01x08 - File: Floating Feet of Salish Sea

[bunniefuu]

[waves rolling]

[gentle classical music plays]

[man] In 2016, we were at Botanical Beach.

We came on to the beach,

and we were just gonna walk the beach

and do some beachcombing.

You never know what you're gonna find

when you're out beachcombing.

So usually the first thing that I do

is hop up on the logs and look

in between the logs for artifacts.

And, um, just not more

than a couple of minutes into our walk,

just happened to notice a shoe.

And found a stick

and just picked the shoe up

and put it onto the beach

and looked, and noticed

that it actually had human remains in it.

[menacing pulsing music plays]

I mean, you go beachcombing,

you find shoes or gloves or jackets.

You're not really anticipating

finding something

with someone's foot in it.

So, I found a lid to a tote,

and I just put it on that,

and took it up to the truck,

and drove to the pub,

where there's phone service.

And then, uh, we called the police.

Authorities asked us where we were

- Where it was found.

- Um, where it was found.

And then asked us to wait.

We waited for them to show up.

And then they took the shoe

and asked me a bunch of questions.

About two weeks later,

they sort of gave me an update

that they had found another shoe.

Yeah, I think we were the eleventh shoe.

And then you never heard anything else

about it until the next one was found.

We heard about these feet, these shoes,

washing up on the beach in the news.

A bizarre, long-running mystery

has deepened a bit more

with the discovery of another human foot

washed up on Canada's Pacific Coast.

Police say in most of the cases

foul play, though, is not suspected.

Nothin' to see here,

nothin' to worry about.

I'm not sure

I feel so good about that theory.

[theme music plays]

[narrator] The Salish Sea runs

along the western coast

of Washington state and British Columbia.

It is a popular destination

for tourists and beachcombers,

those who search along shorelines

for driftwood, seashells,

and lost treasures.

But in 2007,

beachcombers began finding

more than they bargained for.

And news agencies started reporting

on grisly discoveries,

leaving experts stumped,

and questioning what could be causing

this curious phenomenon.

[ethereal music plays]

[man] Ladies and gentlemen,

the Salish Sea,

the site of the severed-feet mystery.

You can see the Gulf Islands,

which are off in the distance there.

And then the Fraser River over there

is running right up into the interior

of British Columbia.

You're also looking across there

towards Vancouver Island,

and then if you just move on down here,

you'll move into the San Juans,

which are in Washington state,

and those are also the islands

where feet came ashore.

And then if you f move

further on down there,

you'll come to Puget Sound

where Seattle is,

and then we're into the American part

of this mystery.

I'm a Canadian criminal trial lawyer.

[tense classical music plays]

But And then I wrote a novel,

and the success of that novel

allowed me to retire

from the practice of law.

When the feet came on the shores,

it paralleled my book Death's Door.

In Death's Door,

disarticulated bodies are found

on the shores of the Gulf Islands

in the Salish Sea.

Is fiction stranger than reality

or reality stranger than fiction?

The first foot came ashore

on August the 20th, 2007,

and it was a man's right foot,

size-12 runner.

The second one came ashore

just six days later,

and it was a man's right foot,

12-size runner.

When the third came ashore

in February the 8th, 2008,

it was a man's right foot, size-11.

And then when the fourth one came

May the 22nd of 2008,

it was a woman's left foot in a runner,

and then on June the 16th, 2008,

a man's left foot in a runner.

So, the five feet all within a year

is what blew the story

into, uh, international proportions.

And over the years,

21 feet have come ashore,

15 of them in Canada,

six in the United States.

And then there hasn't been anything

since 2019 going on.

[man] On the Salish Sea,

the winds are going to eventually blow

whatever is floating towards a beach.

[moody classical music plays]

I'm a professor

in the School of Oceanography

at the University of Washington

in Seattle.

There have been

a surprisingly large number

of feet in sneakers that have been found

on the beaches in this area

in the last, uh, decade or more.

Was it never happening in the past?

I don't know.

Certainly the design of sneakers

has changed in recent decades.

Sneakers these days tend to be bulkier,

with more and more foam,

and they float really well.

Because the feet were enclosed

within those running shoes,

they're not staying

at the bottom of the ocean.

[narrator] While evidence may suggest

how these human remains washed ashore,

it doesn't explain why those feet

were in the water to begin with.

