Mass. woman kills 900-pound alligator in SC

FLORENCE COUNTY, S.C. -- A Massachusetts resident killed a gator after successfully getting a permit for South Carolina’s month-long alligator hunting season.

Mary Ellen Mara Christian headed to Lake Moultrie with her husband and a few friends in search of a gator last Wednesday.

“It was right there on the edge of the bank, swimming right on the edges,” said Christian.

She hooked the alligator with her fishing pole and battled for more than two hours to get it near the boat. In South Carolina, you need to secure the alligator to the boat before you can shoot it.

“Your heart’s just pumping and pumping, he was enormous. I mean look at him, you can see this part of him coming out of the water, his big belly, and then you saw his head, because his head had to come out for me to shoot him," Christian said.

They shot him eight times, but he was still moving.

“I stabbed his a couple times to break his spinal cord,” said Christian.

At that point, the thirteen-foot, 900-pound alligator was dead.

“It was unbelievable. Unbelievable experience,” said Christian.

South Carolina started gator hunting season back in 2008 with a goal to curb the hundreds of nuisance complaints the state got from the animals each year.

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