1985/03/03 Shirley Ann Durdin - Australia - *** Fatal ***

[sharkbait]

Sunday, March 3, 1985, Port Lincoln, South Australia:
"Mrs. Durdin was taken by the shark while diving for scallops on Sunday afternoon," the announced dryly, as if mentioning her appearance in a new spring ensemble at the local cotillion. Shirley Ann Durdin, a 33-year-old housewife and mother of four, had recently moved with her family back to the bay town of Port Lincoln because allergies prevented her husband, Barry, from working any longer at their farm in the town of Karkoo. While she scanned the bay bottom in six-foot-deep water about 150 yards out, her husband, three young daughters, and son watched from shore. With no warning, a great white shark that eyewitnesses estimated at 19 feet long attacked her, tore her in two, and, all evidence suggests, devoured her. Friends held a distraught Barry Durdin down to prevent him from jumping into the water after his wife, while he hysterically kept repeating, "She's gone, she's gone." In the days that followed, authorities searched the shoreline for remains, but found only a single swim fin.