Killer Snakes

written by Matthew Gorman

Now don’t get me wrong. I like snakes. I’m fully aware of the symbolic and metaphoric resonance of the serpent throughout history. Since the very dawn of human cognizance, the snake has represented many different things to a multitude of different cultures - creation, strength, protection, and rebirth to name but a few. An intertwined pair of serpents has been said to depict the double helix of DNA. Prior to our discovery of the building blocks of life, the symbol existed in the glyph of the caduceus, or staff of Hermes, a symbol that is now used to represent healing and medicine in our modern age. Likewise, the snake as metaphor has represented the male spermatozoa and all the life giving properties inherent within that allusion. The snake has also frequently been the symbolic depiction of knowledge, and indeed there lies some deep and primordial wisdom in the cold, reptilian glare of the ophidian. But the snake can also represent destruction and danger, and as the following article will quickly illustrate, we may do well to give our slithery friends some serious space. So come along with me now, my friends, and let us wind our way through the terrifying world of killer snakes!

I won’t waste time discussing the dangers of the venomous reptiles of the world. We are all very aware of the indisputable danger posed by poisonous snakes. Some estimates suggest human deaths are at up to 125,000 people a year worldwide caused by snake envenomation, the majority of those in Africa and Asia. No, instead I will focus upon the tales of larger constrictors, the giant pythons and boas that are often kept as pets. Snakes that can even seem quite tame, in fact, until the day that they decide to strike.

Numerous reports have surfaced over the years of large constrictors, either from the wild or those kept as pets, shirking their typical diets and attacking, killing, and oftentimes consuming beloved domestic animals such as dogs and cats. One particularly harrowing example of this phenomenon occurred quite recently in Kuranda, Australia where two children, aged five and seven, looked on in horror as their family dog was killed and eaten by a 16-foot scrub python (Morelia amethystina). The wild snake had apparently stalked the dog, a terrier-Chihuahua mix, for several days before making its attack.

But snake attacks from large constrictors don’t just stop at family pets, often children become the tragic victims of these unpredictable acts of aggression as well, and many of these cases involve a reptile actually cared for as a pet by the child’s family.

In Reno, Nevada in 1982 a 21-month-old boy was found dead in his crib, the victim of an escaped pet reticulated python (Python reticulatus). The autopsy of the child’s body found petechiae (red or purple spots where internal blood has welled up through the dermal layer) consistent with a crushing asphyxiation, as well as puncture wounds from the python’s teeth (large constrictors often bite their prey to anchor it in place as they coil around it). The snake apparently had not attempted to consume the toddler, however, and was found resting on a shelf next to the child’s crib.

In Commerce City, Colorado in 1993 an 11-foot female Burmese python (Python molurus bivittatus) ended the erstwhile days of a 15-year-old-boy. The pet snake, known affectionately by the teenager’s family as “Sally” bit the boy on his right foot, locked on, and then strangled the young man to death with her powerful coils. An initial autopsy found that the fingers of the boy’s body were punctured and still leaking fresh blood owing to the fact that the youth had struggled to remove the reptile’s teeth from his foot before eventually expiring from asphyxiation. The fact that the snake weighed just over 50 pounds, less than half of the boy’s body weight, illustrates the true power of a constrictor at work.

In Centralia, Illinois in 1999 a 7 and ½-foot African rock python (Python sebae) somehow managed to escape from its aquarium and killed a 3-year-old boy who had been staying over at his aunt and uncle’s house at the time of the attack. The youngster was repeatedly bitten on the neck and ears by the snake before being suffocated by the animal. The child had been sleeping in the bed with his aunt and uncle at the time, both of which remained oblivious to the attack until well after the fact. Imagine explaining that one to the parents!

More recently, in Irwin, Pennsylvania in 2001 a 10-foot Burmese python suffocated an 8-year-old girl. Although not initially killed by the snake, the girl was rushed to a nearby hospital following the traumatic ordeal and was declared legally brain-dead and taken off of life support just two days later.

But don’t think for one minute that only the young and defenseless become the unwitting victims of large constrictor snakes, as many an unwary owner, themselves, have fallen victim to unprecedented attacks by their beloved pets.

In 1993 in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana a man lost a fight with his pet 16-foot reticulated python. The man was actually not constricted to death by the snake but suffered from hypertension and quite possibly fell victim to a heart attack during the daunting struggle. The snake had been inflicted with several knife wounds in the man’s attempts to free his body from its deathly grasp. The animal was treated for its wounds by a local veterinarian and then given over to the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans rather than being destroyed. So far it has not attacked anyone else. The deceased owner had cared for the snake for many years and had named it “Ebenezer”.

In the Bronx borough of New York City in 1996, a pet 13-foot Burmese python killed its 19-year-old owner. An understandably dismayed neighbor found the young man lying in the hallway outside of his apartment with the large constrictor still coiled around his lifeless corpse.

