Kamiyah Mobley says she has no harsh words for the woman who abducted her, the very woman she called “mom” for 18 years.
It was a story that gripped the nation. Mobley, 21, was snatched from a Jacksonville, Florida, hospital just hours after her birth in July 1998. Her kidnapper, Gloria Williams, fled to South Carolina and raised the baby girl as her own until 2017, when the truth finally came to light.
Williams is now serving an 18-year sentence for her crime, but Mobley (aka Alexis Manigo) says she has no ill-will toward her abductor and has since forgiven her. In fact, she told “Good Morning America” co-host Robin Roberts in a recent interview that she would still like to see her “mother.”
“I do,” Mobley told the journalist during a special edition of “Nightline” last week. “I just want to let her know I’m okay.”
Roberts recently teamed up with award-winning actress Niecy Nash for the TV feature film “Stolen by My Mother: The Kamiyah Mobley Story,” which aired Jan. 18 on the Lifetime Network. The film chronicles Mobley’s real-life experience of being kidnapped and eventually reunited with her biological parents, Shanara Mobley and Craig Aiken.
Mobley reportedly knew about her abduction months before Williams’ arrest in 2017, but kept it under wraps. These days, the now 21-year-old Mobley said she’s feeling caught in the middle.
“I actually was working to trying to keep these two families happy,” she told Roberts.
Mobley’s relationship with her birth parents has had its ups and downs, especially with Shanara Mobley, who’s still dealing with the pain of losing a child for 18 years. At one point, Shanara Mobley revealed she wasn’t even on speaking terms with her daughter because of her attachment to Williams.
“I shouldn’t have to compete with a kidnapper — she has to pick one of us,” she told the Daily Mail in 2018, adding that the pain of being rejected by Kamiyah cuts just as deep as the day she was kidnapped by Williams. “It’s like a tug of war between us. Whenever I feel I’m winning her back, boom, the other side pulls me down.”
Kamiyah Mobley also admits their relationship is rocky and needs some work.
“It’s a roller coaster with us,” she explained. “I feel like (Shanara) just thinks everything with me has Gloria written over it. Maybe that’s it. I don’t know.”
Meanwhile, Kamiyah Mobley’s relationship with her bio dad couldn’t be better. Recalling the day they were finally reunited, Kamiyah Mobley said it was a quick, easy bond. She even refers to him as “daddy.”
“We just kind of hugged each other,” she said. “We could have been quiet in the room and felt peace looking at each other.”
Despite all that has happened in recent years, the young woman said she’s still working to keep both sides of her family happy and is navigating her new normal in a way she sees fit.
“Because of my experiences in the last couple of years, it’s kind of forced me to have an open mind,” said Kamiyah Mobley. “I think I’m a pretty good aunt. I think I’m a pretty good sister. I think I’m a pretty good person. I think I’m all right.”
Watch more in the clip below.
