Macon lawman helps elderly widow, gives dead cat proper burial

The dead cat was a stray. It had been run over on Bloomfield Drive in southwest Macon, not far from Rice Elementary School. An 87-year-old widow who lives near the scene of the cat’s demise apparently kept calling authorities to have the feline’s carcass picked up. Bibb County sheriff’s Sgt. Steve Gatlin heard the May 19 radio chatter about the woman’s request and told dispatchers he’d handle it. He called the woman. He soon learned that she lives alone and is dealing with a daughter’s medical problems. Gatlin said he told the woman that as soon as he could, he would drop by. When he got there, he put the animal’s remains in a plastic bag. He was going to toss them in the trash. But the widow, an animal lover, told him to hold off on throwing the thing in the garbage. She said she’d get a relative to come over and bury it. “I got this,” Gatlin told her. He found a shovel and buried the cat. The woman thanked him. “It’s what she said to me,” Gatlin recalled, “that about made me choke up.” She told him, “I didn’t realize there were people like you out there.” Gatlin told her, “That’s what we’re here for. We try to help people when we can.”

This story was originally published June 1, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Macon lawman helps elderly widow, gives dead cat proper burial."