Crime doesn’t pay, but this time around, it wasn’t the court system that doled out a burglar’s sentence. In Palm Bay, Florida, 22-year-old Matthew Riggins — an alleged robber — was running from police when he decided to hide in Barefoot Bay Lake.
There, a hungry and judicious alligator made a ruling on his sentence. There was barely anything left of the man when police officers finally caught up.
On November 12, Matthew Riggins called his girlfriend to tell her that he was going to “commit burglaries” in Brevard County. It was the last time that she ever heard from him.
The sheriff’s office was called to investigate two suspicious men that night, and Riggins was one of them. When police gave chase, Riggins decided to hide near the waters of Barefoot Bay Lake.
What he didn’t know was that an 11-foot alligator was waiting for him. This alligator tore the criminal up so badly that it took 10 days for investigators to find any trace of him.
Despite the surprising rarity of alligator attacks in Florida (just one other attack has occurred this year), it’s still probably not a good idea to get into any natural pools while visiting the Sunshine State. I can’t imagine that this alligator knew of the crimes that Riggins was about to commit, but he sure wasn’t afraid to punish him.