The woman’s name was Wa Tiba and she lived on Muna Island off the coast of Sulawesi. On Thursday night, she left the house to visit a cornfield about half a mile from the house.
Reticulated pythons are common in the area, but according to a report from the Jakarta Post, Wa initially worried about wild boars because they would destroy her crops.
When Wa did not return, her sister went out to find her and found traces of Wa, a flashlight, slippers and a machete. On Friday, 100 residents of the Persian village of Lavela searched the area and found a 23-foot-long snake with a very bloated belly.
The villagers killed the snake, opened it and found the missing woman inside. She probably did not die inside the snake: the reticulated python bites its prey, then wraps its body around it, squeezing it until the victim cannot breathe before eating.
Pythons are the longest snakes in the world and usually only eat small mammals. However, a similar incident occurred last year with a farmer from the neighboring village of Salubiro on the island of Sulawesi.
