First They Found Her Sandals, Then a Bloated Snake

It's an occurrence so chilling and rare that it's being reported around the globe: An Indonesian woman apparently lost her life to a python, with local reports confirming her body was found in the snake's stomach. The Guardian reports a woman identified as Jahrah, 54, left for work at a rubber plantation on the island of Sumatra on Sunday morning but did not return home as expected. While looking for her that evening, her husband reportedly found a number of her items, including her sandals, headscarf, jacket, and work tools. The next morning, a search party came upon a 22-foot-long python with an enlarged midsection.

"After we caught him, we found the victim’s body in the snake’s stomach," local media reported the police chief as saying, with the BBC noting he said the victim's body was mostly intact. The New York Post (which has some photos of the scene) quotes a villager as speculating the woman was first bitten by the snake, which then would have wrapped itself around her to suffocate her prior to swallowing her, in a process that could have taken two hours. The Guardian notes known cases of humans being swallowed by pythons are rare, though Newser previously reported on cases in 2017 and 2018. (This forest ranger foolishly decided to pose with a python.)