Body of missing Texas woman found in alligator's mouth in Houston: police

US News

By Allie Griffin

The body believed to be that of a missing Texas woman was found Tuesday morning – in the mouth of an alligator, police said.

Houston police were searching an area near Horsepen Bayou in Clear Lake for a woman who had been reported missing when she came across the grisly scene around 8:40 a.m.

One of the officers shot the alligator while it was eating the woman's body to prevent it from further damaging her remains, the department said.

Houston police divers were called to the scene and removed the remains – of the woman believed to be in her 60s – as well as the reptile from the bayou.

An autopsy will determine the identity of the deceased as well as the cause of death, police said.

It is unclear whether the alligator killed the woman or was scavenging for her remains after she was already dead.

A forensic pathologist will try to determine this during the autopsy.

The Houston Homicide Division is investigating the woman's death.

The last fatal alligator attack in the Lone Star State was in 2015, when a 28-year-old man was attacked and killed while swimming. Before his death, there hadn't been a fatal alligator attack in more than 90 years, according to ABC 13.

A similar tragedy occurred in Florida last September when a 14-foot alligator was spotted walking down a residential street with a body in its jaws.

Officers pulled the beast out of a canal it had entered – still with its body clenched between its teeth – and shot it several times.

The remains were later identified as those of a 41-year-old Florida mother, Sabrina Peckham, who was homeless at the time of her death and living in a wooded area near the swampy canal.

A medical examiner later determined that Peckham was killed and partially eaten by the alligator.