A killer whale lived up to his name Wednesday when he drowned a trainer at Orlando's Sea World in front of horrified onlookers.
Police said the female trainer slipped and fell into his pool but a witness said the orca rose up from the water and grabbed her by the waist and shook her.
The 30-year-old, 5-ton marine mammal - the largest killer whale in captivity - has killed before: He drowned a biology student in 1991 and a naked, dead gatecrasher was found draped on his back in 1999.
The previous incidents were not attacks but misguided attempts by the otherwise docile whale to play, experts said.
But Tilikum, nicknamed Telly, is getting old and he may be getting cranky.
Florida park guest Victoria Biniak told WKMG-TV that the trainer was outlining the upcoming show to tourists when the huge orca suddenly loomed from the water.
"Telly took off really fast in the tank and he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing (her) around," Biniak said.
"It was violent."
Paramedics were unable to revive the 40-year-old trainer, who was pronounced dead at the scene at about 2 p.m. The park was closed.
"We have never in the history of our parks experienced an incident like this and all of our standard operating procedures will be under review," park president Dan Brown said.
Experts said they weren't sure what set off the whale.
"What he did in the previous two incidents were not attacks - to him, the people were toys, and to a whale, being underwater for 20 minutes is nothing. This sounds a little more like an attack," said Naomi Rose, a senior scientist at the Humane Society of the United States.
It was unclear what will happen to Tillikum.
"I dread to think of what their options are," Rose said.
She suggested he be retired to a sea pen in Iceland, like Keiko, the killer whale Hollywood made famous.
She said tragedies like this prove that powerful, intelligent wild animals should not be kept in pens and required to perform for tourists.
Social creatures, killer whales get stressed in pens, she said. In 1991, 20-year-old Keltie Byrne, a University of Victoria marine biology student and part-time trainer, slipped into the orca pool at Sealand of the Pacific in British Columbia.
Tilikum took her into his mouth and dragged her around the pool, most of the time underwater.
The champion swimmer broke free and tried to escape, but Tilikum and two female orcas blocked her from getting out of the pool and began tossing her back and forth between them.
A screaming Byrne tried to climb out of the pool but the whales pulled her back in.
She drowned in the mouth of an orca holding her underwater. Sealand of the Pacific closed the following year and Tillikum was shipped to Sea World, where his primary job was siring calves - not performing.
His part in the Sea World show is brief and comes just at the end, when he soaks the audience with massive splashes. And still there were casualties.
In 1999, 27-year-old Daniel Dukes, who had apparently stayed in the park overnight, was found dead in the morning, naked and draped across the whale.
It appeared he had tried to swim with the orca: his b bathing suit was in the water and his body was scraped, suggesting the whale had dragged him along the bottom of the tank.
He was not bitten or chewed. The most famous orca at Sea World is known as Shamu, but there is no single whale called that. It's the trademarked stage name of the star of Sea World's famous Orca show and is shared by many adult male or female killer whales.
The Orca show is Sea World's biggest draw, and crowds line up far ahead of the performances at Shamu Stadium, which seats 5,500.
