Father Guilty in Girl’s Snake Death

A man whose 8-year-old daughter was squeezed to death by the family’s 11-foot python was found not guilty Thursday of involuntary manslaughter but guilty of endangering the girl’s welfare.

Robert D. Mountain, 31, was negligent but not grossly reckless in leaving Amber Mountain home alone with the snake last August, Judge Richard McCormick Jr. ruled in the nonjury trial.

Mountain could get up to five years in prison.

Amber was found unconscious on the kitchen floor with the python, named Moe, coiled around her body. She died two days later at hospital from compression of the head and neck.

Prosecutor Wayne Gongaware had argued that what the girl’s father did was “worse than leaving a child alone with a loaded gun. A gun cannot slither down the stairs toward a vulnerable child.”

But the judge said prosecutors failed to prove the snake had not been released from its cage by Mountain’s estranged wife or by his daughter.

The girl’s mother--who bought the snake--pleaded guilty to child endangerment in December and was placed on probation for two years. Marcy Mountain, who is estranged from Mountain, testified against him.

Robert Mountain testified that he was kept awake by the python the night before his daughter was attacked as the snake tried to escape from its makeshift cage.

Mountain said he applied about four layers of duct tape to hold a screen on the lid in place and checked on the snake before leaving for work the next morning.

Both he and his wife said they knew the snake had outgrown its cage, a particleboard bin bought from a fabric store, with a hinged, clear-plastic lid that Robert Mountain had attached.