A dive team was searching Thursday in what a Florida sheriff’s office called “gator infested waters” after human remains were discovered in a park north of West Palm Beach.
The Martin County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that the Hungryland Wildlife Preserve was closed after the remains were found Wednesday night on a canal bank 3 miles inside the park.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Sheriff William Snyder said a state biologist working in the preserve spotted what appeared to be an alligator with a human arm, NBC affiliate WPTV of West Palm Beach reported.
Detectives later found what appeared to be additional remains more than a mile away, and cadaver dogs and deputies on ATVs were searching other parts of the 16,600-acre park, the station reported.
A sniper was watching the dive team during the search Thursday, the statement said.
It wasn't clear whether the remains belong to the same person, who Snyder said appeared to be white, or whether they were moved by animals.
The remains also didn't appear to have been at the preserve for long, Snyder said, according to WPTV. Investigators hoped to make an identification through fingerprints, he said.
"We can’t rule out the possibility that somebody fell in the water and died of natural causes out here, but it doesn’t look like that to us,” Snyder said, according to the station, adding that Martin County has long served as a "body dump" for Palm Beach County.
"That's been going on for decades," he said.
He said there were no reports of missing people in Martin County.
