Oh please. The only reason there is a picture of a ball python is because all these hysteria causing media dorks know they are harmless. One of those nutjobs isn't about to get close enough to something actually dangerous to take a picture. Besides, pretty much everyone has seen a ball python at some point, it's much harder to scare people showing them a picture of something they've never seen.

In excess of four feet long probably means they were about 24" long at most, so were likely ball pythons or cornsnakes.

Gale