Mom and Son Charged for Stealing $5,000 Worth of Gopher Feet

A mother and son from Preston, Minn., have been hit with theft charges after they were allegedly caught stealing close to $5,000 in frozen gopher feet from a trapper collecting them for a bounty.

Nope, that's not a misprint. . . $5,000 worth of frozen gopher feet.

According to an article in the Post Bulletin, a gopher trapper reported a large cache of feet missing from his freezer in late November 2012. Hoping for a lead, the officer contacted nearby townships that offer $3 per pair of gopher feet as part of a reward program to try to decrease the gopher population in the area.

In early December, a clerk told the officer she noted Junior Lee Dillon, 18, and his mother, Tina Marie Garrison, 37, turned in separate, and unusually large, collections of feet--one for $1,014 and another for $3,780 respectively.

When confronted, Dillon and Garrison offered different stories as to how they acquired the feet. Police became suspicious and eventually charged both with one felony and misdemeanor. Garrison has already pleaded not guilty while her son awaits a hearing on July 29.

CC image from Wikipedia.