Wait, I that snake!

The chief deputy of Richland Parish didn't just capture the 8-foot snake that had stopped highway traffic. He recognized it.

That let Chief Deputy Terry Thompson reunite the one-eyed boa constrictor with its owner, who had lost it when he moved to Rayville in March.

Thompson said that when he got to the spot where the snake had been spotted Friday morning, he was told that a driver had tried to run over the boa and shoot it.

A man and his wife stuck around to make sure the snake did, too.

One look told Thompson it wasn't poisonous. "I caught it by the tail, pulled it out, and picked it up and put it into a pillowcase," he said.

Then he looked it in the face and realized they'd been introduced.

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Last year, Thompson said, Chad Foote brought the snake into investigators' office to show it off. Foote had recently bought it at a good price because of the missing eye.

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After a few phone calls, Foote and his long-lost pet were reunited.

"He said he never thought he would see his snake again," Thompson said.