Man Who Found Newborn’s Body in Church Safe Box Talks About Tragedy and His ‘Moment of Shock’

A man who found the body of a newborn baby inside a “hot bed” left for abandoned children in an Italian church is opening up about the tragedy.

Roberto Savarese, a 56-year-old funeral director from the Italian city of Bari, was the first person to find the body of a one-month-old boy on Thursday morning, Jan. 2, inside the child’s box in San. Giovanni Battista Church.

Savarese spoke to BANTU when he found the baby, recalling that he and an employee of his funeral company were looking into the coffin when they saw that there was a baby inside.

“Yes, we were there at 9:20 on Jan. 2 at a funeral that we were doing, and I was telling one of my new employees about the hot bed that the district had,” Savarese said. “So I said, ‘Come, I’ll show you,’ and I opened the first little gate – unlocked, open for easy entry except for those who need help.”

Related: Newborn Baby Found Dead Inside Box Abandoned at Church: Reports

“I opened the door and saw that there was this child’s body in the cradle. It just died,” he recalled. “At this point, I quickly closed the door without going in and called the emergency services. They quickly intervened.”

According to Savarese, he and his employee were both “shocked” to find the child.

“In that moment of panic when I found the child, I immediately saw it, closed the door immediately, and asked for help. “My new partner was understandably panicked. After noticing the baby, I immediately closed the door and called the emergency services. Soon, the entire road was blocked – it’s not a very long road, about 100 meters.”

According to the Italian news agency Ansa, this box – similar to the Safe Haven Baby Boxes used in the US – is supposed to send an alert to the church as soon as the baby is placed inside.

Although authorities previously said they believed the person who left the baby didn’t close the door to the room where the crib was – meaning the alarm didn’t go off as intended, to let the parish priest, Father Antonio Ruccia, know the baby was there – Savarese says the door can’t stay open by itself.

“The door was completely closed, not open as others say,” he told PEOPLE. “The system is designed to automatically shut down – it cannot stay open on its own.”

Ruccia previously told Ansa that she was in Rome at the time of the incident, and her cell phone – which is attached to the cradle – did not ring.

“Investigators will have to determine why the alarm didn’t work and whether the heating was working,” added the 56-year-old. “Everything that could have been done to stop this was there, but somehow something went wrong.”

Savarese also tells PEOPLE that the baby boy was about 25 days old, Caucasian in appearance and “fully built.”

“According to my experience, I believe the child had been dead for about two days when we found him,” added the funeral director. “The area around the church was empty especially during these Christmas days – the priest was not in Rome. [The baby boy] I would have been found later if we hadn’t gone into the crib that day in an effort to show it to my new employee.”

Related: Baby Surrendered to Safe Baby Box in Kentucky Less Than 2 Months After Adoption

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Bari, in the Puglia region, was “shaken and shocked” by the boy’s death, Savarese said, revealing that members of the media from Italy and around the world had reached out to him about the case.

“This morning I had a funeral in another district,” he told PEOPLE. “I came with my cars and everyone looked at me and they approached me and asked me. Everyone wants to know about this tragedy as they are all surprised.”

Earlier, Ansa and CNN reported that the police are still investigating and the baby’s body will be examined to determine how and when it died. Bari police did not immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE.

La Repubblica reported that the church’s children’s box had been successfully used twice before this incident: once on July 19, 2020, and again on Dec. 23, 2023.

“Another baby girl was found at Christmas time recently, but it went well,” recalls Savarese. “He was considered another adopted child long ago.”

The bed was added to the church after a dead child was found on the beach in the nearby town of Monopoli in 2015, Ansa reported.

As for Savarese, he and the rest of the local community are left stunned as they try to make sense of this extraordinary tragedy.

“This has greatly affected everyone in the community,” he said. “When it affects a child, it’s very shocking. It’s a serious issue that affects all of us.”

Read the original article on People