Police Close 'Snake Death Scotsman' Case
"PA"
Police in Arkansas have effectively closed the case on the mysterious death of a Briton who picked up poisonous snakes at Little Rock’s airport that were later found abandoned.
“We’re basically done with it,” said Little Rock Police Department spokesman Terry Hastings. “This is not a criminal investigation, it was ruled an accidental death and it’s handled the same way as someone falling off the roof of a house.”
Garrick Wales, 48, from Scotland, was found dead in a rented truck near the airport on May 13. Days later police found a box of four venomous snakes that they believe may have belonged to Wales.
Police are awaiting the results of toxicology reports to see if they can determine what killed Wales, whose body was covered in vomit when found by a patrol officer. They expect the results by the end of June or the beginning of July.
During an autopsy, needle marks were discovered in Wales’ arm and Hastings said police had found a hypodermic needle in Wales’ shirt pocket. He also said a bag containing several more needles was found in the box with the snakes.
The snakes – a 14in twig snake, a 6ft green mamba, a 4ft black mamba, and a 5ft forest cobra – had been shipped to Little Rock from an internet snake dealer in Florida.
Police suspect Wales was bitten by one of the mambas and Hastings said that if he had been, bite-marks would not be visible and that Wales would have died within 30 minutes to two hours of being bitten. He also said toxicology reports would not determine if Wales died of a snake bite because snake venom contained enzymes that were absorbed into the body.
“He could have died of a heart attack, which could have been caused by a snake bite,” Hastings said. “We don’t know.”
When police searched Wales’ hotel room in Little Rock, they found a laptop computer with emails to a Florida snake dealer thanking the man for two boomslang snakes that he described as “quite docile”.
The emails also indicated that Wales planned to take all or some of the snakes he’d just received to a Little Rock resident.
The snakes, initially taken to the Little Rock Zoo after being found in the box, have since been sent to a zoo in Texas.
“We still don’t have a clue and probably will never know what he was doing with those snakes or why he threw them out of the car,” Hastings said.
He said he believes the reason Wales had the snakes shipped to Little Rock is because it is not illegal in Arkansas to possess the snakes.
The case has been peppered with hearsay and sensational reports and had drawn immense attention from international media, Hastings said.
“It’s more of a tabloid story than a crime and we’ve just been overwhelmed with calls from the media,” he said. “But, since it’s not a crime, we don’t have the time or the manpower to investigate it. As curious as everybody is about it, we’re not investigating it.”
Hastings said false reports in the case included a relationship Wales supposedly had with Joanna Jet, a transsexual porn star in Europe, and indications that Wales was bitten by a poisonous snake a year ago and had been receiving regular blood transfusions to dilute the effects of the venom.
“The news media and our counterparts over there in Scotland have really blown this out of proportion,” Hastings said.
“As far as we’re concerned in this country, our part here in Little Rock is done
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3017508