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.