Man faces 122 charges after dead snakes found in home

There is a video if you follow the link.
Here is the link.
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/...m%20Bay%20home

43-year-old Palm Bay man whose home is undergoing foreclosure faces more than 122 counts of animal cruelty charges today after more than 100 dead snakes were found in his home.


VIDEO: Dozens of dead snakes found in Palm Bay home

Police booked Barry Walter, 43, into the Brevard County Detention Center this afternoon on 122 counts of animal cruelty.


Animal enforcement officers were at the man's home at 251 Mayport Ave. in Palm Bay this morning where 75 to 100 dead snakes were found inside the home.


Among the carcasses that enforcement officers pulled from the home were those of pythons, rattle snakes, scorpions and mice found inside a freezer.


Officers wearing gloves and masks were removing the snakes from the home Tuesday morning. Some snakes were still alive but most have been dead for so long that their carcasses had liquified in their holding containers.


Police said the home was under foreclosure.


The snakes were discovered after a cleaning crew found a dead snake in a window, then saw dozens of plastic containers holding snakes of various sizes inside the home. The homeowner has been cited at least once by code enforcement but has never showed up in court, officials said.


"The house is in disrepair," said Yvonne Martinez, spokeswoman for Palm Bay police.


Police said the homeowner was not a snake breeder. There's still furniture inside the home.





Animal services officers check tubs for surviving critters at a home on Mayport Drive in Palm Bay. A cleaning crew called animal services after finding dead animals at the home, which is currently in foreclosure.

We're screwed.

I wonder if they are counting the mice in the freezer as part of the cruelty case.

Hey All,

I don't condone the loss of life, and amount of suffering this person caused. He should get more than whats going to come to him through our slap on the wrist court system.

Although we are already thinking the worst, this guy might be in the hospital from a car wreck, he might be in jail from some other charge, he might have died. Most likely not he is a sad sack of *&%, but it has changed what I do at my place.


Counting mice to increase the numbers-Most likely. I, myself, once had a good number of snakes in a second freezer, from various places.

1. Used to find animals D.O.R and kept them for skins and a taxidermist friend to practice on.

2. A randomly have king cobras and other snake eaters, hatch some animals that need scenting, so I used to get a lot of b-grade kink baby corns, failure to thrive snakes, and breeder colubrids that got egg bound, or blew out hemipenes in breeding.

3. I have several importer friends, and when stuff came in too rough for them I was asked to try and fix it, if I was unsuccessful it was proof I didn't sell it out from under them.

4. I was a real business for several years, and kept any of my business's animals that died for that tax year to keep my inventory straight and account for losses in case my accountant or lawyer ever asked for proof.

5. Any of the animals I didn't use, or after being written off I donated to a zoology lab that is across the hall from the lab I work in so they could practice sample collection, sample prep, and precise procedures or cadavers instead of screwing up on a purchased or collected animal that was being recorded on thier animal use protocol.

6. I donated several oddities to various collegiate and laboratory institutions for formaldehyde collections, comparative anatomy, embryological research, and locality data.

All of this I can no longer do, as it has become a trend by officials to empty out a persons freezer to make them out to be worse, and make headlines with huge numbers, and to self vindicate thier own efforts.

Now I take photos of my deaths and keep inventories that way, but I can no longer provide any carcasses for the taxidermist or the graduate students to practice on. Which is a shame becuase now they will kill a perfectly good animal for the practice, instead of using a donor.


My cages are clean, my animals are single housed except for males in breed rotation, and all my animals have clean waterbowls-but what would it look like to my community who doesn't know me, my day job associates that really don't know me, or my non-local customers who don't know me if they saw a headline that read 1050 dead animals found at Ben's house!

The headline sinks anyone before anything else is said. They don't come back and say the next day, "well he had 500 frozen prey mice, 450 prey rats, 25 prey rabbits, 50 prey chicks, 20 prey quail, and 5 frozen snakes that were to be donated to the local university zoology department".


I know several producers that have changed "freezer" policy due to the various raids that have happened.


Thanks
ben

So the bank through him out of his house. A couple months later they find that they killed all of his pets do to there forced foreclosesure on the property so now the bank is getting charged with animal cruelty and there getting forced to reimburse the man for all of his losses that they the bank were responsible for . I love this country it's so free and fare.

I have had 2 snakes I actually felt my husbandry killed,its the Only 2 I have ever killed but 100 dead snakes in cages thats animal cruelty any way you slice it.Wow thats a lot of
Money that this man waisted,like I said I have had 2 snakes pass in the 5 years herping and I totally learned from my Husbandry practices but thats just plain a "Snake Mill" went Wrong!
75-100 snakes I cant even fathom that my Wife would Skin Me!

Originally Posted by oldworldlife

So the bank through him out of his house. A couple months later they find that they killed all of his pets do to there forced foreclosesure on the property so now the bank is getting charged with animal cruelty and there getting forced to reimburse the man for all of his losses that they the bank were responsible for . I love this country it's so free and fare.

Did you read a different article than I did. I saw no mention of any of this or are you being sarcastic.

Sorry if I missed something, if I did please clue me in.

It sucks that so much scum seems to be collecting in my homestate....

this is so terrible to hear and/or read about...