A horrific confession of attempted murder resulted in a truly miraculous revival of a six-month old baby girl.
In what an officer described as a confession containing “no emotion whatsoever,” Jonathon Stephen Zicarelli, 28, showed up at the Greenwood, Missouri police department Monday and told stunned officers that he had just drowned his baby girl and left her body in a retention pond.
“He was sure he had drowned her, according to Greenwood police Lt. Aaron Fordham,” the Kansas City Star reports. “The father left his daughter in an icy retention pond on the west side of Greenwood, a suburb of about 5,000 people 20 miles southeast of Kansas City.”
In what would prove to be a life-saving sequence of events, Police Chief Greg Hallgrimson and Cpl. Tom Calhoun rushed to the retention pond where Zicarelli said he left his six-month-old daughter, while Fordham stayed with the eerily stoic father.
What they found was horrifying. The little girl was floating face up, her skin pale, her dilated eyes covered in mud, and her mouth filled with water and grass. The officers estimated that she’d been floating in the water for about 10 minutes.
The Star reports that Cpl. Calhoun waded out in the water, which was “thigh-deep,” retrieved the unconscious child, and quickly made his way back to the edge of the pond.
Calhoun immediately worked to get the water out of her lungs and administer CPR.
Within a few moments, she began to breathe in what was undoubtedly “a miracle,” said Lt. Fordham.
“There was absolutely someone watching over that child today,” said the officer.
Paramedics soon arrived and took over care for the little one, who the officers had wrapped in Chief Hallgrimson’s shirt to help keep warm. She was taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors treated her for hypothermia, but soon reported to everyone’s great relief that she is recovering quite well.
“The news came down through the chain, and there was a huge sigh of relief,” said Fordham.
Later Monday, Zicarelli was charged with first-degree domestic assault. In his confession, Zicarelli said he’d had “bad thoughts” for over 24 hours. He told investigators that he had walked down to the pond three times before holding his daughter underwater until he believed she was dead.