crab buried then died?

[crabzz]

In October I moved houses and had to put my hermit crabs in a smaller holding tank. 4 of them were previously in a 25/30 gallon before and the holding tank was very cramped. I wasn't worried because they have never shown any signs of violence in small holding tanks for short periods of time. They didn't look like they had to molt and had no molting sacks or anything. BUT THEN all of them buried themselves. Of corse I didn't dig them up, so I let it be figuring they would resurface. Three of them did with shinny new exoskeletons and seemed very healthy. My largest did not, I thought that he was molting as well and just needed more time. It has been around nine or ten months since then so of corse I was suspicious. It didn't smell bad at all. I use a stethoscope to hear any type of movement but it was silent in the tank. The other crabs were moved into new tanks already to. I made the decision that I needed to dig him up. I knew he was probably dead or something. After removing all the sand I was left with just his shell???? No crab at all, not even dead little parts??? I'm assuming that because of the tight space another crab burrowed into his molting cave, causing it to collapse and suffocate him. Then they later ate him? It just seems so weird considering that he was much larger than all the other crabs and non of their molting caves were not really near his. It is probably the most likely thing to have had happened still. I should have used that soda bottle trick to separate them in the beginning, but I only knew where they were molting after they surfaced. Has anyone else experienced this and are my suspicions right?

[AngelaTheCrab]

It looks like you have dealt with some kind of molting interference. It is likely that the crabs smelled the largest, and ended up eating him. I'm sorry for your loss.