FL: Florida man accused of beating alligator with golf club over fishing lure

https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/florida-man-accused-of-beating-alligator-with-golf-club-over-fishing-lure/

07/25/2025

A man was arrested after being accused of beating an alligator with a golf club.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers responded to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office request for assistance on July 3, regarding reports of an alligator taken without a permit.

During an investigation, FWC found the alligator and spoke with multiple neighbors and the suspect, Hunter Crumbo, 28.

According to an arrest report, a neighbor told deputies she was asked by another neighbor how to clean an alligator on July 12. She asked the man where he got an alligator, and he told her a kid caught it and couldn’t get his fishing lure out of his mouth, so he beat the alligator.

The neighbor also said the man had planned to eat the alligator but decided not to because it had been sitting for a while.

LCSO deputies took FWC to the side yard where a dismembered alligator was on the brush line.

The owner of the home was interviewed, where she told deputies and FWC that a man caught, beat, and killed an alligator across from her house in a waterway attached to Lake Apopka.

The lady said the man brought the alligator to the side of her yard before another man with “lots of knives” dismembered the alligator and left it, the arrest report said.

On July 16, investigators met with Hunter Crumbo, where he admitted to catching the alligator on July 12 and beating it with a golf club.

Crumbo was arrested and charged with felony taking and possession of an alligator without a permit.