America's Baby Is in Handcuffs: Baby Jessica Arrested 39 Years After Famous Rescue

0:03 Callaroga Shark Media. If you were alive in October of nineteen eighty seven, you remember baby Jessica, eighteen months old a well in a Texas backyard, fifty eight hours of the entire country watching, holding its breath, waiting. She was singing inside that well. They could hear her. And when the paramedic finally pulled her out through that narrow tunnel, covered in dust and trauma and somehow still alive, there wasn't a dry eye in the country. Ronald Reagan called her America's Child. Jessica McClure Morales is forty years old now, she has children of her own, She's a grandmother. She works at a landscaping shop in Midland, and as of last Saturday night, she was in handcuffs. We're going to get into that this morning, the arrest, the years in between, and the family tragedy that has followed her quietly away from the cameras for a very long time. Also this morning, we have been following the Tanner Horner trial from the beginning, the FedEx driver who abducted and murdered seven year old Athena Strand in Texas in twenty twenty two, Horner pleaded guilty.

1:16 The jury is now deciding whether he gets the death penalty. And this week the sentencing phase has reached territory that is genuinely hard to sit with. Two women took the stand and said Tanner Horner rape them when they were sixteen years old. And then the forensic analyst testified about what was found on Athena Strand's body. I'm going to be honest with you, that segment is going to be difficult to get through. It should be. And finally, remember Sharon Moore, the Michigan football coach who went from national championship winner to jail cell in a single December afternoon. He was in court this week for sentencing. He will not serve a day in prison. His victim has something to say about that. Let's start with something that almost feels surreal. The date is October fourteenth, nineteen eighty seven, Midland, Texas, a backyard, an eight inch wide well casing that nobody had thought to cover, and an eighteen month old little girl named Jessica McClure who fell twenty two feet straight down into the earth. And then the whole world showed up a BC, NBC and CBS, all three major networks interrupted their scheduled primetime programming to broadcast the rescue live.

2:34 Rescuers had to drill a parallel shaft through solid rock, then dig a horizontal tunnel just wide enough for a person to crawl through. It took fifty eight hours. At some point during those fifty eight hours, people below ground could hear the little girl singing, singing, eighteen months old, stuck in a well, and she was singing. A paramedic named Robert O'Donnell crawled through that tunnel and pulled her out. The image of Jessica McClure emerging from that well, caked in dust, small enough to fit in one man's arms, went everywhere. People who weren't even born yet know that photograph. Ronald Reagan said at the time, everybody in America became godmothers and godfathers of Jessica. While this was going on.

3:20 She visited the White House two years later, where a young George H. W. Bush let her take his glasses while her family laughed. America loved this kid in a way that felt almost primal, the way a whole country can collectively decide that one small child represents something precious about hope itself. Her ordeal got a TV movie in nineteen eighty nine. The Simpsons did a satirical episode in nineteen ninety two. Radio Bart built entirely on the premise the baby Jessica's story became part of American cultural vocabulary. Now let me tell you what happened to the girl inside that story. Jessica underwent multiple surgeries after her her rescue.

4:00 She lost a toe. She grew up in Midland, graduated from Greenwood High School in two thousand and four. In January two thousand and six, she married Daniel Morales and they've been together for twenty years. They have two kids, Simon and Cheyenne. Both of her children have since had children of their own. Jessica McClure Morales is a grandmother. She posed with her twin grandchildren on Facebook last year on her twenty fifth birthday. In March of twenty eleven, she finally gained access to the trust fund that had been established after her rescue. People from all over the country had donated on behalf of that little Girl in the well. By the time she turned twenty five, that fund had grown to one point two million dollars most of it was already gone. The two thousand and eight stock market crash had taken a significant portion. She used what remained to buy a home for her family in Midland Outright, a three bedroom, two bathroom house worth around three hundred and eighty eight thousand dollars. In a twenty twenty two interview with People magazine, she was gracious about it.

5:05 She said the rescue had given her the perspective to handle the financial loss. I had got on my side that day, she said. My life is a miracle. She worked for years as a special education teacher at a local elementary school. She now works as an assistant shop manager at Richard's Horticulture, a landscaping business in Midland. By all accounts, she was living a quiet, private life, as far from the spotlight as you can get when your face is part of a cultural moment. And then this year quietly a tragedy. Her stepsister, Gracey Adams, twenty five years old, the daughter of her father, Chip's wife Amy, was found dead in her Nashville home in January. Gracie's girlfriend, a twenty nine year old woman named Sarah Stacy, was charged with her murder. That case is still ongoing. McClure Morales has not spoken publicly about it. Her father, Chip, for what it's worth, has moved on to a very different life. He runs a private jet acquisition company in Tennessee Jet Acquisitions with his wife Amy. He still occasionally reshares the story of his daughter's rescue on social media.

