On April 15, 1994, the lifeless body of a nude woman was found floating in the water off a beach at San Diego’s Point Loma community. The woman was horrifically mutilated. Her right leg had been torn off, and other pieces of flesh were either missing or covered in bite marks and bruises. Although nobody could locate her clothes or ID, a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder eventually led authorities to identify the Jane Doe as Michelle Von Emster, a 25-year-old drifter who lived in the area.
According to Brian Blackbourne, the San Diego medical examiner who conducted the autopsy, Emster was alive when she was savagely attacked. Her neck had been broken, and some of her ribs were cracked, too.
Given the severity of her injuries, Blackbourne concluded that Emster was attacked by a great white shark and then died from massive blood loss and drowning. The bite marks on her body, which were too small to have been caused by a great white, probably came from blue sharks after she died. Blackbourne ruled that Emster’s death was nothing more than a tragic accident.
Many shark experts, however, dismissed Blackbourne’s conclusion. Contrary to what we see in Jaws, shark attacks are rare, especially in the waters where Emster’s body was found. Blackbourne confessed that he knew nothing about sharks. He consulted a marine biologist, who later acknowledged that there was no direct evidence of a great white being involved.
Even if Emster had been attacked by a great white, skeptics point out that it could have occurred after her death. After all, a number of strange details about the case are still unanswered. Why, for example, have her clothes never been found? Her roommate, who had dropped her off at the beach the night before her body was discovered, said that Emster was wearing a green trench coat.
The temperature that night was only 15 degrees Celsius (60 °F), so why would she have been swimming naked anyway? And how did she get sand in her lungs? Over the years, a number of theories have been advanced—from suicide to murder—yet Emster’s death still remains a hotly debated mystery.