What the heck does that even mean?

So I was looking at the Global Shark Attack File's excel spreadsheet of all known shark attacks. Interested stuff. Incidentally? Don't pat a shark on the head. Now, one set of data that they track is "activity" at the time of attack. The person's activity, not the shark's. Mostly it's things like swimming, bathing, spearfishing, etc. But one guy, way back in 1776, has "murder" listed as his activity. Now I'm really curious as to what he was doing when the shark attacked him.