St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office said an alligator weighing 504-pound believed to have taken the life of a 71-year-old man from Louisiana in Hurricane Ida floodwaters has been caught with what looks like human remnants in its stomach.
Alligator Caught by Hunters
The capturing of the 12-foot alligator ended a search of two weeks by local and state agencies for Timothy Satterlee Sr, who was seen last on the 30th of August observing the storm ruins outside his house in Slidell which is about 55 km (35 miles) northeast of New Orleans.
The incident took place the day following Ida, one of the most potent hurricanes that have ever impacted the U.S. Gulf Coast, slammed Louisiana, bringing about disastrous flooding in some regions outside a new embankment and floodgate system safeguarding New Orleans.
On Monday, an alligator that surprisingly weighs 504 pounds was captured in a trap that two Louisiana Department of Wildlife licensed nuisance hunters set, as per a statement from St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office.
The sheriff's office said: "Once the alligator was searched, it was discovered to have what appears to be human remains inside its stomach. Investigators will work with the St. Tammany Parish Coroner's Office to verify those remains belong to Timothy Satterlee."
Sighting the Alligator
On Saturday, Wildlife agents were cleaning the section in air boats when a deployed drone sighted a very large alligator close to Satterlee's home, said a spokesperson for the sheriff's office named Captain Lance Vitter.
The agents placed traps, which proved victorious on Monday. The agents euthanized the alligator and then cut it open, "that's when they discovered the body parts. It was the upper parts of a human body," Vitter said.
Satterlee home is close to an area often visited by tourists who comes to the place for swamp tours promising alligators sightings with other wildlife, Vitter said. Alligators hardly maul humans except the food they have stored is no longer in its former position and this can happen during severe storms, he said.
How it Happened
The wife of Satterlee sighted a large alligator maul her husband after he went outside their raised house to examine the contents of their ground-level shed.
The alligator had the man in a "death roll" and had separated one of his arms from his body, Vitter said, narrating the statement of the victim's wife to authorities. The alligator vanished into the water after the victim's 68-year-old wife got involved.
When blood gushed out and he started to black out, Satterlee told her to use their small boat and search for help, Vitter said. It would have not been easy for the wife to carry the victim into the boat if he didn't help and without the boat tipping over, Vitter added. She left the man on their stairs to search for help.
About one mile away, the wife got help and went back when she saw her husband was not on the stairs any longer, Vitter said. "She just never thought in her wildest nightmares that she would get back and he'd be gone."
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