In the space of five days, Florida alligators have been blamed for killing three people. Two of the names were added to that list Sunday.

One death was in northern Pinellas, where a woman's body, missing an arm, was discovered in a canal near East Lake Woodlands.

Also, in Marion County on Sunday, friends of a 23-year-old woman who had been snorkeling near Lake George, southeast of Gainesville, found her trapped in an alligator's mouth. They tried to rescue her, but failed.

These two deaths followed the killing last Wednesday of a 28-year-old woman in Broward County who authorities think was killed on land and dragged into the water by a 400-pound gator.

Since 1948, there had been only 17 fatal attacks in Florida - until the last week. Alligators become more aggressive from late May to August, their mating season, but do not tend to attack unless provoked.

"I'd say 95 percent of the time when something happens it's the person's fault, not the alligator,'' said Ed Froehlich, an alligator farmer. "There are places you should not be in.''

The Pinellas victim, Judy Cooper, 43, was found Sunday morning. Kelly Ferderber, 45, first saw the body Friday floating in the canal behind her home at Palm Dale Drive, but thought it was garbage. Sunday morning, her daughter, Ashley, 18, and son, Evan, 16, went to check out the floating mass. They used a boat pole to pull it closer. Then they saw a brown pony-tail.

"I found out it was real and I freaked out," Ashley said.

Cooper's right arm was missing and she suffered severe trauma to both shoulders. An initial autopsy determined that an alligator contributed to Cooper's death, a sheriff's spokesman said.

Cooper's last known address was in Dunedin.

An alligator hunter hung bait - chicken parts concealing a stout hook - over the canal Sunday afternoon.

The snorkeler killed near Gainesville on Sunday had been staying at a cabin near a springhead that feeds into Lake George.

"The people she was staying with came around and found her inside the gator's mouth," said Marion County Fire-Rescue Capt. Joe Amigliore. " They jumped into the water and somehow pulled her out of the gator's mouth."

The woman, whose name was not released, died at the scene.

Contributing: Associated Press, Miami Herald.