In December 2016, Antonio Neill, a 22-year-old man from Everett, Washington, said goodbye to his mother for what would be, it turns out, the final time.
Neill was spending the night at a friends house, but when he failed to return the next day, his mother, Jenny, became instantly worried. People who had been with Neill the night before told her that he had been seen fighting with another man shortly before he disappeared, which only seemed to confirm her worst suspicions.
No trace of Neill would be found for two years. Then, on New Year's Day 2019, a boot was found washed ashore on Jetty Island, close to Everett. Inside the shoe were the remains of a human foot which would later prove through DNA analysis to belong to Antonio Neill.
The foot provided one answer: it confirmed that Neill was dead. For Jenny, though, it failed to provide any closure, leaving questions about where the rest of his body might be, and how he ended up in the river in the first place.
To this day, Jenny maintains that some kind of foul play was involved in her son's death. What she may not have known on New Year's Day 2019 is that her son's case was about to become more complicated as he joined a pantheon of victims in the longstanding case of the Severed Feet of the Salish Sea.
On August 20th, 2007, a 12-year-old girl from Washington State was visiting Jedediah island in British Columbia when she stumbled across a size 12 Adidas running shoe. When she looked inside she found that it still contained the remains of a man's right foot.
Then, just six days after this odd discovery, a couple found another foot washed ashore on Gabriola Island, British Columbia. It was a man's right foot, in a size 12 Reebok sneaker.
A third foot would be found on February 8th, 2008, on Valdes Island, British Columbia, another man's right foot, this time wearing a size 11 Nike shoe.
Naturally, there was a lot of confusion. After the discovery of the first two feet just six days apart, there was speculation that the feet may have come from the victims of an accident in February 28th, 2005, when a plane containing five men went down in the water off the coast of Quadra island.
Whether this theory was still in play when foot three was discovered is unclear, but it was seemingly debunked with the discovery of foot four on May 22nd, 2008: a woman's right foot in a blue and white New Balance sneaker.
While the discovery of a woman's foot seemed to disprove the plane crash theory, another idea quickly became popular. This theory suggested that these feet belonged to victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
This theory seems to have spawned largely due to Foot #1, which was found in an Adidas running shoe produced in 2003 and sold primarily in India, which certainly does pin the date and location down to the right place for the Tsunami theory.
The shoes on the next three feet were produced in 2004, 2003, and 1999, which would also fit the theory. These three shoes, however, were primarily sold in North America. The Tsunami theory, though, persisted.
The theory might seem plausible at first. After all, the earthquake and the tsunami it caused are among the worst and most deadly natural disasters, and it doesn't seem to be a huge leap to think that forces powerful enough to destroy a whole town in minutes could carry the bodies of its victims many miles away from where they died.
In reality, however, even if the waves and currents were strong enough to carry body parts across the pacific, there were far too many land obstacles to make this theory a possibility. Most victims of the Tsunami died in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, or on the west coast of Thailand. Even if currents were able to carry bodies down and around the coasts of Thailand and Malaysia without washing ashore, they would then have to flow around the islands of Indonesia and the Phillipines before reaching the Pacific ocean—all without washing ashore.
And while this theory has been popular, it hasn't held up well as investigations have unearthed the identities of many of the Salish sea feet.
The first foot was identified as belonging to a man whose name has been withheld. While details about his cause of death remain unknown, it is known that he had been suffering from depression.
The third foot was identified as belonging to a 21-year-old man from Surrey, British Columbia, who had been reported missing four years earlier. Police consider his death "not suspicious," implying they believe he died in an accident, or through suicide.
On June 16th, 2008, hikers on Westham Island found Foot #5, a left foot which would be identified as also belonging to the man from Surrey.
The fourth foot was identified as belonging to a woman who died by suicide when she jumped from the Pattullo Bridge in New Westminster in April; 2004. Her left foot would also be found on November 11th, 2008, in Richmond, British Columbia. It was the seventh foot found on the shores of the Salish sea.
Unfortunately, there would be less luck in identifying victims over the coming years.
On August 1st, 2008, a right foot inside a man's size 11 shoe was found by a camper on a beach near Pysht, Washington. It was the first foot found outside British Columbia, although police said they believed it may have been carried south from Canada by the current as it was found just 16 kilometres from the Canada-US border. The foot was not identified.
