After Mayor, 73, Kills Alligator on Video, Complaints Roll In

Judy Cochran got revenge Monday for her beloved miniature horse that mysteriously vanished at her Texas ranch three years ago. She lodged a single bullet from a Winchester .22 Magnum rifle between the eyes of the prime suspect — a 12-foot, 580-pound alligator.

Cochran, 73, is accustomed to the local spotlight. She is the mayor of her small town, Livingston, and serves on the board of a local bank and a hospital. But she wasn’t used to the international attention she received this week for killing the gator.

“There are all these negative comments at me personally,” Cochran said Thursday morning.

Her story went public Tuesday in the Houston media and was picked up by news sites worldwide. “The best story from Texas alligator-hunting season features a great-grandma avenging her miniature horse,” read a typical headline, on Quartz.

Since then, Cochran said she has received at least a dozen phone calls at her home and office. Most callers are positive, she said, but some have been vicious, even threatening.

The complaints: Why did you have to kill it? Why didn’t you relocate the alligator? One woman promised to start a petition to impeach her. And many other people have called the Livingston City Hall to complain about her, she said. And then she read nasty online comments about her on news stories.

On Wednesday night, Cochran prayed about the ordeal and decided it was best for her, as well as the City of Livingston, to stop talking about shooting the gator. She did not want the negativity to reflect poorly on the city she loves.

“I’m tough,” said Cochran, who ran unopposed in May. “I can handle it.”

She stopped answering phone calls and only answered a reporter’s call on Thursday after hearing part of the voicemail. “I’m done talking,” she said.

But then Cochran went on to say that the bulk of the negative responses were factually wrong. She had a permit from the state to shoot the alligator, which is allowed where she lives, Polk County, during a hunting season this year from Sep. 10 to Sept. 30. Before her permit was approved, a state wildlife biologist surveyed her ranch, as required by law, she said.

Her story went viral with help from a video posted on Facebook. In the video, which was taken offline on Thursday, Cochran steadied the rifle while standing on the edge of a pond on her ranch. Her son-in-law next to her pulled the gator to the water’s surface with a rope.

“Nana, you better hit him good, because that’s that horse-eater,” the son-in-law, Scott Hughes, told her before she shot. “Get him right behind the brain.”

Some of the responses accused Cochran of abusing the alligator by tying a rope around it. But Cochran noted on Thursday that the alligator did not have a rope around it and that it was a line with bait, reportedly a dead raccoon. This is a standard way to hunt alligators; she compared it to catching a fish.

Despite the criticism, Cochran said she was glad she killed the alligator. After all, she believes it ate her prized miniature horse.