6:16 In October of last year, when it had been thirty eight years, he posted about it. Hard to believe it's been that long, he wrote. Now. Last Saturday night, around ten o'clock, Midland, Texas officers responded to the home of Jessica McClure Morales. She was charged with assault causing bodily injury involving family violence. She was taken into custody at the scene and later released on bond. The amount of that bond has not been disclosed. The Midland County Sheriff's office says the arrest affidavit may not be released for up to ten days. No further details about the incident have emerged. It is unclear who the alleged victim is, though the charge classification domestic family violence points to someone in her household. Two days after the arrest, she posted on Facebook. The post read note to self. Happiness is letting go of what you assume your life is supposed to be like right now and sincerely appreciating it for everything that it is. So Relax, Reset, you are enough, you have enough, you do enough. Breathe deep, Let go and just live right now. She did not address the arrest.

7:29 She has not commented publicly. I want to say something carefully here. We don't know what happened in that house on Saturday night. We don't know who was hurt, or how or in what context. A charge is not a conviction. There is no arrest affidavit. Yet. What we know is that the woman who was once America's child, who literally survived something that killed people much older than her, who built a life on a fraction of the money that was supposed to help her, who lost a stepsister to violence. It's less than four months ago, was arrested at her home. Whatever led to that moment, she is clearly caring a lot. That said, the charge is real. The legal process will unfold and we will follow it. She has a tattoo, by the way, recent two words well shit, a joke about the incident that made her famous. Whatever else is true about Jessica McClure morales that woman has a sense of humor about what the world handed her. I'll give her that. We have been with this case from the beginning.

8:50 If you've been listening, you know the full story. If you're newer to the show. Athena Strand was seven years old. She disappeared from outside her home in Paradise text This on November thirtieth, twenty twenty two. A FedEx driver named Tanner Horner had just delivered a package to the Strand home, a box of barbies meant to be Athena's Christmas present. The video from inside his van shows her climbing in. She told him her name. Horner killed her. He tried to break her neck. When that didn't work, he strangled her with his bare hands in the back of that van. He led investigators to her body, which he'd left in the Trinity River, fifteen miles from her home. She was missing for two days before they found her. Horner is thirty five years old. He had been charged with capital murder and aggravated kidnapping. On the first day of his trial, April seventh, he surprised everyone by pleading guilty. The jury's only job now is the sentencing phase, death or life without parole. We covered day five on Monday. Here is what happened. Sergeant Brett Yarrow returned to the stand. He testified that at some point, while awaiting try, Horner tried to kill himself in jail. When that happened, officers searched his cell and found handwritten letters. Those letters were read to the jury. One letter was addressed to the Strand family.

10:11 It contained apologies. It also contained explanations for his behavior, including a reference to his Asperger's diagnosis, which his defense team has made a central part of their mitigation strategy. Horner wrote that he had been stressed by changes to his delivery route, that being unable to drive the same route every day had destabilized him. He wrote, I'm sorry I took your little angel away from you. She didn't deserve it. The other letter was addressed to detectives, and this is the one that raised eyebrows. In that letter, Horner claimed that another person was involved in Athena Strand's abduction. Investigators have found no evidence supporting that claim. To be clear, Horner has confessed his DNA is on this case. The forensic evidence is over whelming. This reads, and this is my editorial, read like a man who has spent time in a cell calculating his odds and decided to throw something against the wall, something that might introduce doubt, something that might at sentencing make a juror hesitate. It will not work, but it tells you something about Tanner Horner that he tried. There was also a long hair collected from Horner's underwear. Let that sit there now. Day six, Tuesday, April fourteenth, a digital forensic examiner named Scott Morris testified that he had analyzed Horner's phone. Among the things he found, Horner had searched for information about the case before his arrest.

