Alligators Apparently Kill 2 More

The bodies of two women, both apparently killed by alligators, were found Sunday less than a week after a similar death in a state that had seen just 17 confirmed fatal attacks by the animals in the previous 57 years.

A 23-year-old woman was attacked at a recreation area near a spring that feeds into Lake George, said Marion County Fire-Rescue Capt. Joe Amigliore. The lake is about 50 miles southeast of Gainesville.

“The people she was staying with came around and found her inside the gator’s mouth,” Amigliore said. “They jumped into the water and somehow pulled her out of the gator’s mouth.”

The woman, whose name was not released, was dead at the scene.

Her stepfather, who tried to help her, was treated for a hand injury, Amigliore said.

In Pinellas County, a 43-year-old woman’s body was found early Sunday in a canal 20 miles north of St. Petersburg, also apparently an alligator victim, authorities said.

The body of Dunedin resident Judy W. Cooper had been in the water for about three days, authorities said.

Animal bites consistent with an alligator “did play some part in the victim’s death,” a preliminary autopsy said. The medical examiner’s final report will not be released for at least four weeks, the sheriff’s office said.

“We don’t know the condition she was in when this happened,” said state wildlife spokesman Gary Morse.

It was not immediately known why she was in the area, where wildlife officials said alligators are frequently spotted.

Authorities were baiting traps for both gators Sunday.

On Wednesday, construction workers found the dismembered body of a Florida Atlantic University student, 28-year-old Yovy Suarez Jimenez, in a canal near Fort Lauderdale. A medical examiner concluded she was attacked near the canal bank and dragged into the water. On Saturday, wildlife officers captured the 9-foot-2 alligator that killed the jogger in Sunrise.

The student’s death was the 18th confirmed fatal alligator attack in Florida since 1948.

Nine other deaths are unconfirmed, mainly because it is not clear whether the person was already dead when the alligator attacked.