A Missouri couple has been charged with child neglect after they allegedly abandoned their young son at the county courthouse.
“They were gonna take him anyway,” Jeremy Lamp told investigators, according to a probable cause statement filed in the case.
The affidavit says that police were called to the Livingston County Courthouse just after 10 a.m. on Tuesday. Children’s Division employees told them that Jeremy and Jessica Lamp had come in for a drug screening and brought their child with them. The father’s drug test came back negative, but the mother tested positive for methamphetamine.
The Children’s Division provided three options as a “safety plan” for the baby — that the mother stay out of the house, the father and the child stay out of the house, or the child stay with a relative — and the parents declined all three and instead pushed the baby’s car seat toward the division employee. When she told them they couldn’t leave the child there, they did so anyway, leaving the courthouse with the baby, who had no clothing, food, or any other items for care.
Police found the Lamps about an hour later at Hedrick Medical Center. Jeremy Lamp told police that the safety plan options weren’t “viable.”
“He said that Children’s Division told him that they would take the child so he left Victim 1 with them,” the affidavit said. “When I questioned him about this he said, ‘the way I looked at it was that, they were gonna take him anyway.’”
The affidavit says the Lamp “willfully abandoned his biological child without remorse and without ensuring proper care.” It also notes his prior convictions, including DWI and assault.
According to KCTV, Jessica Lamp could not explain why the couple abandoned the baby. She had a prior conviction for child endangerment.
