Men charged in alligator barbecue

By JENNIFER BABSON excerpt from Miami Herald

KEY WEST - Two Keys men face criminal charges after wildlife officials say they killed and butchered a protected American Alligator last month -- serving her up at a backyard barbecue a few days later.

The two men, Timothy B. Goll, 18, of Marathon, and Jordan T. Milo, 20, of Big Pine Key, have been charged with killing the animal, a third degree felony.

State and federal wildlife investigators say two other people -- both high school students, one a minor -- are also believed to be involved in the March 24 incident. They have not yet been charged.
The men are alleged to have shot the female adult gator and then beaten her death.

"They apparently used a pellet gun to disable it and then used a baseball bat to kill it," said Lt. Steve Acton, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which is investigating the incident along with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

The animal's unwanted body parts were discarded in area canals and later recovered. The gator lived in a freshwater pond on Big Pine Key. The incident is among several crocodile and alligator killings that have occurred in the Keys recently.

Five Dade County men were charged in a December incident in the Upper Keys in which an American crocodile was captured, dragged behind a vehicle, and killed.

Early last month, two endangered American crocodiles were found dead -- apparently from gunshot wounds -- in the Lower Keys. Their carcasses were dumped along remote areas off U.S. 1.