Twenty years ago a teenage mother, her newborn child and her aunt stopped at a shop on their way to the small Mpumalanga farming town of Breyten. The 16-year-old, who had just given birth to a girl in an Ermelo hospital, felt dizzy and was in pain. A kind lady offered to hold her baby and walked away in the aunt’s direction.
That was the last time she saw her daughter — until this week, when her son saw a woman on Facebook whose resemblance to his mother was uncanny.
Now it has come to light that the alleged abductor had suffered a miscarriage the day before meeting the teenage mother and feared returning home without a baby.
She took the teenager’s daughter home and raised her in Carolina, a 30-minute drive from the child’s biological family.
This week the biological mother said she had never given up hope of finding her child.
“To the woman that took her: you have hurt me a lot,” said the biological mother. “I will never forgive you ... Never ... Not after all the sleepless nights I had and tears I shed, especially on her birthday.”
The woman who took the baby 20 year ago has since been arrested. She has appeared in court and was released on R1,000 bail.
The families have not been identified to protect the daughter, who has since returned to Carolina and has promised to visit her biological family.
“The suspect confessed and told us she had several miscarriages before this ... the last miscarriage on March 22 2011,” said a police source close to the investigation.
After raising the child with her husband, her secret was unearthed when the young woman's biological brother stumbled upon her Facebook profile last month via a friend’s suggestion.
Born a year after his sister was stolen, he told Sunday Times he had a feeling they were related when he saw her picture — she had his mother’s eyes and nose.
“I had heard just a little about her and what happened, but I wasn’t searching when I came across her profile. It just happened,” the brother said as he scrolled through her pictures on his phone.
The police were alerted, the woman was traced and DNA tests confirmed her identity.
“I remember the day she was stolen,” said her biological mother, now 36. “Arriving home from hospital, my family was here waiting to see her. When I walked in empty-handed they thought she had died, but it broke them to know how I had lost my baby.”
The case is strikingly similar to that of Miché Solomon (Zephany Nurse), who at the age of 17 discovered she had been stolen as a baby.
“I cannot help but wonder and stress about her,” Solomon told the Sunday Times.
“The best advice I could give to the biological mom would be for her to accept the decision she [the young woman] has made [to return to her abductor]. I know it must be hard and she must be angry and hurt but don’t push her. Just say ‘We are still going to be here, will still fight for you and still want to know you.'”
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