A mother who was reunited with a daughter nearly 18 years after she was snatched from her arms today incredibly thanked the woman who stole her ‘for giving her a good life’. Celeste Nurse was dozing in her hospital bed when three day-old Zephany was kidnapped by a woman disguised as a nurse back in 1997. Last week, the girl known as South Africa’s Madeleine McCann was reunited with her parents following an extraordinary twist in the hunt for her. In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Celeste, 37, described how she’d forgiven the woman who had stolen her baby Zephany and credited her with doing a ‘a great job’ of raising her.
‘Zephany loves this woman dearly, she was a good mother to her,’ the mother-of-four said. What she did was very wrong, they’ve been living a lie for the last 17 years, but I forgave her some time ago. Undoubtedly we will meet, and I will thank her for taking care of my daughter. Zephany has had a good life with her – my daughter is beautiful, inside and out, she’s kind and clever – they did a great job.’
The story of how Zephany came to be reunited with her biological family has all the elements of a Hollywood film. For nearly 18 years the teenager grew up only a few streets from the parents who never lost hope of finding her, in a run-down suburb of Cape Town.
‘I always had this feeling that Zephany was very close by,’ Celeste recalled.
In January, Morne and Celeste’s 13-year-old daughter Cassidy started high school and began to talk about an older girl she’d met ‘who looks like us’ and, despite the age difference, had become a very close friend. Morne recalled:
‘A girl in the last year of High school would never normally take a girl from that year under her wing. But the connection was there. She said she felt confused, she had no idea why she felt so attracted towards this girl. On a daily basis, she waited for Cassidy at the school gate, hugged her. I thought, “wow man” you guys resemble each other like you’re bird of a feather. My daughter called Zephany “tee tee”, that’s the name for an older sister and that’s what Cassidy called her and she called Cassidy, “my baby girl”, it was amazing.
‘I saw this girl and immediately had a burning sensation in my chest. It was a feeling of confusion, connection, love, attraction, everything in one. The electrical sales rep described how he then carried out his own secret investigation into his daughter’s new best friend, looking for proof that she was his stolen child.’
He watched her at the school gate, and photographed her for Celeste who ‘recognised her at once’.
‘When he sent me the photo I burst into tears, she looked exactly like Cassidy. She had the same face, ear lobes, nose, she was the same. I said “this is my daughter”‘, Celeste recalled.
He scanned the girl’s facebook page to check her date of birth, and for pictures of her growing up. He copied a photograph of the mother who was raising Zephany and sent it to a witness from the hospital who, more than 17 years before, could still remember the ‘nurse’ who had carried Zephany away as Celeste’s slept.
‘My witness came back straight away and said ‘this is the lady’,’ Morne said.
The 37-year-old father of four then went to the police and ten days ago DNA tests were finally carried out, revealing Zephany was indeed their missing daughter and her kidnapper was arrested. Since then Zephany, who is being cared for at a secret location by child welfare authorities, has met her biological family three times.
‘When I hugged her for the first time, I whispered in her ear ‘I knew from day one you were mine’,’ Morne said, in a voice cracked with emotion.
Mother and daughter only met for the first time once DNA tests had established they were related. Celeste smiles:
‘When I saw her for the first time I saw myself, I thought “that’s my twin sitting there”. When I held her, I just burst into tears. Zephany cried, she didn’t know what was going to happen, for her it’s quite a lot to take in.’
Despite only spending a few hours with her biological parents, Zephany is already calling them ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’. And although she is very attached to the woman she thought of as her mother, she told Celeste: ‘The last 17 years have been a lie.’ Known by the name given to her by the woman who raised her, which cannot be reported, Zephany has chosen to keep her name. Tomorrow, the 50 year old kidnapper is due to appear in court for a second time – she has been in police custody for a week.
It is understood the woman, who cannot be identified, had suffered a stillbirth shortly before snatching Zephany, whom she was able to breastfeed and pass off as her own, never confessing the truth to a soul – not even her own husband. Morne recognised the man who had raised his daughter when he saw him in court last week.
‘Apparently, he had no idea she wasn’t his,’ Morne said. ‘The forgiveness is there from me, but I have nothing to say to them.’
The story has divided the community of Lavender Hill, a rough part of Cape Town where murderous gang violence, drugs and unemployment are rife, where both families live. Protests against the woman are expected tomorrow, Morne said, from neighbours who are angry that this lie has unfolded ‘under their noses’.
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