9/12/2017

"Florida woman accused of cruelty toward a child after allowing snake to bite infant daughter"

Susan Romero, Associated Press

Posted 9-12-2017

SEBRING — A woman has been accused of cruelty toward a child after putting a snake in front of her infant daughter and letting it bite the child, investigators report.

The affidavit will be forwarded to the State Attorney's Office, which will decide whether charges will be filed, the station reports, citing Highlands County sheriff's deputies. According to a probable cause statement, Chartelle Geanette St. Laurent, 34, said she had seen poisonous snakes on her property and she decided to expose the child to a snake.

Earlier that week, a neighbor had inadvertently filmed a video that caught the woman putting a snake of some kind in front of her 1-year-old daughter in the background. The neighbor, who has not been named by authorities, brought this evidence forward to the police. Laurent can be heard laughing as the child is crying after being bitten.

When questioned by reporters, she expressed no regrets for exposing the girl to the snake. She says "people don't understand what they saw." She says the snake bit her and her daughter several times and "didn't leave a mark." She stated that it was a good opportunity to "introduce the girl to handling without her getting hurt", but declined to elaborate.