8-week-old baby found alone in camper in Hilliard after father arrested on drug charge

A 30-year-old Hilliard man was charged with child neglect Tuesday after deputies found an 8-week-old baby alone in a camper parked near a pickup truck they pulled over on Tractor Lane, according to the Nassau County Sheriff's Office.

Russell Christopher Bird also was charged with possession of drugs, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Deputies said the pickup was pulled over just before midnight after the driver was going the wrong way off U.S. 301 onto Tractor Lane, according to the arrest report. Bird, the front seat passenger, was moving around a lot and trying to get out of his truck when they stopped it. When a deputy told Bird to get out, he dropped a cigarette pack on the ground. A deputy looked inside and found a plastic bag filled with 4 grams of methamphetamine.

When the deputies arrested Bird for the drugs, he began yelling at his landlord nearby to "get his 8-week-old child from the camper he was living in," the report said. The deputy went inside the camper with the landlord, and they found the 8-week-old baby alone in a bassinet next to drug paraphernalia and methamphetamine residue.

The deputies contacted the Florida Department of Children and Families, which took possession of the child, according to the Sheriff's Office.