By Oluwatosin Maliki
On Saturday, a 41 year old woman’s body was found lifeless, in the jaw of an alligator when it was killed and removed from a creek in the US State of Florida, according to officials.
It was gathered that the Police had responded to a report of a body seen in the creek in Largo, Florida, and that the 13-foot, 8.5-inch (4-meter) male alligator was “humanely killed” on Friday.
The body was identified by Officers on Saturday, but said “the manner and cause of death is pending,” and that the investigation was ongoing.
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An eyewitness, Jamarcus Bullard, had told US media that he saw a big alligator and a body in the creek, and ran to a nearby fire station to report it.
He stated, “I threw a rock at the gator, just to see if it was like really a gator,” Bullard told WFLA-TV, an NBC News affiliate, on Friday. “It pulled the body, like it was holding on to the lower part of the torso, and just pulled it under the water.”
Bullard said the alligator wrestled against authorities.
“They put a rope around its neck and put it on a pulley of a truck,” he said. “They were reeling it in, but it started to pull the truck into the water”.
“They got this long stick thing, pulled the head out of the water, then they shot it and once they reeled it all the way out, they stretched it out and measured it 13 feet long and they shot it again,” Bullard said.
Alligators are common in the southeast United States, especially in Florida.
In a similar event, in July, a 69-year-old woman was killed by an alligator near a lagoon in South Carolina, with police saying the animal guarded her body and kept rescuers back.