Several months after their capture, Adam, Evelyn, and Mary Lou continued to be prisoners of the Zoo. Of course, no one at the Zoo knew that two of the new alligators were actually the missing members of their staff.
They just assumed that Evelyn was Mary Lou, and that she had somehow stumbled upon two more alligators. They didn't question how or why too closely. They were too happy to have two more alligators to add to the exhibit. The real Mary Lou was now only 13 or 14 feet long - not nearly as impressive as Evelyn's nineteen feet. But the zoo administration hoped that over time, with judicious use of their secret growth formula, she might catch up to Evelyn's size and they would have two star attractions.
Because the zoo staff thought that Evelyn was actually Mary Lou, they were a little perplexed by her sudden change in behavior. She had previously fought every male that was placed in her pen, but she seemed attached to the new male she had found in the wild. Almost possessive. She had been very aggressive when the zoo staff tried to separate them. So the staff let them stay together in the same pen. They were rewarded for their kindness. Mary Lou finally allowed a male to mate her, and the pair seemed insatiable. They hoped to see a clutch of eggs very soon. And then they would have a whole new pod of alligators like Mary Lou to sell to other zoos.
The other alligator proved to be more troublesome. Because she was only two-thirds her original size, the zoo staff assumed Mary Lou was a different alligator. They gave her a new name - Lizzie the Lizard. Because they only had one pen, they tried to place all of the alligators together in Mary Lou's enclosure. That proved a disaster, as Mary Lou aggressively attacked Lizzie. Lizzie was placed in a storage area while a new enclosure was quickly built. When Lizzie was released into her new home, she was a different alligator. She seemed morose and sad, and the zoo staff were worried that Lizzie was depressed. They considered moving the male alligator into her pen for a while, just to give her a little company. But Mary Lou was strangely possessive of him. They decided to let him stay with Mary Lou, at least until the first clutch of eggs had hatched.
The disappearance of Adam and Evelyn was never really questioned or investigated. The administration at the Zoo had just assumed that Adam and Evelyn had been devoured by Mary Lou. Normally an animal would be put down for such behavior. But Mary Lou was the star attraction, a real cash cow. And there was no way that they were going to kill the golden goose. After some generous cash settlements and few bribes to the right people, the matter was hushed up and quickly forgotten. And Mary Lou was once again the center of the show. Her escape attempt had been big news, and brought in all kinds of paying customers, old and new.
And besides, alligators like Mary Lou were rare. Eager young people who liked to work with animals were a dime a dozen, and they quickly found a replacement for the missing zoo staff members.