Replies

An article from yesterday's Scotsman -

Snakebite death link to murky business

IAN JOHNSTON
HIS fascination for poisonous snakes was a part of his life that Garrick Wales, a Scottish computer programmer, kept to himself.
But his death from a deadly bite has thrown the spotlight on both his interest and the shadowy trade in exotic and dangerous reptiles.
Mr Wales, 48, was ostensibly in Little Rock, Arkansas, on a business trip, but while he was there he ordered two consignments of snakes from a dealer in Florida.
However, after he received the second batch - which included a 4ft black mamba, arguably the most deadly snake in the world - something went wrong and he was bitten.
Mr Wales appears to have made a desperate bid to get help but the fast-acting venom, which could have killed him in just ten minutes, meant he was unable to reach Little Rock airport to raise the alarm.
He was found surrounded by vomit in his rented car on open ground nearby on 13 May, while the box of snakes was discovered half a mile away the following day.
Yesterday Mr Wales’s family were refusing to comment. But experts said it would have been very difficult to have brought the snakes back to the UK legally and the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said it expected council officials to visit his home in Kilmacolm today.
Detective Eric Knowles, of Little Rock Police, said they were investigating what Mr Wales had intended to do with the black mamba and three other snakes, a 6ft green mamba, 14in twig snake and 5ft forest cobra. They are also trying to find out what happened to the first consignment and other snakes Mr Wales ordered on earlier trips to the United States.
Detective Knowles said: "Whether he had a snake fetish, we just simply don’t know. We can say that this is definitely not a homicide. There is definitely no foul play as far as someone else contributing to his death. All other possibilities remain open to us.
"We will continue trying to determine what he did with the other snakes. We still have not accounted for those snakes."
The owners of the Florida outlet where Mr Wales bought the snakes expressed their shock at his death.
Maristela Duffield said Mr Wales had emailed her husband Ricky after collecting the snakes at Little Rock airport on the day he died. The message stated that he had intended then taking the snakes to the home of friend who looked after them for him in Arkansas.
"He must have gone back to his hotel, emailed us and then got on the road. That email must have been sent just a short while before he died," she said.
"The snakes had been sent by Delta airlines and they needed someone to sign for them at Little Rock and show an ID, because obviously it was a dangerous shipment that had to be handled right. He emailed and said he'd received the box, everything was fine, he hadn’t opened it and was on his way to a friend’s house and would open it there."
She added: "We had no idea what would happen. We first heard that a box of snakes had been found at the side of the road and knew they were the ones we’d sent, then some days later we heard he’d been found dead on the road.
"The last thing you want to hear is of somebody losing their life in this way. It's really shocking to us."
Mr Wales’s widow, Pamela, who is a teacher, did not want to talk about the circumstances of her husband’s death.
But neighbours were surprised to hear of his interest in snakes.
Lynn Dalgleish, a family friend, said
: "I was shocked when I heard the news. The thought of Garrick buying snakes and having them shipped about seems so out of character for him. There was a story bandied about last year that he was bitten by a snake while climbing in South Africa. I know he did have an accident over there which left him very ill."
Mike Flynn, an SSPCA superintendent, said the last legitimately-held poisonous snake permit in Scotland that he knew of was one kept by academics at Aberdeen University.
"Garrick Wales is not a name we know of, and we know most people who are into this sort of stuff. The law is there to protect the public and the species, but there are always ways round it. The illegal wildlife trade is second only to the drug trade in the world."
Ray van Nostrand, the owner of Strictly Reptiles, one of the biggest dealers in Florida, said Arkansas did not appear to require anyone buying a poisonous snake to have a licence.
He said black mambas were not to be treated lightly. "They are dangerous snakes, crazy snakes.
"If you go anywhere near the black mamba they become aggressive."
Mr van Nostrand said regulations brought in after the 11 September attacks meant anyone exporting poisonous snakes from the US had to be licensed by the authorities. "It would have been almost impossible for him to get that," he added.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 25, 2004 -

