PYTHON SWALLOW A BABY
A 7-month-old infant was severely bitten and crushed to death by an 8-foot-long pet python that crawled into her her crib, authorities said Sunday.
Police said the huge reptile, which escaped from its glass cage in the living room, was due for his biweekly feeding -- a hamster -- and was probably hungry.
The asphyxiation process may have taken five minutes or longer, authorities said, and the snake prevented the baby from screaming by squeezing the breath from her lungs.
The victim was Toni Lynn Duboe, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Eugene Duboe, who purchased the snake as a family pet a year and a half ago in California. Their 5-year-old daughter Jessie was sleeping in a bed in the same room, but escaped injury.
Mrs. Duboe discovered the infant Saturday a short time after the snake struck. She notified her husband, who found the snake curled up on a wooden shelf above the baby's crib.
Authorities said Duboe became hysterical, grabbed the 7-pound python and wrestled it into his bedroom. He stabbed it with a knife, then shot it with a .25-caliber pistol, then partially severed the head with a kitchen knife and threw the snake back into the room with the dead child, where police found it.
The Dallas County medical examiner's office ruled 'death by traumatic asphyxiation' and said the child's body bore 'countless' face and head bite marks.
'The smothering aspect answered my questions about why the parents didn't hear the child cry,' said a spokesman for the medical examiner's office. 'She couldn't. As the victim tries to breathe, the snake suqeezes tighter and tigher around the body.'
Medical examiner's field agent Bill Lene said puncture wounds on the baby's face and head matched the snake's fangs. He said pythons leave no bruises on their victims. They smother by tightening their coils each time a victim exhales, preventing inhalation.
Dallas police homicide Sgt. Gus Rose said Duboe informed officers he fed the python a hamster every two weeks.
'He said it had been two weeks since it was last fed,' Rose said. 'It could have been hungry and probably was.'
Police described Duboe as 'deeply grief-sticken' and said his wife also was hysterical.
The python apparently escaped during the night by using its strength to nudge aside a board covering its terrarium -- a 4-foot-long glass cage -- and slithered into the childs' bedroom.
The snake was a reticulated python -- so named because of its hinged jaws which drop open, allowing large mammals to be swallowed.
An expert said the python, which feeds nocturally, had poor vision, able to distinguish only the broad outlines of victims. He said its acute sense of smell and a heat-sensing organ in its head may have led it to the crib.
In zoos, rules require one handler for every meter of python because the reptile is enormously strong.
Pathologists said the infant's face and head were covered with 'dozens, maybe scores' of needle-fine punctures and one series of bites was U-shaped, indicating the python may have gotten a large portion of its mouth over the child.
Pythons generally have 100 teeth, all curved backward to prevent prey from escaping.
It is legal to keep a snake in a private residence in Dallas. Rose said, however, he intended to present the case to a grand jury to look into the possibility of negligence.
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