Photo: AP

If that’s not the most disturbing headline you’ve read all year, I’m not sure what is. Here’s the story:

A seven year-old boy broke into an Australian zoo this week, scaling the outside fence and slipping under the security cameras because he’s well, seven. Described from the CCTV footage as “expressionless,” the boy went to the zoo’s reptile center and proceeded to beat 13 animals to death with a rock including a large turle, bearded dragons, lizards and the zoo’s pride and joy, a meter-long, 20 year-old goanna.

But wait, it gets worse. After the massacre, the boy then threw all the dead reptiles over the wall into Terry’s cage. Terry is a 440 pound saltwater crocodile, who was only too happy for the surprise snack. The zoo keepers were horrified the next day when they found a very fat and satisfied looking Terry surrounded by the remains of the rest of the reptile center. But no one’s blaming the crocodile.

Officials don’t even know what to do, because in Austrialia, no one under 10 is liable for criminal offenses.

“I thought for the sheer consequences of what he did that there would have to be some severe punishment, but he’s only seven, they can’t do anything to kids under 10,” Mr Neindorf said. “We’re going to see what we can do, maybe try and sue the family in the civil court, we’ll look down that avenue.”

The boy’s brother was allegedly part of a group of rapscallions that attacked Terry the crocodile some time earlier. No word on what the parental situation might be in that household, but the only feasible explanation is that maybe their parents were killed by lizards at one point and now the boys are on an eternal quest for revenge.

Well, that was quite the way to start your day wasn’t it?