BREAKING NEWS: Shoe found on beach near Pysht contained human remains
Clallam County Detective Sgt. Lyman Moores and volunteer searcher Norma Snelling of the sheriff's Search and Rescue Team prepare to take Daisy, a dog specially trained to find human body parts, out on the beach near Jim Creek, where a shoe containing what's believed to be a severed foot was found. -- Photo by Donna Barr/for Peninsula Daily News
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SEATTLE A shoe with flesh and bones inside and found on a beach 30 miles west of Port Angeles had a human foot inside, the King County medical examiners office in Seattle said this afternoon.
The medical examiner determined the foot came off naturally after floating in the water, and investigators don't suspect foul play, Clallam County Undersheriff Ron Peregrin told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
The Clallam County prosecutor who acts as coroner, Deb Kelly, said earlier Monday she was waiting to hear whether the flesh and bones are human to rule out a hoax.
The next step is DNA testing to see if it matches feet found washed ashore in nearby waters in British Columbia. Five severed feet in shoes have been found in the past year, and a sixth found in June was a hoax with an animal paw.
The latest shoe was found Friday by a woman walking on a Strait of Juan de Fuca beach near the mouth of Jim Creek, about 30 miles west of Port Angeles.
Peregrin says his investigators will meet later this week with Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
A complete report will appear in Tuesday's editions of the Peninsula Daily News.
EARLIER REPORT
By Paige Dickerson, Peninsula Daily News
PYSHT A dog trained to sniff out cadavers scoured the area around Pysht on Sunday where an athletic shoe containing decaying bone and flesh was found two days earlier.
But Daisy the cadaver dog found nothing.
Daisy along with owner Norma Snelling of Port Angeles was brought in by Clallam County sheriff's investigators to examine the area where the shoe was found tangled in seaweed and debris on the beach near the mouth of Jim Creek about 30 miles west of Port Angeles.
It was unclear if the flesh and bone inside the size 11 or 12 black sneaker now in cold storage at the Sheriff's Department in Port Angeles was human, Sheriff's Detective Sgt. Lyman Moores said.
So the law officers brought in the dog to check the beach and nearby woods just in case.
"You never know," Undersheriff Ron Peregrin said.
"We wanted to make sure that there wasn't a body out there somewhere."
"We didn't find anything," Moores said Sunday.
"We're here specifically because of what we found yesterday."
Scientific examination
The shoe and remains inside it will be examined by a pathologist and an anthropologist this week.
The Sheriff's Department will also consult with Prosecuting Attorney/Coroner Deb Kelly today.
"Anything that is human remains is of course in her jurisdiction, so even though we're not positive it is human, we will brief her," Peregrin said.
"But we are still in the collection phase, so we'll keep her updated in the meantime."
He said the department had left several messages for her during the weekend, but hadn't been in contact.
The shoe, sock and contents will be sent to the King County Medical Examiner's Office, which will determine whether the decomposing flesh is human and run a DNA profile to attempt to match it to any missing people if it is human.
Five athletic shoes with severed human feet in them have been found along British Columbia shorelines since August 2007.
Canadian investigators have not solved the mystery of the shoes' origin
And then there's another element: The possibility of a hoax.
A sixth foot found near Campbell River, British Columbia, in June was found to be an animal paw stuffed inside an athletic shoe as a hoax.
Because of the proximity to British Columbia and the fact that the Pysht foot was a right one like the bogus foot, Clallam County investigators are being cautious, Peregrin said.
'Package it up'
He said that the Sheriff's Department will not examine the remains.
"We don't want to contaminate the potential DNA samples, so we just package it up so that it isn't diluted or contaminated and send it off to the state lab," Peregrin said.
Peregrin said the department will be in contact with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police because of the similarities to the feet found in British Columbia.
"It is just like the majority of the others that they have found," Peregrin said.
"The Canadians have been working on this a long time.
"We will be linking arms with them."
Camper's discovery
An unidentified woman who was camping near the Merrill & Ring Silver King Resort called authorities on Saturday after discovering the shoe the day before.
It was unclear whether the tides would have carried the shoe south through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, in which the tidal flows usually move east and west.
"The experts will tell us what happened to the tides," said Peregrin. "The Coast Guard will plug it into their computers."
He said that finding shoes isn't unusual on the beach, and the camper who originally found the shoe poured the sand out of it, then left it in place.
The next day, she returned with a fellow camper.
"Another camper pulled out the sock," said Peregrin.
"When they saw the bones, they knew it was evidence."
KOMO-TV identified the second camper as Jim Shay.
Peregrin said if anyone finds something that could be evidence, they should leave it alone and contact authorities immediately.
"If anyone finds anything, call 9-1-1 immediately," he said.
"Treat it like a seal pup don't touch it."
________
PDN Clallam Bay/Sekiu correspondent Donna Barr and KOMO-TV reporter Akiko Fujita contributed to this report.
Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: August 03. 2008 9:00PM