BUCKS COUNTY COURIER TIMES (Levittown, Pennsylvania) 20 January 06 Infamous Sid the snake dies (Pamela Batzel)
Sid, the tree-climbing, grass-slithering, 13-foot snake whose escape from her home sparked fear and set off a police search in the Plumstead area last summer, has died.
The Burmese python died at home while her owner, Tom Esbensen, was in Bucks County prison on burglary charges.
"It hit hard," Esbensen said Thursday from jail.
Sid gained notoriety - and inspired fear - after she escaped from Esbensen's home in August.
Plumstead police spent the next 51/2 weeks searching low - and mostly high - for the 14-year-old reptile that loved to climb. The department took scores of calls from residents who feared for the safety of their pets and children.
Finally, at dusk, on Sept. 20, two people driving on Saw Mill Run saw the python cross the road and slither into a field not far from her home. Chief Duane Hasenauer went in after the 100-pound snake and grabbed her by the tail for a tug-of-war he won when backup officers took hold, too.
Then Esbensen assured police she would not escape again. But he went to jail in October and while he was away his heating oil dwindled and the temperature in the house dropped.
His mom, Dot, said she did what she could. "I had her [heat] rock turned on," she said. "Then I wrapped her up in one of those down comforters. But it was just so cold there with no heat on I guess it just didn't work for her."
One of Esbensen's brothers also tried to help.
"He tried with the heat and massaging it and it just didn't work," Esbensen said. The brother found a reptile expert but it was too late. She died about a week before Christmas.
Much of the time, Sid lived in a box about four feet across, with glass doors across its front that she managed to slide open the night she escaped.
Esbensen said he was sorry she died. Sid was just 18 inches long when he bought her in 1992.
"It was 14 years," he said. "So it lived a pretty good life."
Infamous Sid the snake dies