In December 2000, just a few days before Christmas, now-retired South Bend, Indiana, police lieutenant Gene Eyster received a late-night call about a baby who was found abandoned in a cardboard box. The newborn had been discovered by college students in an apartment building hallway with no note left.

“He was wrapped in blankets and a flannel shirt,” Eyster, 70, told TODAY.com.

On his way to the hospital, Eyster explains that he picked up a teddy bear to bring the baby a “little bit of comfort.”

“I just wanted him to know he was cared about,” Eyster says.

During the investigation, Eyster began referring to the infant as “Baby Jesus” — the name Baby Boy Doe didn’t sit right with him.

“He was born a couple of days before Christmas and placed in a box — and in my mind, that box was a manger,” Eyster says. “So he became Baby Jesus.”

After Eyster learned that the child had been placed with “some great adoptive parents,” he felt a sigh of relief and was quickly back to work protecting and serving the community. However, Eyster says he never stopped thinking about the baby. 

“I wondered, ‘What did he turn out to be?’ And God forbid, have I ever arrested him? Was he still alive?’” Eyster shares. 

Eyster, who retired in 2019, recently got answers. 

“I’m sitting here 23 years later, and the phone rings,” he says.

The person on the phone was South Bend Officer Josh Morgan, and he was with a young man named Matthew Hegedus-Stewart.

“He goes, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but Baby Jesus is sitting next to me right now. He’s my rookie,” Eyster says.

Officers Morgan and Hegedus-Stewart put the pieces together when they responded to a domestic situation at the same apartment building where Hegedus-Stewart was abandoned. 

“I was like, ‘I was abandoned as a baby here,’” Hegedus-Stewart, told TODAY.com. “Then Morgan looked up the report and saw Gene Eyster’s name attached to it.”

On March 22, Eyster and Hegedus-Stewart, 23, were reunited. The meeting was especially poignant for Eyster, who lost his only child, Nicholas, earlier this year.

“I see some mannerisms in Matt that remind me of my son — he’s got the same grin, the same laugh, the same dark hair and stature,” Eyster says. 

Hegedus-Stewart and his fiancée, Jillian, have a 14-month-old daughter, Aspen, and will welcome a baby boy in June. Aspen was born on the same day that Hegedus-Stewart was legally adopted.

“There are so many coincidences,” Eyster says. “I mean, Matt completes his field training and randomly gets assigned to the same beat of the apartment complex where he was found. What are the odds?”

Esyster adds that he’s “spoken to several of Matt’s supervisors, and they have all said the same thing: He’s a kind officer, he’s a good kid. His parents have done a wonderful job raising him.”

“Growing up, I was angry,” Hegedus-Stewart shares. “You know, ‘Why me?’ But now I understand she was overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do. I definitely lucked out.”

“It’s ironic how everything fell into place the way it did,” Eyster adds. “You have a better chance of winning the lottery.”