A massive Burmese python has been rescued by police after its owner shot and killed two young men and their girlfriends, who he claimed were trying to rob him.

Police searching sculptor Regivaldo da Silva Santana’s home in Arapiraca, in the Brazilian state of Alagoas, after the four killings, were astonished to find the 16ft snake slithering free in a comparably tiny bathroom.

Photographs of the python show it being held aloft by four police officers before it was taken to a zoo.

Its artist owner, an expert hunter and marksman known to fans as Giba, claimed he had shot one boy in the head by accident.

He then allegedly shot the boy’s friend and their two girlfriends aged between 15 and 20 to get rid of any witnesses, according to local media.

The sculptor, famous for his religious icons, then persuaded his nephew Wesley Santana Sa and friend Adriano Santos Lima to help hide the bodies.

All three were arrested on 27th April.

Police named the victims as Leticia da Silva Santos, 20, Lucas da Silva Santos, 15, Joselene de Souza Santos 17 years and 20-year-old Erick Juan de Lima Silva.

Burmese pythons are listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN’s) Red List of Threatened Species.

Police also found a boa constrictor on the sculptor’s property.

Local media said that the boa was taken by the Environmental Police Battalion to Ibama’s Wild Animal Triage Centre.

The python, an imported snake, was sent to a zoo in Joao Pessoa and has even been renamed ‘Alagoana’.

Local environmentalists warned that the python should not be released into the wild because the huge predator would destabilise the local ecosystem.

Police are investigating the four killings.