[Michael] Forensic analysts

were DNA testing on all of the feet.

The DNA testing would then go

to determine who the victims were,

but you can never get away from the fact

that it's only happening here

at this particular time.

[intriguing music plays]

The unexplained mystery put the hook

through the media's cheek.

They were trying to monitor

to see whether there's something

which they could feed off of themselves.

As you can imagine,

everybody is speculating

about, "Why are these feet

washing ashore at this particular time,

in such a tight area,

in such a tight timeframe?"

[narrator] And on the Internet,

people wildly share their theories,

with speculation ranging

from the supernatural

to more tangible dangers.

[man] I mean, there's lots

of different scenarios.

I commercial fished here lots,

and we don't have too many big sharks,

enough to do that, that I know of.

And I've never heard anybody

really getting attacked by a k*ller whale,

but I'm sure it's possible.

[narrator] In 2015, 59 shark attacks

were reported in the United States,

the highest year on record.

However, shark attacks near Canada

are extremely rare.

And despite making global headlines

in 2023 for sinking boats,

orcas in the Salish Sea have only

been seen attacking other marine life.

But could there be another predator

lurking beneath the surface?

[gentle melancholy music plays]

[Sylvie] I've been coming

to this beach for 50 years.

It was in December,

so it was a kind of a cloudy day.

I thought it was

a little more quiet than usual.

After walking along the ocean

for about half an hour or so,

I decided to sit here

and have a rest with my three dogs.

I tried to throw something

in the water for my big dog,

who loves to jump in,

and she didn't wanna go.

Um, in fact,

they kind of came behind me here.

[musical arrangement turns suspenseful]

Then I I saw something coming out,

like a head.

I still kind of believe it was a

Like, the head of a huge sea lion.

But the rest of the body was too narrow

to be a sea lion or a seal.

The best way I can describe it,

it was, like, snake-like.

So, there'd be a bump and then the water,

and then another bump,

and then the water, and another bump.

It kind of started moving,

the head went sideways,

one way and the other,

and it kind of looked toward me here.

And I started having

a little bit of shivers,

and thought, "What the heck is this?"

[narrator] Regional lore

contains similar sightings

which have baffled seafarers

and locals for centuries.

According to Indigenous peoples,

sea serpents once lived in the Salish Sea,

surpassing orcas in strength and speed.

And some believe they still exist today,

with 235 alleged sightings reported

between 1880 and 2010.

I'm John Kirk.

I'm the chairman of the British Columbia

Scientific Cryptozoology Club.

[gentle music plays]

And a retired member

of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,

with about 19 years' service.

So, I have investigations in my blood.

If you don't think that there are

strange things in the ocean,

then you don't know

what you're talking about.

If we've only explored

about 6% of the oceans,

there's another 94%

that needs to be investigated.

The BC Scientific Cryptozoology Club

was founded by, uh, Jim Clark

and Paul LeBlond.

[Sylvie] Paul LeBlond is, uh

was a friend of mine and a neighbor.

I've known Paul for many years,

and he's also a cryptozoologist.

I don't believe in sea monsters,

I don't believe in sea snakes.

But then I thought, "Mmm!

Do I ever have a story for Paul today,

to tell him when I get home."

"Crypto" actually means "hidden"

in the Greek language,

and so this is hidden zoology.

Animals that are hidden from the catalog,

from identification.

And in recent years,

it's been looped

in there with the paranormal.

It's been looped in there

with "monster hunters."

We wanted to investigate animals

that were as yet uncatalogued

and unidentified by science,

particularly in the Salish Sea.

Prior to the modern era,

there is a rich vein of knowledge

in regard to sea serpents

among our First Nations.

[narrator] The First Nations people

who lived along the coastline

relied on the sea for their livelihood,

and have described seeing a sea creature

that wriggled from side to side.

[John] It actually had a name.

She was called Haietlik.

It is rich in their tradition,

and plenty of First Nations people

have seen a physical animal.

There are depictions of it

all over the place in BC art.

And there are carvings of this animal

on the prows of canoes, on drums.

Some of them were being seen there

not only by the natives,

but also by the European settlers

who had encroached into that area.

[narrator] But more recent

sea-serpent sightings

have been associated

with the name cadborosaurus.

[John] The whole cadborosaurus story

begins around the 1800s

off the coast of BC.

There were a number of of reports

from ships traveling through the area

of having seen sea serpents

and what have you.

