Python ’growled,’ lunged after killing two N.B. boys, Mountie tells trial
'There’s a python that got out and killed the two kids' 911 call
Kevin Bissett, The Canadian Press
First posted: Tuesday, November 01, 2016 03:48 PM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, November 02, 2016 07:56 AM EDT
CAMPBELLTON, N.B. - A 45-kilogram python lunged, snapped its jaws, and made “growling noises” when it was forced back into its pen after killing two sleeping boys, an RCMP officer told a New Brunswick jury Tuesday.
Const. Stephane Dugas described the scene on the morning of Aug. 5, 2013, shortly after Jean-Claude Savoie, who is facing trial for criminal negligence in the boys’ deaths, called 911.
Dugas testified that he found Savoie wearing a bloody shirt, two boys who were beyond medical help, and a 4.7-metre snake in the laundry room.
Savoie followed Dugas’ instructions to return the snake to its enclosure, where it made noises, rose up almost 1.8 metres and lunged at the glass, Dugas said.
The two boys -- four-year-old Noah Barthe and his six-year-old brother, Connor -- were covered in red marks, and one had a lot of wounds.
“I knew at the time not much could be done,” said Dugas. “There was lots of blood.”
He said a paramedic examined the boys, but just shook her head.
Savoie, who now lives near Montreal, owned the Reptile Ocean pet store below his Campbellton apartment. The boys were having a sleepover with his son.
Crown attorney Pierre Roussel told the jury the python likely used an air duct to escape its enclosure in the apartment — and had tried to escape before.
“Mr. Savoie committed a breach of duty to take care of those children when they were left with him by their mother,” Roussel told the jury. “He didn’t kill them himself but he failed to take precautions.”
Roussel said in his opening statement they will hear the snake had gotten into the duct before, and that an employee had warned Savoie the vent cover needed to be repaired.
“Mr. Savoie neglected to cover said vent and left an opening in his snake pen and that through that the snake was able to escape and cross through the vent and drop into the living room.”
He said the vent cover was found on the floor of the snake enclosure.
“Mr. Savoie was aware of the behaviour and nature of this African rock python that he was keeping. You will hear evidence that this snake was pretty aggressive. That there were special measures that had to be taken in order to care for it,” he said.
Roussel called the deaths of the boys “a sad story, a tragic story.” Savoie was a family friend who had taken the boys shopping and to a farm before the sleepover with his son.
Some people in the public gallery became emotional as the audio of Savoie’s 911 call was played for the jury Tuesday.
“Two kids are dead,” Savoie told the dispatcher. “There’s a python that got out and killed the two kids.”
He told the dispatcher that the snake was still loose, and he had to go back upstairs because he had another child up there.
“Can you just send someone here please?” Savoie said to the dispatcher.
Another police officer who responded to the scene also told the court Tuesday that he observed the python being very aggressive after it was put back into its enclosure.
“It was standing on its tail and charging the glass,” Sgt. Rene Labbe said.
“I observed the snake trying to reach the vent hole in the ceiling.”
Labbe said Savoie then grabbed the snake and put it in a garbage bin. It was then padlocked and removed from the property.
As the trial got underway Tuesday, the judge instructed the four-man, eight-woman jury about the presumption of innocence, and said Savoie starts with a “clean slate” at the beginning of the trial.
Transcript of 911 call: ’There’s a python that got out and killed the two kids’
The following is a transcript of the 911 call made by Jean-Claude Savoie after a python killed two sleeping boys in his apartment above Reptile Ocean, a pet store he owned in Campbellton, N.B. Savoie is charged with criminal negligence in the deaths of four-year-old Noah Barthe and his six-year-old brother, Connor. Sections of this transcript have been edited.
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911 operator: Where is your emergency?
Jean-Claude Savoie: 2 Pleasant (Street). Two kids are dead.
Operator: Is that where you live, sir?
Savoie: Yes, that’s where I live.
Operator: What do you mean, the kids are dead?
Savoie: That’s where Reptile Ocean is. There’s a python that got out and killed the two kids.
Operator: Say that again?
Savoie: There’s a python that got out. It’s a store here. We have... (he’s cut off by the operator)
Operator: A python?
Savoie: Yeah man.
Operator: Are they your kids?
