Autopsy: Shark killed man who washed up in Kill Devil Hills

A medical examiner later said that this incident was a drowning, not a shark attack. The case is under review. Click to read the follow-up story.

A Pittsburgh man whose body washed up along North Carolina's Outer Banks after he went for a late-night swim died from shark bites, a medical examiner determined Friday.

It was the first reported shark attack in the region in more than eight years.

The body of Richard A. Snead, 60, was discovered Thursday morning near the 1300 block of N. Virginia Dare Trail in Kill Devil Hills by a tourist who was taking a walk, police said.

Shark bites killed Snead, the regional medical examiner's office in Greenville, N.C., said Friday.

Snead suffered extensive injuries and there is no question that a shark attack caused his death, an autopsy assistant at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University said.

"Living tissues look different when they receive an injury, versus tissues that are already dead," she said.

Officials had not determined what type of shark might have attacked Snead, who was on vacation with his family when he went for a swim sometime after 9 p.m. off Corolla, about 30 miles north of Kill Devil Hills.

His family reported him missing about 12:45 a.m. Sunday. Red flags had been posted Saturday warning people to stay out of the water because of dangerous surf.

It is likely Snead was attacked near the area where he went swimming, said Lt. Jason Banks of the Currituck County Sheriff's Office, and the current carried his body south.

Swimmers were warned Friday to be alert, "and to be aware that this incident occurred while the person was swimming at night," a sheriff's statement said. Snead had gone into the water at mile post 4-1/2; the mile posts are measured beginning at the Currituck County-Dare County line.

"I haven't heard of any (shark) sightings, but I haven't checked with any other jurisdictions," Currituck County Sheriff Susan Johnson said. The drowning of a 12-year-old boy late last month did not appear to be shark-related, she added.

Johnson said she couldn't recall any recent shark bites.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported  that a woman who answered the phone Friday at the Snead residence and identified herself only as Snead's wife said he worked as an engineer and that he is survived by two grown children and one grandchild.

"He was a good man," she said. "He was a good father."

Last year, 41 shark attacks were recorded in the United States. One was fatal, said Maylon White, the director of exhibits and animal husbandry at the Virginia Aquarium in Virginia Beach.

"Shark attacks are really a fairly rare event when you consider how many people... go swimming," he said. "There's very little chance of something like this, as tragic as it is, happening to an individual."

For safety, swimmers should not swim alone and should avoid swimming at twilight or at night, he said. That's when sharks look for food.

"They don't look to humans for food, but if we happen to get in the way, then we suffer the consequences."

The last reported shark attacks in Virginia or the Outer Banks were in September 2001, when two people were killed and a third was hurt.

On Sept. 1, 2001, David Peltier, 10, was surfing with his family at Sandbridge in Virginia Beach when a shark bite severed an artery and he died. It was the first fatality recorded by a shark attack in Virginia and the first that year in the United States.

Experts said David could have been bitten by a bull shark because of the location and time of year that the attack occurred.

Two days after David's death, Sergei Zaloukaev, 28, was swimming with his girlfriend off Avon, N.C., when they were attacked by a shark. Zaloukaev was killed, but Natalia Slobodskaya survived.

Experts said the couple could have been bitten by a tiger shark or bull shark.

The attacks set off a wave of shark hysteria. But in 2002, a study released by University of Florida researchers showed that attacks in 2001 actually decreased from the year before.

News researcher Jakon Hays contributed to this report.

Cindy Clayton, (757) 446-2377, cindy.clayton@pilotonline.com

Patrick Wilson, (757) 446-2957, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com