Scotsman ordered snakes online

BY C.S. MURPHY
Garrick Wales, a Scotsman whose body was found east of downtown May 13, ordered four rare venomous snakes from an Internet reptile dealer in Florida and picked the box of snakes up at the Little Rock airport hours before his death.
But an autopsy was completed before police knew Wales may have been bitten by a snake, Little Rock Police Detective Steve Moore said Monday.
It was only when Wales’ remains arrived at the Little Rock airport that officials recognized his name as the person who signed for the snakes the previous week and contacted police.
The medical examiner who conducted the autopsy did note markings that may be consistent with a snake bite, Moore said. Detectives are eager to see autopsy photos. "The body was on its way to New Jersey to go to Scotland before we knew anything," Moore said.
Police still don’t know what Wales’ plans were for the snakes and whether his death was caused by one of the lethal serpents.
Police found Wales, 48, of Kilmacolm, Scotland, in a rented Chevy Blazer on Gregg Street near the Little Rock National Airport, Adams Field. A day later, a curious Little Rock resident discovered four African snakes in a wooden box about a half mile away.
Inside the box, in separate cloth bags, were a 14-inch-long twig snake, a 6-foot-long green mamba, a 4-foot black mamba and a 5-foot forest cobra.
On the box were the handwritten words "live venomous reptile." "It’s a mystery that’s got everybody’s curiosity up," Moore said.
The snakes arrived on a Delta Air Lines flight from Port St. Lucie, Fla., the afternoon before Wales’ body was found, Moore said. Wales arrived in Little Rock on May 11.
Little Rock police have ruled out foul play in the death. Autopsy and toxicology reports aren’t expected for up to six months.
Steve Reichling, curator of reptiles at the Memphis Zoo, said the black mamba, which he suspects bit Wales, would not have left any visible marks. No swelling or bleeding would occur and fang marks would be as tiny as a hole left by a hypodermic needle. "The two mambas are very capable and very prone to nipping through a cloth bag," Reichling said. "They have long fangs at the tips of their snouts. They’re very alert and very high strung. Just a tap on the side of their body could easily elicit a nip through the bag."
Someone bitten by a black mamba, the most aggressive and dangerous of the snakes found, could live between 30 minutes and four hours after the bite, Reichling said.
Investigators haven’t been able to locate anyone in Little Rock who knew Wales and are urging anyone with information about the Scotsman to contact them. "Rumors are flying that he had a contact here, but we haven’t been able to confirm that," Little Rock police spokesman Sgt. Terry Hastings said.
Investigators said Wales had been staying at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Little Rock, but they didn’t say for how long.
The Florida dealer that sold Wales the snakes is cooperating with police, Moore said. Moore, who declined to identify the seller, said Wales purchased three other snakes from the same dealer last month. "He picked up another box in Florida," Moore said. "We’re not sure if they stayed in Florida or came to Little Rock. The dealer thought they might be going to Arkansas."
Moore said hotel staff didn’t see any signs that Wales arrived in Little Rock with snakes.
Wales had a cell phone with him, but the battery was dead by the time police discovered his body, Moore said. Police are working to obtain Wales’ cellular records, he said.
News of Wales hit Scotland over the weekend, with most major newspapers featuring stories about Wales’ mysterious death.
Wales, the father of three, was a programmer who owned a computer information business. Wales’ wife, Pamela, is a teacher who has said Wales was in Little Rock on business.
She told a reporter with the Glasgow, Scotland, Daily Record on Monday that she didn’t know her husband had an interest in snakes.
The family lives in Kilmacolm, an affluent commuter village near Glasgow. Scotland’s Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976 prohibits keeping venomous snakes without a special license.
Little Rock has a similar ordinance that says, "The sale, possession, maintenance or keeping of venomous reptiles are not lawful in the city."
City ordinances allow someone who has permission from the Little Rock Zoo director and who is a member of the Arkansas Herpetological Society to keep venomous snakes.
The four snakes were taken to the Ellen Trout Zoo in Lufkin, Texas, on Wednesday after a short stay at the Little Rock Zoo.
No lifesaving antivenin exists in Arkansas to treat a bite from the exotic snakes. The last person to die from a venomous snakebite in Arkansas was in 1965, the state Department of Health said.
The investigation into Wales ’ death is taking longer than most because Little Rock authorities are coordinating their work with a parallel investigation in Scotland.
Reichling didn’t know Wales but he suspects someone in Little Rock did.
Many cities have a quiet, but tight-knit community of snake lovers. "I will assume he knew a lot about these snakes," and if bitten, likely knew he was in trouble, Reichling said. "It’s not the first time a herpetologist has been killed by the thing that he loves.

