“It was on a lady’s porch,” he said, speaking of where the snake was finally caught with a glue-trap. Gifford now gets the seriousness of his inaction. The city of Raleigh even introduced a new dangerous-animal ordinance designed to stop people possessing snakes like Gifford’s in the wake of the panic. Gifford also promised to not own any snakes for at least a year. Gifford was ultimately ordered to give his $35,000 snake collection to the county and made to pay over $13,000 in restitution in part for the police and EMS search for the snake. In a panic, Gifford lied and said it wasn’t his.Īfter she left his home, he told the local news outlet that he had a pang of conscience and called the officer to come clean. “She goes, ‘This was found about three streets over.’ She asked me, ‘Is this snake yours?’” Gifford said. He assumed it was a routine visit to check on his snake collection until, after a search of his home, one of the officers pulled up a picture of the spitting cobra on her phone. In June 2021, animal-control officers paid a visit to Gifford’s house. But even if it had got out, North Carolina’s freezing January nights and snowfall would surely mean the African snake couldn’t survive, right? Weeks passed without any sign of the snake. Believing the zebra cobra must be trapped, Gifford convinced his parents-and himself-that there was no need to notify anyone about the breakout. Gifford hoped safety measures he’d put in place would ensure the snake must still be down there-until he found a pen-size hole in the wall leading into the drywall and crawl space under the house. He realized that the container hadn’t been latched properly and immediately set about searching his parents’ basement for the missing reptile. Raleigh police said Wednesday night that the highly venomous zebra cobra has been 'located and safely removed.' Police havent released details on the snakes new whereabouts, only saying: 'The.

Zebra cobra snake