Two-year-old girl strangled by escaped pet python

A PET Burmese python measuring more than 8ft long broke out of a terrarium and strangled a two-year-old girl in her bedroom at a central Florida home, authorities said.

Shaiunna Hare was dead when paramedics arrived at about 10am, Lt Bobby Caruthers of the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office said.

Charles Jason Darnell, the snake’s owner and the boyfriend of Shaiunna’s mother, discovered the snake missing from its terrarium and went to the girl’s room, where he found it on the girl and bite marks on her head, Caruthers said. Darnell, 32, stabbed the snake until he was able to pry the child away.

“The baby’s dead!” a sobbing caller from the house screamed to a 911 dispatcher in a recording. “Our stupid snake got out in the middle of the night and strangled the baby.”

Authorities did not identify the caller and removed the person’s name from the recording. “She got out of the cage last night and got into the baby’s crib and strangled her to death,” the caller said.

Authorities removed the snake from the home after obtaining a search warrant. Once outside the small, tan home, bordered by cow pastures, the snake was placed in a bag then inside a dog crate. The snake was still alive.

Darnell did not have a permit for the snake, which would be a second-degree misdemeanour, said Joy Hill, a spokeswoman with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. He has not been charged, but Caruthers said investigators were looking into whether there was child neglect or if any other laws were broken.

The Humane Society of the US said at least 12 people have been killed in the US by pet pythons since 1980, including five children. Some owners have freed pythons into the wild and a population of them has taken hold in the Everglades.

George Van Horn, owner of Reptile World Serpentarium in St Cloud, said the strangulation could have occurred because the snake felt threatened or because it thought the child was food.

“They are always operating on instinct,” he said. “Even the largest person can become overpowered by a python.”