Woman found dead with 2.4m python coiled around her neck
A 36-year-old woman was found dead in a home with a 2.4-metre-long python wrapped around her neck.
The person who found Laura Hurst at her home in Indiana removed the python from around her neck, however, medics were unable to revive her on Thursday, according to Indiana State Police Sargent Kim Riley.
Ms Hurst’s autopsy is scheduled for Friday.
“She appears to have been strangled by the snake,” Sgt Riley told the Journal & Courier.
“We do not know that for a fact until after the autopsy.”
Sgt Riley said Ms Hurst kept snakes on her residence and her home was outfitted for a collection of reptiles.
The home in the Indiana town of Oxford contained about 140 snakes, 20 of which were owned by Ms Hurst.
However, the property records show the home is owned by Benton County Sheriff Don Munson, who lives next door, according to the Journal & Courier.
Sheriff Munson told the Journal & Courier he was the one who found Ms Hurst, he called her death a “tragic accident with loss of human life.”
“I’ve given all information to the state police,” he said, adding that he was “being fully cooperative with everybody”.
It was Sheriff Munson who renovated the home for the collection of snakes, according to AP News.
While the home was not hers, it is understood Ms Hurst visited the home with the snakes about twice a week.
In 2001, when Sheriff Munson was a county sheriff’s deputy, he bred snakes for sale, according to a 2001 interview with the Journal & Courier.
Earlier in October, a snake catcher in North Queensland was almost strangled to death when she was trying to remove a snake from a tree.
“When I grabbed the snake out of the tree it landed around my neck (and) before I could unwind the snake from my neck it tightened around my neck and face,” Sue Ambler wrote on Facebook.
“Before long it asphyxiated me to the point I passed out and fell to the ground.”
Fortunately, the client who called her to remove the snake called an ambulance.
“Even though pythons are non-venomous they are dangerous too so please don’t handle snakes by yourself,” Ms Ambler wrote.
On Thursday, it was reported a tourist died after being bitten by a brown snake in the Northern Territory last week.
“An independent traveller aged 68 died on 23 October 2019 as a result of a snake bite he received while camping in Garig Gunak Barlu (Cobourg) National Park,” a spokesperson from NT’s Park and Wildlife told Yahoo News Australia.
- with AP
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