Woman kidnapped from hospital as a newborn has been found 18 years later

[raisedbywolves]

http://people.com/crime/missing-kamiyah-mobley-found/

A Florida newborn taken from her family in the hospital more than 18 years ago has been located living with her alleged abductor, who she believed to be her mom, law enforcement announced Friday.

Kamiyah Mobley was only hours old when authorities say a woman posing as a health care worker took her from a Jacksonville, Florida, hospital in July 1998. According to local reports, Kamiyah was briefly given to the woman because her family believed the woman was a nurse, while hospital staff believed the woman was a relative.

On Friday, Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said at a news conference that Kamiyah had been found in Walterboro, South Carolina, living under a false identity apparently created for her following her abduction.

He said Kamiyah?s biological parents were overjoyed at the news of her discovery: Her mother was ?elated.? He noted that Kamiyah has not been reunited with her parents yet and said any decision about such a reunion was solely up to her as an adult.

The woman who Kamiyah believed to be her mother, Gloria Williams, was arrested Friday and charged with first-degree kidnapping and third-degree interference with custody, prosecutors said.

Gloria Williams was arrested at her home in Walterboro, Sheriff Williams said. Kamiyah was not present.

?We don?t believe she was a resident [of Jacksonville], but again those are things we will look into,? he said of the suspect. ?We are not sure of her ties to Jacksonville. We are as early in this investigation as can be and it is as complicated as you can imagine.?

The sheriff said he he didn?t know if Kamiyah?s alleged abductor has a criminal history.

She appeared in court in South Carolina Friday afternoon, according to a First Coast News reporter, with Kamiyah in attendance at the hearing. The teen told her she loved her and was praying for her.

?[The] hearing was one of the worst things I?ve ever watched,? reporter Clark Fouraker tweeted. ?So much confusion. So much sadness.?

[Angiebla]

From the link:

That changed this week, when on Thursday night authorities confirmed Kamiyah’s identity after they were led to her by a series of leads beginning late last year, Sheriff Williams said.



He said Kamiyah has had “some inclination” beginning several months ago that she may be involved in the case but otherwise “appears to be a normal 18-year-old young woman."

I wonder who gave the police the leads and how Kamiyah found out about it.

[Words Words]

I was reading about this earlier and thought that since she's 18 she might have been applying for college and something came up?

[of_corpse_not]

I feel so sorry for her bio parents. She's their baby but they are complete strangers. It's going to be even sadder if the daughter chooses not to reunite with them. A lifetime of bonding, love and memories all stolen from those parents.

[Kelly-Jane]

Thats true's true. I think id just wanna know if she had been given a good life ?and that she was ok.
At the end of the day if she chooses not to meet them i hope they find some they get positive answers and can find some peace in that.

[Boston Babe 73]

Wow! Just.... Wow.

[Bewitchingstorm]

I worked at the hospital when she was taken. There were always rumors the mother was tested positive for drugs and feared they would take her baby away. So for years people in the city thought one of her family members had the baby. Thank goodness that was not the case and she has been found.

[becoming]

I read that mom was only 15 when baby was born. What a traumatic thing to have happen to you all at once at such a young age.

[raisedbywolves]

I worked at the hospital when she was taken. There were always rumors the mother was tested positive for drugs and feared they would take her baby away. So for years people in the city thought one of her family members had the baby. Thank goodness that was not the case and she has been found.

Wow! That's really interesting that you worked there! I did read where it said they saw the mom talking to the woman beforehand, and they thought the abductor was a family member because of that.

When stories like this happen and they don't find the baby right away, I always think that there is no possible way they will ever find them. Babies change so dramatically in such a short time, so DNA is really the only way. Look at the pic of the baby with this story....tell me how you would age progress that?! She's just a scrunched up little red thing with a ton of hair.

I think one of her family members or someone close to her ratted her out. After all this time I think it had to be someone close to her.

As Words mentioned, applying for college or something like that could have triggered her to look into her documents/history and maybe she noticed that something wasn't right. I read in one story though that she wondered all through her life if she had been abducted, or something like that.

[Angiebla]

Wow! That's really interesting that you worked there! I did read where it said they saw the mom talking to the woman beforehand, and they thought the abductor was a family member because of that.

When stories like this happen and they don't find the baby right away, I always think that there is no possible way they will ever find them. Babies change so dramatically in such a short time, so DNA is really the only way. Look at the pic of the baby with this story....tell me how you would age progress that?! She's just a scrunched up little red thing with a ton of hair.

I think one of her family members or someone close to her ratted her out. After all this time I think it had to be someone close to her.

As Words mentioned, applying for college or something like that could have triggered her to look into her documents/history and maybe she noticed that something wasn't right. I read in one story though that she wondered all through her life if she had been abducted, or something like that.

I also think it was someone close to her that ratted her out. Possibly a spouse/ex?

Anything regarding a birth certificate would be a problem. Do you need one to get a license there?

