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By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

Autopsies are planned Tuesday for two Canadian boys, aged 5 and 7, who were apparently killed during a sleepover when a 15-foot python escaped its cage in a pet store, slithered up through a ventilation shaft and strangled them.

The boys were sleeping at a friend’s apartment above the store, Canadian authorities said. They have not said how the snake managed to escape its enclosure. The snake was captured by the owner of the store and has been euthanized, the authorities said.

Canadian police named the boys Tuesday as Connor Barthe, 7, and Noah Barthe, 5. They were found dead Monday morning in the living room.

The snake was confined in a glass cage of “pretty large size given the size of the snake,” Sgt. Alain Tremblay of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told reporters. It was an African rock python, which herpetologists say is the longest snake native to Africa, is non-venomous and kills prey by squeezing it.

The cage rose all the way to the ceiling, and the snake apparently slithered through a hole in the top that was connected to a ventilation system, he said. It made its way to the top of the living room, and when a pipe broke, the snake fell into the living room, he said.

The pet store, Reptile Ocean, posted a message on its Facebook page expressing sympathies to the children’s relatives. The statement called it “a terrible accident without a meaning.”