Baby eating python was simply hungry

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.



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