Python Strangles 2-Year-Old Central Florida Girl

Note date: September 15, 2010. I'll look for something newer.

Hearing set in python death case.

By Larry Clifton
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 7:00 pm

Pretrial hearings are scheduled for 1 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 8, for an Oxford couple charged with third-degree murder in the death of the woman’s child.

Charles Darnell, 33, and Jaren Ashley Hare, 20, were charged with third-degree murder, manslaughter and child neglect after an 8-foot Burmese python in their home killed 2-year-old Shaiunna Hare.

An autopsy revealed that the girl died of affixation after the python escaped from his cage and attacked her.

Shaianna Hare was reportedly asleep in her crib in the house at County Road 466 near Oxford Wednesday morning, July 1, 2009, when the snake slithered into her room, wrapped around her and strangled her to death.

Investigators said after her autopsy that Shaianna died of asphyxiation consistent with being crushed by the eight-and-a-half-foot python.

“The medical examiner’s preliminary report listed asphyxiation as the cause of death and confirmed that the marks on the girl’s head and arms were bite marks,” according to Lt. Bobby Caruthers, of the sheriff’s office, at a press briefing conducted shortly after the deadly incident.

According to a subsequent Aug. 13, 2009 article in the Times, about a month after the death of Shaianna Hare,

Darnell was arrested for selling cocaine to undercover agents after a weeklong investigation.

On March 25 he was sentenced to a year-and-a-half in jail for sale of cocaine.

http://www.sumtercountytimes.com/con...hon-death-case

Story published on January 1, 2011

Baby eating python was simply hungry
by Earl Morningstarr

An investigation in Florida into the death of 2-year-old Shaiunna Hare has found that the pet snake which attacked and killed her was starving.

Newly released documents reveal that the snake, an eight and a half foot albino Burmese python named Gypsy, had not been fed properly for weeks and was severely underweight. The report also states that the animal was not housed properly and had escaped from it’s enclosure at least ten times since it’s last feed before killing the toddler.

Shaiunna’s parents Jaren Hare and her boyfriend Charles Darnell have both been charged with third degree murder, manslaughter, and child abuse and face up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Both have pleaded not guilty.

The damning report says that Gypsy was emaciated and weighed less than 13lbs, half the weight a python it’s length should weigh. According to Darnell the snake’s last feed prior to the attack was a roadkill squirrel which he had found in the road, this was around a month before Gypsy attacked and killed Shaiunna.

The python was also housed insecurely, the snake was simply kept in a large glass tank with a quilt covering it. Gypsy was also placed inside an old laundry bag which had large holes in it. On the night of the fatal attack on Shaiunna, Gypsy escaped her tank twice. Darnell told police that he had woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and discovered Gypsy roaming free around the trailer home they lived in, he placed the reptile back in it’s tank but the next morning he found the snake wrapped around the toddler’s neck with it’s teeth sunk into her forehead.

Gypsy has fully recovered from a cleaver wound which Darnell inflicted when he discovered the snake coiled around the dead child, and she is now being cared for by Florida’s department of Fish and Wildlife.

http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/201...simply-hungry/

Report: Python that strangled Fla. girl was hungry

Related Content
http://www.orlandosentinel.com
The Associated Press
OXFORD, Fla. -- Investigative documents show that a pet python that strangled a Florida toddler had not been fed in a month and had escaped its tank 10 times since its last meal, a newspaper reported Saturday.

An Orlando Sentinel review of investigative documents showed that the 8-foot-6-inch albino Burmese python named Gypsy was kept in violation of wildlife rules, and that the child's mother and mother's boyfriend could not afford to feed it.

The python escaped its terrarium July 1, 2009, and attacked 2-year-old Shaianna Hare in her crib in Oxford, about 60 miles northwest of Orlando.

Jaren Hare, 21, and her 33-year-old boyfriend, Jason Darnell, face up to 15 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter or third-degree murder. They also are charged with child abuse.

The python had slipped out of its 150-gallon tank with only a quilt as a lid twice that day before attacking Shaianna, investigators said.

The emaciated snake weighed less than 13 pounds, at least half what healthy pythons that size should weigh, Andrew Wyatt, president of the United States Association of Reptile Keepers, told the newspaper.

"You keep it hungry and don't secure it, you're asking for trouble," Wyatt said.

According to a death investigation by the Department of Children and Families, Jaren Hare's mother, Sheryl, was concerned about her daughter's ability to care for the python and a smaller snake.

Sheryl Hare told a DCF investigator that a week before the attack, she offered to buy rats for the snakes because the couple had neither jobs nor money. She said she also offered to get sealed containers for the snakes and to keep the snakes at her home.

Both offers were rejected, she told investigators.

According to reports from the Sumter County Sheriff's Office and DCF, Shaianna and two older children in the home regularly handled the python with adult supervision.

The couple told sheriff's detectives that Gypsy was tame and never coiled around the children as they carried it draped around their necks.

