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Couple accused of failing to protect 2-year-old girl from being strangled by snake Gypsy, a pet python that strangled a 2-year-old girl in her crib, won't appear in court in Sumter County this week when her owner and her owner's boyfriend stand trial for manslaughter and child neglect.
Assistant State Attorney Pete Magrino decided that photographs of the serpent will have to suffice for jurors. "I don't want a circus," said Magrino, a veteran homicide prosecutor whose résumé includes securing a death sentence for sex offender and child-killer John Evander Couey. "The snake's not on trial here." Jury selection is set for Monday in the case of Charles "Jason" Darnell, 34, and Jaren Hare, 21. They are accused of failing to keep the 8-foot-6-inch albino Burmese python from slithering out of a terrarium in July 2009 and into bed with the toddler, Shaianna Hare.
The couple, who will be tried together, could get 35 years in prison each if convicted of all charges.
Darnell and Hare, Shaianna's mother, had been dating for two years before the snake attack, and Darnell had planned to adopt the little girl. The couple had a child together about a month after Shaianna's death.
Humane officials and animal-law experts across the U.S. say they will be watching the unusual criminal case, thought to be the first instance of a nonvenomous constrictor killing a child in Florida, where the thriving but invasive "reptile of concern" spurred state-sponsored python hunts in the Everglades in 2009.
According to investigative documents reviewed by the Sentinel, the yellowish constrictor, bought at a flea market for $200, hadn't eaten in a month and was kept in a glass terrarium with a quilt for a lid.
The snake weighed in at a sickly 13.5 pounds after the attack.
It sneaked out of the tank earlier that night and was slinking down the hall of the double-wide trailer when Darnell, headed to the bathroom, nearly stepped on it in the hallway. He told deputy sheriffs that he scooped up the python, slipped it into a mesh laundry bag, carried it back to the terrarium and put the quilt on the tank again.
Charge: 'Grossly careless disregard'
But the bag had a baseball-sized hole in it, according to the investigation by Sumter County deputies.
Darnell awoke the next morning to find the snake wrapped around Shaianna, its fangs in her forehead.
Orlando defense attorney J. Rhiannon Arnold, Darnell's lawyer, would not discuss the case. Ismael Solis Jr., Hare's lawyer, did not return telephone messages left at his law offices in Groveland and Orlando.
The felony charges accuse the couple, who lived near Darnell's mother's home in Oxford, about 60 miles northwest of Orlando, of acting with a "grossly careless disregard" for the safety and welfare of the child by failing to secure the python.
Before the attack, the python had escaped its tank 10 times since its last meal, a road-kill squirrel.
According to a death investigation conducted by the state Department of Children and Families, Jaren Hare's mother, Sheryl, was concerned about her daughter's ability to care for Gypsy and another pet snake, Dixie, a smaller Colombian red-tail boa, because neither Jaren nor her boyfriend had jobs or money.
She offered to keep the reptiles at her home, provide a sealed container for the python and buy rats for the snakes to eat — but the offers were rejected. Sheryl Hare is listed as a prosecution witness in the case.
The constrictor, which has recovered from a cleaver wound inflicted by Darnell after he pulled Shaianna free of the python's grip, remains in the custody of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Officials would not disclose Gypsy's location.
'Grim statistics'
The snake "did what it's supposed to do," said David Favre, a law professor at Michigan State University and editor-in-chief of the Animal Legal & Historical Center, a website that tracks legal issues related to animals. "You can't put a quilt over the aquarium and say you've carried out your responsibility of care. I think they're in deep trouble."
Since 1980, the Humane Society of the United States, which opposes ownership of constrictor snakes, has documented more than 200 incidents of snake attacks, escapes, abandonments and cruelty cases in 43 states. The reptiles have been linked to the deaths of 16 people in the U.S., including seven children.
"These grim statistics include not only children who have fallen victim to the reckless behavior of others, but experienced snake handlers," said Debbie Leahy, the organization's captive-wildlife specialist.
According to subpoenas in the court file, Magrino may present testimony from Eugene Bessette, a Gainesville-area snake expert who helped the state develop regulations for possessing pythons and other reptiles of concern. Bessette may testify about their dangers and precautions owners and handlers should take.
Legal experts say the prosecution likely will focus on the danger the unsecured predatory snake posed to the child, perhaps likening it to a loaded gun lying in the house.
An eerily similar trial resulted in a misdemeanor conviction for a father in 2002.
In that case, a Pennsylvania judge decided that snake keeper Robert Mountain was guilty of misdemeanor child endangerment but not guilty of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment in the death of his 8-year-old daughter. The girl was strangled by the father's 11-foot-long pet python, Moe, who escaped a homemade tank.
