Jan. 6, 2026
The Salish Sea Feet | 21 Sneakers, No Bodies
Jinkies—since 2007, at least twenty-one human feet have washed ashore along the coastlines of British Columbia and Washington State. All of them still wearing athletic shoes. No bodies. No explanations. Just feet.
In this episode, Shane, Josh, and Kim investigate one of the strangest forensic mysteries of the 21st century. The gang traces the trail from that first disturbing discovery on Jedediah Island—when a twelve-year-old girl found a Size 12 Adidas sneaker that was far too heavy—through seventeen years of shocking discoveries that had the world convinced a serial killer was stalking the Pacific Northwest.
The theories ran wild. A drug cartel dumping bodies. A government cover-up. "The Sneaker Killer" targeting victims by their footwear. The 2004 Asian tsunami somehow depositing remains twelve thousand miles away. Someone even planted a hoax—an animal paw stuffed into a sneaker—desperate to feed the frenzy.
But the truth? It might be even more unsettling than fiction.
Forensic science eventually provided an explanation that nobody expected. Modern athletic shoes—with their lightweight EVA foam and air pockets—float. When bodies decompose in cold water, the ankle joint naturally separates within days to weeks. Before the 1970s, leather shoes would have kept these feet on the ocean floor forever. But Nike Air technology turned human feet into messages from the dead, carried by currents that all flow toward shore.
The BC Coroners Service has been categorical: no evidence of foul play in any of the discoveries. No tool marks. No cutting. Every identified victim matches a documented suicide, drowning accident, or natural death.
And yet... not every case fits neatly into that explanation. Antonio Neill was twenty-two when he disappeared from Everett, Washington in December 2016. His boot—with his foot still inside—washed up on Jetty Island two years later. His mother recognized it immediately. The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office still has his case open. Still classified as suspicious.
Of those twenty-one feet, approximately six remain unidentified. Six families who don't know what happened to their loved ones. Six names attached to cold cases that may never be closed.
Some mysteries have explanations. Others have closure. This one offers something rarer—a reminder that the ocean keeps its secrets, but sometimes gives something back.
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WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_01]: August 20th, 2007, a 12-year-old girl explores the rocky shore of Jedi Island, British Columbia.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She's visiting from Washington State, morning fog still clings to the water.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Something catches her eye, a sneaker wedged between the rocks, sized 12-a-didas, still
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[SPEAKER_01]: She picks it up.
00:31.159 --> 00:31.580
[SPEAKER_01]: It's heavy.
00:32.741 --> 00:36.086
[SPEAKER_01]: Because inside that shoe is a human foot.
00:37.768 --> 00:43.115
[SPEAKER_01]: Six days later, another foot washes up, then another, then another.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Over the next 17 years, at least 21 human feet, all still wearing athletic shoes would appear along the shores of the sailor's sea.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Hello friend, welcome to the haunted bunker, where mysteries hide.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Shane Waters and tonight we're traveling to the Pacific Northwest, where the cold waters of the sailors see have been delivering a disturbing message for nearly two decades, severed feet, athletic shoes, and a mystery that refuses to stay buried.
01:32.540 --> 01:33.921
[SPEAKER_01]: What came what you're mystery today?
01:33.941 --> 01:35.083
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's a humor mystery today.
01:39.387 --> 01:40.188
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a humor mystery.
01:40.448 --> 01:42.751
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm just here as a warm body in the sea.
01:42.831 --> 01:44.933
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, well, that's what you've been this entire time.
01:44.993 --> 01:47.936
[SPEAKER_01]: Since you've been on this show, Kim, you've just been a warm body in that sea.
01:47.956 --> 01:50.859
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, it's just hand us episodes and everything.
01:50.899 --> 01:52.401
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well.
01:53.122 --> 01:54.403
[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay.
01:55.904 --> 01:56.845
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll live.
01:56.865 --> 01:57.366
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll live.
01:58.038 --> 02:10.015
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, one of us might, this point I'm not real sure it's going to be me, but... All right, Kim, so on this episode, I'm going to take us to the Salish Sea.
02:10.415 --> 02:13.119
[SPEAKER_01]: That's probably how it's pronounced to Salish.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm never even heard of it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, if you've not heard of that name, which is what I actually wrote down here.
02:20.770 --> 02:21.531
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's funny.
02:21.832 --> 02:22.633
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not alone.
02:22.673 --> 02:26.537
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't even officially called that until late 2009.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine a sea not having a name until 2009 or at least getting a name change?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's basically the inland marine waters between Washington State and British Columbia, which I've been there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: British Columbia.
02:43.494 --> 02:46.677
[SPEAKER_01]: Between Washington State and British Columbia.
02:46.737 --> 02:47.478
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, yeah.
02:47.498 --> 02:51.822
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was the trip that I didn't get going.
02:53.152 --> 02:55.395
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Pudgent, Pudgent.
02:55.916 --> 03:01.345
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm telling you, I know Michelle, our friend that's in Washington Station and being yelling at me right now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: P-U-G-E-T, how would you think that's pronounced?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Pudgent?
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I would do.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Pudgent?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think so.
03:07.955 --> 03:12.542
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's some sound in the straight of one defuca.
03:14.144 --> 03:16.949
[SPEAKER_01]: That's probably not an idea there, but we're gonna go with that.
03:17.890 --> 03:19.092
[SPEAKER_01]: The Georgia Straight.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, about 8 million people live along its shores.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's so hot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it's gorgeous up there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's cold water, evergreen forest mountains in the distance.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling you, Kim, you would love it.
03:34.415 --> 03:34.956
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved it.
03:34.976 --> 03:36.619
[SPEAKER_01]: There's coffee on every corner.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure I would have if I had a been allowed to go.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Have an honor.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm glad you're not sour.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm not bitter at all.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Vancouver, Seattle, Victoria, all right there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And starting in 2007, this beautiful stretch of coastline became famous for one of the strangest phenomena in modern forensic history.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That discovery on Jedi Island.
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[SPEAKER_01]: wasn't just weird.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was the beginning of something that still hasn't stopped.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Have you heard about this?
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[SPEAKER_01]: No.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Six days after the first sneaker, August 26th, 2007,
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[SPEAKER_01]: Another foot washed up on the island.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A foot?
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[SPEAKER_01]: A foot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was a right foot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was a mince reboc.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Then in February 2008, another one on Valdez Island.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was a Nike this time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: then May 2008, they find a right foot on Kirkland Island, a new balance shoe, and it's just where these are all different types of shoes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's freaks me out the most.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it's actually a foot inside of the shoe.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's not crazy.
04:56.113 --> 04:56.974
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not crazy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And they're all different options.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's crazy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's embarrassing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they didn't like what kind of what brand they were buying and so on.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But this one,
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[SPEAKER_01]: This foot and shoe was different than the others.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was a woman's foot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here's where it gets genuinely unsettling.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She jumped.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why in the crap is that noise?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you can do it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's the ghost.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I guess.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She jumped from a bridge in 2004.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They called it a suicide.
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[SPEAKER_01]: By the end of 2008, six human feet washed up and just over a year, six feet, five different people, and no one could explain why.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The media went absolutely wild, with headlines titled foul place suspected, serial killer stalking Pacific Northwest.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You had reporters flying in from London, Tokyo, everywhere, because this kind of thing just doesn't happen, or does it?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let me walk you through the full-time line, Kim, because the numbers alone are quite staggering.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In 2007, two feet found.
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[SPEAKER_01]: 2008, five more feet.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Plus, there was one hoax that I'll get into in a minute.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And notably, August 2008, brought the first discovery in U.S. waters.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was in Washington State, just 10 miles from the Canadian border.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The town's name is Pysht, maybe it's PYSHT, Pysht.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I know what anyone from that town.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so sorry.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In 2009, one foot was found in 2010, two feet, including one on wedby island in Washington.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In 2011, three feet, and a kept going.
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[SPEAKER_00]: How many of those were matched feet where they would get into that in a minute?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, most of the time, it's just one foot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that's weird.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Almost always just one foot, but at a later time, they might find an additional foot that they could link back.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Almost all of them are just one foot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: the discoveries average about one to two per year, and they haven't stopped.
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[SPEAKER_01]: As for the most recent count, at least 21 confirmed human feet have washed ashore along the sailor's sea.
