Outside the Beltway

‘Baby Jessica’ McClure Marries at 19

James Joyner · Monday, January 30, 2006 · No comments

Judging from my referral logs, a lot of people are interested in news about Jessica McClure getting married.

“Baby Jessica,” whose dramatic rescue from an abandoned Texas well was televised across the country 18 years ago, got married in a private ceremony, People magazine reported on its Web site.

Crews struggled for 58 hours to rescue Jessica McClure after she fell into an 8-inch-wide pipe in October 1987. The celebrity magazine reported that McClure, now 19, married Daniel Morales, 32, at a rural church outside Midland on Saturday. A sign on the door instructed guests not to take pictures or video, the magazine said. The two met at a day-care center where Morales’ sister worked with McClure, according to the magazine.

The case of 18-month-old Jessica created a nationwide sensation. Emergency crews rescued her — a dramatic moment covered on live television — after digging a parallel shaft and then breaking through the wall of the well.

I wish her happiness, although I fear that after a few months married to a man nearly twice her age she’ll wish she were still in that well.

Previously: ‘Baby Jessica’ Graduates