Farmer's horrifying death after being eaten by his own pigs with only his dentures left behind

A farmer met agruesome end when his entire body waseaten by his pigs, leaving only his dentures behind.

Terry Vance Garner, 69, went to feed his animals one fateful October day in 2012, but failed to ever re-appear on his coastal farm in Oregon in the US.

The only part of him ever found were his set of teeth. Pieces of his body were found by a family member in the pig enclosure, but tragically the rest had been devoured.

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The Coos County district attorney's office said one of the animals had previously bitten Garner. The animals 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 said one of the hogs had bitten his brother last year, after he had accidentally 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 told 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 intended to release details about the case, but changed his mind after word spread about the incident.