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Texas mayor and grandmother surprises many by shooting and killing a 12-foot alligator

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LIVINGSTON, TX-- Judy 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 a 12-foot alligator.

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

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.

Monday she got the big one at their family ranch along the Trinity River. It was 12 feet long and weighed 580 pounds.

"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," Cochran recalled.

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," she said.

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 shot gator is now at the local taxidermist where its head and tail will be mounted. She'll have the body 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," Cochran said.