Insets: Jeremy and Jessica Lamp (Livingston County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The Livingston County Courthouse in Chillicothe, Mo., where Jeremy and Jessica Lamp allegedly abandoned their son last week (Google Maps).
A Missouri couple allegedly abandoned their young son “without remorse and without ensuring proper care” at a local courthouse — telling cops, “They were gonna take him anyway” — after the mother tested positive for methamphetamine, police say.
Jeremy Lamp, 36, and Jessica Lamp, 31, have both been charged with child neglect for allegedly leaving their son stranded without “any clothes, food or other infant care” at the Livingston County Courthouse in Chillicothe, according to their probable cause statements filed in circuit court.
The documents detail how the Lamps were allegedly at the courthouse a day earlier for a drug screening with a Missouri Department of Social Services investigator and its Children’s Division.
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“Jeremy’s drug test came back clear but when she took a mouth swab of [Jessica] it came back positive for methamphetamine,” the Chillicothe Police Department alleges, citing the investigator’s findings.
The investigator stated that she explained to both Jeremy and Jessica that due to the drug test coming back positive, she wanted to set up a “safety plan,” according to the probable cause statements. “Jeremy denied the safety plan to have [Jessica] stay outside the house, have Jeremy and [the child] stay outside the house, or have [the child] stay with a relative,” his statement alleges.
The social services investigator said she told both Jeremy and Jessica that she “couldn’t leave the baby with them,” per police, but they allegedly did it anyway.
“Jeremy and [Jessica] then left the courthouse without [the child],” cops say.
Officers later located the Lamps at a medical center, where they were arrested and taken into custody. Jeremy allegedly told police “none of the options” provided by the court for his son’s situation “were viable,” according to the probable cause statements.
“He said that Children’s Division told him that they would take the child so he left [the boy] with them,” Jeremy’s statement says. “When [cops] questioned him about this he said, ‘The way I looked at it was that, they were gonna take him anyway.'”
Both parents were charged with child neglect and each have prior convictions on their records, including assault and driving while intoxicated charges for Jeremy and child endangerment for Jessica. The couple is due in court Monday for a bond hearing.
