Texas mayor shoots and kills 12-foot alligator

POLK COUNTY, Texas -- Judy Cochran has a class reunion coming up next month.

Her classmates she stays in touch with on Facebook are finding it hard to believe the quiet girl in their class of '32 killed an alligator.

"This is what I killed on Monday and several wrote back, 'No, you did not,'" Judy said. "I said, 'Yes, I did do that.'"

But Judy says you never know where life might take you. The grandmother, traveler and avid Astros fan did something else earlier this year she never thought she'd do: she became mayor of Livingston, Texas.

On Monday, she got the big one, 12-feet-long, 580 pounds, at their family ranch along the Trinity River.

"One shot in the head and he went under. Typically, they'll do a death roll and roll over and over and over, but this one didn't," Judy said.

The gator could be responsible for a missing animal from the ranch, she says.

"Three years ago, we came up missing a miniature horse," Judy said. "They are about like a lab."

Polk County is one of a few core counties where you can only kill a gator 20 days of the year. It must be baited and caught first.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife window is open now. The gator is at the local taxidermist, where its head and tail will be mounted. The body she'll have made into boots.

The mayor and grandma can add one more title to her resume: gator hunter.

And the moral of the story, according to Judy?

"I said, 'Don't mess with Nana,'" Judy said. "My grandchildren call me Nana."

Follow Christine Dobbyn on Facebook and Twitter.