TOWNSVILLE BULLETIN (Australia) 31 August 04 Killer crocodile 'drawn to women' (Ashleigh Wilson)
A Northern Territory ranger has raised the possibility that the menstrual cycle of a female German backpacker may have attracted the 4.6m crocodile that killed her in Kakadu National Park two years ago.
The alarming claim emerged during a coronial inquest in Darwin yesterday into the death of Isabel von Jordon, 23, who was set upon by a 500kg saltwater crocodile during a late-night swim in a Kakadu billabong in October 2002.
The attack happened after a tour guide took von Jordon and other tourists to the 2.2km-long billabong, despite a number of signs about the risks of crocodile attacks.
"It was a big, deep, murky, prehistoric river," said counsel assisting the coroner, Michael Grant.
The tour guide, Gondwana Adventure's Glenn Robless, was given a three-year suspended sentence in March last year after pleading guilty to making a dangerous omission that caused von Jordon's death.
At the Darwin Magistrates Court yesterday, Kakadu ranger Garry Lindner told the inquest the crocodile may have chosen von Jordon because she was small and female.
He said he had once seen a crocodile threatening a boatload of females and ignoring a nearby boat with men on board.
"With all due respect to the women in the court," Mr Lindner said, "I have always wondered whether the menstrual cycle, or something like that, had something to do with the crocodile's behaviour."
Mr Lindner, who shot the animal in the hours after the attack, said he and another ranger had been forced to leave the area quickly after another large crocodile made a threatening snapping noise at them.
And in an unusual sight yesterday, the large skull of the crocodile - complete with a hole in its snout from a previous injury - was tendered as evidence to the inquiry.
Mr Lindner said the billabong had a permanent population of large crocodiles, and anyone approaching it would have passed three warning signs along the way.
Detective Sergeant Gary Barnett, who oversaw the police investigation into the attack, said he could not work out why Mr Robless took tourists there to swim.
"It was the poorest possible decision he could have made," he said.
The inquiry continues today.
Killer crocodile 'drawn to women'