Janitor finds 3-foot python in locker

NEWTON, Mass. -- A custodian cleaning out lockers at a Massachusetts high school was so shocked when a 3-foot-long snake fell at his feet that he didn't even think it was real.

Ed Reardon told The Daily News Tribune that at first he thought it was a change purse. Then he thought it was a rubber snake.

Then it coiled into attack mode.

Reardon didn't panic. He grabbed it behind the head as he had seen on nature TV shows. When he got off work at Newton North High School, he brought it to a local pet store, where workers identified it as a ball python.

Reardon thinks a student left the snake in the locker at the end of school as a prank. He found a notebook in the same locker with a student's name on it, and turned it over to the principal.