CAMPBELLTON, N.B. – Police in New Brunswick have charged a man with criminal negligence causing death after two young brothers were asphyxiated by a python.
READ MORE: New Brunswick python owner got animals from Environment Canada
The RCMP said in a release today that the charge against 38-year-old Jean Claude Savoie was laid in provincial court Monday in Campbellton, N.B.
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Four-year-old Noah Barthe and his six-year-old brother Connor were found dead on Aug. 5, 2013, after an African rock python escaped its enclosure inside Savoie’s apartment in Campbellton, where they were staying for a sleepover.
The RCMP said at the time that the 45-kilogram snake escaped a glass tank through a vent and slithered through a ventilation pipe, but its weight caused the pipe to collapse and it fell into the living room where the boys were sleeping.
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Police say autopsies determined the boys died from asphyxiation.
The RCMP say they arrested Savoie on Feb. 5 in Quebec and he is due in Campbellton provincial court on April 27 to face the charge.
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