaker of Kirkland and Gunn Islands, farming islands on the south arm of the Fraser River.

Ladislaus was doing his regular check of the Kirkland shoreline when Sophie, his nine-year-old golden Labrador golden retriever, found the running shoe containing the foot. He said the size and style of the running shoe made him believe it belonged to a woman.

Ladislaus is sure the foot washed downriver because of the combination of high water, a fast-running tide and northwest winds, which brought loads of debris to the beach.

"Anything caught in a back eddy will wash right up, so it's probably from up in the New Westminster area," he guessed.

RCMP media spokeswoman Const. Annie Linteau said the gender has not been released "for investigative reasons" and said she would not agree with Ladislaus's estimates of the shoe size.

"Nothing further is being released at this time, and the foot has been sent to the B.C. Coroners Service for investigation and DNA testing," she said.

However, Ladislaus's theory that the foot came down the Fraser River is probably accurate, Linteau said.

"I think it would be safe to assume that, but we are not engaging in any assumptions," she said.

I think of rivers in Canada and I think of sawmills and lumberjacks, for some reason. You could do a hilarious Monty Python parody on this, despite the fact that it is a human tragedy and people are dying.