{"id":126357,"date":"2026-01-09T08:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T08:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/126357\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T08:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T08:01:08","slug":"coroner-reveals-cause-of-death-in-california-shark-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/126357\/","title":{"rendered":"Coroner reveals cause of death in California shark attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Santa Cruz County Sheriff-Coroner\u2019s Office has released the cause of death for a swimmer found on a remote beach in Santa Cruz County after she went missing following a suspected shark attack in Pacific Grove on Dec. 21.Video above from past coverage. Erica Fox&#8217;s cause of death was determined to be &#8220;sharp and blunt force injuries and submersion in water due to a shark attack. The manner of death has been ruled an accident.&#8221; Fox, 55, was the co-founder of Kelp Krawlers, a swim group that traditionally swims at Lovers Point every Sunday.She went missing during the group\u2019s weekly swim with about a dozen other swimmers. The group returned to shore, but Fox was missing.Fox\u2019s father, James Fox, confirmed to KSBW 8 that the woman recovered on a \u201cremote pocket beach\u201d in Wilder Ranch was his daughter. He said she was identified by the clothing she was wearing. Witnesses reported seeing a large splash and a possible shark encounter near Lovers Point around noon on Dec. 21.A driver told the U.S. Coast Guard they saw a shark breach with what appeared to be a human body, then disappear underwater. Another swimmer in the group later also confirmed Fox was unaccounted for. Just six days later, CAL FIRE CZU said it assisted in recovering a woman\u2019s body from the water at a beach south of Davenport, near Wilder Ranch\u2014about 45 miles north of Pacific Grove.The size of the shark has not been determined.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tDAVENPORT, Calif. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The Santa Cruz County Sheriff-Coroner\u2019s Office has released the cause of death for a swimmer found on a remote beach in Santa Cruz County after she went missing following a suspected shark attack in Pacific Grove on Dec. 21.<\/p>\n<p>Video above from past coverage. <\/p>\n<p>Erica Fox&#8217;s cause of death was determined to be &#8220;sharp and blunt force injuries and submersion in water due to a shark attack. The manner of death has been ruled an accident.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Fox, 55, was the co-founder of Kelp Krawlers, a swim group that traditionally swims at Lovers Point every Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>She went missing during the group\u2019s weekly swim with about a dozen other swimmers. The group returned to shore, but Fox was missing.<\/p>\n<p>Fox\u2019s father, James Fox, confirmed to KSBW 8 that the woman recovered on a \u201cremote pocket beach\u201d in Wilder Ranch was his daughter. He said she was identified by the clothing she was wearing. <\/p>\n<p>Witnesses reported seeing a large splash and a possible shark encounter near Lovers Point around noon on Dec. 21.<\/p>\n<p>A driver told the U.S. Coast Guard they saw a shark breach with what appeared to be a human body, then disappear underwater. Another swimmer in the group later also confirmed Fox was unaccounted for. <\/p>\n<p>Just six days later, CAL FIRE CZU said it assisted in recovering a woman\u2019s body from the water at a beach south of Davenport, near Wilder Ranch\u2014about 45 miles north of Pacific Grove.<\/p>\n<p>The size of the shark has not been determined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Santa Cruz County Sheriff-Coroner\u2019s Office has released the cause of death for a swimmer found on a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,3813,339,24093,59922,65519,57353,65514,65518,65517,65520,65515,18335,646,65516,1557],"class_list":["post-126357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-cause","tag-death","tag-dec","tag-erica-fox","tag-human-body","tag-lovers-point","tag-pacific-grove-shark-attack","tag-remote-beach","tag-santa-cruz-county-sheriff-coroner","tag-submersion","tag-swim-group","tag-swimmer","tag-water","tag-wilder-ranch","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}