THOMASVILLE, Ga. — Bail bondsman Gary Cooper speaks softly and carries a big snake.
If someone Cooper posts bond for doesn't show up for trial, he goes looking for the bail jumper armed with Pete, a 6-foot boa constrictor.
Cooper never has to pull out the snake. Just the sight of the huge black serpent writhing in a pillowcase Cooper carries is enough to make most fugitives submit.
"There are two kinds of people I deal with: fearful people and rebellious people," said Cooper.
"The snake makes rebellious people fearful people," he said. "I have seen mean drug dealers from Miami melt at the thought."
Cooper, whose mother named him for the Hollywood movie legend, owns Express Bond and Collection Agency in Thomasville, 10 miles north of the Florida line.
Pete's home is a 4-by-2-foot aquarium in a back room of Cooper's office. The snake likes to sleep coiled beneath a black motorcycle helmet.
Cooper, a Baptist Sunday School teacher, said the idea of partnering with a serpent came to him while praying. Hoping to avoid guns, pepper spray and violence, he said he asked God to help him find a way to nab fugitives "non-lethally, without abuse and trauma."