A Florida woman woke up in the middle of the night to an unfamiliar sound and when she turned on the lights, she said she got the shock of a lifetime.
Kerri Kibbe said when she looked outside and turned on the patio light, she learned that the sound she’d heard through her bedroom window early Saturday morning was a 7-foot-alligator. And it was staring right at her.
“It was just so unnatural,” Kibbe told CNN.” I was worried that if it did get out, I wouldn’t know if it was actually really gone.”
With her children fast asleep, Kibbe waited a couple of hours before calling the police. She told authorities over the phone she thought it had a length of about 3 feet or 4 feet but once an officer came to her home he estimated it was closer to 6 feet, she said.
A private trapper was sent to her Port Charlotte home shortly after.
“He put a noose on it and it went into the death roll that I’ve seen on TV,” Kibbe said.
Once the trapper was able to drag the gator into the front yard he was able to get an accurate measurement of a little over 7-feet. The trapper told Kibbe he was going to take it to a farm to be released for mating.
While gators are common in Florida, Kibbe thinks this one crept into her yard from the empty wooded lot behind her house. She doesn’t have a backyard fence to separate her property from the wooded area because she lost hers in Hurricane Irma.
Kibbe said as a single mom of three kids she hasn’t had the means to replace the fencing in her backyard and she doesn’t have a pool cage either.
She said even though gator sightings may occur more often in Florida, neither she or her neighbors have ever had one in their neighborhood.
“I live in the middle of town and it’s still like a wild kingdom,” she said. “I’ve seen coyotes, bobcats, snakes, gopher turtles, hawks, owls, bunnies…it’s crazy.”
Kibbe said she’s paranoid now.
“I’m hoping my kids won’t be in fear of the pool,” she said. “And I’m sure I’ll be the only one letting the dogs out at night from now on.”