[raisedbywolves]

I also think it was someone close to her that ratted her out. Possibly a spouse/ex?

Anything regarding a birth certificate would be a problem. Do you need one to get a license there?

Several years post 9/11 the requirements to get any kind of ID became very strict. I could totally see all of this stemming from her wanting to get a license or something like that. Maybe she needed a passport for a senior trip or something and it all started unraveling.

[puzzld]

Several years post 9/11 the requirements to get any kind of ID became very strict. I could totally see all of this stemming from her wanting to get a license or something like that. Maybe she needed a passport for a senior trip or something and it all started unraveling.

I'd bet you're right. I have a friend who was adopted a couple of times as a kid (first a normal infant adoption, then after her mom divorced and remarried a couple of times) then she married, divorced and remarried, divorced, remarried a man from Canada and was trying to get her identity sorted out so she could get a passport when that req. came in. She claims she was afraid she'd end up like "the man without a country" sailing from place to place for a while.

[Angiebla]

Several years post 9/11 the requirements to get any kind of ID became very strict. I could totally see all of this stemming from her wanting to get a license or something like that. Maybe she needed a passport for a senior trip or something and it all started unraveling.

Yep, she would have needed a birth certificate and a ssn/card for that.

I wonder if whoever knew/helped the woman take the baby was afraid of facing charges, so they rolled on her for a deal.

[bermstalker]

Sorry, I'm on my iPad...but I saw a picture of the girl and her birth parents. They were reunited.

[raisedbywolves]

It looks like the girl is standing by the abductor mom at this point.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...per-court.html

Kamiyah burst into tears as she said goodbye to Williams, 51, on Saturday as her abductor waived extradition to Jacksonville, where she will face kidnapping charges.

'I love you mom,' she told Williams as the two shared a moment, separated by a mesh screen in the Colleton County Jail in Walterboro, South Carolina.

Williams blew Kamiyah a kiss as the teenager cried out 'Momma' and told her abductor she was 'praying' for her.

Just hours after police revealed that Kamiyah Mobley had been found, Manigo took to Facebook to defend her abductor.

'My mother raised me with everything I needed and most of all everything I wanted,' she wrote. 'My mother is no felon.'

My mother raised me with everything I needed and most of all everything I wanted. My mother is no felon.
Kamiyah Mobley

The mystery of Kamiyah Mobley became a national sensation when she was stolen from her mother Shanara Mobley's arms at the University Medical Center in Jacksonville in July 1998.

Williams had suffered a miscarriage about a week before she drove the three hours from South Carolina to Florida and abducted baby Kamiyah, Walterboro Live reports.

It is believed she then passed off Kamiyah as her own daughter to family and friends, who said they never suspected a thing.

Jacksonville police said the teenager found out on Friday morning that the woman who raised her in Walterboro her whole life was not her real mother.

Within hours Manigo was able to reconnect over FaceTime with Shanara and her father Craig Aiken, who both cried 'tears of joy' after a detective told them their baby had been found.

Her family is planning to drive to South Carolina on Saturday to reunite with the daughter they thought they had lost forever.

Meanwhile Williams, who also has two biological children who grew up with Kamiyah, will be extradited back to Florida as soon as possible and is being held without bond, according to Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams.

The sensational news solves a cold case that accumulated more than 2,500 tips and captivated both the city and the country for more than a decade.

A tip received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children last year led Jacksonville police to South Carolina.

It was there they found an 18-year-old woman with Kamiyah Mobley's birth date but a different name and quickly discovered that fraudulent documents had been used to establish her identity.

A DNA sample from the teen was taken and submitted to a crime lab, where it was matched with the original newborn DNA taken the day Kamiyah was born. The test confirmed the teen was, in fact, Kamiyah.

Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said Kamiyah appears to be in 'good health' and a 'normal 18-year-old woman'.

He said she first 'had an inclination' a couple of months ago that she may have been involved in the national kidnapping case in some way. Authorities didn't say why she suspected this.
She doesn't act like we're brand new people. She acts like she's been talking to us a long time.
Vera Aiken, Kamiyah's grandmother

Police said Kamiyah plans on staying in South Carolina for the time being.

'She's taking it as well as you can imagine,' Williams said. 'We have victim's advocates up there, she has a lot to process, a lot to think about.'

Gloria Williams was arrested on Friday morning at her home. Kamiyah was not present when she was taken in to custody.

Court records show that Gloria Williams has an extensive criminal record and has been found guilty of writing fraudulent checks and welfare fraud.

[Angiebla]

God I feel so bad for the bio parents. They were under a cloud of suspicion for so long, like BWS said. Now their daughter is alive, and defending her kidnapper. I do also feel terrible for Kamiyah.

This Williams lady went on to have 2 kids? That's pretty fucked up.



This is playing out like a lifetime movie.

[bermstalker]

Such a strange story. I can't imagine how the parents or the teen girl feel.

More than 18 years after being abducted as a newborn from her family in a Florida hospital, Kamiyah Mobley has reunited with her biological parents.

