Over the weekend, an 18-year-old girl learned that the person she thought was her birth mother was in fact her kidnapper. As a newborn, Kamiyah Mobley was abducted by a woman posing as a nurse at Florida’s University Medical Center in 1998. The suspect in question, Gloria Williams, raised Mobley as her own, even giving her the name Alexis Manigo.
After an anonymous tip found its way to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Mobley learned the life-altering truth and was reunited with her real family. Now, the teen is speaking out on the revelation in an interview with Good Morning America.
“She will always be mom,” Mobley said. “…from that one mistake I was given the best life, I was. I had everything I ever needed, wanted. I had love, especially.”
When questioned by the interviewer on how Mobley will navigate life with her birth parents, she said, “I feel like I do owe them that, to give them a chance. Get to know them. I’m not saying that they weren’t going to be good parents, I’m not saying that at all, but it would’ve been a different life. When you find out you have another family out there, it’s just more love.”
http://abcnews.go.com/video/embed?id=44849651
Williams, 51, is currently in a Florida-based jail awaiting her court hearing. Mobley was also raised by Williams’ partner, Charles Manigo, who was told by Williams that she had given birth while he was away. In an interview with ABC News, Manigo said that he gave Mobley her name and, “She’s still my child. I understand what’s going on, but she’s still my child.”