Severed foot found in Sweden, 'too early' to say about links to B.C. finds

A man's shoe containing a human foot was found Tuesday on the seashore in southern Sweden but local authorities say it's too soon to say if there's any link to the five severed feet found along the southern B.C. coast since August 2007.

Police in the Swedish resort town of Halmstad, about 500 kilometres southwest of Stockholm, said lifeguards spotted a shoe bobbing upside down in the surf a day earlier and decided to turn it over with a stick on Tuesday afternoon.

"They had seen the shoe yesterday, sploshing around at the water's edge," said Joakim Sjolander, spokesman for regional police.

The foot has been sent to a local laboratory for forensic tests. DNA samples are to be compared to genetic records from people who have gone missing in the area, said Sjölander.

"We do not currently suspect a crime has been committed," he added.

He added that it was "far too early" to talk of a link between the foot in Halmstad and five feet that floated ashore on Canada's Pacific coast.

The first two feet washed up last August on B.C.'s Gabriola and Jedediah islands in the Strait of Georgia. The third foot was found in February on nearby Valdes Island, the fourth in late May on Kirkland Island in the mouth of the Fraser River and the fifth foot in June on Westham Island, also in the Fraser River.

A sixth appendage found near Campbell River, B.C., in June was found to be an animal's foot, apparently stuffed into a shoe by pranksters.

Investigators say they have not yet determined where the feet might have come from, nor have they been linked to any missing people in B.C.

Theories on the origin of the floating feet range from remnants of decomposed bodies of people who've fallen off ships to parts of victims of the 2004 tsunami borne on Pacific currents to Canada's coasts, a serial killer or killers who dump their prey at sea and bored or mischievous people with access to cadaver parts running an elaborate hoax.