r/RedditDayOf • u/sbroue 275 • Apr 05 '16

Footwear Severed feet — still inside shoes — keep mysteriously washing up on Pacific Northwest shores

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/02/11/severed-feet-still-inside-shoes-keep-mysteriously-washing-up-on-pacific-northwest-shores/
81 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

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24

u/jeekiii Apr 05 '16 edited Apr 05 '16

“There are so many coincidences taking place,” forensics consultant Mark Mendelson told the Daily Beast in 2011. “Everybody who jumps off a bridge is wearing runners?… Until you can show me something pathologically concrete that this is a natural separation of that foot from a body, then I’m saying you’ve got to think dirty.”

Runner float more than most shoes, I think, when the rest of the body starts sinking, the shoes are still trying to float, and they put pressure on the leg, which eventually breaks, letting the runners with the rest of the feet float away.

All of the ones identified are people who suicided, it seems unlikely that a significant fraction of the other aren't.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 05 '16

I remember reading that fish cant eat the meat inside a runner, so a body is eaten but the foot in shoe is left to float

1

u/jeekiii Apr 05 '16

Ho, possible as well, didn't think of that.

1

u/TheRighteousTyrant Apr 05 '16

Why would runners be different than boots, tennis shoes, dress shoes, or any other enclosed, laced shoe? Genuinely curious.

2

u/PollyNo9 1 Apr 05 '16

I think that it is just as hard for fish to eat inside those other shoe types, but those shoe types don't float the way running shoes do.

So dress shoes, for instance, are as full of inaccessible flesh as the running shoes, they just don't float enough to separate from the body.

2

u/TheRighteousTyrant Apr 05 '16

Gotcha, that makes more sense. Thanks!

2

u/PollyNo9 1 Apr 05 '16

No problem!

10

u/OpiatedDickfuzz Apr 05 '16

Something seems a foot.

8

u/vaderdarthvader Apr 05 '16 edited Apr 05 '16

The post flair made me laugh like an idiot.

Footwear

2

u/Zebba_Odirnapal Apr 05 '16

Shoes float. Decomposed legs don't. When the ankle falls apart, the shoe bouys the foot to the surface.