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Marcus Wallace, 31, was reunited with Solomon Randelman, Phillip Lavigne and Sheridan Ogden earlier this month — thanks to the reporter who wrote the initial story in January 1985.
"It was a pretty emotional reunion," said Randelman, who stopped at the gas station on Cedar Lane and River Road when he heard the baby crying.
He still gets teary-eyed talking about it.
Randelman was on his way home from his girlfriend's place in Wood-Ridge around 3 a.m. and needed to put air in his tires.
The air pump was broken at the Hackensack gas station where he stopped first, so he headed to another one in Teaneck, located right next to the diner on Cedar Lane.
That's where he heard the baby.
"I was in shock," Randelman said. "I lifted the lid and sure enough [the cries] were coming from inside of the dumpster."
Shaking, Randelman called the police from the gas station's payphone. Officers Phillip Lavigne and Sheridan Ogden arrived no more than a minute later.
Lavigne jumped in the dumpster and located the bag. The baby was still crying.
"It happened so fast," Randelman said. "I remember [the officers] being very disgusted."
It was right from the dumpster, into the cop car and — boom.
Randelman eventually was able to move on from the incident. He didn't think about it much until two weeks ago, when he received a call from Edelman, looking to reunite Wallace and Randelman.
But Randelman insisted Lavigne and Ogden come, too.
"They were just as instrumental in finding him as I was," he said.
And so the four men stood at the fenced-in lot at the site of the former gas station — cold as the day baby Marcus was born.
But still, Randelman said, "my heart was warmer than ever."
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