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[SPEAKER_01]: All of them, inside athletic shoes, running shoes, hiking boots, or sneakers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The obvious question, the one everyone has been asking, was, where are the rest of the body?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No kidding.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because you can't just have feet washing up without bodies, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's not how drowning works.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's not how anything works.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Unless someone was making sure only the feet showed up.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The serial killer theory took off immediately, and honestly, I get it, 21 feet, nobody's, all wearing sneakers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you were writing a crime thriller, this is exactly the kind of detail that you'd use.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Although I wouldn't believe it, the theories got creative, a drug cartel, dumping bodies, a government cover-up of mass deaths, the sneaker killer, someone specifically targeting victims who wore athletic shoes, the internet, had a field day.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There was even a tsunami theory.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The 2004 Asian tsunami killed over 200,000 people.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Some folks wondered if these feet had somehow traveled across the Pacific from Indonesia.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then there was the hoax.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In June 2008, at the height of the media frenzy, someone found a shoe with apparent human remains on a beach
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[SPEAKER_01]: near Campbell River.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The RCMP sent it for forensic examination.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was an animal paw.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Someone had stuffed an animal paw inside a sock, packed it with dry seaweed, put it in a sneaker and then left it on a beach.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, in the world what they do that is weird.
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[SPEAKER_01]: To be a prank, they just wanted to be involved.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The BC coroner service called it reprehensible and very disrespectful to the families of missing persons.
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[SPEAKER_01]: People were so desperate for explanations, so invested in the dark theories that they were creating evidence.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But here's what the actual forensic examiners found when they looked at the real feet.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There were no tool marks, no evidence of cutting, sawing or dismemberment.
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[SPEAKER_01]: None.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The BC Corner Service was categorical about it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Bar McClentock, who served as the BC Corner Service spokesman.
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[SPEAKER_01]: stated publicly that there was no evidence of foul play in any of the cases, every case had an alternative, very reasonable explanation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: No foul play in any of the 21 plus discoveries.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Zero.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So if no one was cutting these feet off, what was happening?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the explanation when it finally
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[SPEAKER_01]: It required understanding three things, how human bodies decompose in water, watch changed about footwear since the mid 1970s, and how the sailors see actually moves.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Let's start with decomposition, when a body enters water, whether from suicide, accident, or natural causes, it begins to break down, and here's something forensic scientists have known for decades.
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[SPEAKER_01]: bodies don't stay in one place.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a term for this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This articulation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It means the natural separation that happens at joints, as connective tissues decay.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Think about it, joints are already the weakest structural points in a skeleton, held together by ligaments, surrounded by relatively thin tissue, compared to say your thigh or your torso.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The ankle joint is particularly vulnerable, thin ligaments less protective muscle mass.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and cold water a foot will naturally separate from a leg within days to weeks, no cutting required.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But that explains how feet come off.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't explain why we start finding them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is where modern athletic shoe technology comes in, and it's honestly kind of brilliant once you understand it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Before the mid-1970s and the 80s, most shoes were made of leather, uppers, and solid rubber souls.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Heavy materials, materials that absorb water, materials that sink.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Then Nike introduced air technology, and then company started using EVA foam.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They were using it for cushioning.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The entire athletic shoe industry shifted to light weight synthetic materials, air pockets, and polymer compounds.
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[SPEAKER_01]: All that means these shoes float.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A single modern athletic shoe generates enough buoyancy to keep a 1 to 2 pound object on the surface.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And what ways about 1 to 2 pounds?
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[SPEAKER_01]: a human foot, not your foot, Kim.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, probably not.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So here's what's happening.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If someone dies in the water, suicide, accident, whatever the cause, and their body sinks to the bottom, over days or weeks, natural decomposition will separate the feet of the ankle.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And if that person was wearing leather dress shoes, the feet stay at the bottom with everything else.
13:30.133 --> 13:35.442
[SPEAKER_01]: But if they're wearing Nike's, Adidas, new balances, those feet float to the surface.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The shoes act as a floatation device, preserving the foot inside, carrying it wherever the currents will go.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And in the sailor's sea, the currents all go to the same place, towards shore.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The geography is perfect for concentrating floating debris.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a semi-inclosed island sea, with complex tidal movements, in the Fraser River, pouring fresh water into the mix.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oceanographers have actually mapped the debris accumulation zones.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're exactly where the feet have been washing up.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And there's one more important factor, population.
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[SPEAKER_01]: 8 million people live around the sailors see.
14:20.403 --> 14:25.430
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a lot of recreational boaters, swimmers, bridge jumpers, fishing accidents.
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[SPEAKER_01]: More people near water means more water deaths.
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[SPEAKER_01]: More water deaths, mean more deaths articulated feet wearing modern athletic shoes means more feet washing ashore.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's probably not a serial killer.
14:42.053 --> 14:45.938
[SPEAKER_01]: Mathematics probably will tell us it's science.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, can I know what you're probably thinking?
14:51.110 --> 14:54.514
[SPEAKER_01]: That's exactly what they want you to believe, and that's fair.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let's true, it could be.
14:58.319 --> 15:05.046
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I thought it would only be fair that we also go through all of the dark theories that it were against that evidence.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, there's the serial killer theory.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For this to work, you'd need a killer who exclusively targets victims wearing athletic shoes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: so that they would not be looking at people with leather shoes, no sandals, not barefoot, and they would have to dispose of bodies in a way that produces no other floating remains, no torsos, no arms, no heads, just feet, every single time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The forensic examination found zero tool marks on any of the feet.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There was no cutting, no sawing, and the victims who had been identified, they matched missing persons with documented circumstances, depression, known suicides, voting accidents.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A serial killer operating for 17 years leaving no evidence except feet that show no signs of violence.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think what I also will mention about the serial killer theory that kind of would probably give some credible like lean towards it is that, you know, maybe the first few were just accidents and then the feast started washing up, but then that would give someone who wants to be a topic killer like, oh, perfect.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, then I'll just do that.
16:21.729 --> 16:23.391
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a great idea.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Then there's the tsunami theory.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The 2004 tsunami happened in the Indian Ocean.
16:30.553 --> 16:42.809
[SPEAKER_01]: For those victims' feet to reach British Columbia, they would have to have had traveled 12,000 miles across the Pacific against prevailing currents and arrive starting in 2007.
16:43.870 --> 16:45.612
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus, the shoes had been examined.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They include models manufactured in 2006, 2008, 2012, 2018.
16:52.902 --> 16:55.766
[SPEAKER_01]: Choose that didn't exist when the tsunami happened.
16:56.688 --> 16:58.991
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, I wouldn't think that would be very plausible then.
16:59.772 --> 17:05.000
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus, they did DNA, and it matched the Pacific Northwest missing persons.
17:05.501 --> 17:08.185
[SPEAKER_01]: They were local people, not victims from Indonesia.
17:09.547 --> 17:11.670
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there was the drug cartel theory.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Not a single identified victim has any connection to drug trafficking, and cartels traditionally use methods that ensure bodies aren't found, concrete, burial, incineration.
17:25.895 --> 17:27.478
[SPEAKER_01]: The cement shoes approach.
17:28.500 --> 17:32.486
[SPEAKER_01]: Sement would prevent the natural separation that allows feet to float away.
17:33.127 --> 17:36.493
[SPEAKER_01]: If cartels were responsible, we'd probably find nothing.
17:38.296 --> 17:44.475
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do have to be a little honest, not every case fits neatly into the accident or suicide box.
17:45.177 --> 17:52.980
[SPEAKER_01]: Antonio Niel was 22 years old when he disappeared from Everett, Washington on December 12, 2016.
17:54.327 --> 18:03.601
[SPEAKER_01]: He'd spent the day with his mother, got a new driver's license, picked up a new cell phone, and then that evening he went to stay at her friend's house on Cedar Street.
18:04.682 --> 18:07.707
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the last time anyone saw Antonio alive.
18:08.849 --> 18:11.793
[SPEAKER_01]: His mother Jenny knew something was wrong almost immediately.
18:11.813 --> 18:15.238
[SPEAKER_01]: She talked to her son every single day.
18:15.218 --> 18:18.823
[SPEAKER_01]: And when he didn't come home, when he didn't call, she knew.
18:18.863 --> 18:21.086
[SPEAKER_01]: She started asking around.
18:22.028 --> 18:28.937
[SPEAKER_01]: People who'd been at the house the night before told her Antonio had gotten into some kind of altercation with another younger man before leaving.
18:30.059 --> 18:35.286
[SPEAKER_01]: His car, a 2,000 Volkswagen Jetta, turned up abandoned in Lennwood.
18:35.266 --> 18:39.553
[SPEAKER_01]: His coats and blankets were still at the house on Cedar Street.
18:40.494 --> 18:44.921
[SPEAKER_01]: He'd walked out into a December night, and just a T-shirt and jeans.
18:46.063 --> 18:53.214
[SPEAKER_01]: For over two years, Antonio was just another missing person, a face on a billboard overlooking Highway 99 in Everett.
18:54.156 --> 19:02.168
[SPEAKER_01]: Then on New Year's Day,
19:04.257 --> 19:08.346
[SPEAKER_01]: The medical examiner confirmed it, the foot belonged to Antonio Nio.
19:09.589 --> 19:11.172
[SPEAKER_01]: His mother recognized the boot.
19:12.435 --> 19:15.401
[SPEAKER_01]: Even faded from the sea water, she knew it was his.
