A pet python broke out of its holding tank and strangled a two-year-old girl in the bedroom of her home in Florida, local authorities said.
The 8ft (2.5m) albino Burmese python had also bitten Shaiunna Hare on her forehead several times.
Charles Darnell, the snake’s owner and boyfriend of Shaiunna’s mother, stabbed the python and prised the child away, but she died before paramedics arrived.