11:42 He knew what was coming. He was tracking the investigation. A man named Kevin Huffman also testified. Huffman had received a package delivered by Horner on November twenty ninth, the day before Athena disappeared. When Horner pulled up to the Huffman property, two children were outside playing. They were seven and ten years old. Horner got out and asked them if an adult was home. Think about that sequence. November twenty ninth, Horner approaches a property. Two children are playing outside he asks if a grown up is home. November thirtieth, Athena Strand goes missing. Then came the testimony. I want to prepare you for Two women unidentified took the stand and described being sexually assaulted by Tanner Horner when they were sixteen years old, sixteen, one year below the age of consent in Texas. The first woman said she met Horner through mutual friends in twenty thirteen. She was sixteen, he was twenty two. He took her to a shed at his grandmother's property, where they drank alcohol he had purchased in smoke marijuana. She said that when she decided it was time to sleep, Horner began touching her, kissing her, and proceeded to have sex with her. She told him the following day she did not want that kind of relationship.

13:00 Months later, she was assaulted a second time, woke up to him already touching her. She testified, I froze, I completely froze, shut down, did not know what to do, and just let it happen. She said she feels guilty for not reporting sooner. Things may not have happened to other people, she said. On cross examination, defense attorneys pointed out that she had earlier told police the encounters were consensual, that she had voluntarily been in his presence, that no one had forced her to drink or used drugs. I want to be precise here. None of that changes what she described a sixteen year old legally below the age of consent in a shed in the middle of the night with a twenty two year old man who purchased the alcohol, describing waking up to being touched, describing freezing and going along with it because she didn't know what else to do. That is not the legal standard for Texas law, but it is a description that every adult in that courtroom should understand without needing it, explained. The second woman testified that she met Horner when she was sixteen and he was twenty one. She said he pursued her, knowing she was under age, and told her to lie about her age to others. She said, in December of twenty fourteen, after a night of drinking at a friend's house, she and Horner were sharing a bed. She told him she did not want to be touched, she wanted to sleep.

14:25 She woke up to Tanner Horner raping her. I became conscious and came to to Tanner Horner raping me, she testified. She said she didn't initially remember clearly the memories came back. In twenty eighteen, she made a public accusation. When Athenis Strand's body was found in the river, she contacted police about her experience with Horner. I felt like I had been put back in sixteen year old me's body, she testified. I felt guilt for not coming forward. I felt shame. I felt a lot of pain reliving those memories over and over again. Then the forensic analyst, Jacqueline Ferrara testified remotely.

15:06 She examined DNA swabs from both Horner and Athena, as well as items from Athena's sexual assault kit. Male DNA was detected on Athena Strand's vaginal and anal swabs. Blood and seamen were detected on Horner's FedEx shirt. Semen was also detected on his hoodie, his jeans, and his underwear. Athena's fingernail clippings tested positive for blood on recorded calls played earlier in the trial, Horner told his mother he did not rape Athena because he had low libido from his medication. His mother said she had asked, because she knows how he can get His mother said, I know how you get. That is a mother who knew something about her son, who had spent years knowing something about her son and choosing to live with that knowledge. I'm not assigning legal responsibility to her, but she knew someone should have said something. The forensic results have not been officially attributed to Horner in open court as of this broadcast.

16:05 The DNA matching process takes time and the jury is still in the sentencing phase. What has been established is that there is male DNA on Athenis Strand's body, and that Horner's clothing contained biological evidence consistent with assault. The jury will hear closing arguments and then make two determinations under Texas law. First, would Tanner Horner represent a continuing danger to society? Second? Is there enough in his background or circumstances to warrant something less than death? If they answer yes and no, respectively, and they answer unanimously, he gets the death penalty. If they cannot agree, he receives life without the possibility of parole. We will bring you the verdict when it comes in December of twenty twenty five.

17:01 We brought you one of the fastest self destructions in recent college football history. Sharon Moore, forty years old, had been the head football coach at the University of Michigan. He got that job after Jim Harbaugh left for the Chargers coming off the twenty twenty three National Championship, where Moore had been the offensive coordinator and the guy who steered the team through Harbaugh's suspension. He was handed a five year contract worth twenty seven and a half million dollars. He was supposed to be the future of the winning his program in college football. On December tenth, twenty twenty five, Michigan fired him for cause inappropriate relationship with a staff member.

17:41 The university said it had zero tolerance for such behavior. Within hours of that announcement, Moore was booked into the Washtonaw County Jail. From national championship to jail cell less than two years. The staff member was Paige Shiver, thirty two years old, was his personal assistant, and it turned out his mistress. Police received a nine to one to one call claiming Moore had burst into her apartment and threatened to harm himself. He was charged with home invasion, stalking, and breaking and entering. This week he was sentenced. The home invasion charge gone, the stalking gone, the breaking and entering gone, all dismissed. As part of a plea agreement.

