re: Is this the kind of turtle some of yall eat?

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It was correct to either let it go or kill and eat but not to kill it and not use the meat for it's purpose.

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Agreed. I have no problem with someone killing a big turtle to eat. There is no concrete way to know how old those turtles actually are, unless it was a mark/recapture or grown in captivity. The few studies that have been done on alligator snapping turtles show most grow to 30-35lbs in the first 8 years of life. Once they reach this age the growth rates vary from very slow to very rapid, based on a number of factors that are impossible to calculate for wild-caught turtles. You can generalize and say a 75lb turtle is older than a 25lb turtle, but to walk around saying all big turtles like that are 100yrs old is an ignorant thing to do. There are a lot more big turtles like that in the southeastern US than people believe.