Escaped python strangles sleeping boys

Two boys, aged 5 and 7, were found dead Monday morning in an apartment above a pet store in a small Canadian town.

Their suspected killer is a python that reportedly weighs about 100 pounds.

Early indications suggest that a snake escaped its enclosure in the store, got into the ventilation system, then the apartment, and strangled the two boys, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

The owner of the pet store in Campbellton, New Brunswick, says he came upon an awful sight when he entered the living room where the boys were staying.

"I thought they were sleeping until I seen the hole in the ceiling. Everything had fallen. And I turned the lights on and I seen this horrific scene," Jean-Claude Savoie said in a phone interview with the Canadian website Global News.

Savoie said he believed the snake had fallen through the ceiling as it slithered through the ventilation system.

He said he located the reptile in a hole.

"I pinned him down and put him in a cage," he said.