JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A newborn baby taken from a Jacksonville hospital on July 10, 1998, has been found alive in South Carolina and officials have charged a 51-year-old woman with kidnapping, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Acting on recent tips, JSO cold-case detectives traveled to Walterboro, South Carolina, and found an 18-year-old woman with a matching birth date to Kamiyah Mobley, according to Sheriff Mike Williams. Detectives learned the woman’s identity was established with fraudulent documents, and they took a DNA sample from her. Thursday night, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab confirmed the woman was Kamiyah.
Booking photo of Gloria Williams, 51, years old who was arrested in South Carolina for the kidnapping of Kamiyah Mobley 18 years ago
The 18-year-old was told the results and a woman named Gloria Williams, who the teen believed was her biological mother, was arrested and charged with kidnapping and interference with custody. She will be extradited to Jacksonville to face the charges.
They had been living in Walterboro, a city of about 5,400 people located about 50 miles west of Charleston.
According to reports at the time, Kamiyha’s mother, Shanara Mobley, had just turned 16 and was befriended by a woman who passed herself off as a Mobley family member to the hospital and a medical professional to Shanara.
Kamiyah’s 19-year-old father was in jail on a charge of lewd assault for having sex with a minor, because Shanara was15 when she became pregnant.
Shanara sued the hospital and was awarded a $1.5 million settlement, according CharleyProject.org. She has since had three more children.
After the kidnapping, the University Medical Center, which became Shands Jacksonville, then UF Health Jacksonville, also added wristbands and ankle bands for newborns, along with limiting access to the maternity ward, security and instituted kidnapping drills.
Source: Source: Baby kidnapped from hospital in 1998 found alive