19:15.461 --> 19:19.971
[SPEAKER_01]: She recognized the sock, she washed him put them on the day he disappeared.
19:21.402 --> 19:23.464
[SPEAKER_01]: But here's where this case gets complicated.
19:24.005 --> 19:26.929
[SPEAKER_01]: The tech just interviewed the friend Antonio was with that night.
19:27.569 --> 19:31.314
[SPEAKER_01]: He took a polygraph and initially he passed.
19:31.334 --> 19:36.200
[SPEAKER_01]: But when reviewers found a discrepancy and wanted to administer a second, he declined.
19:37.401 --> 19:42.447
[SPEAKER_01]: No charges were ever filed, but the county sheriff's office still has the case open.
19:43.388 --> 19:47.173
[SPEAKER_01]: They still classify Antonio's death as suspicious.
19:47.744 --> 19:53.234
[SPEAKER_01]: Now does Antonio Nio's case prove foul play in the broader Salish C phenomenon?
19:54.036 --> 19:54.857
[SPEAKER_01]: Not necessarily.
19:55.639 --> 20:11.288
[SPEAKER_01]: Most of the identified feet have been linked to documented suicides and accidents, but Antonio's case reminds us that a scientific explanation for how feet wash ashore doesn't mean we know what happened to every person those feet belong to.
20:11.926 --> 20:13.908
[SPEAKER_01]: The phenomenon is explainable.
20:14.629 --> 20:18.493
[SPEAKER_01]: The deaths behind it will that's a different question entirely.
20:20.335 --> 20:21.356
[SPEAKER_01]: So what are we left with?
20:22.617 --> 20:27.723
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a scientific explanation that accounts for the phenomenon, modern, shoes float.
20:28.463 --> 20:30.145
[SPEAKER_01]: Bodies decompose the joints.
20:30.846 --> 20:39.655
[SPEAKER_01]: Currents push floating objects towards specific shores.
20:40.360 --> 20:52.742
[SPEAKER_01]: For those 21 plus feet, approximately 15 have been successfully identified, many belong to suicide victims, people who likely jumped from bridges, at least the authorities believed.
20:55.106 --> 20:56.729
[SPEAKER_01]: Others were accidental drownings.
20:58.452 --> 21:03.381
[SPEAKER_01]: A few died of natural causes on land and their bodies later entered the water.
21:03.952 --> 21:06.736
[SPEAKER_01]: but around six feet remain unidentified.
21:07.677 --> 21:09.539
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where the real mystery lives.
21:10.300 --> 21:13.805
[SPEAKER_01]: Somewhere out there, there are families who don't know what happened to their loved ones.
21:14.646 --> 21:17.129
[SPEAKER_01]: People reported missing who never came home.
21:17.910 --> 21:22.516
[SPEAKER_01]: Names attached to cold cases that might never be closed.
21:23.858 --> 21:25.740
[SPEAKER_01]: One identification stands out.
21:26.767 --> 21:28.109
[SPEAKER_01]: the name is Stefan.
21:29.331 --> 21:36.341
[SPEAKER_01]: In November 2011, a foot was found wearing a hiking boot when they ran the DNA they got a match.
21:37.723 --> 21:43.171
[SPEAKER_01]: Stefan had been missing since 1987, nearly 25 years.
21:44.473 --> 21:54.107
[SPEAKER_01]: His family had wandered, 25 years of not knowing, and then the science of decomposition in modern footwear
21:55.454 --> 21:56.475
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there was Tanya.
21:57.577 --> 22:01.682
[SPEAKER_01]: Tanya works as an identification analyst with the BC Corner's surface.
22:02.323 --> 22:09.453
[SPEAKER_01]: Her job is to take what washes ashore, a foot, a bone, sometimes just fragments, and turn it into a name.
22:11.595 --> 22:24.853
[SPEAKER_01]: We start from scratch, she explained, that is, a foot, a bone, a skull, and we work from there all the way up to saying, this is so and so, and they died in such and such way,
22:26.437 --> 22:29.301
[SPEAKER_01]: closure that worked carries a lot of weight here.
22:30.162 --> 22:37.852
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of the families whose loved ones have been identified have said the discovery brought them peace, painful peace but peace nonetheless.
22:39.494 --> 22:48.466
[SPEAKER_01]: For years they'd wondered, now they know, but for families like Antonio Niels, the foot raised more questions than it answered.
22:49.487 --> 22:54.874
[SPEAKER_01]: Jenny Niel put it simply, it's hard to have
22:56.845 --> 23:11.787
[SPEAKER_01]: If Mark Campfield hadn't been walking Jedi Island that New Year's Day, if he hadn't spotted that boot in the mud, Antonio would still be a missing person, not presumed dead, not a suspicious case, just missing.
23:13.109 --> 23:15.192
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what haunts me about this phenomena.
23:16.555 --> 23:21.361
[SPEAKER_01]: The feet that wash ashore are the ones we find, what about the ones that we don't?
23:22.342 --> 23:27.528
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the feet represent ultimately, not necessarily a serial killer signature.
23:28.950 --> 23:33.115
[SPEAKER_01]: Not necessarily some supernatural curse on the Pacific Northwest.
23:34.897 --> 23:45.229
[SPEAKER_01]: There are more messages from the dead, final communications from people who slept beneath
23:46.930 --> 23:51.015
[SPEAKER_01]: Today, the discoveries continue, one or two every year.
23:51.055 --> 23:57.323
[SPEAKER_01]: Each time someone finds a sneaker on a beach, the question hangs in the air.
23:57.363 --> 24:01.128
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this just trash or is it another foot?
24:02.349 --> 24:06.074
[SPEAKER_01]: What we know is this, they're likely as not a killer.
24:06.634 --> 24:08.837
[SPEAKER_01]: It may not be a conspiracy.
24:09.172 --> 24:14.680
[SPEAKER_01]: It could just be cold water, buoyant shoes, and the mathematics of living near the ocean.
24:15.762 --> 24:30.303
[SPEAKER_01]: But what we don't know, what we may never know, is whose feet are still out there, waiting to be found, and whether the families they belong to will ever get the closure that Stefan's family finally received after nearly 25 years of wandering.
24:31.545 --> 24:37.373
[SPEAKER_01]: Today the sailors see keeps its secret, but every so often it gives something back.
24:39.496 --> 24:39.937
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
24:39.997 --> 24:41.960
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that is my mystery.
24:41.980 --> 24:49.352
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really surprised that like while life or something don't dispose of part of the foot.
24:51.675 --> 24:53.037
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it has to get to the show.
24:53.718 --> 24:59.928
[SPEAKER_01]: So you'd be looking at a little bit, but I mean, they may only be finding shoes that wildlife's not getting into.
24:59.948 --> 25:07.360
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, because like I said, they're only finding this amount, but they're probably is more.
25:09.331 --> 25:10.492
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's interesting.
25:11.914 --> 25:12.494
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought so.
25:13.335 --> 25:13.636
[SPEAKER_00]: It is.
25:14.437 --> 25:24.768
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that, like for me, the science explains why the feet are washing ashore, like how that could happen and not the rest of their bodies.
25:25.188 --> 25:26.990
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, oh.
25:27.010 --> 25:32.436
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm still, there's still some question in my mind about the cause, you know?
25:32.937 --> 25:35.980
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's so easy to assume,
25:37.428 --> 25:54.129
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, like, for example, Kim, if they if they found mine or your foot, wash ashore, the police could look at our history and be like, oh, they've taken depression medicine or they've taken anxiety medicine or they have sadness issues sometimes.
25:54.830 --> 25:56.933
[SPEAKER_01]: Why would you just assume that I commit suicide?
25:57.834 --> 26:02.119
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't don't just assume that for sure, plus,
26:03.922 --> 26:13.257
[SPEAKER_01]: in those moments where someone may be making more by close decisions in their life or whatever, that would make them a better target too.
26:13.297 --> 26:19.446
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not making rational decisions of going out to places with other people going safe places, you know?
26:20.027 --> 26:20.528
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
26:20.548 --> 26:24.654
[SPEAKER_01]: It's normally when people are going through stuff that they're going to bars alone, you know?
26:24.754 --> 26:30.283
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and these are places that predators could be looking for people like that.
26:30.263 --> 26:37.033
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just had, I don't know, I have kind of a little problem sometimes from people label Oh, it's probably suicide.
26:37.093 --> 26:39.055
[SPEAKER_01]: They, they were going through stuff.
26:39.296 --> 26:39.476
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
26:39.716 --> 26:40.477
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
26:40.497 --> 26:40.818
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
26:40.838 --> 26:45.685
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, who hasn't gone through stuff and I'd hate for my foot to be washed up during So far.
26:45.805 --> 26:48.269
[SPEAKER_00]: What percentage of the population is on some types?
