Locals Discover Remains Of Boy After Crocodile Beheads Him In Front Of His Parents

A report says that a month after a crocodile killed an 8-year-old boy near his home in Costa Rica and took his head, a hunter killed the animal and found the boy's body in its stomach.

The Tico Times said that on Oct. 30, a crocodile attacked Julio Otero Fernández, who was standing in knee-deep water in the Matina River in Limón.

An eyewitness told The New York Post, "It shook him and ripped off his little head." "It grabbed him again, and this time it pulled him under."
Don Julio Otero and Margini Fernández Flores, Julio's parents, saw the crocodile attack their son. Don and Margini took their five kids and some other family members fishing. Don said that the crocodile came back with the body of his son in its mouth. La Nacion said that the police didn't shoot the animal because they didn't have the right to.

"I feel like the government has given up on me," Otero said. "I've always thought that an animal is more important than a person."

"Seeing the crocodile float away with my son's body was the hardest thing for my wife," Otero told Daily Mail.
The New York Post said that Don, Margini, and their four kids plan to go back to their home country of Nicaragua to stay away from crocodiles. They moved to Costa Rica so they could work on a banana farm there.

Not the crocodile described in the story (Credit: Shutterstock/Audrey Snider-Bell)