Human remains found in alligator's jaws in Houston after woman goes missing

Authorities in Texas are investigating after human remains were found in the jaws of an alligator as officers searched the area for a missing woman. The gruesome discovery in Houston comes less than a year after a woman's body was found in the mouth of an alligator in Florida.

“Patrol officers located the remains of a woman in the jaws of an alligator in Horsepen Bayou… while searching the area for a missing woman,” Houston police said Wednesday in a press release.

A sergeant shot the alligator “to prevent it from causing further damage to the remains,” officials said. A dive team later recovered the woman's body and a dead alligator from the bayou, police said.

Police said the husband of the victim, an unnamed woman in her 60s, reported her missing early Tuesday morning, CBS affiliate KHOU-TV reported. He told police she went for a walk around 7:30 p.m. Monday and never returned.

Police are awaiting autopsy results to determine the woman's cause of death.

“(The alligators) live there. We see 8-foot, 10-foot babies. I know which banks to stay away from and where they like to lay in the sun,” said local resident Angela Derous. , at KTRK-TV. “This is the first time I've heard of this here. It's a little scary.”

Woman's death comes about eight months after body of 41-year-old woman was found spotted in the jaws of a 13-foot alligator in Largo, Florida. Last February, an 85-year-old woman was killed by a 10 foot alligator walking your dog in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Alligator attacks are rare in Texas, although earlier this month a police officer in Cleveland, Texas, was bitten by a 10-foot alligator while trying to remove it from a road.

The last fatal alligator attack in the state occurred in 2015, when a A 28-year-old man was killed while swimming late at night in a southeast Texas marine.