Family finds alligator in backyard pool

MISSOURI CITY, TX The unwelcome visitor to the Morris' pool is long gone, but the family says the 7-foot-4-inch alligator gave them quite a surprise.

Jodie Morris didn't believe what she saw in her backyard pool Saturday morning -- and neither did her husband.

"I said, 'We have an alligator in the pool,'" Jodie Morris said."It took him about three times of me telling him before he believed me."

The Morris kids too didn't believe that there was an alligator in their own backyard.

"We didn't believe him at first because we were watching Gator 911 the night before, and we thought he just had a dream about it," Mikenzie Morris said about her reaction when her brother first told her about the alligator.

"He was in the sun ledge right there just resting his head and I was like, oh my goodness, I can't believe it," Mikaela Morris said. "At first, I thought he was just 4 feet 2."

The alligator was resting in the deep end of the pool, and the Morrises at first didn't realize how big the gator was.

"I misjudged it," Jodie Morris said, "I thought it was only about 4 feet long when I called the sheriff, and they asked me what size it was and I told them about 4 feet, and my husband called me back out here and he was like, you need to call them back. It's a little bigger."

The Morrises took pictures because they didn't think anyone would believe them without proof. They also called the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office, which called Texas Parks and Wildlife.

But even with expert help, the gator didn't go without a fight.

"When we took it out, it started biting the wall and stuff, like trying to bite the people," Mikenzie Morris said.

In the end, the game warden took the trussed up gator away in the back of a truck, and let it go in Wharton County.

But as for where the gator came from, that's still a mystery.

"Only thing we can think of is there's a canal behind our house, and that he just squeezed under the fence," Jodie Morris said.

The kids named the gator Mad or Maddie, depending, because they never found out the sex of the gator.