mobanmarketA 36-year-old woman has been found dead with a python wrapped around her neck in a home in the midwestern US state of Indiana which housed around 140 snakes, police said.
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The body of Laura Hurst was discovered on Wednesday in the house in Oxford, Sergeant Kim Riley, a state police spokesman, said in a statement.
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Hurst, of Battle Ground, Indiana, had an eight-foot (2.4-meter) reticulated python wrapped around her neck.
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Medics attempted to revive her but their efforts were unsuccessful.
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“She appears to have been strangled by the snake,” Riley told the Lafayette Journal & Courier newspaper. “We do not know that for a fact until after the autopsy.”
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The home with the snake collection was owned by the Benton County sheriff, Don Munson, who lived next door, the Journal & Courier said, and Hurst kept about 20 of her own snakes there.
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Munson, who found Hurst’s body, told the newspaper that her death appeared to be a “tragic accident.”
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Pythons are a non-venomous family of snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia that encompasses more than 30 species, including some of the largest snakes in the world.
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They typically grasp prey with sharp, backward-curving teeth before squeezing them tightly to induce a heart attack.
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The Morning and Evening Brief###
The Morning and Evening Brief