And I'm gonna refer to cadborosaurus

as the animal that was pulled out

of the stomach of a sperm whale

at Naden Harbor in July of 1937

by whale flensers.

So, we do have a couple of photographs

that are mystifying, to say the least.

They actually sent it down

to the whaling company's head office,

I believe it was,

in, uh, Bellevue, Washington.

And The Bellevue American newspaper,

uh, was wise enough

to send a reporter there.

And he said, "This mystifies me."

"I don't know

what the blue blazes this thing is."

This is the creature,

with a camel-like head,

the mane on the back of the neck,

it's got a long serpentine body.

Here's another one of it,

uh, of the creature, in color.

Very similar perspective.

This creature's, uh, body

is covered in hair.

It's not green skin as it were here,

but anatomically this is correct.

And so is this one here,

which is a depiction of the flexibility

of the body of a cadborosaurus.

'Cause people say they've seen it

in loops, coils, and humps.

[intriguing music plays]

Perhaps there is such a thing

as a sea snake or sea monster or

What do they call them?

A cado-something. Whatever, I don't know.

I just saw this thing. I describe it.

Could be something real,

could be something

my imagination added up with these bumps.

Who knows?

I don't know.

It was just a bit odd.

[John] We live

in a pretty freaky place up here.

My first encounter

with the subject of, um, missing feet

was in, uh, 2010, thereabouts,

because I worked

for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

There's mass speculation out there.

I've seen stuff there that says,

"Well, these feet are washing up

because cadborosaurus attacked

and k*lled people."

There isn't one single case

of a cadborosaurus

where they've attacked a human being

and ripped them to shreds

in the way that, uh, one would have to do

for feet to come floating into the shore.

Oh, I would love

there to be these creatures.

I'd love there to be

S Sasquatch and Yeti, etc.

But, uh, whether or not,

uh, they were involved

in the Salish feet case,

I'll stick to human monsters.

[narrator] While some speculation

could be the result

of overactive imaginations,

other theories are grounded

around real monsters that walk among us.

[haunting music plays]

[Michael] Every time

that a new foot comes ashore,

you have to start thinking about,

"Why is this happening?"

How do you explain

the fact that it's only happening here?

Crime linkage allows you to look

at all the aspects of a case

and find which victims

are being k*lled by the same k*ller.

You plot those victims,

which are all similar, on a map.

We're dealing with feet here.

It narrows down the base

from which the k*ller is moving.

[narrator] And one famous serial k*ller

was identified by online sleuths and media

as being behind the phenomena.

[brooding music plays]

[Michael] There was a serial k*ller,

Robert "Willy" Pickton,

who was hunting for sex workers

in Vancouver in the late 1990s.

A psychopathic pig farmer

was coming into Vancouver

and hunting victims on the stroll.

And then he was taking them out

several miles away to his pig farm,

and there, he was k*lling them,

he was grinding them up,

he was feeding them to his pigs.

News programs were talking about it.

[reporter] Other gruesome details

revealed DNA of the m*rder*d women

found in processed meat on his farm.

He was arrested in February of 2002,

and Pickton was ultimately convicted.

A victim count Well, he confessed to 49.

He was quite upset

that he couldn't get

the round number of 50

before he was, uh, caught.

[narrator] Pickton's farm was located

less than two miles from the Pitt River,

which eventually flows

into the Salish Sea.

[Michael] It's almost impossible

for this number of people to disappear

without there being a serial k*ller.

So, that's why,

when the feet came along

in this particular area,

that had to raise the question

of whether there is

a serial k*ller on the loose.

Both cases have got a statistical anomaly,

so there is the attraction

to wondering whether he was the suspect.

[narrator] However,

Pickton targeted women,

and the feet that were found

belonged to both men and women.

And later victims went missing

long after Pickton was imprisoned,

leaving some to speculate

that an unknown serial k*ller

could be to blame.

So, it was a viable theory

at the time it was posed,

and I, uh, was called

into the radio station

to give my theory on it

because I'm a criminal lawyer,

I can talk about serial K*llers,

I'm located physically out there,

and I've written a novel

which foresaw these particular crimes.

Now, you also have to consider

whether or not

this could be a serial k*ller,

somebody who right now

is underneath the radar.

But with every case,

which is beginning to to take

on the elements of a serial k*lling,

is that you want to get input

from forensic experts

to help you solve it.

