Kidnapped girl found 23 years later

FOUND: Carlina with her own daughter

A girl, kidnapped as a 19-day-old infant from a Harlem hospital, has been reunited with her family 23 years later.

On August 4, 1987 Joy White took her daughter Carlina to the hospital with high fever. She left for few hours to rest, but when she returned a woman dressed as a nurse and her daughter had vanished.

A $10,000 reward was offered for anyone providing information, but the years passed and nothing came to light.

In 1992 New York City paid her parents $162,643 in compensation and put the rest of a $750,000 award into a trust for Carlina, if she should be found by her 21st birthday.

When Carlina became pregnant at 16 and needed her own birth certificate, the woman she knew as 'mother' was unable to find it. The girl didn’t look alike any of her 'relatives' and started to look for the truth.

Carlina herself, with some accurate internet researches, in particular on The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children website, identified Ms White as her mother and rushed to New York to be reunited with her.

Ms White was at work when she received the good news from the centre. “I screamed and cried and ran downstairs. After that, it was just crazy,” she said. The DNA test confirmed what they already knew.

The girl told the New York Post in an interview: “I'm so happy. At the same time, it's a funny feeling because everything's brand-new. It's like being born again”.

Carlina identified her fake mum as Agnotta Pettway. The woman has been arrested by the FBI. Yesterday the authorities said that she has a lengthy rap sheet that includes busts for embezzlement, forgery and theft