Man and Woman Face Kidnapping Charges In Connection To Boy Who Was Abandoned At A Mississippi Goodwill

Charges have been filed in the case involving the 2-year-old boy who was abandoned at a Mississippi Goodwill.

Fox News reports that two people are now looking at federal kidnapping charges in connection to the child who was abandoned. Since then, the boy has been taken in by child welfare workers after they picked him up from the Southaven Goodwill, where he was left on Monday with only a change of clothes and a note that said, “child abandoned…no phone number for mom.”

The FBI accused 34-year-old Jeremy Fitzgerald and his girlfriend Turlisca Turner, 29, of leaving the child and driving him from Memphis to Mississippi, in a complaint filed Thursday. In the complaint, the child’s mother, Antoinette Smith, told FBI agents that Fitzgerald took the boy after she refused to work for him as a prostitute in Nashville. 

The woman says she called Fitzgerald multiple times in an attempt to get her son back after he left her in Nashville. The complaint says Fitzgerald never responded to her calls. Smith’s sister then tried calling the man, and when he picked up, he told her he wanted money in exchange for the boy. “Turner was aware that Fitzgerald had demanded money in exchange for the child’s return,” Memphis U.S. Attorney  D. Michael Dunavan said.

Turner was arrested on Monday, Fox News reports. She was wearing the same clothes she wore when dropping the child. Fitzgerald ended up getting arrested after he crashed his car moments after dropping Smith’s son off at the Goodwill. He was seen on video holding the child’s hand and while walking up to the Goodwill.