An 11-month-old South Carolina infant, Koah Sharp, was found alive after being buried underground in a dog crate for about 24 hours, the Associated Press reported. Authorities say the boy’s father, Michael Comer, 25, put him there. Rescuers heard the child crying from below the ground after a full day of searching in the woods near Batesburg-Leesville, and the boy is expected to recover. Comer has been charged with attempted murder.
11-month-old Koah was found wrapped in a towel in the dog crate, about a foot underground, when the rescue team discovered him. The cool temperatures and an air pocket created by the towel helped the child stay alive, Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon said on Tuesday. The infant was soon freed and was “clinging to life”, the sheriff told reporters. Koah’s grandfather, John Comer, witnessed the moment the boy was brought out. He told AP that the child was crying and covered in dirt. Soon after, the crying stopped. The infant was then placed on the back of a truck and sat up. John Comer said he felt a rush of joy that left him on his knees. “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. ” The infant was discharged from hospital on Tuesday night and is expected to make a full recovery, the sheriff said.
On Monday, November 9, Koah had been in the care of Patricia Comer, his paternal grandmother, authorities said. She had to run an errand, so she left the boy with his father, Michael Comer, while another caregiver was on the way. By the time that caregiver arrived, both Michael Comer and the baby were gone. Concerned, Patricia Comer called 911. “I had a bad feeling that something was not right,” she told CNN affiliate WACH. Koah’s grandfather, John Comer, said his son had asked for a place to stay that same day, and he had agreed to take in his son and grandson. He now says he feels taken advantage of. “It just seems like he already had this planned out, and he knew what he was doing. And he took the opportunity to do what he did. And if it hadn’t have been here, I don’t think anybody would have known where he would have went, and this would be a completely different story,” the grandfather recalled. After receiving the 911 call, authorities arrived at John Comer’s house, which was just up the street from Patricia’s. They found the doors open, with “baby belongings in the house, but no sign of Michael or the baby”, the sheriff said. Surveillance video from several businesses showed Comer without the child that afternoon. Koah’s great-aunt, Amber Hammond, said her nephew had talked about taking the baby to New York because he did not want to be in the same state as the child’s mother. When Koah disappeared, she and others assumed Comer had handed the boy over to someone else. “We had no idea something like this would happen at all,” she told the news agency. A search party was launched, with more than 100 first responders looking for the baby. On Tuesday afternoon, while searching near John Comer’s house, they found “freshly disturbed” dirt about 50 yards into the woods, Koon said. “As they probed it and laid it out and started digging, you could hear little Koah crying. As you can imagine, the race was on, everybody’s getting down there trying to get him out,” the sheriff said.
Michael Comer, 25, the father of the infant, is in custody, facing charges of attempted murder, unlawful conduct towards a child, custodial interference and burglary, the sheriff’s office said. He was arrested while hiding in a building in Batesburg-Leesville. Authorities have not revealed a motive. The sheriff said “there were obviously some issues” recently between the child’s parents; however, he did not specify the details.
Meanwhile, Comer had pleaded guilty to criminal charges, including assault and battery and domestic violence, earlier this year, South Carolina court records show. A court hearing for Comer was scheduled for Thursday. It was not immediately clear whether he had a lawyer who could respond to the charges. Koah, who is nearly a year old, loves watching Mickey Mouse cartoons, his aunt Hammond said. For his grandfather, the most important detail is what Koah was like before all of this. John Comer said he had never heard the boy cry before he was found underground. “He’s always been happy. The kid’s always got a smile on his face.”