Savoie: (Breathing heavily) They’re my neighbour’s kids. She knows. She’s here too. She’s next door. She’s freaking out.
Operator: OK. Stay on the line. Who lives there?
Savoie: I live there... The snake is still out. I got another kid up there. I have to catch the snake. Can you just send somebody here please?
Python ’growled,’ lunged after killing two N.B. boys, Mountie tells trial | Cana
'I felt they would be as safe,' says mom of N.B. boys killed by python
Kevin Bisset, THE CANADIAN PRESS
First posted: Wednesday, November 02, 2016 10:56 AM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, November 02, 2016 10:02 PM EDT
CAMPBELLTON, N.B. — A New Brunswick courtroom was gripped Wednesday by the testimony of a grieving mother whose two boys were killed by a python weeks after the owner was warned the snake’s possible escape route needed to be better secured.
Jean-Claude Savoie is on trial on a charge of criminal negligence causing death. His 45-kilogram African rock python escaped an enclosure within his Campbellton apartment in August 2013 and killed Noah Barthe, 4, and Connor Barthe, 6, while they were having a sleepover.
It’s believed the snake travelled through a ventilation duct.
Savoie, who now lives near Montreal, owned the Reptile Ocean pet store below his apartment at the time. He wept Wednesday as the boys’ mother, Mandy Trecartin, talked about her sons.
She said she dropped them off for a sleepover that night certain they were in good hands.
“I felt they would be as safe with him as they would be with me,” Trecartin testified.
Trecartin says they lived behind Savoie’s apartment, and her sons were best friends with Savoie’s son. She says Savoie was a good friend, although she hasn’t seen him since Aug. 4, 2013.
They had spent that day with the boys at a farm owned by Savoie’s father, where the boys played with a lot of animals.
That evening, she and her boyfriend dropped the kids at Savoie’s apartment for a sleepover, something they did often.
At 6:49 the next morning, she heard pounding on her door, and heard Savoie saying: “Oh my God, your two kids are dead.”
She said her boyfriend went next door with Savoie, and when he came back he told her: “It’s true. It’s a (expletive) nightmare but it’s true.”
One of the first officers to arrive at the scene said he was surprised such a large snake could move so quickly. But RCMP Const. Eric Maillet said Savoie was able to recapture the python.
“The snake coiled around his arm,” Maillet said.
Savoie put the snake in its enclosure, where it could be seen through a large floor to ceiling window, he said.
“The snake started hissing at us and lunging and hitting the window with its face.”
The python appeared to be trying to escape its enclosure again, said Maillet, who was concerned the snake wanted to feed and was trying to get back to the living room where the bodies of the boys were.
“It was going straight up in the air towards the vent opening,” he said.
Maillet said he was quite surprised how the snake was able to stand straight up — almost reaching the vent opening.
“I didn’t expect such a large reptile to be able to do that.”
He said the snake was put in a garbage bin and removed from the building.
Later Wednesday, another witness told the jury that the python had previously escaped its enclosure.
Ocean Eagles, a volunteer at Jean-Claude Savoie’s reptile store, said the snake had escaped about two-and-a-half weeks earlier through a ventilation duct. She later said it could have been a month-and-a-half earlier, but she was confused on dates.
“(Savoie) told me he was sitting down in his living room and he looked up and the snake was halfway out,” Eagles testified.
Eagles said she placed a cover over the ventilation duct, but warned Savoie it needed to be screwed on. She said she often cared for the “dangerous” snake and fed it rabbits, but was very cautious.
“I knew what the snake was capable of. It can overtake any man,” she said.
Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Leslie Matchim, Eagles said the snake appeared about 2 inches larger in diameter than the duct, and she never thought it could escape through it.
“I would never think so when you look at the size of the snake. It would never cross my mind,” she said.
Eagles said her children had stayed at Savoie’s apartment before and she would not have an issue with them staying there, even after the first escape attempt by the python.
“I still can’t think it could fit out that pipe, but it did,” she said.
Judge Fred Ferguson had a few final questions for Eagles following her testimony, and asked her to look at a particular picture showing the ventilation duct. However, while flipping to that picture, Eagles burst into tears.
She sobbed and said “Oh my God,” stating she had seen a picture of the dead boys.
The Crown will call its next witness on Thursday.
'I felt they would be as safe,' says mom of N.B. boys killed by python | Canada
