In 'Horrible Incident,' Woman Falls Into Croc Pit

Woman killed at Indonesian pearl farm where reptile was illegally kept
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 17, 2019 10:15 AM CST
Woman Killed by Farm Owner's 14-Foot-Long 'Pet'
A Nile crocodile is pictured at a South African game reserve.   (Wikimedia/Sharp Photography)

"Merry" doesn't really seem like an appropriate name for a giant pet crocodile, and markedly less so after it mauled a woman to death. Deasy Tuwo—who ran a lab at a pearl farm in Minahasa, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, where the crocodile was illegally kept—was feeding the 1,500-pound reptile on Jan. 10 when she is believed to have fallen eight feet into its enclosure, the BBC reports, citing conservation officials. The crocodile reportedly consumed the 44-year-old's arm and most of her abdomen in an attack that went unnoticed until colleagues at CV Yosiki Laboratory spotted Tuwo's body a day later.

"When we looked at the crocodile pool, there was a floating object, it was Deasy's body," a colleague says, per the Independent. The 14-foot-long crocodile was sedated and moved to a conservation site on Monday, per AFP. A search is now on for the Japanese owner of the croc and farm. "The owner must acknowledge this horrible incident … but we have neither seen him nor know where he is," the local police chief says, per USA Today. A relative, meanwhile, shared a scene from Tuwo's funeral. (Police say a Florida man was bit when he voluntarily swam with crocs.)

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