The teen and her biological family — father Craig Aiken and mother Shanara Mobley — reconnected with her in a 45-minute private reunionat the Walterboro Police Department on Saturday, CBS affiliate WCSC reports.

“First meeting was beautiful, it was wonderful, couldn’t went no better…” her father, Craig Aiken, told WCSC. “She was glad to meet us.”


He said he’s still in shock — and told Kamiyah how much he loved her and missed her.

“It’s a feeling that you can’t explain it, it’s hard to put it in words right now it’s hard to deal with this here right now,” he added. “We are just trying to process it, 18 years, it’s going to be hard to make that up.”


Kamiyah Mobley was only hours old when authorities say a woman posing as a health care worker took her from a Jacksonville, Florida, hospital in July 1998. According to local reports, Kamiyah was briefly given to the woman because her family believed the woman was a nurse, while hospital staff believed the woman was a relative.

http://people.com/crime/kamiyah-mobl...hanara-mobley/

[bermstalker]

Here is the teen's facebook
https://www.facebook.com/alexis.l.manigo

the girl left her facebook open. Some people just make me rage. People are actually taking up for the kidnapper. Here's what one person wrote.

Telling her that she's blessed because the woman that stole her didn't hurt her is the equivalent of telling a slave that they're blessed because their slave master fed them or didn't beat them to the point of death! They should've never been enslaved in the first place! Just like Kamiyah should've never been stolen. Gloria is not to be praised like she did something good! This lady is crazy. She didn't steal Kamiyah and lie to her for her entire life because she was trying to save her or give her a better life. She had NO CLUE what kind of life she would've had. She didn't steal her because she loved her and cared about her well being. She was 8 HOURS OLD! She stole her because she was selfish and desperate. She stole her because she couldn't face the music after a miscarriage. There are MANY women out here that have suffered the loss of their babies. They don't go snatching other people's! I tell you what, put your address where YOUR BABY is located and let me arrange something. By next week, I want you to tell me how ok you are with that baby being taken away from you, to live and be raised as someone else's baby, as long as the kidnapper feeds and clothes them! That's how crazy y'all sound!

An interview with the dad (who's not really her bio dad but has probably been paying child support on her since the divorce) Lots of pictures
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ocial-facebook

[animosity]

Here is the teen's facebook
https://www.facebook.com/alexis.l.manigo

the girl left her facebook open. Some people just make me rage. People are actually taking up for the kidnapper. Here's what one person wrote.


An interview with the dad (who's not really her bio dad but has probably been paying child support on her since the divorce) Lots of pictures
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ocial-facebook

Man, here is what she thinks of pops:

He Did Nothing , He Didn't Even Help With Nothing That Was Done for That Prom , He Was The Reason I Didn't Go To My Senior Prom , He Was Not There When I Moved To Georgia, Never Saw Him, He Like To Bring Up A 40 Dollar Check A Week ? Thats Nothing but 160 Dollars. My Bundles Cost 290. DO THE MATH ? WHO WAS THERE , GLORIA WILLIAMS , SO WHAT IS A CHARLES MANIGO .YOU WORK AT A CAR DEALERSHIP AND MY GRANDDADDY STILL GAVE MY FIRST CAR. I CALL MY GRANDDADDY DADDY AND HE EARNED IT. YOU WERE NOTHING TO ME MY WHOLE LIFE. I CAN COUNT ON MY FINGERS HOW MANY TIMES IVE SPENT THE NIGHT AT YOUR HOUSE. YOU TOLD PEOPLE IT WAS HER , NOOOOOOOOO I NEVER WANTED TO GO , MY MOTHER CONVINCED ME , NOW FB WHAT THAT TELL YOU. All He Did Was Lie My Whole Life Then Tell People Different Don't Share This Article With No Sympathy Cause Ill Be A Crazy Fool To Have It For Him . #IApproveThisMessage ��WASN'T EVEN 40 DOLLARS , 39 AND SOME CHANGE . #LaughAtThis

Poor girl is having a real hard time with this. I feel so bad for her. She is going to love and defend this woman for the rest of her life.

[Bewitchingstorm]

I can imagine how strange all this is for her and hope she will go through some form of therapy.

[bermstalker]

I'm just going to say it- something doesn't feel right about this story. Don't know exactly what it is...

[bermstalker]

Teen gave an interview.

Looks like she found out the truth 2 yrs ago.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ocial-facebook

[Words Words]

I read she found out when she began working and they told her that her documents were forged (tried looking for where it said that again but couldn't)...I'm guessing that's what she doesn't want to say that will incriminate her mom?

[nclexusgirl]

I'm just going to say it- something doesn't feel right about this story. Don't know exactly what it is...

I'm pretty sure you are not the only one that thinks this. Not sure exactly what all this is about but a popular blogger (fameolousent_)on IG posted this

[of_corpse_not]

There were comments on Reddit when the story first broke saying the parents didn't put much effort into searching, etc