The Florida teen kidnapped from a Jacksonville maternity ward and raised by her kidnapper for 18 years says she still loves and keeps in contact with the woman who ripped her from her mother’s arms.
Kamiyah Mobley, 19, spoke for the first time Monday since her captor, 52-year-old Gloria Williams, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for her crime. Mobley was just a few hours old when Williams, who’d suffered a miscarriage a month prior, posed as a hospital nurse and snatched the infant from her biological mother, Shanara Mobley.
She then drove to South Carolina where she passed the newborn off as her own.
In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Mobley revealed that she and Williams speak several times a week from jail since her “mother’s” arrest last year.
“We actually talked today,” the young woman said. “I still do call her ‘Mom,’ ”
Mobley, who grew up as Alexis Manigo, said she’s visited her birth parents several times since finding out Williams wasn’t her mother. Shanara Mobley was just 16 years old when she birthed Kamiyah, and she and the teen’s father, Craig Aiken, made it their mission to find their missing daughter. The parties were finally reunited in 2017.
‘I like it,” Mobley said of visiting her birth parents and siblings. “…It’s new people who act just like you, they look just like you. It’s almost just like extended family. You know, that’s really what it feels like.”
With the trial now over, Mobley revealed she’s still living at Williams’ home and is looking forward to the day her “mom” is released from jail. The young woman said she’s received criticism from people, including her birth mom, for keeping in touch with the woman who stole her but said it doesn’t faze her. She maintains that Williams was a good mom to her.
” … She was one of those mothers, she was like open to sleepovers, open to company,” Mobley told ABC News. “Always smiling, always upbeat, up-tempo about everything. Very hard working, very hard working.”
Watch more of her interview above.
