Two Tennessee individuals are charged with federal kidnapping after a 2-year-old boy was abandoned at a Mississippi Goodwill drop-off.
Child welfare workers have taken custody of the boy who was left at Southaven Goodwill Monday morning with clean clothes and a note saying “child abandoned … no phone number for mother.”
Local news media said the boy’s name was Sergio.
BOY LEFT IN MISSISSIPPI GOODWILL SPEAKS CHRISTMAS GIFT DONATIONS, SPOTLIGHTS PANDEMIA-ERA CHILD ABUSE
Mugshot for Jeremy Fitzgerald, 34. Image shows 2-year-old Sergio after being abandoned on Monday at a Mississippi Goodwill drop-off.
(Shelby County Jail / Southaven Police Department)
In a complaint filed Thursday in Memphis federal court, the FBI accused 34-year-old Jeremy Fitzgerald and 29-year-old girlfriend Turlisca Turner of taking the child and taking him from Memphis to Mississippi.
According to the complaint, the boy’s mother, Antoinette Smith, told officers that Fitzgerald took her child after she refused to work for him as a prostitute in Nashville.
She said she called Fitzgerald several times to pick up her son after leaving her in Nashville, but he did not answer, according to the complaint.
Smith’s sister then called Fitzgerald and during the conversation demanded money for the boy’s return.
BOY, 2, LEFT IN MISSISSIPPI GOODWILL DROP WITH ADDITIONAL CLOTHES, CAUTION IDENTIFIED; SUSPECTED ARRESTED
“Turner knew that Fitzgerald had demanded money in return for the return of the child,” said US attorney D. Michael Dunavan in Memphis.
Turner was arrested Monday in the same clothes as in the Goodwill’s surveillance video, prosecutors said.
Fitzgerald was arrested after crashing the maroon vehicle he and Turner were in as they drove away from the Goodwill after dropping Sergio off, they said. He was seen on video at the Goodwill with a mask and Sergio’s hand.
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The boy was unable to tell the police his name after he was abandoned.