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A police investigation was launched in Largo, Florida after a witness spotted an alligator with human remains in its mouth and alerted the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.
Largo is located just across the bay from Tampa and is between Clearwater and St. Petersburg, and like all parts of Florida, it is home to a large number of alligators. However, due to being sandwiched between saltwater on both sides, Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, alligator activity in Largo is typically a bit less than parts of central Florida.
This is a heavily populated area of Florida and not that one would ever expect to find human remains in an alligator’s mouth, to have it happen in this region would have been particularly jarring.
According to reports, the witness called the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office on Friday afternoon after finding the alligator with a human torso in its mouth. The alligator was quickly “humanely” put down and an investigation was launched to determine the source of the human remains.
The witness, JaMarcus Bullard, told Spectrum Bay News 9 “I could tell there was a body in his mouth, so I started recording. I came down to the fire department and reported it to them.”
Another witness, Terri Williams, expressed shock that there was an alligator in this particular part of Florida. Williams told Bay News 9 “I would’ve never dreamt that an alligator would be in this area. Of course, I know there’s a lake across the street, and I know about the lake in Taylor Park, but not in this neighborhood. No, I would have never thought that.”
Victim Identified In Deadly Florida Alligator Attack
The victim was later identified as 41-year-old Sabrina Peckham. Her daughter, Breauna Dorris has since set up a GoFundMe to help fund the funeral for her mother.
In the GoFundMe, Sabrina Peckham’s daughter wrote “Sabrina lost her life suddenly after being attacked by a 13 foot alligator. Sabrina was loved by many and we expected many many more years with her. Our family is in shambles trying to cope with this kind of loss. Sabrina only being 41 and homeless at the time had no funeral or death arrangements set up.”
Caution must be exercised at all times in Florida when near waterways. Alligators are everywhere in the Sunshine State. FWC estimates there are 1.3 million (!!) in Florida. So it is important to keep your head on a swivel when near the water.
Fatal alligator attacks are also extremely rare in Florida even if it might not seem that way after this year. An 85-year-old woman died from an alligator attack in Florida back in February.
That led to an investigation by TC Palm which discovered “from 1948 to 2021, 442 unprovoked bite incidents have occurred in Florida. Twenty-six of the bites resulted in people being killed by wild alligators.” 1993 was the only year on record, until now, in which two Floridians died from alligator attacks.