A mystery animal mauled a woman to death during a brutal attack, a coroner has now ruled. Cindy Denholm, 68, was attacked at the Sangre de Cristo Ranches, a Colorado community near to the New Mexico border on January 25 this year.
Her death has been confirmed to have been an accident and that she died after sustaining several serious injuries from an animal. Ms Denhold suffered bite and scratch cuts to her face, torso and legs, according to an autopsy. The coroner concluded she had extensive wounds on her arms and a forcible separation or detachment of her right hand.
The coroner’s office said her injuries appeared to have been inflicted by a canine. But it was unclear what type of animal inflicted the injuries.
Detectives who searched the area where Ms Denholm was attacked said they could not find any evidence of what species the animal belonged to. The investigation was carried out alongside the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
The attack came after the state decided to introduce wolves back into the environment. Grey wolves were released in December 2023 and again in January 2025.
According to the National Institutes of Health, a total of 3,638 deaths were reported across the US as a result of animal encounters between 1999 and 2016.
Wolf attacks in the US are extremely rare, but there have been cases where people have been killed by other animals in the US in recent years. Last year a man in Virginia was killed in a freak hunting accident after a bear fell out of a tree and landed on him.
The Department of Wildlife Resources said it had been alerted to a “hunting incident” in Lunenburg County, Virginia, on Monday, December 9. According to local reports, the group had been following a bear that ran up a tree.
A hunter in the group then shot at the bear, causing it to fall and fatally hit Lester C. Harvey. He had been standing about 10 feet away from the base of the tree at the time of the incident.
This comes after a man had most of his face, including his nose and the top half of his lip, ripped off with a single swipe after being attacked by a bear while out fishing.
The 60-year-old’s neck and stomach were also mauled by the bear in the horror incident, although his face took the brunt of the attack in Thailand.
It is unknown how the fisherman managed to escape the massive animal, believed to be an Asiatic black bear, a species which are known to attack humans when they feel threatened.
He was rushed to hospital where he underwent a complex and life-saving surgery, despite the odds of survival being against him.
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