Grandmother kills 12-foot alligator she believes ate her miniature horse

The town of Livingston might have some of the toughest leadership in Texas.

Its white-haired mayor may look like a typical grandmother, but this bad Nana just shot a 12-foot alligator.

“It just kept dinging all day long and that’s why I carried an extra charger with me,” said Judy Cochran.

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 this.

“This is what I killed on Monday and several wrote back, no you did not. I said yes, I did do that,” said Cochran.

But Cochran 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.

But Monday she got the big one.

12 feet long, 580 pound at their family ranch along the Trinity River.

“One shot in the head and he went under. Typically they’ll do what they call a death roll and just roll over and over and over. Well, this one didn’t,” said Cochran.

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

“Three years ago we came up missing a miniature horse, they are about so big, about like a big lab,” said Cochran.

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 now 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…

“I said don’t mess with Nana. My grandchildren call me Nana.”