Florida resident, Leslie Strickland, said she had nothing but good intentions when she loaded a badly hurt six-foot alligator into the back seat of her car and took it home.Leslie had hit the alligator with her car on a Friday night and went back to rescue it the next day… but wound up spending a night in jail, charged with possession of an alligator, a felony in Florida.
Strickland said she drove the gator home, wet it down with hose and then tried unsuccessfully to reach somebody with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.
After neighbors told her it was illegal to have the alligator, Leslie loaded it back into her car and drove off in search of a pond to release the alligator into.
But the alligator started to thrash its tail. Distracted, Leslie veered off the road and hit a mailbox. Witnesses told police she tried to drive off, but her car got stuck in the ditch. So she got out and walked away.
Police arrested Leslie at her home nearby, adding a charge of resisting arrest after she struggled with officers who tried to handcuff her. She said she "freaked out" at the prospect of going to jail.
The game commission finally removed the alligator from her car… it died later.
There's a moral in that tale somewhere...
