Two boys believed to be killed by python in New Brunswick

CAMPBELLTON, N.B. – A summer sleepover turned tragic in northern New Brunswick after two young boys were apparently killed by a python, according to the RCMP.

Police arrived around 6:30 a.m. Monday to find Noah Barthe, 4 1/2, and Connor Barthe, 6, dead in the apartment above Reptile Ocean, an exotic pet store in Campbellton, N.B.

The RCMP initially reported the boys’ ages as five and seven, respectively.

The 45-kilogram, 4.3-metre long snake apparently slithered through a small hole in the ceiling that connected to the ventilation shaft, police said.

When it slid over the living room where the two boys were sleeping, the ventilation shaft collapsed, according to police.

Investigators say it is believed the snake strangled the boys.

It was captured by the store’s owner, put down by a veterinarian and was sent for a necropsy in Fredericton to help determine what may have prompted it to attack the boys, the RCMP said, who have enlisted the help of a reptile expert from the Magnetic Hill Zoo in Moncton, N.B., for their investigation.

Autopsies on the boys were to be conducted Tuesday.

Community reeling after deaths

The deaths of the two young boys has rattled the northern New Brunswick city where the children were remembered as fun-loving free spirits.

“It’s like a bad dream,” said Shawna MacEachern, who has been a friend of the boys’ mother, Mandy Trecartin, since childhood.

“She loved her babies. They meant everything to her. She was an awesome mother.

“They were both so sweet. They were fun-loving typical little boys.”

Trecartin’s Facebook page shows a mother devoted to and proud of her boys. It features dozens of photos depicting them swimming in a kiddie pool, frolicking at a playground and posing with her for a family portrait.

“My two super handsome boys sporting their Christmas PJ’s,” Trecartin wrote on a photo of the boys with their arms wrapped around each other in front of a Christmas tree last year. She could not be reached for comment.

Her last photo of the boys dated July 30 shows them playing a handheld video game console together.

“We’re all overwhelmed here,” said Stephanie Bernatchez, who shares a mutual friend with Trecartin and whose children sometimes played with the boys.

“They could have been hit by a car, but a snake? That’s not something people around here expect.”

Bernatchez said the boys were well-raised and courteous.

“They were two kids who were very well brought up,” she said. “Kind, polite — they loved being together and playing together. They were sociable, played well with other kids.”

“They were active kids who liked to play,” said Terry Rose, Trecartin’s uncle and great uncle of the boys.

“The rough road is just starting. It is a tragic thing. It is something that never should have happened, but it happened. Life must go on.”

RCMP Sgt. Alain Tremblay said police are looking at whether the province’s regulations on exotic animals were followed as part of their investigation.