Yeah that's probably more like it

This is what is alleged. It would make sense that a creature that uses scent to locate dinner would find the smell of goat fur irresistible...

Except this is Canada and one cannot move more than 2 inches from the animals at such places without someone insisting that one is completely dumped in sanitizer!

If this theory is correct, why did the snake not attempt to eat one of the goats?

The report I read said it was actually a farm owned by the store owner - a family friend - who then had the kids stay over in the apartment.

Probably no regulations followed if that's the case. Especially since the guy is keeping an illegal snake in an uncovered container.

I guess the question that the police will need to answer is: Who would wish to asphyxiate two young children and then blame it on an escaped snake?

Because it's possible there were no goats in the bedroom the boys were sleeping in. The snake didn't attempt to eat the boys either, just asphyxiated them. You have to read the whole story. According to all the news reports so far there is no indication anything other than that happened. While kids being killed by these rock pythons is rare, it obviously does happen, so trying to write a whodunnit about someone trying to frame a snake for a post-partum depression murder or life insurance fraud without any facts or evidence is pretty silly.

Snakes do not kill like this for any other reason than to eat.

If this snake killed a prey item (in this case, a child), then it would at least attempt to eat it.
Snakes do not kill for fun.
Large snakes which take large prey take a long time to digest it and so hunt and kill rarely and only when hungry. They also only tend to become aggressive when either hungry or "blue" (at the onset and during shedding of their skin). This is because the scales over their eyes start to detach, causing their vision to be blurry and they understandably feel a bit vulnerable when they can't see properly.

These are facts which experienced snake owners all know.

There is no reason why a snake of this size should not think a child suitable prey, but in order to want to kill it, it would need to be hungry.
An experienced snake owner should know when an animal is ready to feed and give it suitable sized meals at predictable intervals to prevent hunger.

I have worked with experienced animal care staff who keep snakes of similar size to this one in proper facilities and sometimes food is offered and not taken, which is fair enough, but never is an animal allowed to become hungry.

Snakes of this size are never approached in their enclosure (except for veterinary reasons), they are rarely handled, except when absolutely necessary and then by several persons trained to do so. One person alone should never attempt to handle, feed or examine such a snake.

Whatever the eventual outcome of the investigation, it is at least clear that this snake has not been kept in a suitably large or secure enclosure for its size and has probably not been fed sufficiently.

What raises some suspicion is, if the snake did kill these two boys, why it didn't attempt to eat them.
If it killed the first one and then, for some reason, couldn't manage to swallow him, then went for the second, maybe smaller child, that would be logical.
Perhaps when the autopsies are done on the boys, this will become clear.

Once snakes get above a safe size for one person to handle (and that is a lot smaller than people think, as they are very strong and can be surprisingly fast), they should go to a Zoo which has been properly accredited and which is regularly inspected.
Species which can grow to large size should be banned from import, other than to registered facilities.

This isn't a specific comment on your own post but more a comment on this matter in general.

Surely these wild animals should be left where they originate i.e. in the wild. Why for selfish reasons of wanting to keep an exotic pet for company do these animals have to be lifted out of their natural environment, transported by plane/ship/vehicle (whatever) and brought to live in a completely unnatural environment in a cage/box. This African Rock Python had been kept apparently for ten whole years. What an abject and miserable life for such a beast. Such imprisoned animals occasionally resort to their natural instincts, do harm or kill and are then put down because they are considered "dangerous". No wild animal should be so cruelly treated.

I wonder if when it dropped through the ceiling, whether it could have landed across the boys heads as they slept - inadvertently smothering them or instinctively squeezing when it felt threatened.

Such a sad and bizarre thing to happen.

I am not trying to write anything (my reference to eating the goats was a reference to the boys - whoosh). I simply don't accept the snake killed these two. How they died, I honestly don't know. I am confident that the clever police that we have in Canada will get to the bottom of it.

For this to be true, a snake that is not known for killing children without being hungry would have had to kill one, without waking the other. Then kill the other and then simply take no action against the children once they were dead. If the children were asleep at the time, one can hardly argue that the snake believed it was in danger.

Quite true in many cases and all the people I work with in animal care would agree with that in principal, but in reality it is more complicated than that.

The animals we work with most are just like this snake - rejected or seized pets which have outgrown their owners' ability to care for them.
Sometimes, they are illegally imported species which are endangered in the wild, prohibited due to disease transfer or just their potentially dangerous nature.
People being what they are, some just like to break the rules and will pay to own an animal other people don't have, or which fulfills some personal desire to own a wild and dangerous exotic beast.

As wild habitats are being destroyed for human use, though, it is sometimes necessary for animals to be taken into care, so to speak, to preserve them until human beings get a grip and realise that they are not the most important species on the planet.
The wild habitat isn't always safe for them.

Accredited Zoos and Aquaria fulfill this purpose and have proper conditions and trained staff to properly house animals like this.
They need specialised food, specialised veterinary car and a lot of space!
The cost alone of keeping such a snake of this size would be prohibitive for most individuals unless they could register as a zoo and display the animal and charge visitors, as this man was apparently doing with his reptile collection.

Captive stock is all that is left of some species, so they are vital to the continuation of the species. Reintroduction in future is what we hope for, but that may be a vain hope.

As an aside, I cannot really believe that a snake of this size fell through the ceiling without waking anyone.
They weight a ton!!
It's length was such that it could have let itself down through a gap, maybe.

I agree with you.
People who do not know about the feeding habits of these snakes and who have gained their knowledge through watching "Anaconda" might well think these snakes go on killing sprees, but they don't.

The boys were not a threat, they were suitable prey for a hungry snake.
It is unlikely that the boys would have been able to make any significant noise while being constricted, so unable to alert anyone, but it still doesn't explain why the snake didn't eat either of them.

One possible theory is that the owner was trying to show off (as it seems from the report that he was trying to give them a really special day out) and left the snake in the same room as the children, or nearby, in a different holding container than its usual one.
It escaped, was hungry and they were nearby.

Bad choices made with good intentions are often the cause of tragedies, sadly.

This doesn't excuse the snake being hungry or incorrectly housed, but it is a possibility.

We'll find out eventually, tests done on the victims and the snake will show if it tried to swallow them. I'm glad the only dangerous things around here are bears, lions, rattlesnakes, cars, and people!

Especially the cars and the people!

A lot of legally obtained reptiles are now bred in captivity and have never seen the wild.

I used to keep reptiles, (nothing of this size as I dont agree with these super sized snakes being kept as pets) and everything I had was captive bred, nothing was taken for the wild.

I kept reptiles as I like them, and learned a lot by caring for them, I don't understand why people keep rodents like hamsters as pets, but for some people they are.