[lady cop]

gator caughtThe 400-pound alligator thought to have killed a 28-year-old woman was captured Saturday and killed.
The alligator that killed a jogger in Sunrise was blind in one eye and likely had trouble competing for food, said the trapper who captured the 400-pound creature Saturday.

The nine-foot, six-inch-long gator was caught, baited by a pig's lung, about two blocks west of the spot where Yovy Suarez Jimenez's dismembered body was found Wednesday.

It was killed, its stomach split open. Inside: two human arms.

''Thank God, it was the one,'' said trapper Kevin Garvey, 43, of Pompano Beach.

As the hired gun to trap alligators in Broward County, Garvey was ridden with guilt and anxiety over Suarez's death. He hadn't slept more than two hours in three days as he searched for her killer.

Suarez, 28, a Florida Atlantic University student from Davie, became the 18th person in Florida since 1948 to die from an alligator attack.

''This has stressed me since Day One,'' Garvey said. ``I'm the only trapper in Broward County, and this happened in my county. This is not something that I wanted counted on my slate.''

Low-lying water and a scarcity of food may have contributed to the attack, he said.

''There are so many alligators in the Everglades; they are competing for food,'' Garvey said.

The male killer gator's handicap -- it was blind in the left eye, possibly from a BB gun shot -- would have made hunting even more difficult.

Examiners on Saturday also found a garbage bag and turtle shell in its stomach.

TWO OTHERS CAUGHT

Garvey had trapped two other alligators from the barren water-conservation area along State Road 84, just south of Markham Park, since Suarez's death. But their stomachs revealed no human remains.

When he went to check his bait at about 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Garvey found the gator hooked on it.

Garvey roped it around the neck and, with the help of two Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers and two others, dragged it up the eight-foot rock and soil embankment.

It took them half an hour.

Once on land, 180-pound Garvey straddled the squirming back of the 400-pound gator and taped its mouth shut with electrical tape.

Dani Moschella of the wildlife commission said more testing will be done on the alligator to prove it is the killer. Its bite will be compared to Suarez's injuries.

DRAGGED INTO WATER

Suarez's attacker severed her arms and bit her leg and back. Investigators think she was attacked on land, then dragged into the water. Suarez died of trauma, blood loss and shock.

A passerby told Sunrise police a woman of a similar description was seen near the water's edge just hours before the body was found. Her mother told police that she last spoke to her daughter on the phone Tuesday night. Suarez told her mother she was sitting under a bridge by the canal.

For 11 years, five-foot-eight Garvey has been under contract with the wildlife commission to keep marshes, rest stops, backyards, and canals safe from alligator attacks.

That means he can capture any alligator that measures longer than four feet. Under different circumstances, Garvey would get about $24 per foot at a processing plant for an eight- to nine-foot gator.

The one thought to have killed Suarez was dissected for testing, and its remains were burned.

Garvey's left leg had 46 stitches in it after an alligator bit him while shooting a documentary on South Beach. A few years ago, another gator nabbed him on the thumb.

But nothing is like the pain he's felt since Suarez's death.

Garvey said he spent the rest of Saturday, trying to ``get my mind straight.''

''I'm gatored out at this point,'' Garvey said.

FATAL ATTACKS RARE

Moschella said alligator attacks, especially fatal ones, are rare. But people should keep their distance.

''Keep pets and small children away from the water,'' Moschella said. ``Any waterway in Florida can contain alligators.''