Kelly Hessedal / CBS8 / September 19, 2025
Darwin, a python involved in the “Read to a Reptile” program at the Ocean Beach Library was found on Friday after disappearing two days ago.
“I was really getting very worried. I wasn’t sure we would get him back. I’m so happy to have him back!” said Librarian Camille Hyatt, Darwin’s owner.
The four foot long snake has been a popular draw to the library for the past two years. People stop in just to say hello to him.
Darwin disappeared Wednesday afternoon while Camille was on her lunch break. She returned to find his glass enclosure empty, It was locked, just the way she had left it, but Darwin was not inside. Camille had left the key on top. She admits she had been too trusting.
“At first I thought maybe he had got out, I panicked for sure,” she said. “He’s never even tried to get out before. I figured out pretty quickly he wouldn’t have gotten out. I rushed off to my co-workers who also love him. We were looking everywhere, all over the library, just in case. But we figured somebody must have taken him.”
“I think it was just shocking anyone would do that in the first place,” she said, adding, he’s not considered a valuable python in terms of money. He simply holds sentimental value as a pet and family member.
There are no security cameras at the library.
A $300 reward was put out for Darwin’s safe return. Signs were posted on the door and near the check-out area. News about his disappearance circulated online and social media.
“Honestly, we just want him back. So, like no questions asked, I’ll believe your story. It doesn’t matter to me, you know, if you had a lapse in judgment or anything like that, I will understand. And I just want him back,” she said.
About fifteen minutes after CBS 8 interviewed Camille, a security guard came out to tell us Darwin was found.
The python was discovered in a window sill near the computers on the opposite side of the library, an area that had been searched multiple times before.
“I saw him curled up right there by the window,” said library patron named Bronwynne. “I had known from yesterday that he was missing and that bothered me. So I was thankful I got to see him.”
She alerted library staff who ran to get Camille.
“I was worried it was some other snake, I had to come check on him, but it’s definitely our Darwin!” smiled Camille.
She suspects someone may have returned Darwin Friday morning. She’s just glad to have him home.
If anyone understands the relationships among a snake, children, and a library, please enlighten me.
I don’t like that my kids are exposed to a python when we go to the library. I don’t want them to learn that it’s ok to approach a big snake. In Florida people get killed by pythons.
So, I have to admit that I have not consulted book in the OB Library for well over 50-years, but I love that library noneheless, yet never knew there was a “Library Snake” named Darwin. Yet the mystery remains, “How did Darwin magically leave the locked box?” This sounds like a Harry Pottery story.
I don’t like that my kids are exposed to a python when we go to the library. I don’t want them to learn that it’s ok to approach a big snake. In Florida people get killed by pythons.