A community is shocked after a 2-year old little girl, Shaiunna Hare, was strangled in her crib by an 8-foot pet python.
Shaiunna Hare and her mother, Jaren Ashley Hare, 23 resided with Jaren’s boyfriend, Charles Darnell. Darnell, the pet’s owner, told police that he found the snake has escaped from it’s cage around midnight Wednesday evening and he found it and returned it to it’s cage. He told investigators we he discovered this morning it was out of his cage he found it in Shaiunna’s crib. He then got a knife and began stabbing the snake, and it slithered away under a dresser.
When police arrived at 10 am, Shaiunna was already dead. Her body was taken to the medical examiners office for an autopsy.
A neighbor referred to Charles as “a great dad.” “He’s just devastated by this.”
The incident occurred in Sumter County, Florida. Darnell did not have a permit to have the animal in the home.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This sad story strikes me as being highly suspicious. Snakes by nature do not attack sleeping children. Pet pythons are usually fed mice, rats, and/or rabbits, and snakes detect food primarily by scent. Is it possible that this is a murder case, not a tragic accident? It would not be difficult to place a rabbit or other “snake food items” in or near the child’s crib, thus “scenting” it. A snake can not easily differentiate between a baby and “food”, as long as the baby smells like “food”. It’s a terrible thought that someone would mark their child for murder, but parents kill their children all the time for various reasons. And, because snakes are unpopular to begin with, a snake makes the perfect “scapegoat”. Perhaps this is truly a tragic accident, but I still maintain it’s a very strange case. Another possible scenario: the snake was simply curious, and crawled into the child’s crib seeking warmth. Child woke up, surprised to be sharing its crib with the snake, and reacted in a way as to trigger the snake’s defensive behavior. (In other words, the snake bit and constricted the child because the child was thrashing about or in come way threatening the snake, and so the snake instinctually defended itself).
I think it’s more of a defensive maneuver on the snake’s part. I think it was looking for a heat source and the baby might have grabbed it’s head or smacked at it’s head, causing the snake to become alarmed.
Either way, this man should NOT have had this snake. This is called natural consequence, when you make a poor decision, and something bad happens due to lack of good planning.
I say slap the guy with negligent homicide and ban him from owning anything bigger then a milk snake.