Stephen Scipione had been keeping up with the news and knew about the little boy whose lifeless body was found in the woods off Dennett Road in South Berwick a week ago today.

Late Wednesday, the boy was identified as 6-year-old Camden Pierce Hughes. His mother, Julianne McCrery of Irving, Texas, was charged with second degree murder in connection with her son’s death. She is now incarcerated at a New Hampshire jail and is held without bail.

But on Wednesday morning, no one knew who the boy was. And everyone was wondering why no one had reported him missing.

The story was in newspapers and on television all over New England and across the country.

“I’d been following it. My wife was following it. It’s sad,” said Scipione, who lives with his wife and four children in North Waterboro, in a telephone interview Friday.

Scipione said he knew police were looking for a Toyota Tacoma truck with the Navy emblem, mentioned by Maine State Police Lt. Brian McDonough in news conference as a vehicle of interest.

So Scipione, who was doing his job, driving truck for Worcester, Mass.-based Maine’s Paper and Food Service, Inc. on Wednesday morning, said he had his eyes open.

“I pulled into the rest area just after the Lowell connector to use the men’s room at about 10:20 a.m.,” he said.

It was the rest area off the southbound lane, near Chelmsford, Mass.

“As soon as I drove in I saw the blue Toyota and the Navy plate holder,” said Scipione. “I saw someone sleeping or laying on the front seat. I thought it might be the (vehicle).”

“Should I call or shouldn’t I?,” he said he wondered, just briefly. Then he picked up his cell phone and called 911.

A Massachusetts State Trooper arrived, talked to the woman, got back in his cruiser, checked her license and registration Scipione said, and then gave them back to her.

Scipione, in his truck, thought perhaps the vehicle wasn’t the right one after all, and drove away.

Later, after his shift, he got into his car and made his way back toward Maine.

“I saw the truck on the flatbed and then it hit me,” that the vehicle he’d spotted was the one police were looking for, he said.

At that point, Scipione said he became emotional and pulled off the road to regain his composure.

“I was glad I could help,” he said.

McDonough, the commander of the southern unit of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Maine State Police, summed it up in one word when he was asked the value of calls like the one Scipione made.

“Invaluable,” McDonough said.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 or twells@journaltribune.com.