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Poisonous snakes seized
By Rose Hooper
Jackson County Sheriff’s Detective Patrick McCoy, with assistance from Animal Control Officer Chris Tyson, arrested a Sylva man last weekend for selling poisonous snakes for profit.
Jeffrey McKay Warren, 29, was arrested Saturday (June 5) and charged with four counts of not having poisonous reptiles in appropriate containers and two counts of exposing humans to poisonous reptiles.
Four poisonous snakes, including an Eastern cottonmouth, pictured above, along with an albino cobra, an African Gaboon viper and a sidewinder (horned rattlesnake) were seized Saturday (June 5) at Uncle Bill’s Flea Market and Jeffrey McKay Warren was arrested for not having them in appropriate containers and for exposing humans to poisonous reptiles.
Warren was arrested at Uncle Bills’ Flea Market in Whittier, where he had the reptiles in fish tanks covered with a screen wire.
An albino monocled cobra, an African Gaboon viper, a sidewinder (horned rattlesnake) and an Eastern cottonmouth were seized and taken to the WNC Nature Center in Asheville, according to McCoy, who said the snakes were “venomous and extremely dangerous.”
The snakes will be transported to the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh to place in zoos or museums.
Warren was released that same day after posting a $3,000 bond.
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