Live Rattlesnake Mailed To FL Trucker: 'I'm Not A Gangster'

PALM COAST, FL — “I’m not a gangster. I’m a truck driver.”

That's what 60-year-old Elijah Bowles of Palm Coast recently told the Los Angeles Times after he received a live rattlesnake in the mail from a mysterious sender.

"I’m trying to figure out, do I have any enemies?" he told the newspaper.

The Godfather-esque drama began May 16 when the Florida-based trucker picked up his mail from the Twentynine Palms Post Office. As he drove away from the facility, he asked a friend who was with him to open a box sent to him.

Surprise.

Startled (or completely freaked out), Bowles pulled over to deal with an approximately 2-foot-long Northern Pacific rattlesnake cradled in cotton balls inside the box, according to the Times.

Animal control was called to tend to the venomous pit viper. A San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy took a report and forwarded it to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which is handling an investigation into the matter, the Times reported.

No one was bitten during the ordeal.

Tracking information showed the strange package marked "fragile" was mailed May 3 from Hayward, Calif. An official told the Times he doesn't think the rattlesnake accidentally slithered into the box and was inadvertently mailed; he believes it was an intentional job.

Assassination by rattlesnake bite? Well, it wouldn't be the first attempt. The Times recounted the salacious details of a 1978 incident involving Los Angeles trial attorney Paul Morantz. He was bitten by a rattler after someone placed one in his mailbox. It nearly killed him, according to reports.

Three men out for revenge against Morantz were eventually arrested in the case and later pleaded no contest.

Bowles expressed wariness about his recent special delivery, telling the Times, "That’s attempted murder, if you ask me."

Read the full Los Angeles Times story here.