BUSHNELL – Defense lawyers for a Sumter County couple charged with third-degree murder and child neglect after a toddler was strangled by a pet python in their home said they will fight efforts to try the pair together.
Assistant State Attorney Pete Magrino said he believed that Charles Darnell, 33, and Jaren Hare, 20, should be tried together in the interest of “judicial economy” because the evidence, facts and witnesses in the precedent-setting case are so similar. The couple is the first in Florida to face criminal charges in a pet-snake attack.
But defense lawyers J. Rhiannon Arnold of Orlando, who represents Darnell, and Mary Hatcher of Bushnell, who represents Hare, said they were concerned that their clients might not receive fair trials if tried together.
The lawyers made their comments after a pretrial hearing today in Circuit Court in Sumter County.
They would not say if their clients intended to blame each another for the death of 2-year-old Shaiunna Hare, who was killed in her crib by a pet snake, an 8 1/2-foot Burmese python which escaped its glass container.
Shaiunna was Jaren Hare’s daughter. Darnell was Jaren Hare’s live-in boyfriend.
Darnell, now serving an 18-month sentence for cocaine possession, and Hare have pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, third-degree murder and child neglect, felony charges which could put them in prison for 40 years.
The manslaughter charges accuse the Oxford couple of “reckless disregard.”
A trial date has not been set as the defense lawyers only recently received permission from the Justice Administrative Commission to submit bills for their investigative expenses, including costs to question detectives and other witnesses. Presiding Circuit Judge William “Bud” Hallman expressed frustration with the delay.
The snake attack is believed to be first case in Florida of a nonvenomous constrictor killing a child.
A few weeks before the attack, an investigator from the Department of Children and Families noticed the albino snake and a “friendly” pitbull in the home during a visit that was prompted by allegations that the couple’s drug use imperiled children in their blended family. Many of the allegations were determined to be unsubstantiated.
Jaren Hare gave birth to a girl about a month after Shaiunna’s death. Darnell is the baby’s father.