Jason Leon, the man who captured and killed the largest Burmese python ever found in Florida, has spoken out to media about what happened when he spotted the python, revealing the details of a 10-minute struggle that ended with the beheading of the nearly 19-foot-long snake.
Leon was traveling with two friends on an all-terrain vehicle during the night of May 11 when from the road they spotted the head of the 18-foot, 8-inch reptile in the undergrowth. Leon, who had owned snakes in the past, attempted to capture the snake, but it soon became clear that the snake was much bigger than he thought. As he wrestled with the 128-pound snake, it began to wrap itself around Leon's leg while one friend recorded video of the incident and another stood at the ready with a large knife.
"It's a beautiful snake," Leon said in the video, "I don't want to kill this thing."
But as he struggled with the giant python, which coiled around his leg and arm, it became clear that the snake would win the fight.
"He's [expletive] getting loose, he's going to try and [expletive] strangle me," Leon said in the video.
In an interview uploaded to YouTube by BreakingNewsToday, Leon said that his friends Veronica Larios and Blake Jordan helped him get free from the snake's grip and decapitate the creature.
"For about 10 minutes he was wrapping around my legs, around my arms," Leon said in the video interview. "We finally pulled him apart, stretched him out and took a knife and cut his head off."
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation (FWC) congratulated Leon for killing the snake, which is considered an unwanted invasive species in Florida.
Leon found the snake in a rural area southeast of Miami. The FWC sponsors an annual Python Challenge in the Everglades region that awards cash prizes to professional and amateur hunters for killing Burmese pythons.
Leon said a police lieutenant told him his attempt to capture the snake was not a smart idea because the snake was so big. "He told me I should have had at least four or five other males, like individuals, with me because of the strength of the snake."
The snake's corpse was donated to the University of Florida's Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center for a necropsy.