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Great-Grandma Avenges Miniature Horse by Shooting 580-Pound Gator

Small-town mayor by day, vengeful gator slayer after hours.
Drew Schwartz
Brooklyn, US
Screengrab (L) via the Houston Chronicle; screengrab (R) via KDFW

Judy Cochran is a 73-year-old great-grandmother with a ranch in rural Texas and the newly elected mayor of Livingston, a small town of about 5,000 souls. She's also, apparently, a bloodthirsty gator hunter who, for years, has been trying to take out the reptilian bastard she believes ate one of her miniature horses—and this week, she finally got her revenge.

According to local Fox affiliate KDFW, Cochran was in a meeting on Monday, likely conducting a bit of mayoral business, when she got an urgent call from her son-in-law: He'd just caught a 12-foot, 580-pound gator using a raccoon carcass—what the Dallas News called "seasoned raccoon"—and he was pretty sure this was the same devil who'd eaten her beloved pony. And like the revenge-hungry Liam Neeson of grandmas, Cochran sprang into action, jetting over to her ranch and grabbing a Winchester .22 Magnum rifle.

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"That's a big'un," her son-in-law, Scott Hughes, says in a video of the kill. "Nana, you better hit him good, cus that's the horse-eater. Get him right behind the brain." In a state of chilling calm, she does, in fact, "hit him good," sending the thing to a watery grave with a single shot to the head.

In footage taken moments after she slaughters the alleged horse-killer, you can hear Cochran cackling maniacally, luxuriating in the spoils of her years-long, metal ass war between man and beast.

"Typically the gators don't bother us, but we've been looking for [this one]," Cochran told the Houston Chronicle, before dishing out what sounds like a great tagline for her very own action movie: "Don't mess with Nana."

After Monday's totally legal kill, Cochran told the Chronicle she's going to get it skinned, eat the meat, have its head mounted, and slice off its hide to make alligator boots. She'll also be personally claiming the "ridgeback part of the tail" as a souvenir for her office, a token of the time she sent the alleged pony assassin to reptilian Hell.

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