26:48.289 --> 26:50.271
[SPEAKER_00]: Some sort of anxiety or depression?
26:50.492 --> 26:50.932
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
26:51.433 --> 26:51.874
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, shoot.
26:51.894 --> 26:59.224
[SPEAKER_01]: You take too much time on all you got to take depression.
27:00.993 --> 27:26.832
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, never know I know definitely stupid stupid stupid so for this shit fire story four people in the LA area just got busted for what investigators are calling the first fake baritac insurance fraud in California history they obviously never met you
27:28.162 --> 27:31.986
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, first of all, it wasn't fraud, it was real, and I'm a survivor.
27:33.388 --> 27:33.528
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh-huh.
27:33.548 --> 27:37.672
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I need you to understand this is not some sophisticated crime.
27:37.712 --> 27:41.356
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really Scooby-Doo villain level scheming.
27:42.377 --> 27:53.629
[SPEAKER_01]: So back in July, 2024, these four geniuses filed insurance claims saying a bear broke into their luxury vehicles while they were visiting Lake Arrowhead.
27:54.807 --> 27:59.031
[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking in 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost in two Mercedes.
28:00.352 --> 28:05.837
[SPEAKER_01]: They even submitted video footage of the bear entering the vehicles and tearing up the interiors.
28:08.899 --> 28:09.139
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
28:09.660 --> 28:09.860
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
28:10.060 --> 28:15.245
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem was, it's obviously a person and a bear costume.
28:15.265 --> 28:16.686
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh Lord have mercy.
28:16.886 --> 28:23.852
[SPEAKER_01]: The California Department of Insurance took one look at the footage and went, yep, that's a dude in a bear suit.
28:24.659 --> 28:35.854
[SPEAKER_01]: But, and I love this, they wanted to be thorough, so they brought in an actual wildlife biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to review the evidence.
28:38.118 --> 28:44.086
[SPEAKER_01]: His official professional assessment, quote, It was clearly a human in a bare suit.
28:45.528 --> 28:46.729
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's what gave it away.
28:46.769 --> 28:54.480
[SPEAKER_01]: The bear walked on its knees.
28:55.726 --> 29:03.120
[SPEAKER_01]: But the thing is, California hadn't had brown bears since Grizzlies when extinct in the 1920s.
29:04.642 --> 29:07.568
[SPEAKER_01]: Every wild bear in the state is a black bear.
29:09.852 --> 29:13.419
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no saliva, no hair, no urine, anywhere.
29:14.380 --> 29:17.646
[SPEAKER_01]: Because apparently, this bear was very tidy.
29:18.668 --> 29:19.590
[SPEAKER_01]: In the claw marks,
29:21.680 --> 29:23.462
[SPEAKER_01]: made with metal kitchen tools.
29:24.503 --> 29:26.344
[SPEAKER_01]: They found during the search warrant.
29:28.546 --> 29:33.611
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and all three claims have the same exact date in the same exact location.
29:34.732 --> 29:36.094
[SPEAKER_01]: Really subtle, guys.
29:38.536 --> 29:49.206
[SPEAKER_01]: The best part, Glenn Innes, the stuntman, who played the bear that mauled Leonardo DiCaprio in the
29:49.777 --> 29:51.040
[SPEAKER_01]: publicly roasted them.
29:51.761 --> 29:59.797
[SPEAKER_01]: He told an audience, bears don't walk on their knees, and promised he'd never use his bear powers for criminal activity.
30:01.000 --> 30:07.954
[SPEAKER_01]: These four managed to collect over $300,000 from three different insurance companies before getting caught.
30:07.934 --> 30:16.248
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, they're facing felony insurance fraud charges, up to five years in prison, and $50,000 in fines, each.
30:17.430 --> 30:21.277
[SPEAKER_01]: The investigation was literally called Operation Bear Claw.
30:22.339 --> 30:23.280
[SPEAKER_01]: I just can't make it up.
30:24.963 --> 30:27.708
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not too sure if that shouldn't be a dumb criminal.
30:27.728 --> 30:30.212
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean,
30:31.458 --> 30:32.459
[SPEAKER_01]: they are pretty dumb.
30:33.901 --> 30:38.668
[SPEAKER_01]: All right well we're going to end here and we're going to go jump over to our unmasked episode.
30:38.688 --> 30:46.539
[SPEAKER_01]: So you guys should join us over there and we're going to have all the fun and I also have another mystery just for unmasked.
30:46.699 --> 30:47.039
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
30:47.079 --> 30:49.603
[SPEAKER_01]: All right we'll see you guys over there.
30:49.623 --> 30:51.285
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
30:51.305 --> 30:54.850
[SPEAKER_01]: 21 feet.
30:55.370 --> 30:58.353
[SPEAKER_01]: 17 years, and we're still counting.
30:59.474 --> 31:07.924
[SPEAKER_01]: The science tells us this should happen, decomposition, buoyant shoes, currents that push everything toward shore.
31:08.865 --> 31:18.515
[SPEAKER_01]: But knowing the explanation doesn't answer the real questions, who were these people, around six of those feet remain unidentified.
31:19.857 --> 31:23.841
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone's missing son.
31:25.171 --> 31:26.533
[SPEAKER_01]: and what happened to them?
31:28.056 --> 31:30.440
[SPEAKER_01]: Some mysteries aren't meant to be solved.
31:31.522 --> 31:32.824
[SPEAKER_01]: They're meant to be felt.
31:34.287 --> 31:40.939
[SPEAKER_01]: The lights are dimming the bunker door is closing, but the mysteries, they're just getting started.
31:42.081 --> 31:45.306
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Shane Waters, stake curious, stay skeptical.
31:46.108 --> 31:48.251
[SPEAKER_01]: And stay a little bit scared.
31:49.594 --> 31:50.335
[SPEAKER_01]: Good night, friend.
00:03.389 --> 00:11.781
[SPEAKER_01]: August 20th, 2007, a 12-year-old girl explores the rocky shore of Jedi Island, British Columbia.
00:13.162 --> 00:18.069
[SPEAKER_01]: She's visiting from Washington State, morning fog still clings to the water.
00:19.611 --> 00:28.063
[SPEAKER_01]: Something catches her eye, a sneaker wedged between the rocks, sized 12-a-didas, still
00:29.377 --> 00:30.178
[SPEAKER_01]: She picks it up.
00:31.159 --> 00:31.580
[SPEAKER_01]: It's heavy.
00:32.741 --> 00:36.086
[SPEAKER_01]: Because inside that shoe is a human foot.
00:37.768 --> 00:43.115
[SPEAKER_01]: Six days later, another foot washes up, then another, then another.
00:44.156 --> 00:59.215
[SPEAKER_01]: Over the next 17 years, at least 21 human feet, all still wearing athletic shoes would appear along the shores of the sailor's sea.
01:01.186 --> 01:05.351
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello friend, welcome to the haunted bunker, where mysteries hide.
01:06.692 --> 01:30.518
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Shane Waters and tonight we're traveling to the Pacific Northwest, where the cold waters of the sailors see have been delivering a disturbing message for nearly two decades, severed feet, athletic shoes, and a mystery that refuses to stay buried.
01:32.540 --> 01:33.921
[SPEAKER_01]: What came what you're mystery today?
01:33.941 --> 01:35.083
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no.
01:35.223 --> 01:39.367
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a humor mystery today.
01:39.387 --> 01:40.188
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a humor mystery.
01:40.448 --> 01:42.751
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm just here as a warm body in the sea.
01:42.831 --> 01:44.933
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, well, that's what you've been this entire time.
01:44.993 --> 01:47.936
[SPEAKER_01]: Since you've been on this show, Kim, you've just been a warm body in that sea.
01:47.956 --> 01:50.859
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, it's just hand us episodes and everything.
01:50.899 --> 01:52.401
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well.
01:53.122 --> 01:54.403
[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay.
01:55.904 --> 01:56.845
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll live.
01:56.865 --> 01:57.366
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll live.
01:58.038 --> 02:10.015
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, one of us might, this point I'm not real sure it's going to be me, but... All right, Kim, so on this episode, I'm going to take us to the Salish Sea.
02:10.415 --> 02:13.119
[SPEAKER_01]: That's probably how it's pronounced to Salish.
02:13.780 --> 02:14.661
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm never even heard of it.
02:15.182 --> 02:20.069
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, if you've not heard of that name, which is what I actually wrote down here.
02:20.770 --> 02:21.531
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's funny.
02:21.832 --> 02:22.633
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not alone.
02:22.673 --> 02:26.537
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't even officially called that until late 2009.
02:27.378 --> 02:32.363
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine a sea not having a name until 2009 or at least getting a name change?
02:32.603 --> 02:33.644
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
02:33.664 --> 02:41.091
[SPEAKER_01]: It's basically the inland marine waters between Washington State and British Columbia, which I've been there.
