PALM BEACH, Fla. – When a vengeful ex-girlfriend in Florida gets mad, she could dig up your alligator hunting crimes.
Annette Baker told Martin County Sheriff's Office deputies that her ex-boyfriend had killed at least two alligators illegally. She gave them video, photos and alligator meat to prove it.
Deputies investigated Baker's June 29 report of the alleged March 12 incident with the help of the Florida Fish and Wildlife. Their investigation led to two arrests. The most recent was Tuesday in Palm Beach County.
Baker told deputies that her ex-boyfriend Donald Arthur Daggett and his co-worker Jack Madison Bunting were in a Harry & Pepper Associates work truck when they allegedly spotted an alligator in a canal near Lake Okeechobee.
The two were in the area working on a project with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and it wasn't hunting season, which usually runs from August to November, so they didn't have a permit.
Baker told deputies Daggett, 38, shot the gator from the truck. When he failed to kill it, she said, Bunting, 42, grabbed a rifle and finished the job. According to a police report she also said the two pulled two alligators gators into the truck.
She told deputies she saw them cut off the meat, toss the carcasses off a bridge and later cook the meat at Bunting's home.
Daggett was arrested Oct. 21 and Bunting was arrested Nov. 28. The two are facing charges of killing an alligator without authority.