A woman whose newborn baby was stolen from her arms 20 years ago told a judge no mercy should be shown to the kidnapper. Shanara Mobley said that Gloria Williams had preyed on her as a naive 16-year-old when she took Kamiyah Mobley when she was just eight hours old.
She gave an emotional testimony in court, breaking down screaming ‘I am your mother’ and calling for the death penalty. She cried as she said: ‘Thinking about suicide every day, people watching me all day every day, no one was leaving me unattended.’ Shanara also spoke about the heartache of seeing Williams’ number in Kamiyah’s phone as ‘mom’.
‘It doesn’t heal now, I am still hurting. When you’re reaching out to my child – I am your mother Kamiyah,’ she shouted into the courtroom. ‘I am your mother!’ Williams, 52, posed as a nurse at a Jacksonville hospital in 1998 when she approached Mobley eight hours after her daughter, Kamiyah Mobley, was born. She took the baby and disappeared.
Mobley took Kamiyah to South Carolina, where she raised her as Alexis Manigo. The ruse began falling apart two years ago when the girl tried to get a driver’s license but didn’t have a valid birth certificate. Williams was arrested in 2017 and pleaded guilty to kidnapping in March. Judge Mariane Aho could give Williams 22 years. Shanara said: ‘I always thought about my baby every day, every day, every day. I would catch myself in my car crying, in bed crying, taking a bath crying, doing something with her siblings and crying.’
The moment Kamiyah Mobley, her mother Shanara Mobley and father Craig Aiken were reunited.