Couple Tells Story of Adopting Baby Found in Subway 12 Years Ago
To understand how Danny Stewart, Peter Mercurio and their son Kevin became a family of three, you have to go back more than 12 years to the 14th Street A/C/E subway station in Chelsea.
“As I was leaving the subway, I glanced over to my left and thought I saw a doll,” Stewart told NBC 4 New York in a recent interview. “I continued up the stairs because I didn’t think anything of it, but I glanced back at the floor and I saw legs moving.”
Stewart quickly discovered it was no doll, but a newborn baby bundled up in a sweatshirt, his umbilical cord still attached. After calling 911, Stewart’s next call was to his partner.
“Danny is a really calm person so when he called me frantic, I knew something was wrong,” said Mercurio. “I liter… Continue Reading (3 minute read)
“He and his partner named the baby Kevin.”
That statement feels like it should lead to some kind of payoff but it doesn’t. It feels weird and incomplete. I feel like I am missing something. I don’t like it. I need closure.
My brain’s initial response was “oooh, really? THE Kevin Stewart?”
Quickly followed by “wait… There’s no famous Kevin Stewart”
This is an interesting case that is studied in law school. What the judge did here is apply the legal principle of “finders, keepers” to the adoption of a child. The biological parents no longer have any legal claim to the child vis-a-vis the inverse legal principal “losers, weepers”
That same judge actually married Danny and his partner 12 years later once it was legalized in New York
Kevin’s going to be able to legally drink in the US next year.