by Patrick H. Moore
During the time we’ve been running All Things Crime Blog, we’ve encountered plenty of bad parenting including occasional examples of parents so evil it literally takes your breath away. The case of the Florida couple who agreed to a pre-nuptial “daddy-daughter” sex pact springs to mind here. But not all bad parents are necessarily evil. Some are just stupid and negligent. For example, let’s examine the weird and tragic case of Charles Darnell and Jaren Hare (of course they’re also from Florida) who are now facing 45-years each in prison because their pet 8-foot Burmese python strangled the life out of Jaren’s 2-year old daughter.
The story begins back in 2009 when child welfare workers were summoned to Darnell and Hare’s Oxford home, 60 miles northwest of Orlando, after receiving reports that they were smoking weed and popping pills in front of their kids. Upon investigating, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) authorities felt that there were signs of negligence and/or drug use at the house and requested that Darnell and Hare submit to drug tests. The couple agreed, perhaps realizing that they had little choice.
When the results came back, Hare, who was four months pregnant at the time, tested positive for marijuana. Darnell’s urine also revealed marijuana as well as oxycodone, for which he didn’t have a prescription. Darnell’s excuse for smoking the herb was that he was recovering from surgery and the cannabis reduced his pain and anxiety. Presumably, he claimed he was also using the narcotic pain pills to alleviate pain. In an attempt to put his best foot forward, he pointed out that neither he nor Hare “hit the pipe” in front of the kids. State social workers verbally chastised Hare for smoking marijuana while pregnant explaining that studies have linked it to memory, concentration and judgment problems in children who are exposed to it fetally. Hare presumably promised to stop.
The DCF also took a picture of Darnell’s eight-foot Burmese python and made a precautionary note. They failed, however, to check whether whether he was duly licensed to possess the snake, which is required under Florida law. Later on at the trial, it was revealed that Darnell did not have the proper paperwork to own such a pet. Within a few short months, the snake would take center stage. Cory Zurowski writes in Bad Moms:
During the late morning of a hot day in July, authorities received a panicked 911 from Darnell.
“Our stupid snake got out in the middle of the night and strangled the baby,” he said during the emergency call.
According to Darnell, he awoke around 10:30 a.m. that morning to find that his eight-and-a-half foot albino python, Gypsy, had gotten out of its cage. He then walked into the bedroom of Hare’s two-year-old daughter, Shaiunna. The snake was wrapped around the child’s neck and bite marks flecked various parts of her tiny body.
Although it was too little too late, Darnell dissuaded the python from doing any further damage by stabbing it to death. He then extracted Shaiunna from its death grip and called 911. Although Emergency responders arrived on the scene shortly thereafter, they were unable to revive the toddler.
A subsequent police investigation revealed that the snake had not been fed in nearly a month. In the month prior to asphyxiating Shaiunna, the snake had escaped its enclosure no less than ten times.
The following month, both Darnell and Hare were arrested in connection with the child’s death based on the prosecutors contention that even though the snake did the literal killing, Darnell and Hare were responsible. They were both charged with third-degree murder, manslaughter and child neglect and were each offered a ten-year plea deal which they turned down. Instead they insisted on going to trial.
At the trial, it was revealed that despite the snake’s repeated escapes, Darnell and Hare’s only attempt to restrain it consisting of covered its tank with a quilt to keep it inside — as if that would stop a hungry python from a little midnight marauding. Hare’s mother even testified on behalf of the prosecution, stating that she’d warned her daughter that the snake was dangerous and should not be kept in the house with a toddler. She’d offered to buy it and keep it locked up at her house, but Darnell had insisted that the python wasn’t dangerous and had refused to sell.
For the jury, it appears to have been an open-and-shut case. They were out for only two hours before finding the couple guilty of third-degree murder, manslaughter and child abuse.
In addition, it turned out that Darnell already had six felony convictions on his record.
The couple are believed to be the first people in Florida history to have been convicted of criminal charges in a python-child death case.
On August 24, 2011, Darnell and Hare were both sentenced to 12 years in prison, only two years more than the plea deal they were apparently offered.