17 Again Sad Scene in Court Room
A couple in Southward Africa accept found their daughter 17 years after she was stolen from her sleeping female parent's arms, thanks to an astonishing coincidence, law said on Friday.
Zephany Nurse was abducted from a hospital in Cape Boondocks three days after her nascency in April 1997. Her bereft parents, Morné and Celeste Nurse, never gave up hope of seeing their outset-born again and celebrated her adjacent 17 birthdays without her.
Zephany grew up only a couple of miles abroad with a dissimilar proper name and a different family, never suspecting she was not their real daughter. But final month her biological sister, Cassidy Nurse, began attention the same school, and soon young man pupils noticed a startling resemblance between them.
Morné Nurse then saw Cassidy and Zephany eating burgers together in McDonald's, and, struck by the physical similarities, contacted the police. Dna tests confirmed that she was the Nurses' long-lost daughter. Zephany is now in the intendance of social services, while the woman who allegedly kidnapped and raised her has been arrested and charged.
Every bit the Nurses came to terms with the extraordinary plow of events, Zephany'southward aunt, Shantal Berry, said on Friday: "We feel very excited, happy. There is simply a joy. It feels similar we're in a dream and nosotros must still wake up. Can this actually exist happening?"
Recalling the moment that Zephany was kidnapped in 1997, she said: "Oh my God, it was similar a funeral. Lamentable. We felt empty, lost. We felt why, why? The feeling at present is very dissimilar from that time.
"Over the years in that location was negative talk from people outside almost her being killed, just non in the family. We knew she was alive. We had birthday parties for her every twelvemonth. She'southward back now and we're going to have a big party."
Berry, a housekeeping supervisor at a hotel, described the moment when Zephany came confront to face up with her biological sister. "It was the first day of school and the other kids told Cassidy 'there's a girl who looks merely like you'. When she saw Zephany she said 'my God, she looks simply like me'. Cassidy gave her a hug and it started from there. When Zephany'south brother saw her, he knew instantly."
Berry's blood brother, Morné Nurse, was subsequently reunited with his daughter at a McDonald's branch. "Zephany and Cassidy were having burgers and her dad walked in. He was excited merely he had to contain himself, to not say anything, and carry on investigating."
Zephany met her female parent for the first time in 17 years on Thursday, Drupe added.
"She was very excited. She cried, she told me. She said she's got a very pretty, very beautiful daughter."
Berry, who has not met Zephany herself, said the teenager was currently in a "rubber place" and would move in with her parents eventually, but they are not sure when.
She said of the woman who abducted the baby: "I don't feel anything towards her. She stole our kid, she stole 17 years, she stole everything from us."
The adult female defendant of snatching Zephany is understood to be 50 years former with no other children. On Fri she appeared at the Greatcoat Town magistrates court charged with kidnapping, fraud and contravening sections of the Children's Act. A small figure in a striped top, she clutched her hands nervously in the dock, the Cape Argus newspaper reported. Her expression was passive as she heard she would spend the side by side week behind bars at Woodstock police station.
The newspaper said: "Her family unit were devastated. They wept outside the court, the Nurse family unit barely glancing at them as they walked by in a tight huddle."
The accused woman'southward sis reportedly said of Zephany: "She has been part of our lives for always. And now she's just gone ... Nosotros take had no contact or anything. We have no thought where she is."
Lieutenant colonel André Traut, a police spokesman, said: "The suspect is being charged with kidnapping, fraud and contravening sections of the Children'south Human action, in that she fraudulently pretended that she was the biological mother of a child.
"The kidnapped girl has since been placed in the care of the section of social services of the Western Cape government."
Zephany was snatched from the maternity ward at the Groote Schuur hospital in Greatcoat Town, all-time known equally the site of the world'south first heart transplant performance in 1967.
Morné and Celeste went on to have three other children: Cassidy, Joshua and Micah. They continued to celebrate Zephany's birthday each April, often with a behemothic cake sponsored past a local supermarket. In a 2010 interview with the Weekend Argus paper, Morné said: "I'll never, ever requite up hope. I can feel it in my gut – my daughter is out at that place and she is going to come abode."
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/27/mother-reunited-stolen-daughter-17-years-after-snatched
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