ENGLEWOOD, Fla. -- Officials said a 10 -foot alligator that killed a 4-year-old girl in a man-made lake may have lost its fear of people because residents of the area had been feeding it.
The alligator attacked the little girl as she was walking along the lake with her puppy. It pulled her into the pond and killed her and then refused to give up the body until it was shot and killed by wildlife officers.
The animal was the largest of several alligators the populate the lake in an affluent housing development. It had been living there for at least two years.
Erin Glover, a blue-eyed blonde nicknamed 'Gizmo,' was following her Labrador pup Shirley along the bank of Hidden Lake when the alligator surfaced about 6:30 p.m. Saturday. Her brother Justin, 9, and friend Jason Kershanick, 9, were with her.
'Then the alligator came up and took two bites out of Erin's stomach. She screamed. That's all she could do,' Kershanick said. 'Blood was pouring down her stomach. It looked like a slow-motion cartoon.'
The girl's body was recovered from the lake at the Gardens Gulf Cove development, about 30 miles south of Sarasota, about 11:30 p.m. Saturday, said Jim Farrior, a spokesman for the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission. An autopsy was ordered.
'The boys never even saw the alligator,' Farrior said. 'One of the boys heard splashes and screams, then saw the girl trying to crawl up the bank. The alligator grabbed her around the midsection and pulled her out into the water.'
The alligator swam away and the boys ran for help. Divers from the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office carefully searched the pond, aided by wildlife officers and an alligator trapper.
'They had divers in the water, but after nightfall they were worried about diving with the alligator,' Farrior said.
Shortly before midnight, the alligator crawled toward shore with the girl's body still in his mouth.
'Apparently he was trying to nudge her up onto the bank. They shot the alligator in the head with buckshot. He pulled her back down but let her go and one of the officers grabbed her,' Farrior said. 'Several shots later, they killed and recovered the alligator.'
The 350-pound body of the 10-foot-7-inch male alligator was taken to a state laboratory in Gainesville for necropsy, Farrior said. The animal had been sighted in the pond several times before, he said.
'It was kind of a bar pit pond in the subdivision, a man-made one. Alligators will pretty much occupy any body of water that is capable of holding them, which is just about any body of water,' Farrior said.
Debbie Triplett, who lives near the lake, said she thought the attack had something to do with winter residents who have been feeding the alligators for the past several months.
'They think it's funny to feed the alligators so they can have a pet,' she said.
Richard LaTarski, 64, said he has reported the alligator to game officers.
'They said if it's not causing any menace to anyone, they wouldn't take it out,' he said. 'I knew by the way these kids come around, that eventually something was going to happen.'
