The woman who hailed from Washington disappeared while snorkeling in Maui, Hawaii.
A 60-year-old woman from Washington State had gone missing while she was snorkeling in Hawaii with her husband. According to PEOPLE, the investigating officials have finally concluded that the woman disappeared after falling victim to a shark attack, calling it a “tragic accident.” The identity of the woman and her husband has not been publicly disclosed. The conclusion was drawn by Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resource and the Maui Police Department who had responded to the reports of a shark attack at Keawakepu Beach as they began thoroughly searching for the missing lady.
Woman snorkeling in Hawaii likely eaten by 'aggressive' shark with 'something red' around gills: officials https://t.co/KVXjzgqRrm
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 19, 2022
According to a statement released by the police department, the officers interviewed the missing woman's husband who said: "he encountered an 'aggressive' shark shortly after entering the water to snorkel about 50 yards off-shore." The husband also said as per the statement that “the shark continued to circle him and he continued looking for his wife and thought that she might have been diving toward the ocean floor.”
As the shark swam away from them, the man continued to look for his wife but failed to recover her from the water. According to DLNR, the husband "did spot something in the distance and he could see something red around the shark's gills.”
"At that time, he said people on the beach began yelling at him to get out of the water because a shark was feeding in the area," the statement continued.
According to Fox News, the husband’s account was corroborated by another eyewitness who was present on the beach and claimed that “he saw a large shark feeding on something in the water." The body of the woman has not been recovered as of now and the authorities called off the search on the afternoon of December 9 after they spotted a large shark in the area.
The reports of the investigating officer associated with the Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) classified this as a “tragic accident” and “shark attack-fatal” on the basis of the evidence they collected whereas the Maui Police Department's report declared the woman’s disappearance as a "miscellaneous accident-fatal." In the continuation of the statement, the DLNR showed their displeasure against the "conspiracy theories" which had "exacerbated" the grief of the family. The officials did not dive deep into the details but they wrote about the "misinformation which spread quickly on social media platforms, suggesting that this was something other than what it was."
"DLNR is asking people who post misinformation and conspiracy theories anonymously to stop and think about how they'd react if they were in the same situation. Social media can either be a powerful tool for sharing information or a mouthpiece for tremendously hurtful and inaccurate comments directed toward people who are dealing with a tragedy," they added.
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