In 1999, one Robert Raulerson of Port Orange, Florida was found asphyxiated to death by his 12 and ½-foot reticulated python, one of five large constrictors Raulerson owned. The reptile had bit Raulerson on his forehead, sunk its teeth deep into the front of his skull in order to latch on, and then strangled the 32-year-old man to death with its muscular coils. The snake had apparently been ill at the time and it is thought that Raulerson was attempting to administer medicine to the reptile at the time of the attack. The snake in question was humanely destroyed while Raulerson’s other four reptiles were taken to the Halifax Humane Society.

In Aurora, Colorado in 2002 police received a call around 2:30 pm that a man was being attacked by his pet 10-foot long Burmese python. When officers arrived on the scene the snake, “Monty” (get it, Monty Python, ha ha ha, like that’s fucking original) was still wrapped around the man while his hysterical girlfriend looked on. The first two officers on the scene attempted to use their nightsticks to pry the snake from the dying man, but it wasn’t until Aurora fire officials arrived on the scene that the combined efforts of police and firemen were able to release the 43-year-old man from the serpent’s colis. It took seven men altogether, in fact! The victim, one Richard Barber, lived for a short time following the attack but later succumbed to the cumulative effects of his 15-minute asphyxiation via snake and was pronounced dead soon after at a local hospital. It is unclear what caused “Monty” (again, ha ha ha, dumb) to attack, as the reptile was not feeding, shedding, or ill, all common factors in most incidents involving large constrictors.

Most recently, in Lanesville, Indiana in 2006, a 14-foot pet python strangled its owner, Patrick Von Allmen, to death. Von Allmen had taken the snake into a shed outside of his domicile in order to treat the animal for a medical condition. Family members discovered his body inside the shed with the snake a few hours later. Since there is no law prohibiting the ownership of large constrictors in Indiana, as there exists in many states, the reptile was simply returned to the family following an investigation into the man’s cause of death. Von Allmen had had 12 years of experience in handling large constrictors. Not enough, apparently.

While most large constrictor attacks involve some species or another of python, boas, too, have been known to attack and kill their owners from time to time as well, with the last reported death via boa, a 48-year-old man killed by his 13-foot constrictor, occurring in 2006.

Now, while attacks by large constrictors are statistically rare, especially in light of the fact of how many people actually keep these giant reptiles as pets on the North American continent alone, the one thing you must bear in mind is that any snake will always and forever be a wild animal. So sticking them in a heated aquarium with some dried up branches and fake rocks does not domesticate them one bit in the least. It remains unclear in many cases exactly why snakes decide one day to bite, strangle, and kill the hand that often feeds them, but in many cases if the snake is shedding, feeding, feels threatened, is ill, or has been experiencing drastic changes in temperature it may go into attack mode even when being handled or approached by a familiar person.

Another point of note is that in almost every case of a large constrictor attacking and killing a human being, the reptiles have not attempted to consume their victims (in one way this has some small comfort, knowing your earthy remains will likely not succumb to a snake’s digestive tract, but in another way it is quite disturbing for it concludes that these snakes may be killing just to kill). And yet, plenty of tall tales abound concerning those unlucky persons who have haplessly become the next juicy meal for some giant snake.

A series of photographs, in fact, have circulated throughout tabloids and websites over the years showing large constrictors with man-size lumps inside of them. The spurious accompanying articles bemoan the unfortunate fate of some person or another having been devoured by the snake with headlines reading something along the lines of “Man Swallowed Whole By Giant Snake” or “Python Swallows Man Alive”. Often the same photograph will be used repeatedly over the years for various invented accounts with drastic inconsistencies in the date or even continent where the alleged attack took place. Typically these photographs depict a snake that has eaten a large animal, such as a goat, and thus, in turn, is claimed to be photographic evidence of a man-eater.

But while the vast majority of these photographs are hoaxes, there is one among them that is real, and it is a snapshot of the only known incident in which a large constrictor has actually attempted to swallow a human being.

The incident occurred in Malaysia about ten years ago. A park ranger working at one of the huge national parks in Malaysia stumbled across the body of a local man in the clutches of a twenty-two foot reticulated python. The snake had apparently suffocated the man to death and was attempting to devour him head first at the time of its discovery. The snake had already swallowed the man’s head but was unable to get past his shoulders. The park ranger described the snake as making a strange sucking noise as it attempted to consume the man further. The park ranger subsequently killed the reptile, and the man’s body was returned to his family.

Well, if you were planning on purchasing a pet constrictor, then perhaps this article has given you cause to reconsider, and if you already own one, take heed, for it may be just lying in wait, biding its time before the day it finally strikes and then strangles you slowly to death. And if you happened to name your python “Monty”, then I hope it does.