I wish they never would have found her': Mother of girl who was kidnapped at birth and raised by another woman reveals she is not speaking to her long-last daughter and will be alone on her birthday
Kamiyah Mobley, 19, was stolen as a baby and secretly raised by Gloria Williams
She was found last year and Williams was jailed for 18 years for kidnapping
Her real mother Shanara Mobley expected they would be a family again
But they don't talk and Kamiyah still views Williams as her mother
The sentencing of a woman who kidnapped Shanara Mobley's newborn and raised her as her own should have brought closure to a two-decade-long nightmare.
But Mobley says she expects to spend her first child's birthday on July 10 just as she has for the last 20 years - alone with her heartache, far away from her daughter.
Gloria Williams was jailed for 18 years last month for kidnapping Kamiyah Mobley from a hospital in Jacksonville in July 1998.
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Shanara Mobley says she expects to spend her first child's birthday on July 10 just as she has for the last 20 years - alone with her heartache, far away from her daughter
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She and he long-lost daughter Kamiyah Mobley spent a lot of time together when they were reunited after 18 years, but have since stopped talking
The 52-year-old Williams testified that she wore scrubs to look like a nurse, put the infant in a bag, and sneaked her out of the hospital.
She said she was in an abusive relationship at the time and suffering from depression.
Williams raised Kamiyah Mobley - who grew up as Alexis Manigo - in Walterboro, South Carolina, until her arrest in 2017.
The girl did not learn her true identity until she discovered she could not get a driver's license without a valid birth certificate or Social Security card.
After finding out her true identity, Mobley told a friend about it. Eventually, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received an anonymous tip about Kamiyah's whereabouts, and Williams was arrested.
When Mobley learned her daughter was alive, on Jan. 13, 2017, she likened the joy to giving birth all over again.
'It was one of the happiest days of my life,' Mobley told The Florida Times-Union.
Mobley then learned her daughter did not immediately alert authorities when she found out she was the child who had been abducted from Jacksonville.
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Gloria Williams was jailed for 18 years last month for kidnapping Kamiyah Mobley from a hospital in Jacksonville in July 1998
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Williams raised Kamiyah Mobley - who grew up as Alexis Manigo - in Walterboro, South Carolina, until her arrest in 2017
She said she was willing to look past that disappointment and expected her daughter to want to be a part of Mobley's life.
'We were going to be this big, happy family,' she said.
But Mother's Day came and went without recognition from her daughter. They do not speak, Mobley said, hurt that her daughter said she hoped Williams would not receive a long prison sentence.
'I don't deal with disrespect,' she said through tears. 'I wish they never would have found her.'
Mobley said she was so eager to become a mother when her first daughter was born. and it stung to be considered a suspect during the investigation into the baby's disappearance.
'Everybody was saying I sold the baby, I gave the baby away,' she said. 'Come on now, if I thought it was going to be this hard, I could have got an abortion.
Part 2: I could still be running the streets. I could have been doing drugs, drinking, all that. I chose to do right: to have a beautiful baby.'
Sitting at her kitchen table late last month, Mobley said she was feeling an unbearable weight of stress and depression.
She worried about the impact on her other five children, who range in age from three years old to 15.
'I'm still lost,' Mobley said. 'What did I gain? Nothing.'
Mobley had this to say to the daughter she lost and then found: 'If you want to be Alexis, be Alexis. If you want to be her child, be her child. This is a battle that I can't keep fighting. This is a battle that nobody is going to win.'
I feel for her, in not knowing what happened to her baby where she was or even if she was alive and her innocence being questioned and then to have to come to terms with being rejected by her child.
I hope she can come to understand that her child is dealing with the new knowledge that the woman who raised her isn't who she thought she was and maybe someday might want to get to know her true mother.
Well, I understand her disappointment, but to expect a teenager to suddenly just embrace her after 18 years is a bit much. Especially when dealing with the crisis of losing the only mother she's ever known. This woman is not the only victim here, and a bit of empathy towards her child is needed. "I won't deal with disrespect" in this situation is really not the right attitude.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
I feel for both of them. I also don't think a teenager can truly grasp the crime and horror that was committed against her bio mom. Maybe someday if/when she has a baby she will have a better idea of what a reprehensible thing the woman who raised her did to her and her mom.
Well, I understand her disappointment, but to expect a teenager to suddenly just embrace her after 18 years is a bit much. Especially when dealing with the crisis of losing the only mother she's ever known. This woman is not the only victim here, and a bit of empathy towards her child is needed. "I won't deal with disrespect" in this situation is really not the right attitude.
Yes. She should act like the adult and understand that right or wrong, the other woman is the mother who raised her. And, she would need years and years of time and slowly building a relationship.
I mean what happened to this woman is horrible and terribly unfair. However her daughter is paying a huge price as well.
