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Shutterstock/jaiman taip

Woman found dead in US with python around her neck

The 36-year-old was found in a house where around 140 snakes lived.

A 36-YEAR-OLD woman has been found dead with a python wrapped around her neck at her home in the US state of Indiana.

The body of Laura Hurst was discovered on Wednesday with a 2.4 metre reticulated python wrapped around her neck, in a house in Oxford where around 140 snakes lived.

Medics attempted to revive her but their efforts were unsuccessful.

“She appears to have been strangled by the snake,” Sergeant Kim Riley, a state police spokeswoman, told the Lafayette Journal & Courier newspaper.

“We do not know that for a fact until after the autopsy.”

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.

Munson, who found Hurst’s body, told the newspaper that her death appeared to be a “tragic accident.”

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.

They typically grasp prey with sharp, backward-curving teeth before squeezing them tightly to induce a heart attack.

- © AFP 2019

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    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute johnbunton
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    Nov 1st 2019, 9:32 PM

    Jaysus yous are all hilarious on the keyboard I wonder how funny yous would be at the funeral

    58
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    Mute Sneachta O'Fuichtard
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    Nov 1st 2019, 9:37 PM

    @johnbunton: They’d put the fun in FUNeral.

    62
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    Mute John O Reilly
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    Nov 1st 2019, 10:24 PM

    @johnbunton: are you going?

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    Mute Robc
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    Nov 1st 2019, 10:03 PM

    Some venomous comments here.

    36
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    Mute John Hayes
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    Nov 1st 2019, 8:27 PM

    Wait till they see my Halloween costume with a snake for a scarf …..

    21
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    Mute Cynical
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    Nov 2nd 2019, 12:28 AM

    Such a weird phenomenon that when people die in an unusual way people joke about it.

    But the most popular seem to always be puns and word-play, even though in a normal setting most people cringe and hate these jokes.

    We need to get to the bottom of this.

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    Mute John O Reilly
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    Nov 1st 2019, 8:35 PM

    It’s a slippery slope

    12
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    Mute Dave Barrett
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    Nov 1st 2019, 9:53 PM

    People are coiled to make a comment.

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    Mute Lionheart1
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    Nov 1st 2019, 9:55 PM

    @Dave Barrett: Its a pity so many were taken down

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    Mute Dave Barrett
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    Nov 1st 2019, 10:33 PM

    walking through the park. Wouldn’t recognise it again though, it was wearing a hood.
    I’ve got a magic snake. Addercadabra.
    A bottle of venom walks into a bar. The barman says “sorry mate, we don’t serve snakebite in here”.

     

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    Mute The digenous
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    Nov 1st 2019, 11:05 PM

    Yep cinti!! I think we have it now.

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    Mute Cinti Finn
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    Nov 1st 2019, 10:23 PM

    Cold blooded murder…

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    Mute Anne Feerick
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    Nov 2nd 2019, 9:27 AM

    Wraps around it’s prey and tighten it’s grip with every breath taken so they suffocate, not heart attack

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    Mute Sean
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    Nov 2nd 2019, 6:34 PM

    @Anne Feerick: For years it was thought that snakes killed by suffocation but they actually kill by stopping the heart of their prey.

    https://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/14/2279

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    Mute Cinti Finn
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    Nov 1st 2019, 10:27 PM

    Cold blooded murder..

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    Mute Cinti Finn
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    Nov 1st 2019, 10:18 PM

    Cold blooded murder.

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    Mute eamonn farrell
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    Nov 2nd 2019, 8:28 AM

    @Cinti Finn: we heard you the first time !

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    Mute Anthony Joseph
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    Nov 2nd 2019, 7:19 PM

    She must’ve really hissed it off…

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    Mute Dave Barrett
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    Nov 1st 2019, 10:33 PM

    walking through the park. Wouldn’t recognise it again though, it was wearing a hood.
    I’ve got a magic snake. Addercadabra.
    A bottle of venom walks into a bar. The barman says “sorry mate, we don’t serve snakebite in here”.

     

    1
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