Florida has a long history of strange roadside encounters, but a recent traffic stop near Melbourne might be one for the record books. Two out-of-state tourists, both well-traveled and well-connected, decided their souvenir from the Sunshine State should be a roadkill alligator strapped to the roof of their car. Things did not go quietly.
- Two tourists are facing felony charges after driving across Central Florida with a dead gator on their roof.
- They tried to disguise the carcass with a white bed sheet after being warned it was illegal to possess.
- The pair told officers they wanted to take the alligator to a taxidermist to have it stuffed.
A Roadkill Souvenir Gone Wrong
Two tourists are facing felony charges after Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers said they strapped a dead alligator to the roof of their vehicle and drove it across Central Florida. Anthony Buhl, 56, of New York City, and March Wallin Chadwick, 57, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, were arrested Saturday on U.S. Highway 192 near St. Johns Heritage Parkway in Melbourne.
The bizarre journey began near the Disney-adjacent town of Celebration. According to FWC arrest reports, the pair was first spotted driving through Celebration with the alligator, described as roadkill, strapped to the roof of their vehicle. Plenty of motorists do double takes on Florida roads, but this sighting was apparently jarring enough to set off a trail of tips and tag readers.
The Bed Sheet Cover-Up
Rather than ditch the gator, the duo tried to get crafty. License plate readers tracked the car heading eastbound, and a second hit was recorded near Harmony in St. Cloud, where the gator was still on the roof but had since been covered with a white sheet. The makeshift disguise didn’t fool anyone for long.
Officers pulled the vehicle over on U.S. 192 in Melbourne, where both men admitted they had been warned by multiple people that possessing an alligator is illegal in Florida, the report states. When asked why they were driving around with a reptile carcass on top of their car, the answer was almost as strange as the crime itself. After eventually being pulled over by the police, the subjects said they were transporting the alligator this way because they wanted to bring it to a “Taxidermy office to have it stuffed.”
Why It’s a Felony in Florida
Tourists often assume roadkill is fair game, but Florida law treats alligators very differently than, say, a deer hit on a country road. Under Florida Statute 379.409, a person may not intentionally kill, injure, possess, or capture an alligator or their eggs without a permit from FWC. The statute applies whether the gator is alive, injured, or already deceased on the side of the road.
This isn’t an obscure rule that rarely gets enforced. A Cape Canaveral man learned the same lesson in 2024 when he tried to lasso a nuisance alligator out of a canal. He was arrested and charged with killing, injuring, or possessing an alligator or egg without authorization, a felony, and was released from the Brevard County Jail after posting a $2,500 bond. Penalties can climb steeply for repeat or aggravated offenses.
The Unlikely Pair Behind the Headlines
Part of what made this story explode online was the polished resumes of the men involved. Chadwick is an architect whose practice operates from New York City and Chattanooga, Tennessee. His travel companion has an even more globe-trotting backstory. The Geneva-born Buhl, son of a New York philanthropist, is a world traveler who speaks four languages and has attended acting school at the Lee Strasberg Academy, according to online bios.
The Florida road trip wasn’t the duo’s only recent outing together. A week before they were arrested in Florida, Buhl and Chadwick attended the Conservative Political Action Conference gathering, which was held this year outside Dallas, Texas. The juxtaposition of black-tie bios and a sheet-covered gator on a sedan roof has, predictably, kept social media commentators busy.
A Reminder for Anyone Tempted by Florida Wildlife
If you visit Florida and see something exotic on the shoulder of the highway, the smartest move is to leave it where it is and call the FWC. Native species like alligators come with strict possession rules, and ignorance of those rules has now landed two visitors in a very public mess. The taxidermy dream is over, the car is presumably getting a deep clean, and the felony charges are very real. As Florida road-trip lessons go, this one is hard to top.