{"id":252346,"date":"2026-04-16T10:00:52","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T10:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252346\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T10:00:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T10:00:52","slug":"baby-jessica-arrested-in-texas-on-family-violence-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252346\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Baby Jessica’ arrested in Texas on family violence charge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jessica McClure Morales, also known as “Baby Jessica<\/a>,” is facing at least one criminal charge after Texas authorities responded to a reported domestic violence incident, arrest records show.<\/p>\n

Deputies from the Midland County Sheriff\u2019s Office arrested Morales before 10 p.m. Saturday near the 2100 block of S. County Road 1140 in Midland, according to records<\/a> obtained by the Midland Reporter-Telegram. She was charged with family violence, assault causing bodily injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The offense is a Class A misdemeanor in Texas, typically punishable by up to one year in jail and a $4,000 fine under the state’s Penal Code<\/a>. Morales was released after posting an unknown bond amount, the report states.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Morales, now 40, gained notoriety<\/a> as an 18-month-old child in 1987 after falling down a well in her aunt’s backyard in Midland. Her rescue operation was broadcast nationwide, with authorities working for nearly 60 hours to free her from a narrow well casing roughly 22 feet below the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of her rescue, then-President Ronald Reagan famously stated<\/a> that “Everybody in America became godfathers and godmothers of Jessica while this was going on.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Midland County Sheriff\u2019s Office did not immediately respond to the Express-News’ affidavit request.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jessica McClure Morales, also known as “Baby Jessica,” is facing at least one criminal charge after Texas authorities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-252346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}