Carlina White had no idea that she would one day solve her own kidnapping case. When she was just 19 days old, she was abducted from Harlem Hospital in New York back in 1987.
As a child, she was raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, as “Nedra Nance.” After growing up, she finally had a chance to solve her own missing person case. Almost two decades later, White discovered that her own “mom” kidnapped her as an infant.
Her journey began in 2005 when she became pregnant. She asked her mother for her birth certificate. Ann Pettway, the woman who raised her as her own, was acting in an unusual way when asked about it. So Carlina got suspicious and went to the Connecticut Vital Records Office. However, she was told that there was no record with the name Nedra Nance. She even faced accusations of attempting to create a false identity. One of the clerks even reported her to Child Protective Services.
As things got intense, White confronted Pettway, who then confessed that she wasn’t, in fact, her biological mother. Ann claimed that Carlina was abandoned as a kid. However, she wasn’t provided any further details. This led White to dig deeper into what really happened.
She began looking into newspaper reports, archives, and databases. However, for years, she continued to live with questions without any answers. After 2010, she expanded her search beyond Connecticut. In the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s database, she came across a photo of a baby that resembled her own daughter. After the discovery, she realized that she had been abducted as an infant. Carline called the missing child’s hotline and reported herself, as per a report.
It was then that she finally got to know the truth behind her birth. Authorities confirmed that she was actually Carlina White. They informed her that she was stolen from Harlem Hospital in August 1987. It was revealed that Joy White and Carl Tyson, her biological parents, took her to the hospital after she began suffering from high fever.
Pettway, who would later kidnap her, posed as a nurse and befriended her real parents. Then, she abducted newborn Carlina when Joy and Carl stepped away for a moment. According to the records, Ann attempted to take a child home from the hospital for weeks after she suffered multiple miscarriages. For the next 23 years, she raised Carlina as her own daughter in Connecticut.
After her crimes came to light, Pettway was sentenced to 12 years in prison on charges of kidnapping. Carlina’s real parents are not happy with the punishment. Despite everything, she herself testified on Ann’s behalf. “Even though she’s a kidnapper, she’s still the woman who raised me,” she said in court.