02:42.112 --> 02:42.813
[SPEAKER_00]: British Columbia.
02:43.494 --> 02:46.677
[SPEAKER_01]: Between Washington State and British Columbia.
02:46.737 --> 02:47.478
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, yeah.
02:47.498 --> 02:51.822
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was the trip that I didn't get going.
02:53.152 --> 02:55.395
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Pudgent, Pudgent.
02:55.916 --> 03:01.345
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm telling you, I know Michelle, our friend that's in Washington Station and being yelling at me right now.
03:01.906 --> 03:04.530
[SPEAKER_01]: P-U-G-E-T, how would you think that's pronounced?
03:04.970 --> 03:05.431
[SPEAKER_01]: Pudgent?
03:05.471 --> 03:06.312
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I would do.
03:06.332 --> 03:06.633
[SPEAKER_01]: Pudgent?
03:07.594 --> 03:07.935
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think so.
03:07.955 --> 03:12.542
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's some sound in the straight of one defuca.
03:14.144 --> 03:16.949
[SPEAKER_01]: That's probably not an idea there, but we're gonna go with that.
03:17.890 --> 03:19.092
[SPEAKER_01]: The Georgia Straight.
03:20.472 --> 03:24.038
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, about 8 million people live along its shores.
03:25.080 --> 03:25.741
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so hot.
03:26.282 --> 03:27.444
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's gorgeous up there.
03:27.484 --> 03:31.771
[SPEAKER_01]: There's cold water, evergreen forest mountains in the distance.
03:32.252 --> 03:34.135
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling you, Kim, you would love it.
03:34.415 --> 03:34.956
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved it.
03:34.976 --> 03:36.619
[SPEAKER_01]: There's coffee on every corner.
03:36.659 --> 03:37.781
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
03:38.022 --> 03:40.165
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure I would have if I had a been allowed to go.
03:40.185 --> 03:40.967
[SPEAKER_01]: Have an honor.
03:40.987 --> 03:42.750
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm glad you're not sour.
03:42.950 --> 03:44.252
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm not bitter at all.
03:44.232 --> 03:48.539
[SPEAKER_01]: Vancouver, Seattle, Victoria, all right there.
03:49.501 --> 03:58.957
[SPEAKER_01]: And starting in 2007, this beautiful stretch of coastline became famous for one of the strangest phenomena in modern forensic history.
04:00.399 --> 04:03.304
[SPEAKER_01]: That discovery on Jedi Island.
04:04.651 --> 04:05.814
[SPEAKER_01]: wasn't just weird.
04:06.636 --> 04:10.064
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the beginning of something that still hasn't stopped.
04:10.585 --> 04:11.567
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you heard about this?
04:11.587 --> 04:11.767
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
04:11.988 --> 04:12.309
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
04:13.391 --> 04:20.247
[SPEAKER_01]: Six days after the first sneaker, August 26th, 2007,
04:21.779 --> 04:24.807
[SPEAKER_01]: Another foot washed up on the island.
04:25.689 --> 04:26.010
[SPEAKER_01]: A foot?
04:26.271 --> 04:26.672
[SPEAKER_01]: A foot.
04:27.374 --> 04:28.216
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a right foot.
04:29.038 --> 04:30.261
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a mince reboc.
04:31.364 --> 04:36.096
[SPEAKER_01]: Then in February 2008, another one on Valdez Island.
04:37.380 --> 04:38.623
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a Nike this time.
04:39.953 --> 04:50.086
[SPEAKER_01]: then May 2008, they find a right foot on Kirkland Island, a new balance shoe, and it's just where these are all different types of shoes.
04:50.226 --> 04:51.748
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's freaks me out the most.
04:51.808 --> 04:55.633
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's actually a foot inside of the shoe.
04:55.653 --> 04:56.093
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not crazy.
04:56.113 --> 04:56.974
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not crazy.
04:57.054 --> 04:58.456
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're all different options.
04:58.656 --> 04:59.477
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's crazy.
04:59.658 --> 05:00.378
[SPEAKER_00]: It's embarrassing.
05:00.398 --> 05:03.402
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they didn't like what kind of what brand they were buying and so on.
05:03.843 --> 05:04.864
[SPEAKER_01]: But this one,
05:05.958 --> 05:08.682
[SPEAKER_01]: This foot and shoe was different than the others.
05:09.383 --> 05:10.344
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a woman's foot.
05:11.526 --> 05:14.290
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's where it gets genuinely unsettling.
05:15.892 --> 05:17.054
[SPEAKER_01]: She jumped.
05:17.074 --> 05:19.277
[SPEAKER_01]: Why in the crap is that noise?
05:19.918 --> 05:20.759
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you can do it.
05:20.860 --> 05:21.861
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the ghost.
05:22.442 --> 05:22.882
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess.
05:23.543 --> 05:27.409
[SPEAKER_01]: She jumped from a bridge in 2004.
05:29.296 --> 05:30.639
[SPEAKER_01]: They called it a suicide.
05:31.801 --> 05:44.487
[SPEAKER_01]: By the end of 2008, six human feet washed up and just over a year, six feet, five different people, and no one could explain why.
05:44.467 --> 05:54.288
[SPEAKER_01]: The media went absolutely wild, with headlines titled foul place suspected, serial killer stalking Pacific Northwest.
05:55.090 --> 06:04.450
[SPEAKER_01]: You had reporters flying in from London, Tokyo, everywhere, because this kind of thing just doesn't happen, or does it?
06:05.813 --> 06:11.982
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let me walk you through the full-time line, Kim, because the numbers alone are quite staggering.
06:13.104 --> 06:16.048
[SPEAKER_01]: In 2007, two feet found.
06:16.068 --> 06:19.353
[SPEAKER_01]: 2008, five more feet.
06:20.394 --> 06:23.319
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus, there was one hoax that I'll get into in a minute.
06:24.040 --> 06:29.147
[SPEAKER_01]: And notably, August 2008, brought the first discovery in U.S. waters.
06:30.369 --> 06:34.555
[SPEAKER_01]: It was in Washington State, just 10 miles from the Canadian border.
06:34.535 --> 06:44.393
[SPEAKER_01]: The town's name is Pysht, maybe it's PYSHT, Pysht.
06:44.558 --> 06:48.823
[SPEAKER_01]: I know what anyone from that town.
06:48.883 --> 06:49.584
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so sorry.
06:50.204 --> 06:59.194
[SPEAKER_01]: In 2009, one foot was found in 2010, two feet, including one on wedby island in Washington.
07:00.195 --> 07:12.709
[SPEAKER_01]: In 2011, three feet, and a kept going.
07:12.942 --> 07:16.633
[SPEAKER_00]: How many of those were matched feet where they would get into that in a minute?
07:16.733 --> 07:19.260
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, most of the time, it's just one foot.
07:19.761 --> 07:20.965
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that's weird.
07:21.045 --> 07:26.240
[SPEAKER_01]: Almost always just one foot, but at a later time, they might find an additional foot that they could link back.
07:26.822 --> 07:28.065
[SPEAKER_01]: Almost all of them are just one foot.
07:29.395 --> 07:34.783
[SPEAKER_01]: the discoveries average about one to two per year, and they haven't stopped.
07:35.925 --> 07:43.556
[SPEAKER_01]: As for the most recent count, at least 21 confirmed human feet have washed ashore along the sailor's sea.
07:44.858 --> 07:51.268
[SPEAKER_01]: All of them, inside athletic shoes, running shoes, hiking boots, or sneakers.
07:52.480 --> 08:00.012
[SPEAKER_01]: The obvious question, the one everyone has been asking, was, where are the rest of the body?
08:00.233 --> 08:01.375
[SPEAKER_00]: No kidding.
08:01.395 --> 08:04.760
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you can't just have feet washing up without bodies, right?
08:04.820 --> 08:07.164
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not how drowning works.
08:07.805 --> 08:09.488
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not how anything works.
08:09.508 --> 08:13.915
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless someone was making sure only the feet showed up.
08:14.755 --> 08:25.035
[SPEAKER_01]: The serial killer theory took off immediately, and honestly, I get it, 21 feet, nobody's, all wearing sneakers.
08:26.197 --> 08:31.127
[SPEAKER_01]: If you were writing a crime thriller, this is exactly the kind of detail that you'd use.
08:32.288 --> 08:52.845
[SPEAKER_01]: Although I wouldn't believe it, the theories got creative, a drug cartel, dumping bodies, a government cover-up of mass deaths, the sneaker killer, someone specifically targeting victims who wore athletic shoes, the internet, had a field day.
08:53.112 --> 08:54.814
[SPEAKER_01]: There was even a tsunami theory.
08:55.135 --> 08:59.441
[SPEAKER_01]: The 2004 Asian tsunami killed over 200,000 people.
09:00.242 --> 09:05.469
[SPEAKER_01]: Some folks wondered if these feet had somehow traveled across the Pacific from Indonesia.
