Kidnapped Baby Is Reunited With Family After 23 Years

"I want my baby back. She didn't have to do this to me!" - Joy White

Imagine: You're a young mother, your three-week-old baby has a high fever and you have to rush her to the hospital. You're relieved you got her in the care of doctors and nurses before things got worse, but little do you know, your experience is about to go from bad to unimaginable. Later on, you're alerted that someone kidnapped your baby. 

This was the nightmare that became a reality for Joy White in 1987 when she brought her daughter Carlina to the hospital with a fever. While Carlina was in the care of hospital staff, a deranged woman, Ann Petty, posed as a nurse, unhooked baby Carlina's IV and kidnapped her.

From Connecticut to Georgia, Petty took Joy's baby halfway across the country, hoping to never be held responsible for the horrible and selfish act she committed over two decades ago.

Twenty-three years later, though, everything changed.

Carlina White, abducted 23 years ago.

"Just when the case couldn't get any colder, last month, Atlanta resident, 23-year-old Nejdra Nance reportedly learned that the woman who raised her wasn't her biological mother," reported the Today Show.

President of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Ernie Allen said that in December,  the Center's 24-hour hotline received a call from Carlina — then Nejdra — who indicated that she was suspicious about her past and had questions about who she was.

This was when the NCMEC searched through their database and informed the NYPD, who shortly after opened up their cold case files on the Carlina White case.

When Carlina saw a baby photo the NYPD had on file, it all made sense.

When Carlina saw the baby photos NCMEC and the NYPD had on file, she had no doubt in her mind that that was her. They perfectly matched the baby photos Petty had of her. Carlina solved her own abduction, and you have to hand it to her. Carlina could have lived a life in blissful ignorance, but where she smelled smoke, she ran towards it and eventually found fire. 

Photo of Joy White, 1987.

"This is a one-in-a-million call and I think people need to recognize that this girl is the hero. She's the one whose intelligence and tenacity resulted in her own recovery and reuniting her with her family," said Allen. 

In response to the solved abduction, Peggy Ann White, relative of Joy White, had this message for Petty, "Go to Hell. You WILL get your day ... you WILL get your day."

Petty ended up getting 12 years in prison for the abduction. But more importantly, Carlina was reunited with her long-lost biological family.

See the full video by the Today Showbelow.

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