Two feet washed up on South Carolina beaches months apart. Now coroner has an ID
A right foot still inside a green and black running shoe was found off the coast of South Carolina last year. Five months later, county officials said, the left one surfaced in a different location.
Now officials believe they have positively identified the owner.
The feet belonged to 57-year-old Janet Robinson, who was last seen in August 2020, Charleston County Coroner Bobbi Jo O’Neal told reporters during a news conference broadcast by WCBD on Wednesday. O’Neal said it took months of “advanced level forensic science” using DNA testing to find an ID.
Robinson’s death remains under investigation. Law enforcement and family members are asking anyone who might have information to come forward.
“They’re very saddened to learn that their loved one — their sister and their daughter and their mom — is never coming home,” O’Neal said of the family. “But, at the same time, there’s comfort in at least knowing there’s an answer.”
Officials said Robinson had likely been dead for at least four weeks based on the condition of the first foot that was found. She was last seen in the Charleston area on Aug. 3, 2020.
Her right foot was found in a “green and black On Cloud sneaker-type shoe” near Fort Sumter on Oct. 25, O’Neal said. On Cloud is a popular brand of running shoes, and Fort Sumter is located on an island in the Charleston harbor.
The coroner’s office sent a DNA sample from the foot to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification in Fort Worth about a week after it was found. O’Neal said they hoped to receive a DNA profile that could be uploaded into CODIS, the FBI’s national DNA database.
Then, on March 17, Robinson’s left foot in the same style sneaker was found on James Island.
Citing a “huge backlog in forensic DNA,” O’Neal said the chief deputy coroner began researching ways they could do some genetic DNA testing. The coroner’s office subsequently sent a DNA sample to a company in Texas for a genealogical profile.
Within three months, O’Neal said, they had a match.
The lab compared the sample to databases where people voluntarily upload their DNA and found someone they believed to be a sibling. Officials in South Carolina then reached out to the person, who confirmed they submitted a consumer DNA test in January 2019 and had a biological sister living in Charleston who went missing.
That sister was identified as Robinson.
According to the coroner’s office, Robinson was from Mississippi but moved to the Charleston area to be close to family. Law enforcement believes she lived in the Goose Creek area for a time but had moved to Charleston when she disappeared.
O’Neal said Robinson had been discharged from a local hospital before she went missing.
The two feet did not appear to be injured, and O’Neal said they likely became separated from the body by “natural processes.”
Feet have been known to wash up in the Pacific Northwest on a somewhat regular basis — at least 15 have been found on the shore of Salish Sea, Vox reported. That’s because human bodies come apart at the joints in the water, and sneakers serve as a kind of flotation device that can be easily wash them to shore.
Law enforcement is hoping to find additional remains and relying on tips from the public to help solve what happened to Robinson.
“At this point we’re sort of stuck, ” O’Neal said.
Anyone with information is asked to call coroner’s officer at 843-746-4030 or Charleston County Sheriff’s Department.
This story was originally published October 6, 2021 at 3:45 PM with the headline "Two feet washed up on South Carolina beaches months apart. Now coroner has an ID."
