By Carol Robinson
The parents of a 4-year-old boy who found a gun at a Blount County home and accidentally shot himself were arrested on Monday.
Cassandra Lynn Lutz, 39, and Alexander Andrew Corrie, 26, are charged with first-degree assault.
The pair also faces multiple charges of cruelty to animals and failure to bury livestock after authorities found roughly 30 snakes – six of them dead – and a crocodile inside the Oneonta home.
Additionally, they are charged with chemical endangerment of two children in connection with the discovery of marijuana and pipes with residue.
Both were booked into the Blount County Jail midday Monday.
The investigation began when Blount County sheriff’s deputies were dispatched Friday morning to UAB St. Vincent’s Blount where they learned the child was critically injured with gunshot wounds to the right knee and right arm.
He had been driven there by private vehicle and was then airlifted to Children’s of Alabama in Birmingham.
The shooting happened at the family’s home on Holliday Drive in the Sugarland Lake community.
A search turned up drugs and multiple unsecured guns inside the home, as well as the animals.
On the assault charge, warrants state Lutz and Corrie caused a grave risk of death to another person by leaving a firearm unsecured.
The cruelty to animal charges alleged the snakes were subjected to cruel treatment by being kept in unsanitary conditions, causing six of them to die. Some of the living snakes were being held in containers with dead and decomposing snakes.
The charging documents contend the dead snakes should have been buried at least two feet underground within 24 hours of their deaths.
Blount County District Attorney Pamela Casey said the Department of Human Resources were called to the scene and removed other children from the home.
Fish and game officers also responded because of the crocodile and snakes.
“Parents must ensure guns are properly stored in the home out of the reach of small children,” District Attorney Pamela Casey said.