Darnell recalled how the python snatched a roadkill squirrel from his hand about a month before the attack.

"She was coming up due (for a feeding)," Darnell told sheriff's detectives. "But I don't think hunger would have been the motive. ... There's no way that she could possibly in her mind think that she could eat that baby."

Darnell told detectives that the snake was in its tank when he went to bed around 11:30 p.m. An hour later, while walking to the bathroom, he found the python in the hallway.

He said he stuffed the snake in a mesh bag and put it in its tank.

Darnell told investigators that at 9:30 the next morning, he found the snake coiled around Shaianna's head, its fangs sunk into her forehead.

Darnell stabbed the snake when he found it wrapped around the toddler. The python has recovered and is being held by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

A new state law passed last year made it illegal for individuals to own Burmese pythons and six other large, exotic reptile species. Some such reptiles have escaped or been set loose by their owners, which threatens Florida's ecology because they can prey almost unchecked on native birds and other animals.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/0...lled-fla.html#

figured it was something like this, don't get me wrong i feel bad for the kid, but i feel equally as bad for the snake, roadkill as food? rejecting offers for help for feeding and housing the snakes? don't punish the snakes punish the parents who let this happen. not only that but if you cant afford to pay for snake food what hope do you have to pay for a child's well being such as food,clothes and other essentials. morons like this ruin things for others.

The trial is about to get underway. Here's an update which includes a short video of a portion of the court proceedings:

"Florida couple on trial after pet python kills child"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43718415/

Story from the link:
"Trial proceedings began on Monday for a central Florida mother and her boyfriend who are accused of allowing their pet python to strangle a 2-year-old girl in her crib.

Jaren Hare, 21, and boyfriend Charles Darnell, 34, were charged with manslaughter, third-degree murder and child neglect after the July 1, 2009, death of Hare's daughter, Shaianna Hare, in Bushnell northwest of Orlando.

Darnell found the couple's 12-foot-long albino Burmese python named Gypsy wrapped around Shaianna's head and body, according to the Sumter County Sheriff's Office. The medical examiner found bite marks on the child's head and arms.

Darnell estimated that Shaianna weighed 22 pounds compared to the snake's 45 to 50 pounds, the incident report said.

Darnell told deputies that he woke up in the middle of the night, found the python in the hallway and returned it to its 200-gallon aquarium where it spent most of its time. He thought he had secured the snake by placing it in a laundry bag, which had a small hole in it, and then covering the aquarium with a quilt held on by safety pins.

But Hare told deputies that the snake had escaped from the tank and laundry bag 10 times in the previous two months, and she was planning to make a locking lid for the tank.

Florida state law requires owners to keep pythons under lock and key. Neither Darnell nor Hare obtained a state permit to keep the python.

Darnell said the snake was due for its monthly feeding, but he didn't think the animal wanted to eat the little girl. Darnell said he stabbed the snake while trying to pry the toddler from its grip but the child was already dead, the sheriff's report stated.

The couple told deputies they often took the snake out of the tank to play with it and would place it around the shoulders of the children in the home without incident.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission took possession of the python and a red-tailed boa constrictor in the home. After the python was treated for stab wounds, both reptiles were placed with a licensed facility.

Lawyers selected a jury on Monday and were scheduled to begin opening statements Tuesday morning."

I personally feel pretty good about the fact that Orlando is made up of people who are very angry that the last parent to kill her 2-year old was let off, and those people are the jury pool. Let's hope they have enough evidence to put this one away.

Noelle

The snake was framed.

I can't believe they are still running with that "12 ft python" crap. We all seen the original video. That snake wasn't even close to 12 ft, and certainly not large enough to think that toddler was a meal it could actually swallow.

I too think the snake was framed. It would be nice to have someone on the jury that actually deals with Burmese to maybe convince the jury to see past the "man eating snake" BS. But with all the negative publicity Burms are getting in FL, I don't see that as likely.

We know who's definitely NOT at fault: the snake or the baby. If the snake was framed, which I agree it probably was, and they get away with it, other waste-of-oxygen parents will have a legal precedent. They shouldn't have been allowed to have a snake or a child, and now the rest of us are going to have to pay for him to have medical care and 3 meals a day. Now I'm venting, sorry...

Noelle

Originally Posted by crotalusadamanteus

I can't believe they are still running with that "12 ft python" crap. We all seen the original video. That snake wasn't even close to 12 ft, and certainly not large enough to think that toddler was a meal it could actually swallow.

I too think the snake was framed. It would be nice to have someone on the jury that actually deals with Burmese to maybe convince the jury to see past the "man eating snake" BS. But with all the negative publicity Burms are getting in FL, I don't see that as likely.

Wholeheartedly, 100%.

Originally Posted by AbsoluteApril

... Darnell estimated that Shaianna weighed 22 pounds compared to the snake's 45 to 50 pounds, the incident report said...

The snake weighed < 13 pounds in news reports when the event occured. Didn't anyone take notes?