Kevin Ewing: Horrified beachgoer finds human toe in gift-wrapped box
A beachgoer has made a gruesome discovery during a walk with his family, finding a severed human toe inside a gift-wrapped box.
Kevin Ewing was walking ahead of his wife and two young children at Dash Point State Park in Tacoma, Washington State when he found what he thought looked like a Christmas present.
Curious, he unwrapped the green cloth covering a pine box that had been sealed with tape only to discover it wasn’t a gift.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.Instead, inside wrapped in a rag was a human toe that appeared to have belonged to an adult man.
A bizarre assortment of other items also in the box added to the macabre mystery. The items have been identified as a feather, grass that had been burned, sage, lavender, tobacco.
“At first I was very shocked, and it took me a few minutes to kind of be like, ‘is this what I think it is?’ Then once it dawned on me that that’s what it was, I set everything down,” Mr Ewing told the Kent Reporter.
He revealed he had also seen a mutilated dead seagull near where he found the box, although he is not sure if they were linked.
Mr Ewing said he took pictures of the find and called the park ranger who then contacted police.
“You know, a lot of things are going through my head like, ‘Where is the rest of the body?’ Like, ‘Did this wash in from the tide, from the water? Did somebody leave this here intentionally to be found?’” Mr Ewing told 19News.
The items included in the box looked intentional, Mr Ewing said, but he wasn’t sure if it was related to some form of witchcraft or whether the toe belonged to a missing person or murder victim, or whether someone had cut off their own toe.
“Just very odd. The toe definitely did not look like it was amputated. It definitely didn’t look like a surgeon had taken it off. It didn’t look like a very clean medical cut.”
Washington State Patrol Trooper Rick Johnson said the toe was at the King County Medical Examiner’s Office and authorities were trying to cross reference its DNA with its databases.
