US2 min(s) read
Published 16:37 14 Apr 2026 GMT
A 40-year-old woman once known nationwide as 'Baby Jessica', after being saved from a well as an infant in 1987 has been arrested following an alleged domestic disturbance.
On Saturday, April 11, Jessica McClure Morales was arrested at her home in Texas and taken into custody from the scene.
She was charged with assault causing bodily injury involving family violence, but later released from the Midland County Detention Center after posting bail.
Jessica became a household name when the 58-hour mission to rescue her from a deep well at just 18 months old made national headlines.
She had fallen 22 feet down a well in her aunt’s back garden in Midland, Texas, on October 14, 1987, but miraculously made it out alive after a major rescue operation that took almost 60 hours.
Across the country, people watched the hundreds of paramedics, rescuers, drilling experts and contractors desperately trying to save the baby’s life.
The astonishing story got so much media coverage that a television adaptation was made in 1989 called ‘Everybody's Baby: The Rescue of Jessica McClure’.
In a 2017 interview with People magazine almost 30 years after the rescue she said her 'life is a miracle'.
Jessica added: "In a way I guess it happened the way it was supposed to.
"I was picked on because of it, but most people are kind and think what happened is an amazing miracle.
“It is. I don't believe that any of it would've happened without God."
There are few visible reminders of the ordeal almost four decades later, except the fact that her right foot is noticeably smaller than the left, as it had to be reconstructed because it became gangrenous after it was positioned above her head while she was stuck in the well.
Since her rescue, Jessica has lived a quiet life in the town she grew up in with her husband, Danny, and their two children, Simon and Sheyenne.
Prior to her arrest, she worked as a special-education teacher’s aide at the local elementary school.
Jessica is now also a grandmother to two, as both of her children recently welcomed kids of their own.
According to People, she still answers when friends or strangers call her 'Baby Jessica'.
