24 years ago, an officer was dispatched to an abandoned baby. Decades later, he finally learned that baby’s surprising identity. [Video]

South Bend, Indiana — Gene Eyster, a retired police lieutenant, cannot drive past one specific apartment complex here without reliving that strange day 24 years ago.

“That was one of the strangest calls I think I’ve ever had: ‘We have a found baby in a box,'” Eyster, a 47-year veteran of the department, told CBS News. “You always wonder, what happened?”

On Dec. 22, 2000, a newborn was found abandoned in a common hallway. For Eyster, the case of the “Baby Boy Doe,” swaddled in cardboard and blankets, didn’t end after the child got to the hospital.

“I went back with a teddy bear,” Eyster said. “Just a symbol to let everyone that walked past know that he was cared about.”

For more than two decades, Eyster wondered what became of that boy. Unfortunately, records were sealed so there was no way to find out.

That was until just a few weeks ago, …