On October 27th, 2009, a right foot in a size 8.5 Nike running shoe was found on a beach in Richmond, British Columbia, and was identified as belonging to a Vancouver-area man who was reported missing in January 2008.
On August 27th, 2010, a bare right foot belonging to a woman or a child was found on Whidbey Island, Washington, having been submerged in the water for approximately two months. The foot was never identified.
On December 5th, 2010, a right foot inside a boy's size 6 hiking boot was discovered in Tacoma, Washington. It was never identified.
On August 30th, 2011, a foot was discovered inside a man's size 9 running shoe in False Creek, British Columbia. Unlike the other finds, it had disarticulated at the knee and was still attached to the lower leg bones.
Foot #12 is a bit of an outlier. It was a right foot found in a size 12 hiking boot by a group of campers on November 4th, 2011, and in January 2012, the foot was identified as Stefan Zahorujko, a fisherman who went missing in 1987, making this foot by far the oldest to be included in the canon of the Salish sea feet.
Foot #13 also stands out. This was an unidentified foot and leg bone inside a black plastic bag found under the Ship Canal Bridge in Lake Union, Seattle.
There's a clear difference between this foot and the others. Where the others leave the cause of death as a complete mystery, the fact that Foot #13 was found inside a plastic bag is a clear implication of foul play and it's one of only two Salish sea feet discovered without a shoe.
But one idea that Foot #13 does seem to lend a little credibility to is the third major theory of why these feet keep washing ashore: a serial killer.
There's little else behind this theory and in reality it resembles an urban myth rather than an actual explanation for the Salish feet, with the extent of this theory being that a serial killer is stalking the streets of British Columbia, or another area bordered by the Salish sea, killing victims and dumping their bodies in the water.
When you think through the implications of the thirteenth discovery, though, it quickly becomes apparent that it works against this theory more than it supports it.
If the previous feet were the work of a serial killer, then the clear pattern implies a consistent behaviour, behaviour which doesn't apply to Foot #13. Why did the killer strip the shoes and socks from this body, but not the others? Why did they bag up this body, but not the others?
It also asks more questions than it answers: If this victim's leg was intentionally removed (as suggested by it's separate bagging) then did the killer also remove the other victim's legs or feet before disposing of their bodies? Were Foot #13 and Foot #9 deliberate stripped bare, and if so, why was this not done to the other victims?
It's also worth remembering that the severed feet had been a notable story for years by this point, and the phenomenon of them washing ashore was a well-known thing. Would we expect a serial killer to change his behaviour in a situation like this, or would they stick to the same pattern?
There are certain reasons a serial killer may stick to what he knows—some killers even go so far as to tease police with clues as they thrive on the thrill that they might be caught but ultimately evade detection. But typically, a killer of this flavour might seek greater fame and a moniker or calling card of some kind—they would certainly want to make themselves known, and there's nothing in this case to suggest anyone was trying to make a name for themselves as the Salish Foot Severer.
The alternative, of course, is that a killer wanting to evade detection would change up their location or their methods in order to prevent police connecting their crimes and building up a paper trail.
That, however, is not what happened. Severed feet would continue to be found in and around the Salish sea, following much the same pattern of previous feet.
On January 26, 2012, a foot in a boot was discovered in Vancouver. Later, on May 6th, 2014, a foot in a New Balance running shoe was found in Seattle, Washington. Neither foot was identified.
On February 7th, hikers on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, discovered a foot inside a running shoe. Five days later, a second foot was found in the same location. While the feet were confirmed to be a pair, the victim was never identified.
The next foot was found on December 8th, 2017, again on Vancouver island. Both bones of the lower leg were still attached. It would later be identified as Stanley Okumoto, a 79-year-old man from Kitsap County, Washington, who went missing on September 17th. His body had previously been found floating in the water on November 8th, missing his leg.
On May 6th, 2018, another foot was discovered within a hiking boot on Gabriola Island, British Columbia, and in September 2018, the twentieth foot was found in a size 9.5 Nike running shoe.
And finally, with the twenty-first foot in this 14-year mystery, we circle back to Antonio Neill, whose severed foot was discovered on January 1st, 2019, more than two years after he disappeared.
With so much information about so many unidentified victims, it's easy for the details of this case to blur in to one, so it's helpful to break some of this information down into some easier to digest statistics.
