Brian Gundy was having a pretty good 67th birthday. He’d just finished a talk at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library in downtown San Jose, California, and was packing up to go home and then enjoy a celebratory dinner.
His load was heavy, so he set his duffel bag in a no parking area in the parking garage across the street from the library and walked the remaining 150 feet to his car. But when he got back to the spot to pick up the duffel bag, it was gone.
Gundy was distressed. Inside the duffel bag were four snakes and a blue-tailed skink, his “babies,” as the reptile breeder told the Mercury News.
“Can you imagine what their emotional response and reaction was when they opened up that bag and saw what they saw?” Gundy said of the thieves, speaking to KTVU.
Gundy said the missing animals were Piper, Shorty, Whitey, Bob, and 12-year-old lizard Stretch. Piper, Shorty, and Whitey are all ball pythons (Whitey is an albino), and Bob is a Burmese Python. He’s placed Craigslist ads and made a YouTube video seeking information about his missing reptiles, worth about $5,000, he told KTVU.
Two other animals he had with him — a tegu lizard in a box and a 13-foot Burmese python in an ice chest — weren’t taken.
“It’s really disappointing. It’s really sad,” Gundy said in an interview. “And the concern too is for the animals’ safety — my guess is that they don’t have a clue on how to take care of reptiles.”
Gundy also filed a police report in hopes of getting a look at surveillance video from the garage, and he said he doesn’t want to press charges.
Gundy breeds and sells snakes and does presentations through his For Goodness Snakes website. He asked anyone with information about pythons being sold or dumped locally notify him and/or police.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Featured image: Ball python Shorty/Brian Gundy]
