The biological mother of a girl kidnapped at birth gave a heart-wrenching testimony during a hearing Thursday for the woman who snatched her daughter 19 years ago, screaming “I’m your mother!”
Shanara Mobley, the mother of Kamiyah Mobley, broke down on the stand as she detailed the years of heartache she suffered after her child was stolen just hours after she’d given birth. The pain of losing her only daughter is still fresh, Mobley said, so much so that she’s pushing for her child’s kidnapper, Gloria Williams, to be sentenced to death.
“Thinking about suicide every day, people watching me all day every day, no one was leaving me unattended,” the distraught mother said of the days following Kamiyah’s abduction, wiping tears from her eyes.
” … I always thought about my baby every day, every day, every day,” she added. “I’d catch myself in my car crying, in bed crying, taking a bath crying, doing something with her siblings and crying.”
Williams, who raised Kamiyah (aka Alexis Manigo) as her own for 18 years, faces 22 years in prison for the kidnapping and interfering with custody, First Coast News reported. She’s expected to take the stand in her own defense Friday.
Kamiyah was just 8 hours old when she was snatched from a Jacksonville hospital on July 10, 1998, where Williams was posing as a nurse. She entered Mobley’s hospital room and alleged her daughter had a temperature and needed to be checked out. Williams vanished with the baby, however, and the two weren’t seen for nearly two decades.
William’s charade came to light in 2012 when Kamiyah applied for a restaurant job that required her social security number. Her kidnapper was ultimately forced to tell her the truth. With a few clicks on Google, Kamiyah said she was able to piece together exactly what had happened to her. She wouldn’t meet her biological parents, Mobley and Craig Aiken, until 2014 after Williams’ arrest.
“She preyed on a child because I was young,” said Mobley, who was 16 years old when she birthed Kamiyah. “She preyed on a child and took my child.”
Mobley admitted it’s been tough forming a bond with her biological daughter, describing the pain she felt upon hearing Kamiyah refer to Williams as “mom” and seeing William’s name in her cell phone as “mommy.”
“It doesn’t heal now, I’m still hurting. When you’re reaching out to my child – I am your mother Kamiyah,” she yelled to the courtroom in frustration. “I am your mother!”
Kamiyah has said she refers to both women as her mother and doesn’t want to pick sides.
“It’s been harder for my [bio] mother to cope,” the teen said. “We are working on our relationship. I don’t like to define which one is my mother. I like to be respectful of both parties.”
Watch more of Mobley’s tearful testimony above.