09:06.731 --> 09:08.773
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there was the hoax.
09:09.875 --> 09:22.292
[SPEAKER_01]: In June 2008, at the height of the media frenzy, someone found a shoe with apparent human remains on a beach
09:23.572 --> 09:24.493
[SPEAKER_01]: near Campbell River.
09:24.533 --> 09:28.939
[SPEAKER_01]: The RCMP sent it for forensic examination.
09:30.120 --> 09:31.021
[SPEAKER_01]: It was an animal paw.
09:31.802 --> 09:41.794
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone had stuffed an animal paw inside a sock, packed it with dry seaweed, put it in a sneaker and then left it on a beach.
09:43.336 --> 09:45.799
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, in the world what they do that is weird.
09:45.819 --> 09:47.942
[SPEAKER_01]: To be a prank, they just wanted to be involved.
09:49.120 --> 09:55.912
[SPEAKER_01]: The BC coroner service called it reprehensible and very disrespectful to the families of missing persons.
09:56.934 --> 10:04.227
[SPEAKER_01]: People were so desperate for explanations, so invested in the dark theories that they were creating evidence.
10:05.810 --> 10:10.198
[SPEAKER_01]: But here's what the actual forensic examiners found when they looked at the real feet.
10:10.879 --> 10:15.989
[SPEAKER_01]: There were no tool marks, no evidence of cutting, sawing or dismemberment.
10:16.931 --> 10:17.191
[SPEAKER_01]: None.
10:18.413 --> 10:21.559
[SPEAKER_01]: The BC Corner Service was categorical about it.
10:22.381 --> 10:27.430
[SPEAKER_01]: Bar McClentock, who served as the BC Corner Service spokesman.
10:27.410 --> 10:35.898
[SPEAKER_01]: stated publicly that there was no evidence of foul play in any of the cases, every case had an alternative, very reasonable explanation.
10:36.898 --> 10:40.982
[SPEAKER_01]: No foul play in any of the 21 plus discoveries.
10:41.923 --> 10:42.303
[SPEAKER_01]: Zero.
10:43.304 --> 10:47.047
[SPEAKER_01]: So if no one was cutting these feet off, what was happening?
10:48.729 --> 10:55.695
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the explanation when it finally
10:55.861 --> 11:08.858
[SPEAKER_01]: It required understanding three things, how human bodies decompose in water, watch changed about footwear since the mid 1970s, and how the sailors see actually moves.
11:10.119 --> 11:23.877
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's start with decomposition, when a body enters water, whether from suicide, accident, or natural causes, it begins to break down, and here's something forensic scientists have known for decades.
11:23.857 --> 11:26.146
[SPEAKER_01]: bodies don't stay in one place.
11:27.311 --> 11:28.195
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a term for this.
11:28.255 --> 11:30.745
[SPEAKER_01]: This articulation.
11:31.433 --> 11:37.100
[SPEAKER_01]: It means the natural separation that happens at joints, as connective tissues decay.
11:38.181 --> 11:49.754
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about it, joints are already the weakest structural points in a skeleton, held together by ligaments, surrounded by relatively thin tissue, compared to say your thigh or your torso.
11:50.735 --> 11:57.323
[SPEAKER_01]: The ankle joint is particularly vulnerable, thin ligaments less protective muscle mass.
11:57.303 --> 12:03.838
[SPEAKER_01]: and cold water a foot will naturally separate from a leg within days to weeks, no cutting required.
12:05.302 --> 12:07.186
[SPEAKER_01]: But that explains how feet come off.
12:07.547 --> 12:10.654
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't explain why we start finding them.
12:11.528 --> 12:18.275
[SPEAKER_01]: This is where modern athletic shoe technology comes in, and it's honestly kind of brilliant once you understand it.
12:19.276 --> 12:25.403
[SPEAKER_01]: Before the mid-1970s and the 80s, most shoes were made of leather, uppers, and solid rubber souls.
12:26.384 --> 12:33.051
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavy materials, materials that absorb water, materials that sink.
12:33.072 --> 12:39.038
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Nike introduced air technology, and then company started using EVA foam.
12:40.267 --> 12:41.529
[SPEAKER_01]: They were using it for cushioning.
12:42.130 --> 12:49.383
[SPEAKER_01]: The entire athletic shoe industry shifted to light weight synthetic materials, air pockets, and polymer compounds.
12:51.407 --> 12:53.631
[SPEAKER_01]: All that means these shoes float.
12:54.853 --> 13:01.545
[SPEAKER_01]: A single modern athletic shoe generates enough buoyancy to keep a 1 to 2 pound object on the surface.
13:02.467 --> 13:04.350
[SPEAKER_01]: And what ways about 1 to 2 pounds?
13:05.461 --> 13:08.287
[SPEAKER_01]: a human foot, not your foot, Kim.
13:08.307 --> 13:09.650
[SPEAKER_00]: No, probably not.
13:09.670 --> 13:10.812
[SPEAKER_01]: So here's what's happening.
13:11.233 --> 13:23.217
[SPEAKER_01]: If someone dies in the water, suicide, accident, whatever the cause, and their body sinks to the bottom, over days or weeks, natural decomposition will separate the feet of the ankle.
13:23.483 --> 13:28.951
[SPEAKER_01]: And if that person was wearing leather dress shoes, the feet stay at the bottom with everything else.
13:30.133 --> 13:35.442
[SPEAKER_01]: But if they're wearing Nike's, Adidas, new balances, those feet float to the surface.
13:36.303 --> 13:43.534
[SPEAKER_01]: The shoes act as a floatation device, preserving the foot inside, carrying it wherever the currents will go.
13:43.632 --> 13:49.039
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the sailor's sea, the currents all go to the same place, towards shore.
13:49.059 --> 13:53.524
[SPEAKER_01]: The geography is perfect for concentrating floating debris.
13:54.265 --> 14:03.497
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a semi-inclosed island sea, with complex tidal movements, in the Fraser River, pouring fresh water into the mix.
14:03.477 --> 14:08.224
[SPEAKER_01]: Oceanographers have actually mapped the debris accumulation zones.
14:09.586 --> 14:12.851
[SPEAKER_01]: They're exactly where the feet have been washing up.
14:12.871 --> 14:15.856
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's one more important factor, population.
14:15.876 --> 14:20.423
[SPEAKER_01]: 8 million people live around the sailors see.
14:20.403 --> 14:25.430
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a lot of recreational boaters, swimmers, bridge jumpers, fishing accidents.
14:26.351 --> 14:28.875
[SPEAKER_01]: More people near water means more water deaths.
14:29.616 --> 14:37.567
[SPEAKER_01]: More water deaths, mean more deaths articulated feet wearing modern athletic shoes means more feet washing ashore.
14:37.627 --> 14:40.811
[SPEAKER_01]: It's probably not a serial killer.
14:42.053 --> 14:45.938
[SPEAKER_01]: Mathematics probably will tell us it's science.
14:48.027 --> 14:50.450
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, can I know what you're probably thinking?
14:51.110 --> 14:54.514
[SPEAKER_01]: That's exactly what they want you to believe, and that's fair.
14:56.416 --> 14:57.678
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's true, it could be.
14:58.319 --> 15:05.046
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I thought it would only be fair that we also go through all of the dark theories that it were against that evidence.
15:06.768 --> 15:08.610
[SPEAKER_01]: So, there's the serial killer theory.
15:09.811 --> 15:14.777
[SPEAKER_01]: For this to work, you'd need a killer who exclusively targets victims wearing athletic shoes.
15:16.310 --> 15:32.715
[SPEAKER_01]: so that they would not be looking at people with leather shoes, no sandals, not barefoot, and they would have to dispose of bodies in a way that produces no other floating remains, no torsos, no arms, no heads, just feet, every single time.
15:32.695 --> 15:36.541
[SPEAKER_01]: The forensic examination found zero tool marks on any of the feet.
15:37.142 --> 15:48.999
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no cutting, no sawing, and the victims who had been identified, they matched missing persons with documented circumstances, depression, known suicides, voting accidents.
15:50.041 --> 15:56.290
[SPEAKER_01]: A serial killer operating for 17 years leaving no evidence except feet that show no signs of violence.
15:58.075 --> 16:19.906
[SPEAKER_01]: I think what I also will mention about the serial killer theory that kind of would probably give some credible like lean towards it is that, you know, maybe the first few were just accidents and then the feast started washing up, but then that would give someone who wants to be a topic killer like, oh, perfect.
16:20.006 --> 16:21.669
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, then I'll just do that.
16:21.729 --> 16:23.391
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a great idea.
16:24.805 --> 16:26.127
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there's the tsunami theory.
16:26.768 --> 16:29.792
[SPEAKER_01]: The 2004 tsunami happened in the Indian Ocean.
