New York Daily News: By Jessica Schladbeck – Kamiyah Mobley, a young woman who was snatched from a Florida hospital as a newborn, has asked for mercy for the woman who kidnapped her and then raised her as her own.
“I need my mother home,” Mobley wrote in a statement supporting a reduced prison sentence for Gloria Reynolds. Despite Reynolds’ crimes, the 23-year old said the person she knew as a parent and caretaker deserved “grace and mercy,” according to Action Jax News.
Williams was convicted in 2018 of kidnapping Mobley from a Jacksonville hospital in 1998, and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Hours after Mobley was born, Williams, dressed in a nurse’s outfit, took the baby girl from University Medical Center and then disappeared to her home in South Carolina where she renamed the infant Alexis Manigo.
Despite a massive search effort and hundreds of tips, the baby was never found.
Gloria Williams testifies during her sentencing hearing May 4, 2018, at the Duval County Courthouse in Jacksonville, Fla – Will Dickey / The Florida Times-Union via AP
Investigators finally got a break in the case in 2017, when tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children brought them to Walterboro. They quickly discovered a teen with the same date of birth but with a different name and phony identification documents.
A DNA test confirmed she was the missing baby. Mobley was 18 at the time.
Kamiyah Mobley, center, is pictured after being reunited with her mother, Shanara Mobley, and father, Craig Aiken – Facebook
Williams is seeking to have prison sentence cut in half, First Coast News reported.
“I have a new perspective on life as a result of my experiences while incarcerated. Rehabilitation within the Department of Corrections comes only to those who sincerely desire to strive for self-betterment and change,” Williams wrote in her motion.
She previously testified that at the time of the kidnapping, she “had just suffered a devastating miscarriage and was exhibiting symptoms conducive to postpartum depression, as well as experiencing extreme mental and emotional disturbance.” Williams added that when she took the child, she was not in her right state of mind.
Top Feature Photo: Kamiyah Mobley, who was raised with the name Alexis Kelly Manigo, sits in the courtroom before the sentencing hearing of Gloria Williams on Thursday in Jacksonville, Fla – Will Dickey/AP
