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WSLS (Roanoke, Virginia) 10 August 06 Local man hits alligator in FL and brings it back (Jay Warren)
Check out what caught a ride just in front of the corvette on this 18-wheeler. Yes? it's an alligator.
"It's a pretty unusual sight especially to be hauling it on a car hauler," said Elliott Terry. Terry ran over it just outside Orlando, Florida while hauling 9 cars back for Brambleton Imports in Roanoke County.
"I could see it moving a little bit, but I had no clue if it was a person or an animal," Terry said.
Terry hit the gator's head, partially decapitating it and busting a tire on his rig.
He says the gator "like hitting a telephone pole sitting in the middle of the road. It was solid as a rock."
And what do you do when you hit an alligator? Of course you strap it your truck... all 300-pounds.
"We like to never have gotten him on the truck," he said. "I wanted to take him back home and show everyone."
That makes sense, because who would believe this story? His boss didn't.
"I thought he was just telling why he was late," said Woody Woodward, owner of Brambleton Imports.
But it's the real deal coming in at 8'4" long.
After a few days on the rig, the alligator is definitely ripe forcing many to cover their nose. Elliott says pouring pepper on it will keep the flies away, but not the people... everyone wanting a picture.
"Anybody who saw it would be motioning for everybody else to come look," he said.
So what's next for this road-kill?
"We're going to play with it tonight when I get back to Danville," Terry said.
That includes skinning it, hanging the skin the wall, and eventually possibly making a pair of boots or a purse.

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HERALD-TRIBUNE (Sarasota, Florida) 12 August 06 Man avoids charges for nabbing roadkill alligator
Roanoke, Va.(AP): A Virginia truck driver will escape misdemeanor charges after wildlife officials confiscated a 10-foot-long, dead alligator he'd hauled from Florida this week.
It's a misdemeanor to remove such animals from the state, but Elliott Terry of Roanoke, Va., told officials a Florida police officer gave him permission to take the critter.
Terry said he accidentally ran over the gator while driving his car-carrier from Orlando, Fla. to Brambleton Imports in Roanoke County early Wednesday morning.
Florida officials say letting him keep the animal was a mistake on the officer's part.
"Most local city and municipal police departments aren't really versed in wildlife law. It's a subject known really just to this agency," said Capt. John West, of the investigations division of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. West said Thursday that police should have called a conservation commission official to the scene.
Alligators are protected in Florida because of their similarity in appearance to crocodiles, which are endangered. West said wildlife officials don't want to risk having people take crocodiles thinking they are alligators, and don't want people to start keeping the creatures as pets.
Taking a dead alligator typically results in a maximum charge of 60 days in jail or a $500 fine.
A scaly pet wasn't exactly what Terry was after when he strapped the dead animal to the bottom rack of his car-carrier. He had a notion to stuff the animal - or turn it into a pair of boots.
Instead, officials have buried the carcass in the Pittsylvania County landfill.
Man avoids charges for nabbing roadkill alligator