Farmer 'eaten' by own pigs in horrific death with only his dentures ever found

The pigs devoured the farmer (Image: Iuliia Bondar via Getty Images)

A farmer met a grisly fate when his entire body was consumed by his pigs, leaving only his dentures behind.

Terry Vance Garner, 69, went to feed his livestock one fateful October day in 2012, but never returned to his coastal farm in Oregon in the US.

The sole remnant of him ever discovered were his set of teeth.

Fragments of his body were discovered by a family member in the pig enclosure, but tragically the remainder had been devoured.

The Coos County district attorney's office said one of the creatures had previously bitten Garner, reports <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/farmers-horrifying-death-after-being-35855385" rel="Follow" target="_self">the Mirror</a>.

The beasts were estimated by the authorities to weigh roughly 700lb each.

Investigators say it is possible the hogs knocked Garner over before killing and eating him.

However, the likelihood is the farmer collapsed from a medical emergency, such as a heart attack, and was then eaten by his pigs.

A pathologist was unable to determine the cause of Garner's death and his remains were sent to the University of Oregon to be analysed by a forensic anthropologist.

Garner's older brother, Michael, described him as a "good-hearted guy".

He said his brother had raised several large adult sows and a boar called Teddy, and they would sell their piglets to local children.

"Those animals were his life," Michael Garner, 75, told the Register-Guard newspaper.

"He had all kinds of birds, and turkeys that ran all over the place. Everybody knew him."

Garner was a Vietnam war veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to his brother, and the farm had been a "life-saver" for him.

Michael Garner revealed one of the hogs had bitten his brother last year, after he had inadvertently stepped on a piglet.

"He said he was going to kill it, but when I asked him about it later, he said he had changed his mind," he disclosed to the Register-Guard.

Coos County District Attorney Paul Frasier told the local newspaper: "For all we know, it was a horrific accident, but it's so doggone weird that we have to look at all possibilities."

Frasier added that he had not planned to release details about the case, but altered his decision after word spread about the incident.