Alligators Spotted Eating Human Body in Florida

But police say they weren't the killers

By Michael Harthorne, Newser Staff

Posted May 31, 2016 12:46 PM CDT

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Alligators Spotted Eating Human Body in Florida — A couple of alligators, like these seen earlier this month in Louisiana, were discovered making a meal of a human body Monday in the Florida Everglades. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Fishermen at the edge of the Florida Everglades made a horrifying discovery Monday: two alligators eating away at a human body, the Sun Sentinel reports. After the alligators were scared off, divers recovered the body while officers stood guard with AR-15 rifles. According to CBS Miami, the body was largely intact, but it appeared to have spent a few days in the water.

Police were not able to immediately determine a gender or race, but tell the Sun Sentinel the alligators found the body, but did not kill the person. “What happened to them?" CBS quotes a police sergeant as saying. "How did they end up here? Could it be a homicide, could it be a suicide, could it be natural, a fisherman? We don’t know.” (Man-eating crocodiles were recently discovered in Florida). Elsewhere in the state, an absolutely massive alligator was caught on video trundling across a golf course. (Read more alligator stories.)