Man makes horrifying discovery inside gift-wrapped box on beach

Daily Mail​

8 hours ago

A Washington State man strolling along a sandy beach was left horrified after finding a neatly wrapped gift along the shore containing a severed, human toe.
Kevin Ewing, of Tacoma, was enjoying a Father's Day walk with his family along the beach at Dash Point State Park last month when he spotted a small box.
The item was carefully wrapped like a celebratory gift and resting near the park's property line, as reported by Federal Way Mirror.
Thinking it might be a prayer box or a mysterious message washed ashore, curiosity got the better of him - and he carefully opened the package.
But as he peeled back the cloth concealing the contents, he came face-to-face with a mutilated, decomposing human toe.
'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?"' Ewing told the outlet. 'Then once it dawned on me that that's what it was, I set everything down.'
'You know, it's just very creepy,' he added to KIRO News. 'It's like something you would see in a horror movie.'
The gruesome discovery shattered came after Ewing wandered ahead of his family, making his way toward the tide line as he searched the sand for feathers scattered along the packed sand, Federal Way Mirror reported.
He eventually reached the far edge of the park's property line, where his eyes fell upon the mysterious package that would turn an ordinary day into a once-in-a-lifetime ordeal.
'I found what looked like a little Christmas package in a little square box wrapped in green cloth and yellow string,' Ewing told KIRO.
Ewing, who proudly embraces his Native American heritage, sensed the box held a deeper, spiritual meaning - especially given the eerie timing of discovering a neatly wrapped gift on Father's Day itself, the Federal Way Mirror reported.
Carefully peeling back the green cloth, Ewing's eyes landed on a pale pine box, oddly sealed shut with tape, as if to keep its contents hidden and protected.
He then pulled out his pocket knife to cut through the tape, revealing a strange assortment of items inside - a feather, burnt grass, sage, lavender, tobacco and a rag concealing something mysterious.
Still, he had no idea that unwrapping the rag would reveal something far more shocking - so far, the items seemed unusual but somewhat familiar in traditional Native American practices.
'I set the box down on the ground, I believe, and I used my knife to pick the rag up and open it, and it was a severed human big toe that was in there,' Ewing told The Federal Way Mirror.
'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,' he added.
'You don't expect to find something like that every day, or any day, especially on Father's Day, when you're out with your family.'
Shocked, Ewing dropped everything to the ground and glanced around - only to spot a dead seagull lying eerily close to the box, another once-living creature that appeared to be mutilated.
Initially, Ewing assumed the severed toe belonged to the dead bird nearby - which appeared to have been skinned and killed unusually.
But a closer look shattered that illusion: the toe was unmistakably human.
'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?"' Ewing told KIRO.
He quickly snapped photos of the grim discovery, hurried back to his wife and together, they approached a park ranger to report what they had found.
Given the condition of the toe, Ewing couldn't shake the unsettling feeling that it was tied to something criminal - possibly even the remains of a murdered or missing person.
'Maybe there's somebody out there playing some kind of, you know, weird, weird and sick game,' he told KIRO.
Washington State Patrol (WSP) quickly arrived on the scene and launched an investigation into the disturbing discovery.
According to WSP Trooper Rick Johnson, an alert was sent to all law enforcement agencies to cross-reference any open cases that might be connected, as reported by the Federal Way Mirror.
The toe was turned over to the King County Medical Examiner's Office for DNA testing and identification.
In an incident report obtained by the outlet, the toe - which was found to be accompanied by another piece of organic matter - was believed to be about the size of an adult male's.
On Friday, Public Health - Seattle & King County revealed that the toe was found to have been medically amputated - meaning it had no relation to a death, as reported by KIRO 7 News.
No further investigation will be conducted by the King County Medical Examiner's Office, as the case is now closed shut.