Courthouse snakes give workers the creeps in Miss.
| JACKSON, Mississippi
Non-venomous聽snakes聽are slithering into a Mississippi聽courthouse聽this spring, posing no threat but giving workers the creeps.
Five of the brown DeKay's聽snakes聽鈥� sometimes called earth聽snakes聽鈥� have been found in the Hinds County circuit clerk's basement office since April 8.
A deputy clerk, Kelly Phillips, said Thursday that the largest was a big around as her finger and a few inches long. She didn't stop to measure it. She said the smallest looked like an overgrown earthworm.
Former zookeeper Percy King, who does reptile shows at local schools, went to the聽courthouse聽to identify the serpents. He said DeKay's聽snakes, which eat lizards, worms, crickets and other small bugs, have soft teeth that probably couldn't even break a human's skin.
It's not unusual for DeKay's聽snakes聽to sneak into buildings during the springtime as they wake up from hibernation, he said: "A聽snake聽that size could squeeze through any little hole."
The Art Deco-style聽courthouse聽in downtown Jackson was built in 1930 and is topped by a statue of Moses with the Ten Commandments. The basement has windows, but Phillips said they're tightly sealed.
Phillips said the first time she saw a聽snake聽in the office, her brain didn't immediately register what it was.
"It was trucking across the floor," she said, pointing in a diagonal toward rows of heavy rolling cabinets where paper files are stored.
She said she screamed "Snake!" and several co-workers scattered. One picked it up with a paper clamp and took it outside.
One of the聽snakes聽was accidentally killed by a file cabinet that rolls on tracks. Another was caught on a sticky trap left by maintenance workers.
