A two-year-old girl has been strangled to death in her bed by a pet python which escaped from its cage in the middle of the night.
The eight-foot Burmese python broke out of a terrarium and killed toddler Shaiunna Hare in her bedroom in Florida.
Charles Jason Darnell, the snake’s owner and boyfriend of the child’s mother, went to the little girl’s room when he realised the reptile was missing.
He found Shaiunna in the snake’s deadly grasp, with bite marks on her head.
Darnell stabbed at the snake until he was able to pry the child away, but the infant was dead by the time emergency services arrived.
‘The baby’s dead!’ a sobbing caller from the house screamed to an emergency all dispatcher in a recording. ‘Our stupid snake got out in the middle of the night and strangled the baby… She got out of the cage last night and got into the baby’s crib and strangled her to death.’
Authorities did not say who made the emergency call.
The snake was taken away alive by emergency services.
[More]
How sad.
Never seen the alure with have these ‘exotic’ pets.
This is tragic. Why do people insist on exotic “pets”? My husband and sons went on a hike and found a garter snake – brought it home and put it in an aquarium – it escaped three times in less than a week. I finally put my foot down and told them to return it to the great outdoors. With much reluctance my “boys” complied. I also had an infant in the house at the time and was not happy hunting for this creature in all the dark corners of the house. And yes I do know that a garter snake is considered harmless and not very big, but it is still a snake!
They should be more strict to people who have these kind of pets most especially pythons. We shouldn’t have waited for this to happen. Anyway, it is not too late to make this kind of incident avoidable.
“Anyway, it is not too late to make this kind of incident avoidable.”
Long Island Gal is correct. It completely escapes me why a state like Florida would permit pet stores to sell pythons as pets especially when you realize what can happen there when they get loose.
“And ya.” We do it here to.
Stupid is as stupid does I guess.