“I felt more joy in this little baby than I did my own kids, hearing their first breaths. I was completely, completely overcome with emotion,” said Missoula County Sheriff’s Deputy Ross Jessop.
Missoula deputies say they were acting more like parents than cops when they came across an abandoned baby in the deep Western Montana woods over the weekend as they comforted and held the small child after hearing his faint cry.
Even as we’re learning more details about the baby’s rescue, detectives are trying to learn more about the man who left the little boy beneath a pile of sticks — and the child’s mother who they believe were staying at a primitive camp nearby.
Deputy Jessop and the US Forest Service officer who found the baby early Sunday morning were angry as they looked for the child — and then overcome with joy.
There was a lot of emotion in the room Tuesday as Deputy Jessop and others talked about the moments leading up to finding this child — and what it was like to make such an unlikely rescue.
It had been a long, exhausting night for Deputy Jessop as search crews desperate for leads hiked late into the night near Lolo Hot Springs, coming across debris, footprints, but no baby.
Deputy Jessop says he followed his gut but was prepared for the worst.
“I just asked him, ‘would you be willing to walk up a mountain with me?’, And he said ‘yeah absolutely.’ And we walked up a ways — about at the top of the, crest of the hill. And we stopped and I even blurted out to Nick several times, ‘Nick I’m so mad that this is happening, I’m so mad that we’re looking for a dead baby’.”
But even after nine hours, the faint cries coming from the mouth of a five-month-old child prompted the officers to switch off their radios, look down, and see the infant lying face down under a pile of sticks.
“Police tactics, police training, they all went out. I saw this little tiny child, my father instincts kicked in and I picked him up — scooped him up. We swaddled him in a down coat, and a beanie hat and I just held on to him,” deputy Jessop recalled.
He says the baby was coughing, and spit sticks out of its mouth.
“He was alert, but just seemed comforted. He did — he peered it my eyes, and I peered into his eyes — and I gave him kiss on the forehead and I just looked at him, and couldn’t thank the Lord Jesus enough, I was just so happy,” Deputy Jessop said.
The baby was taken to the hospital where a photo was taken of its small find clutching the finger of Sheriff’s Office Captain Bill Burt, who says the baby wouldn’t let go while it drank three containers of Pedialyte supplements.
Deputy Jessop told MTN News that he didn’t like being the center of attention saying he was just the lucky one who got to pick up the baby for the first time. He credits everyone who worked the scene and searched and coordinated those efforts for this remarkable happy ending.
The baby is now in good condition.
Prosecutors say Francis Crowley, a fugitive from Oregon, was under the influence of both meth and bath salts when he abandoned the baby after crashing his car on a game trail in the woods.
Watch the full interview with Deputy Jessop below.
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