TikToker’s venomous cobra escaped, apologizes to North Carolina community

A TikToker who sent the city of Raleigh, North Carolina into a panic last year after his deadly zebra cobra snake escaped from his care is now asking for forgiveness as he speaks out for the first time since the incident.

Chris Gifford, 22, a TikTok-famous snake handler with over half a million followers on the platform, lost one of his African zebra cobras and the snake spent months on the loose before it was finally found on the front porch of a Raleigh home in July 2021.

Gifford was hit with over 40 misdemeanor charges, ordered to pay hefty fines and forced to surrender over 75 of his reptiles following the frightening ordeal, according to WRAL.

“It was on a lady’s porch. Imagine if a little kid or something of that nature had happened?” Gifford told WRAL, speaking out for the first time since the frenzy.

He pleaded guilty to notifying authorities about the missing snake when it escaped in November 2020.

“To know that an animal you were supposed to take responsibility of, and due to your mistake and not making a call, is out … I was in tears,” Gifford said. “What I learned is you make the call, you keep yourself accountable, which I didn’t do.”

Gifford said he bought the two snakes when they were babies, just “eight, nine inches,” in November 2020 to add to his collection. He placed the snakes in separate containers as they underwent a quarantining process so as to not spread diseases to his other animals.

When he came to check on the cages one morning, one of the serpents was missing. He noticed that the lid had not been closed properly

It was “just this giant, ‘Oh crap’ moment,” he said. He began to panic.

“Immediately, just frantic searching. Checking everything and everywhere,” he said.

He was nearly certain that the snake had slithered into his parents’ basement, because there was no way it could escape from the “fool-proof” room where he kept his pets.

After a search though, he and his father discovered a small hall for an ethernet cable that he’d forgotten to cover up. The cable led to a crawl space, so Gifford remained confident the snake was still in the house.

“At this point we had bombed the basement with chemicals, set up cameras. That’s when the discussion comes up about reporting,” he told the outlet. He said he convinced his parents not to report the missing snake. Even if it had gotten outside, he didn’t think the African snake would survive a North Carolina winter.

According to WRAL, 50 nights below freezing that winter eased the Giffords’ anxieties. In the spring, however, animal control came knocking.

The missing cobra, now larger, was spotted about three streets over, the officer told him. When she asked Gifford if it belonged to him, he panicked.

“I was petrified. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared. I didn’t know what the precautions would be,” he said. “And none of this was an excuse. Immediately I said I have no idea.”

After being overwhelmed by guilt, he called animal control and confessed that the cobra was his.

Gifford was ultimately ordered by a judge to turn over $35,000 worth of snakes to the county and pay $13,162 in restitution for the resources needed to track the cobra down, WRAL reported. The seized snakes are to be used for research and anti-venom development.

“Mostly this is just an apology because there are no excuses for what happened,” he said.

He is barred from owning any venomous snakes until August. He said he plans to begin collecting snakes again eventually, but won’t keep them at his parents’ house.

“I love these animals, and I can share these animals on social media,” he said.