Monty's Python
September 2004
Monty's Python comes out of Hell for a little fresh air before going back to work.
She's been scaring the hell out of six to sixty year-olds for twenty years. It's her job. Sassy the twenty-foot long python is close to breaking the world's record for the largest Burmese Python in captivity.
For Immediate Release
For more information Contact:
David Jewell
816-523-2552 office
816-582-3939 mobile
E-mail: davidj@jaybezee.com
Monty's Python comes out of Hell for a little fresh air before going back to work.
She's been scaring the hell out of six to sixty year-olds for twenty years. It's her job. Sassy the twenty-foot long python is close to breaking the world's record for the largest Burmese Python in captivity.
She's an immigrant. She came to Kansas City from the warm waters of Asia. Her owner, Monty Summers, put her to work in his haunted house, The Edge of Hell, Kansas City's oldest haunted house. Loved and cared by Larry Edgar, The Edge of Hell's animal trainer, Sassy has bloomed and grown from a beautiful thirteen-foot, eighty-pound teenager to a twenty-foot, three hundred-pound lady of grace and charm.
Her diet? Fifty-pound goats. Sassy is one of four giant snakes at The Edge of Hell -- two giant Anacondas from the Amazon and a Reticulated Python affectionately named,"Big Bertha," from Southeast Asia that once nearly ate Larry.
Born in Missouri, Larry has collected snakes since he was five. His first pet was a giant Garter snake. "I couldn't catch mice to feed him, so I'd feed him baloney. When he opened his mouth to bite me, I threw a piece of baloney between his jaws. That worked wonderfully until he escaped back to his home in our garden."
When Larry reached sixteen, he decided he wanted to collect poisonous snakes. "I went to a place called Rattle Snake Bluff in northern Missouri where I lifted rocks all day looking for snakes. Near the end of the day, I picked up a big rock. Coiled beneath the rock was a five-foot Timber Rattler. I kept him for years. He was my first poisonous snake. Then I collected a few copperheads. As time went by, I became more and more infatuated with poisonous snakes." By the time Larry was 21, he had one of the finest poisonous snake collections in America, which. It included the Black Mamba the world's most deadly snake. The Black Mamba showed Larry mercy. Larry poked her by accident as he cleaned her cage. "She struck me in the arm. She shot at me like a streak of lighting. I didn't have a chance to even drop my cleaning tools. She coiled on the top of cage inches from my face. For some reason she decided to let me live rather than sink her fangs in my arm and inject the deadly venom."
Larry's collection also included a twelve-foot King Cobra, two giant Anacondas, Sassy python, and the lovely Big Bertha, the Reticulated Python. Sassy is not poisonous. She a voracious eater. She weights 300 pounds and comes with a head full of four hundred razor sharp, one inch long teeth. Big Bertha is not poisonous either. She is longer than Sassy, but is not quite 300 pounds yet. It was her normal monthly feeding time. Larry entered Big Bertha's cage. He quickly learned the true depth of her love for him. Larry threw Big Bertha a rabbit. She ignored the rabbit. She decide she wanted Larry for dinner. She clamped her 400 inch long teeth into Larry's foot to hold him in her cage. She quickly coiled her twenty-foot body around him and started to squeeze. It didn't hurt," said Larry. "She gave me a slow squeeze so I slowly lost consciousness and passed out. The only gripping pain I felt before I dropped to the floor unconsious was the pain in my heal."
Larry was saved by his wife and a noisy humidifier. "Pythons, like sharks, get into a feeding frenzy when they know that they have a "sure" meal," said Larry. When the humidifier started rattling, she quickly released Larry. Larry was out. She could dine on him later. She plunged on the humidifier, coolly wrapping herself around it to put it in the same sleep she put on Larry. Big Bertha quickly realized squeezing the humidifier to death was a mistake. She saw Larry's wife pulling Larry from the cage. She knew she was losing her sizable dinner. She charged Larry's limp body. Larry's wife, LeAnn, who is also a snake handler, threw Bertha a rabbit. Big Bertha grabbed the rabbit in mid air. LeAnn quickly pulled Larry out of the cage, then slammed the cage door shut and locked it. Larry was still out cold.
He didn't know how close death had knocked at his door. If LeAnn had not been present, Larry would not be here today. Larry said,"I don't hold a grudge, rather I hold a fascination and a love for living creatures that pay no respect to human beings. It keeps me humble."
