Human foot found in Yellowstone National Park

Officials say part of a human foot in a shoe was discovered in one of the park’s deepest hot springs on Tuesday (16 August).

A Yellowstone employee stumbled across a floating shoe in the Abyss Pool, located in the West Thumb Geyser Basin in Yellowstone’s southern area.

It’s thought the person involved likely ran into trouble on 31 July, with Yellowstone saying in a statement: “Evidence from the investigation thus far suggests that an incident involving one individual likely occurred on the morning of 31 July 2022, at Abyss Pool.”

A park spokesperson added: “Currently, the park believes there was no foul play.”

While it’s still unclear who the foot belongs to, Yellowstone suggested a death may have been linked to the foot, although this wasn’t confirmed.

The Abyss Pool is more than 50 feet deep and the pool’s average temperature is 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celcius).

The park’s statement continued: “Visitors are reminded to stay on boardwalks and trails in thermal areas and exercise extreme caution around thermal features.

“The ground in hydrothermal areas is fragile and thin, and there is scalding water just below the surface.”

After the foot was found, the West Thumb Geyser Basin and adjacent car park were closed to the public, but have since reopened. 

An investigation carried out by Yellowstone National Park law enforcement officers is ongoing.

UNILAD has approached Yellowstone National Park for further comment. 

Eerily, the park is home to what’s been dubbed ‘the zone of death’, a 50-mile stretch of land where you could – in theory – commit murder and get away with it.

While it mainly covers Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park also reaches into Montana and Idaho, which opens the 50-mile ‘zone of death’ stretch up to a legal loophole.

The loophole is all to do with the Sixth Amendment, which says juries in federal criminal cases have to be made up of people who are from the district and state where the crime was committed.

The ‘zone of death’ is in the state of Idaho and is uninhabited, but the US court for the district of Wyoming has jurisdiction over all of Yellowstone.

The gist of it is that if you committed murder in the ‘zone of death’, the US justice system would have to pick a jury from a place where nobody lives – an impossible task.

Since they could not legally form a jury to put you on trial, in theory, you could walk away scot-free should you try your hand at a bit of murdering.

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