18:27 In exchange, More pleaded no contest to two misdemeanors, trespassing and malicious use of a telecom device in a relationship. Judge J. Cedric Simpson sentenced him to eighteen months of probation. There were two suspended jail terms, one hundred and eighty days and thirty days, but both were suspended, meaning More will serve none of it provided he doesn't violate probation. He must pay eleven hundred dollars in fines. He must avoid contact with Shiver. He must continue mental health treatment and stay away from out alcohol and drugs. He walked out of that courtroom a free man. Paid. Shiver had something to say about that. Her statement, which she released publicly, said, this December tenth was the most terrifying day of my life.

19:14 The criminal acts he committed were extremely frightening and violent. He broke into my apartment, crying, yelling, enraged, and came at me with knives. I was threatened and I feared for my life. Her attorneys described a quote deranged six foot four, two hundred and eighty five pound man who broke into her apartment and physically threatened her with knives. They said the sentence does not reflect the seriousness of the assault. More for his part, acknowledged bringing scissors to her apartment. He told police during the incident that he had grabbed a butter knife, but claimed he never pointed it at Shiver. He said he had driven away from her apartment intending to harm himself. His defense has leaned into the mental health anger, the suicide threats, the breakdown, the crisis as the framing for what happened that night.

20:06 Before his sentencing, Moore addressed the court he thanked in order his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and his wife, Kelly. Kelly Moore, let me tell you what Judge Simpson said about her. Simpson turned to Kelly and said, and I'm paraphrasing, that she is the reason her husband is not facing the full consequences of this court. He said that on December tenth, while her husband was spiraling, while she was trying to track him down, while she was on the phone with police, she had the couple's children in the background of those calls. They're babies, and she never in any of those calls lost her focus or expressed any desire for something terrible to happen to him. The judge said he could not imagine anyone who would have blamed her if she had walked away. Entirely. I am amazed by you, miss Moore, he said. She also wrote the judge a letter urging leniency the man who cheated on her, who nearly destroyed their family, who apparently threatened someone with cutlery.

21:11 She wrote a letter to help him keep his freedom. Look, I'm not here to tell Kelly Moore what to do with her marriage or her life. That is entirely her business. But I am noting because it is worth noting that the justice system in this country is frequently, not always, but frequently merciful to men who have wives willing to show up for them. That's not a mistake, that's a choice the system makes. Simpson did admonish more for his behavior, and he specifically called out the police officers who responded to Moore's arrest, Officers who called him mister Moore, who offered him a supportive hug as he got out of the cruiser who told him they were trying not to cry with him. One officer, when Moore muttered that it's always the women who try to do this, responded, I understand.

21:58 I've been doing this fifteen years. I can relate. The judge made clear and open court. Those officers are not members of this court. Their behavior during that arrest was not appropriate. Separately, there's a recording that surfaced last month from when Moore was at a hospital undergoing a mental health evaluation. On it, he tells officers, I have to spend a night in jail because she lied. She straight up lied. She ruined my life. I wanted to get rid of her, and she said I couldn't because she'd sue me. That's the man who was crying and enraged and entering his employee's apartment with scissors. That's the man who described the relationship as a professional liability. He was trying to exit. That's not a mistake, that's a choice.

22:47 Paige Shiver's contract with the university has expired. Moore is looking for work. He will spend the next eighteen months on probation while Kelly Moore does whatever remarkable people do after they've absorbed something like this. Eighteen months of probation, eight thousand and one hundred dollars, no jail time. Accountability doesn't have a legal department, but Sharon Moore does, and this week they earned their fee. That is Daily Crime and Justice for Thursday, April sixteenth, twenty twenty six. Baby Jessica McClure Morales charged with domestic family violence in Midland, Texas. Released on bond, no affidavit Yet, We'll be watching Tanner Horner sentenced to the death penalty or life without parole.

23:37 The jury is deliberating. Two women testified they were raped by him as teenagers. A forensic analyst confirmed male DNA on Athena Strand's body. When the verdict comes, we'll bring it to you. Sharon Moore eighteen months of probation, no jail time. Paige Shiver said she feared for her life. The system heard her, and then it handed Sharon Moore his car keys and sent him home. Do better. Daily Crime and Justice is a production of Calaruga Shark Media. This episode contains research assistance from artificial intelligence tools. All content has been reviewed and verified by the production team to the best of our ability. This program is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. All individuals named herein are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.