[gentle curious music plays]

[woman] I'm co-director

of the Center for Forensic Research,

where we are right now.

I was contacted by the BC Coroners Service

and was asked

to, uh, investigate several of the cases.

I was doing experiments

here off the coast,

putting pig carcasses

as proxies for humans,

uh, in the water,

and film to see

what would happen to the bodies.

When we get a higher level of oxygen,

bodies in those situations

could last weeks

or even, in some situations, months.

Then we went into the Salish Sea,

and there you've got normal oxygen levels.

And there we found

the the carcasses were skeletonized

between three and four days.

Animals came in

that skeletonize the bodies.

I'm sure you've all seen a an X-ray

of a hand and and a wrist,

and the feet are very similar.

There's a million little bones in there,

tons of little bones.

So, once you get rid

of all the the skin and the muscle

and the sinews and stuff here,

all you're gonna get left with

is a bunch of little bones,

and they will separate.

[Michael] So,

underneath the water's surface,

the bodies are decomposing,

and the feet are coming loose.

[Gail] It's a natural phenomenon.

Whereas "severed" certainly suggests

that somebody has actively done that,

but there was no sign of any cut marks.

I think the media loves

the idea of severed feet

because it sounds dramatic and and scary

that somebody's going round

cutting off people's feet.

So the pathologists

in the BC Coroners Service

made it very clear,

to try and quell people's fears,

I suppose,

that the the feet

had been naturally disarticulated

and there was no sign of any cut marks.

My understanding

from the BC Coroners Service

is that most of the feet

that have washed up,

certainly on the Canadian shores,

once identified,

were either accidental deaths

or suicide deaths.

[narrator] Of the 21 feet that were found,

more than half have been identified.

[Michael] Some were fishermen.

It could be a nautical accident.

And we know that there are

some people who were depressed.

And we know at least one person

jumped off a bridge here.

So if you jump off a bridge into the water

and you're wearing a running shoe,

eventually that will, uh, disarticulate.

[narrator] And according to the media,

the Royal Canadian Mounted Police maintain

there is no foot-severing k*ller

on the loose.

[woman on radio] These were all

either accidental

or unfortunate suicide deaths,

all of them.

[narrator] Still, it's impossible

to rule out foul play

when only the remains of feet

have been left behind.

[Gail] We haven't heard that there could

be any connection between the people,

but some, of course, are unknown.

If all you've got is the foot

and you don't know who it is,

you have no idea.

You can say that the foot was not cut off,

but why would it be if it's a homicide?

I mean, that's not exactly a a site

somebody would have damage at.

I mean, you could easily have any kind

of an injury to the rest of the body

that doesn't impact the feet.

You have no idea

what happened before they died.

If you keep saying the same thing,

that there is no human intervention here,

you begin to lose credibility

with each new foot.

[narrator] So if a lone criminal

wasn't involved,

perhaps a group

of dangerous criminals were.

In 2007, when the mystery first began,

the National Drug Intelligence Center

reported that drug-related crime

had risen 156%

near the US-Canada border,

particularly near the Salish Sea,

prompting many on the Internet

and in the media to wonder

if some of the feet

belonged to victims of g*ng violence.

[Michael] There have always

been criminal gangs here,

and there are new gangs

comin' all the time,

and there are new drugs

coming into the market.

And when the drug deal goes wrong

and, uh, someone gets k*lled,

and if you're going to get rid of a body,

what better place to get rid of it

than the Salish Sea?

[ominous tone plays]

[bittersweet piano music plays]

[woman] Antonio Neill's my only son.

Tony was 22 years old

when he went missing in North Everett,

very close to the Snohomish River.

He was a happy kid, very lively.

He liked to play sports and skateboard

and snowboard and play guitar.

He had a solid group of friends

that weren't doin' bad stuff,

but then he had a second group of friends

that got into harder drugs.

He would go day-drinking.

Like, he'd skip school.

They'd go, you know, drink and stuff.

After that, he had got into harder drugs

like heroin and meth.

When he was using the harder drugs,

I don't think he knew, really,

what he was doing.

So, Antonio, you know,

in in his struggles,

he went to jail for using drugs.

The day that he got out,

I picked him up from the bus stop

and spent all day together.

Got his hair cut.

Then it came, you know,

to the evening time,

and we're like, "Where are you gonna go?"

