CIBOLO, Texas – A 12-foot reticulated python is back home with her family a day after she was found loose in a Cibolo neighborhood.
The snake’s owner said she’s thankful to have her pet back and suspects that she may have gotten loose because someone tried to steal her.
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“She was on my backporch in her LOCKED enclosure,” Leah Garcia posted in a neighborhood Facebook page. “When I came out to tend to her, the lock was on the ground in front of her enclosure and her sliding door was open just a tiny bit & she was gone.”
“There is really no way she would have gotten out. Someone had to have came back here to try to take her,” Garcia told KSAT.
Garcia suspects that someone tried to steal the snake, but struggled with her and dropped her. She plans to get cameras for her property soon.
“I will be getting locks for my gates & moving her into my home,” Garcia said.
Garcia said she has a recreational controlled exotic snake permit to keep the pet, whose name is Shadow.
She said the 6-year-old serpent is “baby tamed” and a people lover.
“I want to thank all the officers & Cibolo PD for making sure my baby was safe & wasn’t harmed,” Garcia said.
A man was out walking his dog at 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday when he discovered the snake and called the local non-emergency police line.
“When I spoke with the dispatcher, she was taken aback and shocked to hear what I said,” Joseph Villarreal said. “When police arrived, they said they heard over the radio and were thinking it was a small snake. All of them were laughing and joking saying, ‘what an exciting night for a relatively quiet community.’”
The discovery also garnered a lot of attention on social media. After all, this is Texas, not Florida.
Cibolo Public Information Officer Rick Mireles confirmed the snake was found at the intersection of Kitty Hawk and Pilot Point. Cibolo and Schertz police showed up to help catch the python — and then pose for a python pic, naturally.
Garcia said she was reunited with her pet Wednesday when a sheriff’s deputy and game warden brought her home.