Monty's Python comes out of Hell for a little fresh air before going back to work.
She's been scaring the hell out of six to sixty year-olds for twenty years. It's her job. Sassy the twenty-foot long python is close to breaking the world's record for the largest Burmese Python in captivity.
For Immediate Release
For more information Contact:
David Jewell
816-523-2552 office
816-582-3939 mobile
E-mail: davidj@jaybezee.com
Monty's Python comes out of Hell for a little fresh air before going back to work.
She's been scaring the hell out of six to sixty year-olds for twenty years. It's her job. Sassy the twenty-foot long python is close to breaking the world's record for the largest Burmese Python in captivity.
She's an immigrant. She came to Kansas City from the warm waters of Asia. Her owner, Monty Summers, put her to work in his haunted house, The Edge of Hell, Kansas City's oldest haunted house. Loved and cared by Larry Edgar, The Edge of Hell's animal trainer, Sassy has bloomed and grown from a beautiful thirteen-foot, eighty-pound teenager to a twenty-foot, three hundred-pound lady of grace and charm.
Her diet? Fifty-pound goats. Sassy is one of four giant snakes at The Edge of Hell -- two giant Anacondas from the Amazon and a Reticulated Python affectionately named,"Big Bertha," from Southeast Asia that once nearly ate Larry.
Born in Missouri, Larry has collected snakes since he was five. His first pet was a giant Garter snake. "I couldn't catch mice to feed him, so I'd feed him baloney. When he opened his mouth to bite me, I threw a piece of baloney between his jaws. That worked wonderfully until he escaped back to his home in our garden."
When Larry reached sixteen, he decided he wanted to collect poisonous snakes. "I went to a place called Rattle Snake Bluff in northern Missouri where I lifted rocks all day looking for snakes. Near the end of the day, I picked up a big rock. Coiled beneath the rock was a five-foot Timber Rattler. I kept him for years. He was my first poisonous snake. Then I collected a few copperheads. As time went by, I became more and more infatuated with poisonous snakes." By the time Larry was 21, he had one of the finest poisonous snake collections in America, which. It included the Black Mamba the world's most deadly snake. The Black Mamba showed Larry mercy. Larry poked her by accident as he cleaned her cage. "She struck me in the arm. She shot at me like a streak of lighting. I didn't have a chance to even drop my cleaning tools. She coiled on the top of cage inches from my face. For some reason she decided to let me live rather than sink her fangs in my arm and inject the deadly venom."
Larry's collection also included a twelve-foot King Cobra, two giant Anacondas, Sassy python, and the lovely Big Bertha, the Reticulated Python. Sassy is not poisonous. She a voracious eater. She weights 300 pounds and comes with a head full of four hundred razor sharp, one inch long teeth. Big Bertha is not poisonous either. She is longer than Sassy, but is not quite 300 pounds yet. It was her normal monthly feeding time. Larry entered Big Bertha's cage. He quickly learned the true depth of her love for him. Larry threw Big Bertha a rabbit. She ignored the rabbit. She decide she wanted Larry for dinner. She clamped her 400 inch long teeth into Larry's foot to hold him in her cage. She quickly coiled her twenty-foot body around him and started to squeeze. It didn't hurt," said Larry. "She gave me a slow squeeze so I slowly lost consciousness and passed out. The only gripping pain I felt before I dropped to the floor unconsious was the pain in my heal."
Larry was saved by his wife and a noisy humidifier. "Pythons, like sharks, get into a feeding frenzy when they know that they have a "sure" meal," said Larry. When the humidifier started rattling, she quickly released Larry. Larry was out. She could dine on him later. She plunged on the humidifier, coolly wrapping herself around it to put it in the same sleep she put on Larry. Big Bertha quickly realized squeezing the humidifier to death was a mistake. She saw Larry's wife pulling Larry from the cage. She knew she was losing her sizable dinner. She charged Larry's limp body. Larry's wife, LeAnn, who is also a snake handler, threw Bertha a rabbit. Big Bertha grabbed the rabbit in mid air. LeAnn quickly pulled Larry out of the cage, then slammed the cage door shut and locked it. Larry was still out cold.
He didn't know how close death had knocked at his door. If LeAnn had not been present, Larry would not be here today. Larry said,"I don't hold a grudge, rather I hold a fascination and a love for living creatures that pay no respect to human beings. It keeps me humble."