Kidnapped as a Baby, Carlina White Finds Her Family
after 23 Years
Initially posted at WSATA by Nordette Adams
Updated January 23, 2011: CNN and the Associated Press report that Ann Pettway aka Agnotta Pettway, the woman who raised Carlina White and is suspected to have also kidnapped her in 1987, has been arrested. ABC reports Pettway used Facebook to turn herself in.
An amazing story from the New York Post, ABC News, and other sources caught my eye on January 20, 2011:"Carlina White, separated from her family when she was kidnapped as a baby 23 years ago, followed her instincts to reunite with her biological parents, Joy White and Carl Tyson."
I remember this kidnapping being in the news after it happened in the late 80s. The woman who kidnapped Carlina was disguised as a nurse, and I shivered thinking about the grief of the baby's mother. My own daughter was about six years old then. The kidnapped baby was 19 days old.
According to ABC's story, Carlina always thought something was off between her and the family she grew up with in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It bothered her that the family didn't have a birth certificate, social security card for her, or other paper work and that she didn't look like them.
Recently, she decided to look up her birth year on the website for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and spotted a picture of an African-American baby kidnapped in her birth year along side an age-progression image (photo composite at left) of what the baby would look like now. She thought it looked like her, and so, she called the center and told them "I don't know who I am." DNA testing confirmed her birth mother is Joy White of New York. Her father is Carl Tyson.
She's been reunited with her biological family, which includes her parents, siblings, nieces, and aunts who are praising God and elated to have her home. Carlina also has a child of her own. It was her attempt to get prenatal care and a driver's license that made her aware that the woman who raised her did not have any documentation for her. When confronted, the woman admitted she was not Carlina's biological mother.
Understandably her biological family wants jail time for the woman who took her. Carlina says she was mistreated by the woman who raised her under the name Nejdra Nance. The New York Post has a big story with video and pictures. Per that report:
The drug-abusing Agnotta Pettway -- who has several aliases, according to Carlina -- often abused her, once pummeling her with a shoe so hard that it left an imprint on her face.Federal authorities will most likely pursue charges against Pettway who denies any wrongdoing. In fact, on January 21, the CBS Crime Insider reported that
"Pettway, who allegedly used several birth dates and aliases as she moved between Connecticut, Georgia and then North Carolina, is now nowhere to be found as officials search for answers in the decades-old investigation, reports The New York Post.
"As we've learned of her involvement in this abduction, we've been working to locate her, and we haven't been able to reach her," Keith Acree, a spokesman for the Department of Correction in North Carolina, told the Post."
Yahoo has ABC's video. I can't find it at the network, but below is the AP's video of this story's miraculous resolution.
Contact/Comment to Nordette Adams here
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