The child, left alone when the father went to work and her mother went to buy them lunch, was killed as she sat on the floor watching cartoons. The mother received probation in exchange for testifying against the father.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/os-snake-trial-begins-20110710,0,577236.story
Assistant State Attorney Pete Magrino decided that photographs of the serpent will have to suffice for jurors. "I don't want a circus," said Magrino, a veteran homicide prosecutor whose résumé includes securing a death sentence for sex offender and child-killer John Evander Couey. "The snake's not on trial here." Jury selection is set for Monday in the case of Charles "Jason" Darnell, 34, and Jaren Hare, 21. They are accused of failing to keep the 8-foot-6-inch albino Burmese python from slithering out of a terrarium in July 2009 and into bed with the toddler, Shaianna Hare.
The couple, who will be tried together, could get 35 years in prison each if convicted of all charges.
Darnell and Hare, Shaianna's mother, had been dating for two years before the snake attack, and Darnell had planned to adopt the little girl. The couple had a child together about a month after Shaianna's death.
Humane officials and animal-law experts across the U.S. say they will be watching the unusual criminal case, thought to be the first instance of a nonvenomous constrictor killing a child in Florida, where the thriving but invasive "reptile of concern" spurred state-sponsored python hunts in the Everglades in 2009.
According to investigative documents reviewed by the Sentinel, the yellowish constrictor, bought at a flea market for $200, hadn't eaten in a month and was kept in a glass terrarium with a quilt for a lid.
The snake weighed in at a sickly 13.5 pounds after the attack.
It sneaked out of the tank earlier that night and was slinking down the hall of the double-wide trailer when Darnell, headed to the bathroom, nearly stepped on it in the hallway. He told deputy sheriffs that he scooped up the python, slipped it into a mesh laundry bag, carried it back to the terrarium and put the quilt on the tank again.
Charge: 'Grossly careless disregard'
But the bag had a baseball-sized hole in it, according to the investigation by Sumter County deputies.
Darnell awoke the next morning to find the snake wrapped around Shaianna, its fangs in her forehead.
Orlando defense attorney J. Rhiannon Arnold, Darnell's lawyer, would not discuss the case. Ismael Solis Jr., Hare's lawyer, did not return telephone messages left at his law offices in Groveland and Orlando.
The felony charges accuse the couple, who lived near Darnell's mother's home in Oxford, about 60 miles northwest of Orlando, of acting with a "grossly careless disregard" for the safety and welfare of the child by failing to secure the python.
Before the attack, the python had escaped its tank 10 times since its last meal, a road-kill squirrel.
According to a death investigation conducted by the state Department of Children and Families, Jaren Hare's mother, Sheryl, was concerned about her daughter's ability to care for Gypsy and another pet snake, Dixie, a smaller Colombian red-tail boa, because neither Jaren nor her boyfriend had jobs or money.
She offered to keep the reptiles at her home, provide a sealed container for the python and buy rats for the snakes to eat — but the offers were rejected. Sheryl Hare is listed as a prosecution witness in the case.
The constrictor, which has recovered from a cleaver wound inflicted by Darnell after he pulled Shaianna free of the python's grip, remains in the custody of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Officials would not disclose Gypsy's location.
'Grim statistics'
The snake "did what it's supposed to do," said David Favre, a law professor at Michigan State University and editor-in-chief of the Animal Legal & Historical Center, a website that tracks legal issues related to animals. "You can't put a quilt over the aquarium and say you've carried out your responsibility of care. I think they're in deep trouble."
Since 1980, the Humane Society of the United States, which opposes ownership of constrictor snakes, has documented more than 200 incidents of snake attacks, escapes, abandonments and cruelty cases in 43 states. The reptiles have been linked to the deaths of 16 people in the U.S., including seven children.
"These grim statistics include not only children who have fallen victim to the reckless behavior of others, but experienced snake handlers," said Debbie Leahy, the organization's captive-wildlife specialist.
According to subpoenas in the court file, Magrino may present testimony from Eugene Bessette, a Gainesville-area snake expert who helped the state develop regulations for possessing pythons and other reptiles of concern. Bessette may testify about their dangers and precautions owners and handlers should take.
Legal experts say the prosecution likely will focus on the danger the unsecured predatory snake posed to the child, perhaps likening it to a loaded gun lying in the house.
An eerily similar trial resulted in a misdemeanor conviction for a father in 2002.
In that case, a Pennsylvania judge decided that snake keeper Robert Mountain was guilty of misdemeanor child endangerment but not guilty of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment in the death of his 8-year-old daughter. The girl was strangled by the father's 11-foot-long pet python, Moe, who escaped a homemade tank.
The child, left alone when the father went to work and her mother went to buy them lunch, was killed as she sat on the floor watching cartoons. The mother received probation in exchange for testifying against the father.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/os-snake-trial-begins-20110710,0,577236.story
