#NYC woman killed by shark in Maine ‘just started screaming’: neighbor

The former New York City fashion executive killed by a shark off the coast of Maine “just started screaming” as the beast attacked her, according to a neighbor who witnessed the grisly death.

Before the great white set its sights on Julie Dimperio Holowach, 63, she was “giggling and laughing,” with her daughter as the two swam together about 20 yards off Bailey Island around 3:30 p.m. Monday, Tom Whyte told the Portland Press Herald.

But seconds later, Holowach, the former president of the handbag company Kipling North America, “just started screaming for help,” said Whyte, who used binoculars to watch the scene unfold from his second-story office in a building overlooking the island’s Mackerel Cove.

Whyte told the paper that Holowach “went under” as her daughter swam towards her.

“It looked like she was pulled under,” he said.

Another witness, Steve Arnold, told the Press Herald that he saw Holowach get pushed out of the water.

“I saw her lift a little bit out of the water… 12 to 18 inches maybe,” he said.

After Holowach was attacked, her daughter swam back to shore, where she collapsed to her hands and knees on the sand and screamed for help.

Two kayakers, identified by the Press Herald as Charlie Wemyss-Dunn and his mother, rushed to help Holowach in the water and took her back to shore.

“We saw what was in the water. We saw her condition,” Wemyss-Dunn told the paper.

Once Holowach was taken ashore, she was immediately pronounced dead by arriving paramedics.

Holowach, who was wearing a wetsuit at the time, was likely mistaken for a seal, Maine officials said at a press conference Tuesday.

Her death marked Maine’s first fatal shark attack.