A search team in South Florida discovered the body of a local woman Friday evening hours after her arm was found inside an alligator pulled from a lake near the park where she was last seen.
The remains of Shizuka Matsuki, 46, were found just before 10 p.m. Friday at the Silver Lakes Rotary Nature Park in Davie, near Fort Lauderdale, the local ABC affiliate reported.
Matsuki went missing about 12 hours earlier, and police began to fear that she had been grabbed by an alligator upon finding a fresh wound on one of the two dogs she was walking when she vanished.
“Her dogs won’t leave the pond,” Davie Police Maj. Dale Engle told the Sun Sentinel at the start of Friday’s search. “One of her dogs got bit by the gator.”
Officials announced in the interim that Matsuki was presumed dead after a professional gator wrangler contracted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission detected a grim discovery during the course of their search.
“A 12-foot, 6-inch alligator was removed from the lake by an FWC contracted trapper,” the commission said in a statement sent at 5 p.m. Friday. “After an initial necropsy, evidence was found that indicates that the victim of this incident was bitten by the alligator that was captured earlier today.”
According to WCVN, the evidence recovered from the alligator was a woman’s arm later identified as Matsuki’s by a distinctive tattoo. Authorities found the rest of her remains nearby several hours later.
“This tragedy is heartbreaking for everyone involved, and our sincere condolences go out to the family and friends of the victim at this time,” the FCW said in a statement.
The chances of being seriously injured during an unprovoked gator incident within the state of Florida are about one in 3.2 million, according to FWC statistics cited by the ABC affiliate. The commission is aware of 401 people bitten between 1948 and 2017, including 27 killed, the report said.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.