An 11-month-old boy has been released from hospital and is expected to make a full recovery after rescuers found him alive on Tuesday, November 10, buried in a wire dog crate in woods in Lexington County, South Carolina, where authorities believe he had spent about 24 hours underground. His father, Michael Comer, 25, has been charged with attempted murder, the Lexington County Sheriff's Department said on Wednesday.
Source: Associated Press
Sheriff Jay Koon said the boy was found at about 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday in a wooded area near his grandfather's home in Batesburg-Leesville, a small town west of Columbia, after searchers noticed pine straw and freshly disturbed dirt and heard the child crying from below ground. The crate, which the sheriff described as a wire dog crate measuring roughly two feet by two feet, had been wrapped in a towel and shallowly buried about 50 yards from the home.
Source: Lexington County Sheriff's Department via The Lexington Ledger
How the search unfolded
The search began on Monday, November 9. Authorities said the boy had been in the care of his father's mother, who had to run an errand and left him with Comer while another caregiver was on the way. "By the time the caregiver got there, Michael was gone, and the baby was gone with him," Sheriff Koon told the Associated Press. The boy's grandfather told AP he had opened his home to his son and grandson on Monday after Comer said they needed a place to stay.
Surveillance video from several businesses in the area showed Comer without the baby on Monday afternoon, Koon said. Comer was arrested on Monday night after officers found him hiding in an outbuilding in Batesburg-Leesville, and he was booked on burglary and resisting-arrest charges — but the baby was not with him, and the sheriff said Comer had little to say about where the child was. The search continued through the night and into Tuesday, growing to dozens of first responders scouring the countryside; the Lexington Ledger put the total at more than 100 law enforcement and public safety personnel.
Sheriff Koon said the towel wrapped around the crate likely created an air pocket that let the baby breathe, and that the cool overnight temperatures may also have helped him survive an estimated 24 hours underground. That is the sheriff's assessment of the rescue, based on what crews found at the scene.
When searchers reached the disturbed earth on Tuesday afternoon, they could hear the boy crying. "As you can imagine, the race was on. Everyone was trying to get him out," Koon said. The sheriff described the child, who was crying and covered in dirt, as "clinging to life" when he was freed. His grandfather, who was nearby, told AP: "I became ecstatic, my hands straight in the air. I'm looking in the sky, jumping up and down, praising God. And at the same time I hit my knees and I'm just crying."
Charges announced on Wednesday
The boy was taken to hospital and was released on Tuesday night, Sheriff Koon said; the Lexington Ledger reported he is now staying with family members. On Wednesday, November 11, the sheriff's department announced the full set of charges against Comer: attempted murder, unlawful conduct toward a child, custodial interference and burglary, on top of the burglary and resisting-arrest counts from his Monday arrest. Comer remains in custody at the Lexington County Detention Center, and a court hearing was planned for Thursday, November 12. It was not immediately known whether he has a lawyer who could respond to the charges, AP reported. All of the charges are allegations at this stage; Comer has not been convicted of them.
Source: The Lexington Ledger
Background: a probation sentence weeks earlier
Authorities have not revealed a motive. Sheriff Koon said the boy's parents "have had some situations" and added: "Children sometimes get caught in the middle." The boy's great-aunt told AP that Comer had talked about taking the child to New York because he did not want to be in the same state as the mother, and that the family had assumed he had given the boy to someone. "We had no idea something like this would happen at all," she said.
Court records reported by AP show Comer was sentenced to probation in October after pleading guilty to domestic violence and aggravated breach-of-peace charges arising from an arrest in July; prosecutors dropped a gun charge as part of the plea deal, and he received credit for more than two months spent in jail. His father told AP he believes the plan was formed in advance: "It just seems like he already had this planned out, and he knew what he was doing." Those are the grandfather's views, offered to reporters after the rescue; investigators have not announced their own conclusion on motive or planning.
What happens next
Comer is due in court on Thursday, and the sheriff's office said its investigation is continuing with local prosecutors. The immediate focus for the family, relatives told AP, is the boy's recovery: at nearly a year old he had just been learning to stand on his own, his great-aunt said, and his grandfather said he had never heard the child cry before the moment rescuers heard him underground on Tuesday.