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Teen Surfing Star Killed by Shark Left His Mom a Note

A graffiti reading "Shark's area" has been written on an information board, on April 14, 2015 off Saint-Leu, on the western coast of the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, two days after a 13-year-old Elio Canestri was attacked and killed by a shark.
A graffiti reading "Shark's area" has been written on an information board, on April 14, 2015 off Saint-Leu, on the western coast of the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, two days after a 13-year-old Elio Canestri was attacked and killed by a shark.Richard Bouhet—AFP/Getty Images
By NBC News

The 13-year-old surfing champion who died in a shark attack reportedly left a note for his mother saying that he would not go in the water unless there were spotters watching the ocean for the predators.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Elio Canestri wrote. “I’m going surfing. If there’s no security, I won’t surf.”

After revealing the note, Canestri’s grieving father Giovanni told French broadcaster RTL that his son had “always been very careful” in the waters off the coast of the Indian Ocean island of Reunion where they live. Elio was with six other people on Sunday when he was fatally…

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