CHRISTMAS MAGIC: Family drives 300 miles to return baby's ashes that went missing 3 years ago

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A special Christmas this year for a Central Valley family - after the missing ashes of their loved one was brought to their doorstep.

It all started back in December of 2015 when Valley native Judy King was involved a serious car accident in Fresno County.

Inside her vehicle were the ashes of her baby boy who died after birth...

For the past couple of years, Judy's family has been trying to track those ashes down, not knowing they were at a junkyard some 300 miles away.

Tiffany Cook stood in her driveway in tears, wrapping her arms around this Riverside County family, who drove five hours Christmas night to deliver something her family had been missing for three years - her nephew Angel Torrones Smith.

He was born prematurely and died shortly after birth.

His mom Judy King traveled with his ashes in the car.

That was until a big rig hit her car on Clovis Avenue and North in Fresno County on December 17, 2015.

The impact left the 38-year-old woman with brain damage and in a vegetative state.

While Judy's family worked to take care of her... they also made countless efforts to find the junkyard where her car and Angel's ashes had been taken to.

"Everywhere I was getting doors closed on me and no answers," Cook says.

That is where Robert Freeman steps in. at a junkyard in San Bernadino County.

He was looking for car parts when he spotted a box.

"I noticed it was a box of remains and I said this doesn't belong here and I noticed it was a child," says Freeman.

Freeman grabbed that box and some paperwork, hoping his partner Megan could use it to track down who the ashes belonged to.

"That was in 2016, April, and she started looking and she found these people."

Two years later, Megan found Judy's sister Tiffany on Facebook.

"I was at the doctor's office and I had to wait at the doctor's office for a while and I see my phone and I click on the message and the next thing I see his name - Angel. I immediately called her."

After spending months trying to figure out the best way to meet, Freeman says it was his kids who got the ball rolling.

"The kids decided that they wanted a child back here instead of Christmas because I couldn't afford much."

And that brings us back to this driveway, where the long-awaited exchange took place.

"I can put him in a urn and know our family is complete, we have everybody. It's more than a Christmas miracle, it's more than that," says Cook.

All because four kids chose to be selfless and generous during a season when so many their age just want to receive.