By Calvin Palmer
The mother of the two-year-old Florida girl strangled last month by a pet python has been charged in connection with the child’s death.
Sumter County Sheriff’s Office said Jaren Ashley Hare, 19, and her live-in boyfriend, Charles Jason Darnell, 32, both of Oxford, were each charged yesterday with manslaughter, third-degree murder and child abuse.
Shianna Hare died after the 8-foot python escaped from its glass aquarium and wrapped itself around the girl as she slept.
Darnell said he awoke and found the snake missing and went to the girl’s bedroom and found it wrapped around her neck. He stabbed the snake to make it release its grip. Darnell did not have the required permit to own a snake.
A medical examiner determined the girl died from asphyxiation.
Hare and Darnell, who have been together for a year, were each being held on $35,000 bond.
[Based on a report by the Associated Press.]
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