16:30.553 --> 16:42.809
[SPEAKER_01]: For those victims' feet to reach British Columbia, they would have to have had traveled 12,000 miles across the Pacific against prevailing currents and arrive starting in 2007.
16:43.870 --> 16:45.612
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus, the shoes had been examined.
16:46.353 --> 16:52.922
[SPEAKER_01]: They include models manufactured in 2006, 2008, 2012, 2018.
16:52.902 --> 16:55.766
[SPEAKER_01]: Choose that didn't exist when the tsunami happened.
16:56.688 --> 16:58.991
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, I wouldn't think that would be very plausible then.
16:59.772 --> 17:05.000
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus, they did DNA, and it matched the Pacific Northwest missing persons.
17:05.501 --> 17:08.185
[SPEAKER_01]: They were local people, not victims from Indonesia.
17:09.547 --> 17:11.670
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there was the drug cartel theory.
17:12.072 --> 17:24.733
[SPEAKER_01]: Not a single identified victim has any connection to drug trafficking, and cartels traditionally use methods that ensure bodies aren't found, concrete, burial, incineration.
17:25.895 --> 17:27.478
[SPEAKER_01]: The cement shoes approach.
17:28.500 --> 17:32.486
[SPEAKER_01]: Sement would prevent the natural separation that allows feet to float away.
17:33.127 --> 17:36.493
[SPEAKER_01]: If cartels were responsible, we'd probably find nothing.
17:38.296 --> 17:44.475
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do have to be a little honest, not every case fits neatly into the accident or suicide box.
17:45.177 --> 17:52.980
[SPEAKER_01]: Antonio Niel was 22 years old when he disappeared from Everett, Washington on December 12, 2016.
17:54.327 --> 18:03.601
[SPEAKER_01]: He'd spent the day with his mother, got a new driver's license, picked up a new cell phone, and then that evening he went to stay at her friend's house on Cedar Street.
18:04.682 --> 18:07.707
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the last time anyone saw Antonio alive.
18:08.849 --> 18:11.793
[SPEAKER_01]: His mother Jenny knew something was wrong almost immediately.
18:11.813 --> 18:15.238
[SPEAKER_01]: She talked to her son every single day.
18:15.218 --> 18:18.823
[SPEAKER_01]: And when he didn't come home, when he didn't call, she knew.
18:18.863 --> 18:21.086
[SPEAKER_01]: She started asking around.
18:22.028 --> 18:28.937
[SPEAKER_01]: People who'd been at the house the night before told her Antonio had gotten into some kind of altercation with another younger man before leaving.
18:30.059 --> 18:35.286
[SPEAKER_01]: His car, a 2,000 Volkswagen Jetta, turned up abandoned in Lennwood.
18:35.266 --> 18:39.553
[SPEAKER_01]: His coats and blankets were still at the house on Cedar Street.
18:40.494 --> 18:44.921
[SPEAKER_01]: He'd walked out into a December night, and just a T-shirt and jeans.
18:46.063 --> 18:53.214
[SPEAKER_01]: For over two years, Antonio was just another missing person, a face on a billboard overlooking Highway 99 in Everett.
18:54.156 --> 19:02.168
[SPEAKER_01]: Then on New Year's Day,
19:04.257 --> 19:08.346
[SPEAKER_01]: The medical examiner confirmed it, the foot belonged to Antonio Nio.
19:09.589 --> 19:11.172
[SPEAKER_01]: His mother recognized the boot.
19:12.435 --> 19:15.401
[SPEAKER_01]: Even faded from the sea water, she knew it was his.
19:15.461 --> 19:19.971
[SPEAKER_01]: She recognized the sock, she washed him put them on the day he disappeared.
19:21.402 --> 19:23.464
[SPEAKER_01]: But here's where this case gets complicated.
19:24.005 --> 19:26.929
[SPEAKER_01]: The tech just interviewed the friend Antonio was with that night.
19:27.569 --> 19:31.314
[SPEAKER_01]: He took a polygraph and initially he passed.
19:31.334 --> 19:36.200
[SPEAKER_01]: But when reviewers found a discrepancy and wanted to administer a second, he declined.
19:37.401 --> 19:42.447
[SPEAKER_01]: No charges were ever filed, but the county sheriff's office still has the case open.
19:43.388 --> 19:47.173
[SPEAKER_01]: They still classify Antonio's death as suspicious.
19:47.744 --> 19:53.234
[SPEAKER_01]: Now does Antonio Nio's case prove foul play in the broader Salish C phenomenon?
19:54.036 --> 19:54.857
[SPEAKER_01]: Not necessarily.
19:55.639 --> 20:11.288
[SPEAKER_01]: Most of the identified feet have been linked to documented suicides and accidents, but Antonio's case reminds us that a scientific explanation for how feet wash ashore doesn't mean we know what happened to every person those feet belong to.
20:11.926 --> 20:13.908
[SPEAKER_01]: The phenomenon is explainable.
20:14.629 --> 20:18.493
[SPEAKER_01]: The deaths behind it will that's a different question entirely.
20:20.335 --> 20:21.356
[SPEAKER_01]: So what are we left with?
20:22.617 --> 20:27.723
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a scientific explanation that accounts for the phenomenon, modern, shoes float.
20:28.463 --> 20:30.145
[SPEAKER_01]: Bodies decompose the joints.
20:30.846 --> 20:39.655
[SPEAKER_01]: Currents push floating objects towards specific shores.
20:40.360 --> 20:52.742
[SPEAKER_01]: For those 21 plus feet, approximately 15 have been successfully identified, many belong to suicide victims, people who likely jumped from bridges, at least the authorities believed.
20:55.106 --> 20:56.729
[SPEAKER_01]: Others were accidental drownings.
20:58.452 --> 21:03.381
[SPEAKER_01]: A few died of natural causes on land and their bodies later entered the water.
21:03.952 --> 21:06.736
[SPEAKER_01]: but around six feet remain unidentified.
21:07.677 --> 21:09.539
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where the real mystery lives.
21:10.300 --> 21:13.805
[SPEAKER_01]: Somewhere out there, there are families who don't know what happened to their loved ones.
21:14.646 --> 21:17.129
[SPEAKER_01]: People reported missing who never came home.
21:17.910 --> 21:22.516
[SPEAKER_01]: Names attached to cold cases that might never be closed.
21:23.858 --> 21:25.740
[SPEAKER_01]: One identification stands out.
21:26.767 --> 21:28.109
[SPEAKER_01]: the name is Stefan.
21:29.331 --> 21:36.341
[SPEAKER_01]: In November 2011, a foot was found wearing a hiking boot when they ran the DNA they got a match.
21:37.723 --> 21:43.171
[SPEAKER_01]: Stefan had been missing since 1987, nearly 25 years.
21:44.473 --> 21:54.107
[SPEAKER_01]: His family had wandered, 25 years of not knowing, and then the science of decomposition in modern footwear
21:55.454 --> 21:56.475
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there was Tanya.
21:57.577 --> 22:01.682
[SPEAKER_01]: Tanya works as an identification analyst with the BC Corner's surface.
22:02.323 --> 22:09.453
[SPEAKER_01]: Her job is to take what washes ashore, a foot, a bone, sometimes just fragments, and turn it into a name.
22:11.595 --> 22:24.853
[SPEAKER_01]: We start from scratch, she explained, that is, a foot, a bone, a skull, and we work from there all the way up to saying, this is so and so, and they died in such and such way,
22:26.437 --> 22:29.301
[SPEAKER_01]: closure that worked carries a lot of weight here.
22:30.162 --> 22:37.852
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of the families whose loved ones have been identified have said the discovery brought them peace, painful peace but peace nonetheless.
22:39.494 --> 22:48.466
[SPEAKER_01]: For years they'd wondered, now they know, but for families like Antonio Niels, the foot raised more questions than it answered.
22:49.487 --> 22:54.874
[SPEAKER_01]: Jenny Niel put it simply, it's hard to have
22:56.845 --> 23:11.787
[SPEAKER_01]: If Mark Campfield hadn't been walking Jedi Island that New Year's Day, if he hadn't spotted that boot in the mud, Antonio would still be a missing person, not presumed dead, not a suspicious case, just missing.
23:13.109 --> 23:15.192
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what haunts me about this phenomena.
23:16.555 --> 23:21.361
[SPEAKER_01]: The feet that wash ashore are the ones we find, what about the ones that we don't?
23:22.342 --> 23:27.528
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the feet represent ultimately, not necessarily a serial killer signature.
23:28.950 --> 23:33.115
[SPEAKER_01]: Not necessarily some supernatural curse on the Pacific Northwest.
23:34.897 --> 23:45.229
[SPEAKER_01]: There are more messages from the dead, final communications from people who slept beneath
23:46.930 --> 23:51.015
[SPEAKER_01]: Today, the discoveries continue, one or two every year.
