Sufferer Of Christmas Eve Shark Assault Off Central Coast Recognized, Was Visiting Household – CBS San Francisco

MORRO BAY, San Luis Obispo (AP) – A man who was killed in a shark attack in central California on Christmas Eve was visiting his family and had decided to boogie board, friends and family members said.

Tomas Butterfield, 42, of Sacramento, was killed Friday morning in Morro Bay, near Morro Bay State Beach, a California State Parks spokesman confirmed to the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

Butterfield was traveling to the area for a family reunion at his mother’s house, Grant Butterfield, his uncle, told the newspaper.

Butterfield moved several times after his mother and father’s divorce and attended high school in Alaska, his uncle said.

“His mother would go on vacation somewhere, fall in love with the place and eventually move there. So there was a lot of movement, ”he said. “They landed in Ketchikan, Alaska.”

Tomas was unmarried and had recently worked for his father in a medical laboratory equipment repair company in Sacramento. He loved fishing, boogie boarding, and golf, said his uncle.

“Tomas was very calm and had a certain ironic sense of humor,” he said. “If you could get the full laugh out of him, you were a winner.”

Butterfield was dragged out of the waves after a surfer saw him face down in the water while a boogie board drifted nearby. He died on the scene.

The shark was likely a white man, said Eric Endersby, director of the port of Morro Bay.

Morro Bay is about 200 miles north of Los Angeles.