CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A teenager who was kidnapped as a baby and raised in South Carolina is speaking out, one year after she discovered her true identity.
Kamiyah Mobley was just hours old when she was abducted from a Florida hospital 19 years ago. On Monday, hundreds of pages of new documents in the case were released.
“It don't make no sense to cry,” Mobley said, with a brave smile.
Until last year, 19-year-old Mobley believed her first name was Alexis. She also believed her abductor, Gloria Williams, was her mother.
“She still a mother behind bars,” Mobley said.
Williams is behind bars for pretending to be a nurse and kidnapping the newborn baby girl from the hospital, forging birth documents and raising Mobley as her own.
“Of course, I'm not gonna say throw her in jail and throw away the key,” Mobley said. “But I understand a crime was done some punishment has to be rendered.”
Mobley is now learning to balance her two identities.
“Everyone will be like, ‘How's your mom doing?’ and I'll be like, ‘Which one?'" Mobley laughed. “I've got love for two families. I just think things are going to get better. I always believe that. I just think there's always a rainbow on the other side.”
But while this story ends in a reunion and love lost and found, so many others remain unsolved.
There are 64 South Carolina children who are still missing, and 57 kids lost in North Carolina. Some were last seen a week ago. Others vanished decades back, with not a single trace of them since.
While Mobley is healthy and happy today, she knows she’s one of the lucky ones.
“I know people see me as a sign of hope. What I've been through is hard but not hard enough for me to be sad all the rest of my days. My future is only going to get better, that's it. I’m enjoying the now,” explained Mobley.
Williams is scheduled to begin trial February 12.