Great story with tragic end......
 

Burglary suspect hides in Florida lake, where gator eats him
Published December 08, 2015
·FoxNews.com

A suspected burglar jumped in a Florida lake apparently hiding from law enforcement before an 11-foot alligator killed him, investigators said Monday. His hand and foot reportedly turned up inside the animal's stomach.

Brevard County Sheriff's Maj. Tod Goodyear says 22-year-old Matthew Riggins told his girlfriend he would be in Barefoot Bay to commit burglaries with another suspect. Authorities received calls Nov. 13 about two suspicious men in black walking behind homes and investigated. Riggins was reported missing the next day.

Goodyear said sheriff's divers recovered Riggins' body 10 days later in a nearby lake, and that the injuries suggested the alligator had pulled him below the surface. "He hid in the wrong place," resident Laura Farris told Bay News 9.

Authorities said Riggins drowned and the alligator, which behaved aggressively toward divers, was trapped and euthanized.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/08.../?intcmp=hpbt4




Poor Poor gator..... Thanks buddy, for making the world a better place before you left it!

Heh heh!

Happened less than 10 minutes away from my house. Lots of gators around...and now they are also "deputies".:D

By the way, that is also in the same county (Brevard) where the Sheriff is getting national exposure for his recent video on the department's Facebook account encouraging all law abiding citizens in the County to arm themselves and be prepared to shoot.

I concur - the tragedy was having to euthanize the alligator.

agreed, "Reptilian Lives Matter"

Gator pays the ultimate price for doing what gators do in their environment -- to a thief nonetheless.

The gator should have been rewarded with a zoo house and fed steak the rest of its life!

I wish more thieves would "disappear" like that!

Thieves - 0
Gators - 2 (one got a car thief in 2007)

Note to Gators: Next time wedge the meal under a submerged log or dock piling like your croc brothers. Then you can return & dine at will.

SSS: Snatch, submerge, and shut up.

Maybe they should have put that big gator in the gator pen at the new Bass Pro down on Palm Bay Road...free food, a few females and thousands of appreciative fans.

That would have been classic and they could have painted a Sheriff Deputy Star on his back!

(Wish they would occasionally feed the wild hogs they also have there to the gators now and then. That would be a good show!)

There was another dude somewhere recentl that got roasted to death after getting stuck in a chimney while trying to burgler a home. Homeowner came home, lit a fire, eventually heard the guy screaming and put out the fire. By the time the FD got him freed he was dead.

Cleaning out the gene pool one person at a time.

Shoot, Shovel, Shut Up as practiced here:D

No kidding. I just wish I had that gator in my back yard..... beats the hell out of digging holes......:munchin

Too Funny!!!

:D:D:D

Such a shame they destroyed him.

He should have gotten a medal ... :(

Speaking as a native Floridian, I would say if he had to be euthanized let's hope they thought to make steaks out of him. That said, my mother lives in Palm Bay, and while she's not stupid enough to jump in a lake, she's definitely slower than an alligator these days, so I won't miss the gator any more than the burglar.