23:51.055 --> 23:57.323
[SPEAKER_01]: Each time someone finds a sneaker on a beach, the question hangs in the air.
23:57.363 --> 24:01.128
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this just trash or is it another foot?
24:02.349 --> 24:06.074
[SPEAKER_01]: What we know is this, they're likely as not a killer.
24:06.634 --> 24:08.837
[SPEAKER_01]: It may not be a conspiracy.
24:09.172 --> 24:14.680
[SPEAKER_01]: It could just be cold water, buoyant shoes, and the mathematics of living near the ocean.
24:15.762 --> 24:30.303
[SPEAKER_01]: But what we don't know, what we may never know, is whose feet are still out there, waiting to be found, and whether the families they belong to will ever get the closure that Stefan's family finally received after nearly 25 years of wandering.
24:31.545 --> 24:37.373
[SPEAKER_01]: Today the sailors see keeps its secret, but every so often it gives something back.
24:39.496 --> 24:39.937
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
24:39.997 --> 24:41.960
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that is my mystery.
24:41.980 --> 24:49.352
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really surprised that like while life or something don't dispose of part of the foot.
24:51.675 --> 24:53.037
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it has to get to the show.
24:53.718 --> 24:59.928
[SPEAKER_01]: So you'd be looking at a little bit, but I mean, they may only be finding shoes that wildlife's not getting into.
24:59.948 --> 25:07.360
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, because like I said, they're only finding this amount, but they're probably is more.
25:09.331 --> 25:10.492
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's interesting.
25:11.914 --> 25:12.494
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought so.
25:13.335 --> 25:13.636
[SPEAKER_00]: It is.
25:14.437 --> 25:24.768
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that, like for me, the science explains why the feet are washing ashore, like how that could happen and not the rest of their bodies.
25:25.188 --> 25:26.990
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, oh.
25:27.010 --> 25:32.436
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm still, there's still some question in my mind about the cause, you know?
25:32.937 --> 25:35.980
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's so easy to assume,
25:37.428 --> 25:54.129
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, like, for example, Kim, if they if they found mine or your foot, wash ashore, the police could look at our history and be like, oh, they've taken depression medicine or they've taken anxiety medicine or they have sadness issues sometimes.
25:54.830 --> 25:56.933
[SPEAKER_01]: Why would you just assume that I commit suicide?
25:57.834 --> 26:02.119
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't don't just assume that for sure, plus,
26:03.922 --> 26:13.257
[SPEAKER_01]: in those moments where someone may be making more by close decisions in their life or whatever, that would make them a better target too.
26:13.297 --> 26:19.446
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not making rational decisions of going out to places with other people going safe places, you know?
26:20.027 --> 26:20.528
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
26:20.548 --> 26:24.654
[SPEAKER_01]: It's normally when people are going through stuff that they're going to bars alone, you know?
26:24.754 --> 26:30.283
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and these are places that predators could be looking for people like that.
26:30.263 --> 26:37.033
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just had, I don't know, I have kind of a little problem sometimes from people label Oh, it's probably suicide.
26:37.093 --> 26:39.055
[SPEAKER_01]: They, they were going through stuff.
26:39.296 --> 26:39.476
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
26:39.716 --> 26:40.477
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
26:40.497 --> 26:40.818
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
26:40.838 --> 26:45.685
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, who hasn't gone through stuff and I'd hate for my foot to be washed up during So far.
26:45.805 --> 26:48.269
[SPEAKER_00]: What percentage of the population is on some types?
26:48.289 --> 26:50.271
[SPEAKER_00]: Some sort of anxiety or depression?
26:50.492 --> 26:50.932
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, shoot.
26:51.894 --> 26:59.224
[SPEAKER_01]: You take too much time on all you got to take depression.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, never know I know definitely stupid stupid stupid so for this shit fire story four people in the LA area just got busted for what investigators are calling the first fake baritac insurance fraud in California history they obviously never met you
27:28.162 --> 27:31.986
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, first of all, it wasn't fraud, it was real, and I'm a survivor.
27:33.388 --> 27:33.528
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh-huh.
27:33.548 --> 27:37.672
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I need you to understand this is not some sophisticated crime.
27:37.712 --> 27:41.356
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really Scooby-Doo villain level scheming.
27:42.377 --> 27:53.629
[SPEAKER_01]: So back in July, 2024, these four geniuses filed insurance claims saying a bear broke into their luxury vehicles while they were visiting Lake Arrowhead.
27:54.807 --> 27:59.031
[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking in 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost in two Mercedes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They even submitted video footage of the bear entering the vehicles and tearing up the interiors.
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[SPEAKER_01]: No.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No.
28:10.060 --> 28:15.245
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem was, it's obviously a person and a bear costume.
28:15.265 --> 28:16.686
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh Lord have mercy.
28:16.886 --> 28:23.852
[SPEAKER_01]: The California Department of Insurance took one look at the footage and went, yep, that's a dude in a bear suit.
28:24.659 --> 28:35.854
[SPEAKER_01]: But, and I love this, they wanted to be thorough, so they brought in an actual wildlife biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to review the evidence.
28:38.118 --> 28:44.086
[SPEAKER_01]: His official professional assessment, quote, It was clearly a human in a bare suit.
28:45.528 --> 28:46.729
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's what gave it away.
28:46.769 --> 28:54.480
[SPEAKER_01]: The bear walked on its knees.
28:55.726 --> 29:03.120
[SPEAKER_01]: But the thing is, California hadn't had brown bears since Grizzlies when extinct in the 1920s.
29:04.642 --> 29:07.568
[SPEAKER_01]: Every wild bear in the state is a black bear.
29:09.852 --> 29:13.419
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no saliva, no hair, no urine, anywhere.
29:14.380 --> 29:17.646
[SPEAKER_01]: Because apparently, this bear was very tidy.
29:18.668 --> 29:19.590
[SPEAKER_01]: In the claw marks,
29:21.680 --> 29:23.462
[SPEAKER_01]: made with metal kitchen tools.
29:24.503 --> 29:26.344
[SPEAKER_01]: They found during the search warrant.
29:28.546 --> 29:33.611
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and all three claims have the same exact date in the same exact location.
29:34.732 --> 29:36.094
[SPEAKER_01]: Really subtle, guys.
29:38.536 --> 29:49.206
[SPEAKER_01]: The best part, Glenn Innes, the stuntman, who played the bear that mauled Leonardo DiCaprio in the
29:49.777 --> 29:51.040
[SPEAKER_01]: publicly roasted them.
29:51.761 --> 29:59.797
[SPEAKER_01]: He told an audience, bears don't walk on their knees, and promised he'd never use his bear powers for criminal activity.
30:01.000 --> 30:07.954
[SPEAKER_01]: These four managed to collect over $300,000 from three different insurance companies before getting caught.
30:07.934 --> 30:16.248
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, they're facing felony insurance fraud charges, up to five years in prison, and $50,000 in fines, each.
30:17.430 --> 30:21.277
[SPEAKER_01]: The investigation was literally called Operation Bear Claw.
30:22.339 --> 30:23.280
[SPEAKER_01]: I just can't make it up.
30:24.963 --> 30:27.708
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not too sure if that shouldn't be a dumb criminal.
30:27.728 --> 30:30.212
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean,
30:31.458 --> 30:32.459
[SPEAKER_01]: they are pretty dumb.
30:33.901 --> 30:38.668
[SPEAKER_01]: All right well we're going to end here and we're going to go jump over to our unmasked episode.
30:38.688 --> 30:46.539
[SPEAKER_01]: So you guys should join us over there and we're going to have all the fun and I also have another mystery just for unmasked.
30:46.699 --> 30:47.039
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
30:47.079 --> 30:49.603
[SPEAKER_01]: All right we'll see you guys over there.
30:49.623 --> 30:51.285
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
30:51.305 --> 30:54.850
[SPEAKER_01]: 21 feet.
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[SPEAKER_01]: 17 years, and we're still counting.
30:59.474 --> 31:07.924
[SPEAKER_01]: The science tells us this should happen, decomposition, buoyant shoes, currents that push everything toward shore.
31:08.865 --> 31:18.515
[SPEAKER_01]: But knowing the explanation doesn't answer the real questions, who were these people, around six of those feet remain unidentified.
31:19.857 --> 31:23.841
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone's missing son.
31:25.171 --> 31:26.533
[SPEAKER_01]: and what happened to them?
31:28.056 --> 31:30.440
[SPEAKER_01]: Some mysteries aren't meant to be solved.
31:31.522 --> 31:32.824
[SPEAKER_01]: They're meant to be felt.
31:34.287 --> 31:40.939
[SPEAKER_01]: The lights are dimming the bunker door is closing, but the mysteries, they're just getting started.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Shane Waters, stake curious, stay skeptical.
31:46.108 --> 31:48.251
[SPEAKER_01]: And stay a little bit scared.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Good night, friend.
