Shropshire – A woman from Market Drayton, England, who drunkenly decapitated her two pet snakes with a pair of scissors and swallowed their heads, has been spared jail time.
Jennifer Lampe, 28, drank seven cans of lager and shots of whisky and amaretto before beheading her two pet snakes – a bull python and a 2-metre boa constrictor – during a heated row with her sister, Mirror reported.
She said she killed the snakes in fear that she would be made homeless and would be unable to look after them.
Police discovered her covered in blood, draped in the headless boa constrictor and found the two severed reptile heads in her pant pockets.
She attempted to hide the evidence by swallowing the heads after police were called but vomited them back up, telling the RSPCA officers that she wanted to keep the heads.
Lampe also told the officers that she found the python’s head easier to swallow than the larger boa constrictor, according to Mirror.
Daily Mail reported that vets said the snakes would have suffered a prolonged, painful death after their heads were cut off. They may have been “aware” as they were swallowed because their heads can remain operable for a short while after decapitation.
Her lawyer, Sarah Cooper, described Lampe as a “vulnerable loner” with “mental health problems” and a drinking problem.
On Thursday she was handed a four-month jail term suspended for two years and was also banned from keeping animals for five years.
This wasn’t the first time that Lampe had a brush with animal abuse. Just weeks before the decapitations, she reportedly drowned her pet hamster in a fish tank. She also admitted to dumping two cats and a puppy.
News24
