Baby Buried Alive for About 24 Hours Rescued Alive in South Carolina, Father Charged With Attempted Murder
Koah Sharp, nearly 1, was rescued alive this week in a rural patch of central South Carolina in the United States. The authorities said the 11-month-old had been buried alive for about 24 hours.
Deputies unearthed the baby on Tuesday in Lexington County, amazed to find him breathing. He had been entombed in a dog crate wrapped with a dirt-smeared towel, the authorities said.
The detectives dug quickly but carefully, as the baby's cries underneath the freshly packed dirt grew louder, according to the account of the rescue.
On Friday evening Koah was in the arms of his 25-year-old pregnant mother, Dezarae Sharp. The child is expected to fully recover. In the first interview she has granted since her child went missing, the mother said she was still trying to make sense of what had happened.
‘I can't believe it still,’ Ms. Sharp said. ‘It's something you would see in a movie. It's something you would see on TV. And the fact that it happened to him — I don't know.’ She spoke as she caressed his plump baby cheeks again.
Michael Comer, Koah's father and Ms. Sharp's ex-boyfriend, was arrested and charged with attempted murder, unlawful conduct toward a child, custodial interference and burglary.
Of the child's father, Ms. Sharp said, ‘I didn't think he could go that far.’
Koah's disappearance and his remarkable survival have shocked people well beyond Lexington County, described as a booming manufacturing hub that is part suburbia, part rural and near the capital city of Columbia.
