Authorities in Montgomery, Alabama, have found the remains of a newborn baby who was reported missing earlier this week, and the infant’s father has been charged with capital murder in his death, according to reports.
Montgomery County Sheriff Derrick Cunningham said the body of 5-week-old Caleb Whisnand Jr. was found Wednesday night in a rural area of neighboring Lowndes County but did not reveal the manner in which he died.
His father, Caleb Michael Whisnand Sr., 32, was arrested Wednesday and initially charged with manslaughter shortly after he and the boy’s mother, Angela Gardner, held a tearful news conference outside Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office headquarters, where they pleaded for the boy’s safe return.
“If anybody has anything to help find him please, it will mean everything to us,” the father said during the briefing while hugging Gardner, who held up a digital photo of the baby on her cellphone.
“He’s only a month and a week old,” she said.
The charges against Whisnand Sr. were upgraded to capital murder Thursday.
He was being held in the Montgomery County Detention Facility without bond, according to reports.
His son was last seen wearing a camouflage onesie about 9 p.m. Saturday, which was the last time the couple said they were together with the baby, but at the news conference they didn’t explain the boy’s whereabouts throughout the remainder of the weekend.
A reporter at the briefing asked when was the last time the pair remembered being together with the baby, to which Whisnand Sr. answered “Saturday was the last time we were together... Saturday night, we were all together sleeping, and well, the baby with me and her in the bed, and the 2-year-old was in the other room, cause we usually are together as a family, but ... I don’t remember much.”
The boy wasn’t reported missing until the following Monday night, when the father said he went inside a Circle K convenience store on Wetumpka Highway to pay for gas and returned to his car to find the baby was gone.
Police received a 911 call about the missing child and arrived on the scene about 11 p.m. The mother, who was home at the time with her 2-year-old, said Whisnand Sr. also called her to say the infant was missing.
Witnesses later confirmed seeing the child and father together at the business the same night, reports said.
The case remains under investigation. There has been no indication that the mother was involved.
The child’s body has been transported to the Alabama Department of Forensic Science to determine the official cause of death.
Whisnand Sr. was already facing previous legal trouble from an unrelated arrest in June 2020.
He was free on bond after being indicted in February on drug charges in Elmore County, including reckless endangerment while driving under the influence of methamphetamine, according to WSFA News 12.
Reports say Gardner and another infant were in a vehicle at the time with Whisnand Sr. when an Elmore County deputy pulled him over for driving erratically.
The Elmore County District Attorney’s Office will now seek to have his bond revoked in that case, reports said.
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