Like Henry Walton Jones, we're not very fond of snakes—we're particularly terrified of finding one in the toilet. So why anyone would willingly live with them, let alone sleep mere feet away from them, boggles our minds. But one Putnam County couple did just that, living with 75 snakes, including 56 poisonous ones—and now, police suspect that one of those snakes killed one of the owners. “One of the strangest things I’ve ever dealt with since becoming sheriff of Putnam County,” Donald Smith told CBS.

Snake enthusiast Vito Caputo found his girlfriend Aleta Smith dead in their bedroom on Tuesday this week, with bite marks on her arm. Police suspect the culprit was a Black Mamba, a long, incredibly fast, venomous snake from Africa, whose cage padlock had been opened. But even knowing the cause of death, there are still a lot of lingering questions: “We can’t understand why she didn’t call 911 right away and things like that. There’s a lot of loose ends,” a friend of Smith's told CBS.

Police are now investigating whether the accident really was an accident—snake experts say that no one familiar with the deadly Black Mamba would handle it so casually. One of Smith's friends told CBS she was unhappy, and the death "could’ve been" intentional. But there could be a simpler reason why Smith didn't call 911 after she was bitten: the couple were keeping their 75 snakes illegally in a cramped 948-square-foot, two-bedroom house. "People do survive bites when they react appropriately. But more often than not, we find that with people who don't respond properly, the main reason is because they're probably keeping the snakes in violation of the law," snake expert Terry Phillip told LoHud.

The snakes were all removed on Wednesday and brought to the Bronx Zoo. That means the snakes will be rooming with the craftiest snake of them all: Mia, the Bronx Zoo Cobra who escaped from the zoo last spring and ran amok across the city (via Twitter). Hopefully she won't give them any tipssssss on how to esssssscape.