# Human Foot Washed Up on Beach: Male or Female? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 5, 2008, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917 "2008-08-05T14:59:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/21 "2008-08-06T13:24:06Z")
I know that it has been determined that one pair of feet in BC came from the same person, I think that they identified the gender, I just don’t remember at this time. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/22 "2008-08-06T13:48:17Z")
[QUOTE=PastAllReason] Sadly, it turns out that the beheading guy is a cannibalistic beheading guy, and you missed the 15 year old in Manitoba who died when a load of hot asphalt was dumped on him. [/QUOTE] Yeah, I did miss the asphalt death… I’ll go read about it now! There is also the First Nations teen who was killed by the cops (Tasered first, but killed with a handgun), who happens to be nephew of a guy who was killed by the cops some years ago… that’s causing all kinds of accusations and uproar. [QUOTE=Tengu] I missed these two stories…what’s the…er…story. [/quote] Text messaging plane crash survivor: [http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080804/bc\_crash\_080804/20080804?hub=CTVNewsAt11](http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080804/bc_crash_080804/20080804?hub=CTVNewsAt11) Murdered 7-year old: [http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=702587](http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=702587) For Canadian news, CTV, the National Post, the Globe and Mail and CBC all have good webpages, for those of you who are interested in reading more articles about any of this stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/23 "2008-08-06T13:52:47Z")
[QUOTE=mnemosyne] There’s the shoes themselves, too. While I’m sure there are some men who wear women’s sneakers and vice versa, for the most part, we wear shoes designed for our sex (especially since it makes shoe shopping easier) [/quote] Actually, since I have wide feet this woman almost always wears men’s shoes, because in my case that makes shoe shopping easier. I suspect there’s a certain range of foot size where one has to be cautious about drawing conclusions based on whether or not it’s a “man’s” shoe. Likewise with size, wear pattern, etc. - I have no doubt there are some definitive cases where it’s pretty certain which gender a foot belonged to but it’s easy to imagine instances where no firm conclusion is possible. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/24 "2008-08-06T14:00:14Z")
Once I had the blues because I had no shoes . . . ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/25 "2008-08-06T15:01:04Z")
[QUOTE=Broomstick] Actually, since I have wide feet this woman almost always wears men’s shoes, because in my case that makes shoe shopping easier. I suspect there’s a certain range of foot size where one has to be cautious about drawing conclusions based on whether or not it’s a “man’s” shoe. Likewise with size, wear pattern, etc. - I have no doubt there are some definitive cases where it’s pretty certain which gender a foot belonged to but it’s easy to imagine instances where no firm conclusion is possible. [/QUOTE] That’s why I qualified my statement - my steel toed shoes are men’s shoes, and in high school I often wore a pair of hand-me-down sneakers that had belonged to my brother. But the fact is, the men’s shoes that have been found are sizes 10, 11, 12… which would be _very_ large for a woman’s foot (size 12-15 in women’s sizes, I think!), and I would think that large feet like that would be unusual enough to be remembered, especially if the woman has been missing for some time, and that friends and family would have contacted police about that possibility! But I’m fairly certain that usable DNA must be present in each of the feet, and a simple karyotype or other test for absence/presence of Y chromosome should be possible. All the news reports are saying that they are doing DNA testing on every foot, of which sex determination is likely one of the easiest tests. The shoe model is just one of the clues used, I’m sure! ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/26 "2008-08-06T15:32:32Z")
Yup, the DNA is a good sex test, except in cases of AIS and the like… ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/27 "2008-08-06T15:41:25Z")
Can you still go to Heaven if you’ve lost your sole? I’m sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/28 "2008-08-06T15:42:34Z")
[QUOTE=Schnitte] Was it a right foot once again? IIRC, the really freaky thing about these feet who continue getting washed ashore in Washington State and Vancouver Island is the fact that all of them have been right ones so far. [/QUOTE] That is incorrect and in fact two belong to the same person (the 3rd foot found and the 5th). One foot has been positively identified by DNA as belonging to a depressed man reported missing a year ago. All of the have been disarticulated (meaning they decomposed and came off rather than being severed). ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/29 "2008-08-06T15:51:19Z")