And he was using my phone,

um, to Facebook-message friends,

and he got ahold of one of his friends.

And Antonio, um, asked,

"Hey," you know, "Can I stay with you?"

And he's like, "Oh, yeah, sure."

So, he came to our house,

and he was driving,

like, a black Jeep Cherokee.

I was like, "Well, this shouldn't

be that bad of a situation."

So, you know,

I hugged and kissed my son goodbye.

The next morning, I got a call

from my best friend, Jessica.

Antonio's friend would reach out to her

because he used to date her daughter,

and so they had a relationship already.

So he reached out to her and told her

that Antonio had assaulted him,

and now he's in the hospital

getting treatment.

I'm freakin' out.

I thought, you know,

perhaps Antonio relapsed

and took some really bad drugs

and didn't know what he was doing.

But he had been clean

for the whole month in jail,

and so he didn't have an opportunity

to be on up for days

on methamphetamines and, you know

So it was really weird to me.

But Antonio's friend did go

into the hospital with a wound.

So, I am searching, driving around.

I'm looking for my son.

I didn't know where he was,

and he hadn't talked to me.

He knows my number,

he knows where we live.

He would've came home,

he would've messaged me,

so I'm freakin' out.

A week goes by,

I'm still freakin' out. I'm thinkin',

"Well, maybe he's hiding out,

maybe he really did do this,

maybe he's afraid to contact me."

So I called the police,

and I reported him missing.

[siren wails]

[mellow music plays]

[man] The drug issue right now in Everett,

it's a huge problem.

Drugs have always been around, obviously,

but it's gone from like meth, cocaine,

heroin, and right now fentanyl.

I was the acting supervisor

of the Major Crimes Unit,

and I read a report about a missing person

that was handled by our patrol units

on the 28th of December of 2016.

They were contacted

by a mother of a missing individual,

Jenny Neill.

And the missing person was Antonio Neill.

There wasn't a whole lot of information,

except the last time that she saw her son,

uh, was on December 12th of 2016.

Antonio was with his friend,

who resided at a house in Everett

and went to a local hospital

to be treated for some stab wounds.

And so, as I dug into that,

found out that he had accused

Antonio of stabbing him,

but he was uncooperative

with law enforcement.

That was interesting to me

in the sense that, well,

it was the day before

that Jenny last saw her son,

and I've learned that house

had individuals that lived there

that were involved in the drug world.

And you can speculate

on what was goin' on.

It was very clear that Antonio

associated himself with people

that maybe weren't

good people to be around.

So, obviously that caused us some concern,

and we really needed to look into it.

[Jenny] I actually talked

to Antonio's friend, and he's like,

"Don't worry, Jenny."

You know, "I'll find him."

But he refused to talk to police.

And he started

giving away Antonio's things and stuff,

instead of giving 'em back to me.

So, Detective Walvatne went

into starting to question people.

But throughout that time

when Antonio was missing,

we've had people say,

"Oh, we we think we've seen Antonio."

And then, probably,

a few more weeks, in mid-January,

I got a Facebook message

by one of the roommates at that house

saying that they had kicked

Antonio's friend outta the house,

and while they were cleaning his room,

they saw that there was blood

all over the room.

[Brad] That same roommate told me

that Antonio's friend

had made a comment to him,

saying, "Well, Antonio stabbed you,

go kick his a*s."

[menacing music plays]

You know, "Go beat him up."

And according to the roommate,

Antonio's friend's response

was, "I took care of it."

With that information,

Everett Police Department

went out to the residence.

Uh, they were able to confirm

that they observed

what they believed to be blood

inside the residence,

and there was

some blood located on a mattress,

but nothing came back

or matched Antonio's DNA.

[somber music plays]

[narrator] Without conclusive evidence,

the Everett Police Department closed

the homicide investigation,

and the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office

continued investigating

Antonio's missing-person case.

We were workin' on this case

for a good two and a half years,

and we always had a belief

that somethin' suspicious

happened to Antonio.

[Jenny] You feel when your son's

not with you anymore, honestly.

So, it it it was a a vibe

I couldn't kick.

It was a, um

It was a real feeling in my stomach.

[Brad] On January 1st of 2019,

a gentleman was out on, uh, Jetty Island,

which is a location here in Everett.

Um, it's very popular in the summer time.

