Python’s strangling of 2 boys in Canada probed

Reptile fell onto sleeping brothers

TORONTO — A 100-pound python blamed in the strangling deaths of two Canadian boys apparently escaped from its enclosure, slithered through a ventilation system and fell through the ceiling into the room where the young brothers were sleeping, authorities said Tuesday.

A snake expert said it was possible that the python was spooked and simply clung to whatever it landed on. Police are treating the deaths in Camp- bellton, New Brunswick, as a criminal investigation.

Autopsies on Noah Barthe, 4 and his brother Connor Barthe, 6, were being performed Tuesday.

The brothers had been visiting the apartment of a friend whose father owned an exotic pet store on the floor below, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Alain Tremblay said. Tremblay said the African rock python was being kept inside the secondfloor apartment, not inside the pet store.

Steve Benteau, a spokesman for the provincial Natural Resources Department, said no permit was issued for an African rock python and the province wasn’t aware it was being kept at the apartment. The department said the snake is generally only permitted in accredited zoos.

Tremblay said the snake was housed in a large glass enclosure that reached the ceiling of the apartment and escaped through a small hole in the ceiling connected to the ventilation system. He said the snake made its way through the ventilation system and moved toward the living room, where the boys were sleeping. The pipe collapsed and the snake fell. The friend of the boys was sleeping in another room.

The pet store owner, Jean- Claude Savoie, told the Global News television station that he’d had the python for at least 10 years. Police said the snake, which was about 14 feet long, was killed by a veterinarian.

Snake expert John Kendrick said it sounds like the python might have been spooked.

Pythons can sense heat, and if they are startled they can grab something, Kendrick said.

It’s possible that the python was just holding on to what it landed on, Kendrick said. “Once they are in constricting mode, any part of their body that is touching something that moves, they’ll wrap it.”