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Canada coroner matches pair of mysterious feet

3 days ago

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — A coroner has matched a pair of dismembered female feet that mysteriously washed up on the shores of British Columbia.

The British Columbia coroner said Friday it had matched a female right foot discovered on Canada’s West coast in November with a left foot discovered in May. Both were encased in New Balance running shoes.

They were among five feet that have mysteriously floated ashore along the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland since August 2007.

A sixth foot was found on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula about 30 miles west of Port Angeles in August. The peninsula is separated from B.C.’s Vancouver Island by the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

All six feet were found in athletic shoes.

“In all cases, these remains appear to have naturally separated from the body,” said the B.C. Coroners Service.

DNA testing linked one of the Canadian feet to a depressed man who disappeared in 2007. Investigators have also concluded that two of the five feet belonged to one man who has not yet been identified.

Experts say that when a human body is submerged in the ocean, the arms, legs, hands, feet and head usually come off the body. The Coroners Service said it is difficult to determine how long remains have been in the water.

The Coroners Service uses physical characteristics and DNA analysis of the feet to establish a profile. Those profiles are maintained in a provincial database for future comparisons.

Police have said they are reviewing almost 300 missing persons files to try to match up the feet.

(This version CORRECTS SUBS first 4 grafs to correct coroner statement was issued Friday sted Saturday and location where foot found in Washington state.)

The mystery of where these feet are coming from remains unsolved. Some speculate that they come from people who died in an ocean plane crash; the feet are gradually breaking free from the bodies as they decompose, and the shoes are buoyant enough to carry them to the surface. So far, forensic examiners have not found any signs that the feet were cut or pried loose, leaving decomposition as the most likely explanation.

No plane has been reported missing in the area, however.

Earlier this year, a bogus foot was discovered. Someone had shoved a rotting animal paw into a shoe and left it to be found.

To learn more, check out the CNN story at www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/11/12/canada.feet.mystery/index.html.

I talked to one of the victims yesterday. Elaine Koenig says the sketch looks all wrong.

“It looks like a stocky 40-year-old,” she said, “not a skinny 18-year-old.”

I’m not trying to be critical of the sketch artist, who’s done a great job for a number of years. I just thought Koenig’s comments might help identify the attacker.

If you recognize this guy, please call Oklahoma City Crime Stoppers at (405) 235-7300.

Oklahoma City police Sgt. Robert Douglas, who spent five years in a coma after an on-duty traffic accident, died today. He was 44.

I wrote a notable obituary on Robert. It will be in tomorrow’s paper (Sept. 29) and should also be online at NewsOK.com.

Robert was a good cop and a good guy. He will be missed.

It’s still coming.

Just got off the phone with the Oklahoma City police cold case unit. There have been some exciting developments in several unsolved crimes, including the one I mentioned in an earlier post.

I still can’t release any details, but I can say that police think they’ve solved one of the high-profile cases featured on the Cold Case Oklahoma website.

As soon as I get the go-ahead to report on it, we’ll have something in The Oklahoman, online at www.coldcaseok.com and on this blog.

He’s going to be a big loss.

Douglas, 44, hasn’t been himself for more than five years. A burly, laughing officer who loved his job, his family, good food and better friends, Douglas served as a “motor jock” in the police motorcycle unit.

In 2003, an on-duty motor vehicle accident left him in a coma. He’s been there ever since.

I knew Robert. We weren’t best buddies or anything, but I always enjoyed talking to him and joking around with him. Robert and I shared a fondness for fedoras, among other things, and often discussed hats. He was known for wearing his fedora when working as an on-call police spokesman, and I wore one regularly when I covered Oklahoma City police full-time. 

In general, cops and crime writers have fairly bleak sensibilities, the result of seeing and thinking about the unpleasant things they encounter on the job. The grizzled, burned-out cop who’s seen too much is a stereotype in crime dramas for a reason.

But Robert seemed largely untouched by that sort of thing. He was always happy, and I always left a conversation with him feeling a little better about the world.

Last week, another cop called to tell me that Robert is on his last legs. His body is failing, and life is fading. He’s survived for five long years, but by all accounts, he doesn’t have much time left.

Robert’s one of the good guys. We’re losing him too soon.

In the years we lived there, my wife and I saw the neighborhood change from a safe, quiet area to a dangerous, scary place. We suffered a break-in, but didn’t lose much. Now we live in a much safer neighborhood. The difference is almost palpable.

In today’s newspaper story, I recounted some of the recent crimes that have occurred in the 11000 block of N Lincoln Blvd., which probably isn’t even a quarter-mile long. Those crimes include drug dealing, home invasions, beatings and a rape, among others.

A few minutes ago, I got a call from a woman reporting yet another crime there.

About a week ago, she said, her daughter came home to find that someone had broken into the home she’d lived in for seven years. The intruder smashed her belongings, stole some items and knocked holes in the walls with a baseball bat.

The woman and her husband came in from California to move their daughter to safety. They saw another family moving out and talked to their daughter’s neighbor, who said she’s probably going to leave, too.

“I read your story and just started crying,” the woman said. “I didn’t want to read it, but I’m glad I did, because it reinforced that we did the right thing by moving our daughter out of that neighborhood.”

It’s a sad thing. I know people who still live there — good people who would never harm a soul.  

The bad guys are winning. They chased me away. They’re scaring others into leaving. And the good folks who are left behind are just becoming victims.

It’s not a cold case, although few, if any, of these crimes have been solved.

But people have been hurt, particularly the two most recent victims. One was hit with a blunt object, raped and stabbed. The other — a good Samaritan just trying to help her neighbor — was also beaten and stabbed.

This monster doesn’t deserve freedom. I hope you can help lock him away.

Rapists who beat and stab women are among the scariest criminals out there. It’s a small step to go from hurting someone to killing someone.

Let’s not let this one turn into a Cold Case.

If you recognize this guy, please call Crime Stoppers at (405) 235-7300.

Roscoe “Rocky” Pennington, seen in the photograph above, died Sept. 8.

He was 66.

On Sept. 23, 1987, two of Mr. Pennington’s daughters, Cheryl Genzer and Lisa Pennington, vanished from the Oklahoma State Fair and were later found dead. No one has ever been convicted in their deaths.

Mr. Pennington, along with his wife and extended family, worked hard throughout the past 21 years to find justice for his daughters and learn exactly what happened the night they disappeared. When I talked to him a year ago for a Cold Case story on the case, he was losing his hearing and needed a liver transplant. He and his wife told me that losing their daughters had cost them their health and taken years from their lives.

“All of this we live with is just pulling us down,” his wife told me last year.

And now Mr. Pennington is gone. My condolences go out to his family and loved ones.

I don’t know if there is an afterlife or what it’s like, but I hope that somewhere, somehow, Rocky has been reunited with his daughters.

I hope he has all the answers he needs.