Python Escapes from Pet Shop and Strangles Two Chilren in Their Sleep [PHOTOS]

Two children aged five and seven were killed after a giant python escaped from a pet store and strangled them to death while they were asleep.

The tragic incident took place in New Brunswick city of Campbellton, Canada when the brothers Connor and Noah Barth were sleeping in their room.

The 16-foot African Rock Python, which lived in a pet store below their apartment, escaped from its cage and slid upstairs inside the boy's room through the ventilation ducts and crept onto the ceiling.

The boys had come to stay for the night with Jean-Claude Savoie, owner of the Reptile Ocean pet store which houses exotic animals, including crocodiles and tarantulas. The children belonged to Savoie's best friend Mandy Trecartin.

According to Savoie, he went into the children's room at about 6.30am on Monday, only to find them dead. He found the snake coiled in a nearby hole.

Savoie believes the snake fell on the boys while creeping on the ceiling and then attacked them.

"I thought they were sleeping until I (saw) the hole in the ceiling. I turned the lights on and I (saw) this horrific scene," he said.

"(The snake) went through a ventilation system. I don't understand how it did it. It went through the ceiling... and the snake fell through the living room from the ceiling," he added.