SANTA ANA – Neighbors knew Bill Buchman had a snake.

But they had no idea how many snakes were slithering, coiling and dying in his North Fernwood Drive home until Wednesday.

That was when police served a warrant, gagging at the stench that betrayed the elementary school teacher who moonlighted as a snake breeder.

The smell rolled into the street and over a gathering of friends, neighbors and gawkers. It swept over a team of police in biohazard jumpsuits and facemasks as they pulled 182 live pythons – and more than 240 dead ones – from Buchman’s rodent-infested home.

“The smell is ungodly,” said Cpl. Anthony Bertagna of the Santa Ana Police Department.

“Worst case I’ve ever seen,” said Sondra Berg, animal services supervisor with the Santa Ana Police Department. “Two years ago, we found 110 cats in an 800 square-foot home. This is much more severe.”

Over the past few months, neighbors called authorities about the foul odor. They thought it was trash. Then Jevohah’s Witnesses knocked on the door. Had someone died? They called police.

Police arrested Buchman, 53, a sixth-grade teacher at Mariners Elementary School, on suspicion of felony cruelty to animals.

Up until this week, Buchman was regular Joe. Quiet maybe, especially after his mom, Sandy, died in 2011 – but a regular Joe.

He worked out. He taught 6th graders. He loved the San Antonio Spurs basketball team and the Baltimore Ravens football team. Last year, he watched the Super Bowl at neighbor Forest Long’s home with a crowd of more than 100.

“I had a special chair for him by the taco bar,” said Long, who often talked sports with Buchman. “Let me tell you, Bill was a nice guy, outspoken, knowledgeable. He talked to my grandkids about school.”

Buchman used to show his bull terrier, Kodak, at dog shows, Long said. When the dog died, Buchman decided to buy a snake like the one he had as a child.

“I knew he had one,” Long said. “But 300?”

Buchman became a snake breeder. He’d been working to breed various color and pattern combinations in the snakes, known as “morphs,” Berg said.

When the market was high, they could be worth $1,500, Berg said. Now? About $200.

For years, Buchman was active on Internet message boards devoted to ball python morphs. He shared photos of his snakes, varieties with names such as the Cajun Butter and the Hypo Ghost. He offered tips on incubating eggs. After hundreds of posts on one site since 2008, his account quieted last year.

That’s about the time a strange odor started wafting from Buchman’s home.

Neighbors stopped inviting over friends; stopped eating outside; then started vomiting.

The odors started last year but their cause may reach back to the 2011 death of Buchman’s mother – a traumatic event, according to Berg.

Buchman seemed to grow quieter, more reclusive. He started hoarding and using his backyard as a dump.

When neighbor Long peeked over the wall between their houses last April to investigate the stench, he was aghast.

“Oh my God,” he said. “There’s trash from here all the way out back.”

It was about that time that Berg checked on Buchman’s snake breeding operation. Everything appeared clean in the front room of his 5-bedroom home, she said. But she needed a warrant to check the rest of the house.

Police discovered rat feces covering the interior of Buchman’s home. Some snakes had mites, mouth rot and respiratory problems. Those that survived in stackable plastic containers were malnourished and surrounded by piles of garbage. Snakes, vermin and debris were so thick it took police over an hour to clear just one room.

“The rats and mice (typically are used to feed pythons) will start eating each other when they don’t have food or water,” Berg said. “That’s what we’re seeing here.”

As Buchman remained in the county jail, word spread among his students and former students.

“He seemed normal but creepy,” said Chloe Wood, 13, a graduate of Mariners Elementary in Newport Beach. “He used to have (snakes) in his classroom and it freaked everybody out.”

Parents expressed shock and concern for the well-liked teacher.

“I always thought of him as a great teacher and as a pleasant, nice man,” said Janice Hess, mother of two Mariners’ students. “I feel bad because obviously he’s suffering.”

By late afternoon, two men waited outside in the driveway with boxes, checking the snakes and shaking their heads.

“This is not what our hobby represents,” said snake rescuer Jason Haywood, 37, of the Southern California Herpetology Association & Rescue of Buena Park. “This gives it a bad name.”

The breeding of ball pythons (called that because they curl up in balls) boomed in 2011 and bottomed out in 2013, he said.

Breeding is pretty easy to get caught up in because they reproduce so rapidly,” Hayward said.

The most valuable survivor was a “phantom butterball” python, he said, a variety which can be sold for about $5,000.

Ball pythons are completely harmless, he said, and popular starter snakes for kids who often let them coil around their bicycle handlebars.

Haywood said he will care for the sickest of the snakes himself and place other snakes in foster care. Eventually, he hopes to place them in schools or nature centers.

To help, Southern California Herpetology Association & Rescue: 714-869-7554.

Contact the writer: 714-704-3706 or ckoerner@ocregister.com