Disappearance of Ben Gardner

Ben Gardner, a seasoned charter fisherman from Amity, was hired by Chief Martin Brody to hunt the great white shark that had already killed Christine Watkins, Alexander Kintner, and Morris Cater. Gardner set out alone on his boat, the Flicka, on the morning of Thursday, June 24, after his mate was unable to join due to an impacted wisdom tooth. Brody and Officer Len Hendricks, growing concerned when Gardner failed to respond to radio calls, borrowed a boat and went out to investigate. They found the Flicka anchored and deserted, with no sign of Gardner. The boat's radio was still on, contradicting the theory that he had turned it off. A bucket of chum—fish guts and blood—sat nearly full, unused. The rods were missing from their holders, and a harpoon and its associated barrels were nowhere to be found. On the starboard gunwale, Brody discovered four ragged screw holes where a cleat had been torn out, the wood splintered as if by immense force. An eight-inch-long scrape marred the outer edge of the gunwale, as if rubbed by a tight, heavy rope. At the stern, deep gouges in the transom formed a rough semicircle more than three feet across, with another similar pattern beside it, and three short smears of blood at the waterline. Hendricks, lowered over the side, retrieved a nearly two-inch-long, glistening white triangle from one of the holes—a shark tooth that cut into the wood when Brody scraped it. The tooth was later identified by Matt Hooper as belonging to a great white shark, likely fifteen to twenty feet long and weighing five to six thousand pounds. Hooper theorized that Gardner might have fallen overboard, been pulled over by a tangled harpoon line, or been taken while leaning over the stern, and that the shark had then attacked the boat itself, biting the transom and tearing away the cleat. Brody concluded that Gardner had become the shark's fourth victim. The loss of Gardner and his boat, the Flicka, left Amity without a local vessel capable of hunting the shark, forcing Brody to seek out Quint, a reclusive and expensive fisherman from Promised Land, to take on the job. Gardner's death also deepened Brody's guilt and sense of responsibility, as Sally Gardner, his widow, accused Brody of sending her husband to his death. The event underscored the shark's unprecedented power and aggression, as it had not only killed a man but had also attacked and damaged a thirty-foot boat, a behavior that Hooper explained as instinctual rather than intelligent. The disappearance of Ben Gardner thus transformed the hunt from a local police matter into a desperate, professionalized campaign against a seemingly invincible predator.