The exotic pet shop in New Brunswick, Canada, where a snake killed two young boys, has become a crime scene. The python which had been kept in a cage by its owner, escaped through a ventilation shaft and crashed through the ceiling where the boys had been sleeping in a flat above the shop. Investigators are looking into whether the python’s owner had cared for it responsibly. “This is a major tragedy for the family,” said Sgt. Alain Tremblay. “As far as we are concerned it’s a criminal investigation because people have lost their lives. That’s why we are studying the situation in the normal way even if we are dealing with a possible act of a reptile.” The incident has puzzled snake experts such as Karim Daoudes who owns a reptile shop in Paris. African rock pythons, he claims, would not normally attack humans. “It’s not normal behaviour for an animal of this kind. Normally they only tend to seek out quiet environments, it is not in their nature to be aggressive.” Postmortems are being carried out on the boys aged four and six. The pet-shop owner claims to have had the four-metre-long python for at least ten years. It has now been destroyed.