Man whose pet python killed girl is remorseful
OXFORD. (AP) – A man whose Burmese python escaped its tank and killed a central Florida girl last month says he is overcome with remorse and grief.
Charles Darnell, 32, said he is now seen as a “monster” for owning an 8_-foot snake that attacked his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter. He said he can’t even go grocery shopping without being noticed.
“How do you deal with losing a child? I don’t wish that on anybody,” he told the Orlando Sentinel in a story published Saturday. “You don’t deal with it, man. You don’t deal with it. You grieve, but you never get over losing a child. When your child dies it take a piece of you, too.”
Prosecutors are still weighing whether to charge Darnell or his girlfriend, Jaren Hare, with wrongdoing in the girl’s death. But Darnell said he doesn’t feel guilt.
“It’s not guilt,” Darnell said. “It’s remorse and grief.”
In the interview, Darnell revealed the snake had already escaped once the night it attacked the child. He found it in the hallway when he went to the bathroom, put it in a laundry bag and back in its tank.
Darnell said he pulled a quilt over the top of the tank, using safety pins and bungee cords to secure it.
“I don’t know how she got out,” he said.
Darnell shouted and sobbed during the Sentinel interview. He said he is no expert on snakes, but has been around reptiles much of his life. He theorized the python was determined to escape because it had reached sexual maturity.
But snake experts such as Andrew Wyatt, president of the United States Association of Reptile Keepers, questioned Darnell’s care of the snake. Wyatt said a python as old as Darnell’s should have weighed much more than 12.3 pounds and called the snake “emaciated.”
“That animal was undernourished,” Wyatt said.
Darnell said any animal can turn on a person. “It was an accident,” he said. “It was a terrible, awful accident.”