Owner of N.B. pet store in shock over python deaths
Posted Aug 6, 2013 09:05:00 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The owner of a New Brunswick exotic pet store that housed an African rock python that escaped and strangled two young boys says he is in shock.
Jean-Claude Savoie has told Global News he can’t believe the large snake got out of its enclosure, went through a ventilation system and strangled the boys who were sleeping in his apartment, which sits above the store in Campbellton, N.B.
Savoie told the television station the two boys are the children of his best friend and were often at his apartment to visit his own son.
Savoie says he didn’t hear a sound during the incident and only discovered the “horrific scene” when he went into his living room, where the two boys were sleeping, on Monday morning.
At that point, Savoie says he saw the snake, pinned it down and put the reptile in a cage.
He says the python, which he has had for at least 10 years, was kept alone in its enclosure at Reptile Ocean and was not handled by anyone else.
Police say autopsies will be conducted today on the two boys, aged five and seven.
Snake could have been spooked, says expert
A snake expert says the python that apparently suffocated the two young brothers may have been spooked and just wrapped itself around whatever it landed on.
The 100-pound snake got out of its enclosure in an exotic pet store and made its way into the ventilation system of the apartment above. It fell through the ceiling of the living room where they were sleeping.
The pet store owner — whose son was a frequent playmate of the boys — says he was unaware that anything had happened until he came across the horrific scene Monday morning.
