Missing Man's Corpse Found Gnawed, Chomped In Crocodile-Infested Waters

The corpse of a man who was reported missing has been found gnawed and chomped on after being retrieved from the crocodile-infested waters of Sungai Matamba stream, Silabukan, Malaysia on Sunday, June 27, local authorities confirmed.

The 34-year-old man's corpse was initially discovered by local villagers late Sunday who proceeded to alert the fire and rescue station in Lahad Datu. The remains were fished out from the lake later that night.

Several body parts were reportedly missing from the corpse as it seemed crocodiles in the waterway had feasted on the body prior to it being found, The Borneo Post reported.

The fire and rescue team suspects that the gruesome discovery may be related to a report on Saturday, June 26, midnight that a boat had capsized in the nearby Matamba River, Lahad Datu Fire and Rescue Station Chief Sumsoa Rashid said.

The victim's capsized boat was reportedly found after the team from the station conducted a search mission along the Matamba River with the help of the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) and local villagers.

“The search area covered nearly 25 kilometers but the victim was nowhere to be found,” Rashid said.

The team from the station reportedly stopped the search operation on Sunday afternoon due to bad weather. Nevertheless, some villagers continued their search and contacted the station at dusk to inform them that the victim's corpse was finally found near the capsized boat.

The body has been handed over to the police for further investigation, authorities said.

In a similar but unrelated incident, an alligator reportedly halted a murder investigation at a Brazilian watercourse on June 3, after it dragged and made off with a dead man’s body.

The incident happened at the Arroio Fundo watercourse, in an area to the west of Rio de Janeiro, in early June. Police and firemen rushed to the waterway after reports that an unidentified man's corpse was seen floating along the river. However, when law enforcement reached the scene, the dead body was nowhere to be found, Latin Times reported.

Video footage that later emerged showed the unidentified man’s corpse floating on the surface of the body of water as an alligator swam around it. At one point in the recording, the reptile brushed its nose against the remains. The alligator reportedly later dragged the body to the bottom of the river.

The corpse was finally recovered around 24 hours later when firemen returned the next day to continue their search.

The recovered body was immediately taken to the Legal Medical Institute (IML) to undergo an official autopsy as part of their investigation into the mysterious death.