New | Man arrested for hoarding 400 snakes in stench-filled home
Snake corpses and live ones kept in bins stacked from wall to wall in schoolteacher William Buchman, suspected of running a breeding business
A schoolteacher was arrested Wednesday after hundreds of living and dead pythons in plastic bins were found stacked floor to ceiling inside his foul-smelling suburban California home.
As investigators wearing respirator masks carried the reptiles out of the house by the score and stacked them in the driveway, reporters and passers-by gagged at the smell. Some held their noses or walked away from the five-bedroom home to get a breath of air.
“The smell alone - I feel like I need to take a shower for a week,” said police Corporal Anthony Bertagna. “They’re pretty much in all the bedrooms - everywhere.”
Officers found as many as 400 snakes, as well as numerous mice and rats, in the Santa Ana home of William Buchman after neighbours complained about the smell. He was arrested for investigation of neglect in the care of animals, Bertagna said.
Buchman, 53, was still in custody Wednesday afternoon, Bertagna said. The Newport-Mesa Unified School District, where he works, declined comment, saying it was a police matter.
Buchman has not yet had a court appearance or been formally charged and it was not clear if he had an attorney.