Trinity Mirror - Lanarkshire

MAN (48) DIES IN SNAKE HORROR

May 27 2004
THE Scots businessman who died in the US after apparently being bitten by deadly snakes was born and bred in Cambuslang.
Garrick Wales is the son of millionaire business man Stewart Wales, who reared his family in Cambuslang’s Brownside Road for nearly three decades.
Police on both sides of the Atlantic are probing the 48-year-old computer programmer’s death after his body was found earlier this month in a rented car in Little Rock, Arkansas, half a mile from a box of lethal reptiles.
Inside the box were a 14-inch twig snake, a six-foot green mamba, a four-foot black mamba, and a five-foot forest cobra. All are venomous and deadly.
Garrick Wales, a father of three who had moved to Kilmacolm, Inverclyde, was found dead by police on Thursday, May 13, near Little Rock National Airport.
Police have ruled out homicide and are waiting for toxicology test results.
The Wales family lived in Cambuslang for nearly 30 years and made their fortune through Stewart Wales’ specialist surface coatings firm, Stewart Wales Sommerville, which was founded from the family home in 1958.
Garrick Wales had two brothers, Barclay and Glenn.
He attended Buckingham Palace with his brother Glenn and mum Marian when their dad was awarded an MBE on March 14, 1978.
Police are investigating the theory that Garrick Wales may have been bitten by one of four poisonous African snakes which, they believe, he had purchased over the internet from a firm in Florida.
It is understood police are looking at Mr Wales’ laptop for clues.
The snakes were transported to Little Rock National airport at Mr Wales’s request and the box they were in was said to be marked with warnings of its contents.
Detectives understand Mr Wales, who was technical director with East Kilbride IT firm Handmade.co.uk, had picked up snakes on previous trips to the US.
Police still know little about why he ordered the snakes or what he had intended to do with them.
How the snakes came to be dumped by the motorway was also a mystery.
Detective Eric Knowles, of the Little Rock Police Department, said: “We can say that this is definitely not a homicide. There is definitely no foul play as far as someone else contributing to his death.
“All other possibilities remain open to us. Whether he had a snake fetish, we just simply don’t know.”
“We will continue trying to determine what he did with the other snakes. We still have not accounted for those snakes.”
The owners of the Florida outlet where Mr Wales bought the snakes expressed their shock at his death.
Maristela Duffield said Mr Wales had e-mailed her husband Ricky after collecting the snakes at Little Rock airport on the day he died.
The message stated that he had intended then taking the snakes to the home of a friend who looked after them for him in Arkansas.
She said: “The snakes had been sent by Delta Airlines and they needed someone to sign for them at Little Rock and show an ID because obviously it was a dangerous shipment that had to be handled right.
“He e-mailed and said he’d received the box, everything was fine, he hadn’t opened it and was on his way to a friend’s house and would open it there.”
Neighbours at Mr Wales’s Kilmacolm home were puzzled by the death.
Lynn Dalgleish, a family friend, said: “I was shocked when I heard the news. The thought of Garrick buying snakes and having them shipped about seems so out of character for him.
“There was a story bandied about last year that he was bitten by a snake while climbing in South Africa. I know he did have an accident over there which left him very ill.”