Uh, people go out and enjoy,

um, the water, uh, the beach.

Well, this, uh, individual was out

for a walk, just beachcombing,

and he came across a boot.

The Timberland boot, um, contained a sock.

[shutter clicks]

Bones from a foot, a right foot,

some tissue and toenails.

[Jenny] Detective Walvatne sent me

a picture of the boot,

a and I knew immediately

that was Antonio's boot.

[Brad] When I talked to Jenny, um,

I found out that Antonio was last seen

wearing a pair of Timberland boots.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't even speak.

I knew it was my son's boot.

One toenail was sent

off to our lab here in Marysville

for DNA testing.

And when they did the DNA examination,

it showed to, uh, belong to Antonio.

- I haven't seen you in a while.

- [Jenny] I know.

- Thank you for taking me out here.

- How you doing? You're welcome.

[Jenny] Mmm.

[Brad] So we're gonna

just gonna walk through the trail here,

and we're gonna get over

to the northwest corner of Jetty Island.

I'll show you

where, uh, the boot was found.

So how you been doing?

[Jenny sighs] It's a struggle every day.

Honestly, I'm like,

constantly lurking on Facebook

at people that I feel that was involved,

and seeing what they're up to,

seeing if there's anything new,

or comments, or someone slipping.

[tender music plays]

[Brad] When you are dealing with any kind

of body part that's found in water,

the process of, uh, decomposition

makes it very difficult.

You know, there was no evidence

on the foot that would support foul play,

but that doesn't mean anything.

We need somebody to come forward.

- We need somebody to say something.

- [Jenny] Yeah.

[Brad] Um, you know,

it's just it's a difficult case.

- I

- I don't know. [sniffles]

This is hard, dude. It's weird.

I'm so [sighs]

stumped on how it got way over here.

[Brad] It just shows you

just, kind of, the waters in here.

- [Jenny] The tides.

- The tides are strong.

- You know?

- [Jenny] Yeah.

It's insane that somebody

would actually pick up

just some random item on the beach.

I'm just so grateful [chuckles]

that they were curious enough

to actually look at that boot.

[Brad] Okay. So, I think it's right

right in this right in this area.

Right in here, actually.

[Jenny] Okay.

And you can see S

off in the distance there,

that's gonna be near

the entrance to the Snohomish River.

[Jenny] Wow.

I can't believe this.

It's so peaceful. [laughs]

- At least. [laughs]

- It is.

[Jenny sniffles]

- I mean, it's beautiful out here.

- [sighs] Yeah.

Yeah. Poor kid.

- I'm sorry.

- f*ck. I know.

[chuckles] What a day.

- I wish I could do more.

- I know.

We do what we can when things come up.

Thank you so much

for bringing me out here.

- You're welcome. Yeah.

- 'Cause I'm I'm so grateful.

[Brad] We just need somebody

that we can, you know, talk to

that wants to come forward,

and give us some information

that we can work with.

[Jenny] I won't stop until we solve this

and somebody, you know, is accountable

for what happened to Antonio.

[Gail] It's incredibly difficult

on families.

I can't begin to imagine

how terrible it is,

not just to lose somebody,

but to not know what happened.

But dealing with, uh,

the many cases I've dealt with, I know

even when a body is found,

in some cases, there's a relief there.

I know it's a terribly overused word,

but s some form of closure.

[melancholy music plays]

[Brad] I think anything's possible.

The case will always remain open.

I hope that we can, you know,

figure out what happened.

We'll never give up.

[Michael] I can understand why the mother

would want to have that investigation.

I would also want to have that looked at

before I would accept

that it was just something else,

he had an accident

or it was suicide, or or etc.

[Parker] I am pretty sure

that if people found What is it?

over 20 feet since 2007,

that will probably continue

into the future.

I see no reason why that would change.

[Michael] As a defense lawyer,

I come up

with all the theories I possibly can

as to why feet are washing up.

In the end, what we're left with

is the statistical improbability

of 21 feet being found

in this limited area,

in a limited time.

You can't just sweep it under the carpet

because it's, uh, inconvenient,

and just pretend this is all natural.

Something is going on here.

[narrator] The mystery as to why

dismembered feet wash up

along the Salish Sea endures,

and the families continue

to seek answers about their loved ones.

But will the truth ever be found?

[Jenny] I won't stop.

[somber ethereal music plays]