A baby that was stolen from her mother as a baby 17-years earlier has been found and reunited to her real family.
It was a happy reunion when a baby stolen from her sleeping mother’s arms shortly
after birth in South Africa, was found by the family through an
astonishing coincidence 17 years later, the police reports.
The
perpetrator of the abduction, a 50-year-old woman, has also been
arrested and charged with kidnapping after pupils noticed a remarkable
likeness between the 17-year-old and her younger biological sister who
started attending the same school this year.
DNA
tests carried out by police confirmed that the older girl is the
daughter of Celeste and Morne Nurse, who was snatched from Groote Schuur
hospital as a three-day-old baby named Zephany in April 1997.
The
parents, who later had three more children, have celebrated Zephany’s
birthday every year since she was kidnapped, never giving up hope that
their first-born child would come back to them someday, the Cape Argus
said.
Zephany grew up with a different name, and a different family, never knowing she was not their real daughter.
But
last month her biological sister, Cassidy Nurse, started high school at
the same school as Zephany, and fellow pupils noticed a startling
resemblance she bore to a final-year student.
When
Cassidy told her parents about the girl, they invited her home for a
cup of coffee. When they saw the striking resemblance between the girls,
they contacted the police.
Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel André Traut confirmed the find:
"The
suspect is being charged with kidnapping, fraud and contravening
sections of the Children’s Act, in that she fraudulently pretended that
she was the biological mother of a child."
The funny aspect of the whole scenario is that the Nurse family had been living within a couple of kilometres of their kidnapped daughter.