Does the public really have an ‘appetite’ for these kind of stories, and the media is just feeding our desires, or are these stories perpetuated just to distract our attention from ‘the big picture’? If the ‘news’ is meant to be a service, and not just a form of entertainment or titillation, what exactly is the service they are providing? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/30 "2008-08-06T15:53:18Z")
[QUOTE=Half Man Half Wit] Can you still go to Heaven if you’ve lost your sole? I’m sorry. [/QUOTE] Without a proper burial? These people are likely to end up a footnote in history. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/31 "2008-08-06T22:17:16Z")
[QUOTE=Schnitte] Was it a right foot once again? IIRC, the really freaky thing about these feet who continue getting washed ashore in Washington State and Vancouver Island is the fact that all of them have been right ones so far. This coincidence somehow collides with the most widespread hypothesis, that the feet are remnants of an aircraft accident in the region. [/QUOTE] There can’t be that many aircraft that disappeared near Vancourver and were never found, and which contained at least five different people. Me, I think it’s probably the victims of some serial killer, who disposes of the bodies by weighing them down and dumping them in the ocean. ---
**Author:** ![PastAllReason](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f07891/32.png) [@PastAllReason](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastAllReason)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/32 "2008-08-07T01:43:55Z")
[QUOTE=Diceman] There can’t be that many aircraft that disappeared near Vancourver and were never found, and which contained at least five different people. Me, I think it’s probably the victims of some serial killer, who disposes of the bodies by weighing them down and dumping them in the ocean. [/QUOTE] For the feet found in Canada, there has been speculation that some of them came from a plane that crashed containing four men whose remains were never [found](http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/05/22/bc-severed-foot-richmond.html). mnemosyne linked to wikipedia, which reported of the 5 feet found in BC, there were 3 right men’s feet, one man’s left foot that matched one of the right, and then a woman’s right foot. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/33 "2011-08-31T16:25:14Z")
So, [another one](http://www.vancouversun.com/foot+mystery+List+missing+feet+found+2007+2011/5330764/story.html) washed ashore yesterday. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/34 "2011-08-31T17:08:30Z")
ZOMBIE FEET! No, wait… ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/35 "2011-08-31T17:29:51Z")
That IS weird. Even if these feet were separated naturally from their respective bodies, why would it just be the feet that keep showing up? Why not hands, or heads, for that matter? And why would it be happening so much in that particular area? I’ve never heard of a similar phenomena in any other coastal area. Sure looks like a serial killer’s work to me. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/36 "2011-08-31T20:38:54Z")
There was a news report on CBC this morning about this and concluded that “_most_ of them have not been identified.” Have _any_ been identified? If so, what was it? ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/37 "2011-08-31T21:16:57Z")
It seems pretty obvious to me that they’re victims of the 2004 Tsunami - has this been discounted? ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/38 "2011-08-31T21:44:20Z")
My first reaction is that Procrustes needs to get a bigger bed. Is there fish that could eat the rest of the body, but couldn’t get into the shoe? ---
**Author:** ![Bri2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/48db29/32.png) [@Bri2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bri2k)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/39 "2011-08-31T21:48:25Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > My first reaction is that Procrustes needs to get a bigger bed. > > Is there fish that could eat the rest of the body, but couldn’t get into the shoe? Believe it or not, that’s actually the most plausible theory according to those who’ve investigated this mystery. Bri2k ---
**Author:** ![JBDivmstr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b4bc9f/32.png) [@JBDivmstr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBDivmstr)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917/40 "2011-08-31T21:59:23Z")
I once felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes, till I met a man that had no feet. 😃 _ **Somebody** _, had to say it! 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-foot-washed-up-on-beach-male-or-female/458917.md?page=3)