Every year, on Zephany Nurse's birthday, her parents got a cake for their first daughter, who was stolen from her mother in a maternity unity as a newborn.
Gathered around the cake each April 28, Zephany's younger brothers and sisters -- Cassidy, Joshua and Micah -- heard about the sister they never met.
Last month, 17 years after Zephany's disappearance, Cassidy moved to Zwaanswyk High School in Cape Town. There was an older student who looked so uncannily similar to her that it drew comments from the other children.
Cassidy told her parents, Celeste and Morne Nurse, who had never given up hope of finding Zephany. After chatting with the girl and learning her birthday, Morne Nurse realized she could be his daughter.
He went to the police. DNA tests confirmed Zephany was the Nurses' child.
On Friday, a 50-year-old woman appeared in Cape Town Magistrates Court, charged with kidnapping Zephany, fraud and breaches of the nation's Child Care Act.
The accused woman and her husband have no other children. She never told her husband what happened, according to South African media, citing police. He reportedly loved the child, and believed she was his own daughter.
Now, neither family has Zephany. She has been taken into state protective care and met her biological family for the first time last month.
The aftermath of the crime pits two families against each other: the Nurse family, overjoyed at the hope of getting Zephany back, and the family and supporters of the woman accused of stealing someone else's baby after suffering several miscarriages.
"We grew up with the child, we took care of her," a distressed member of the accused woman's family told South African media last week.
Police told media Friday they were trying to negotiate a plea bargain with the lawyers of the accused. The deal would involve her serving prison time, but would avert a trial that might further traumatize two families and 17-year-old Zephany.
Among the state witnesses whom the prosecution would call in a trial are the woman's husband and other family members. They cannot be identified, in order to avoid identifying Zephany.
On Friday, Magistrate Mark Engel granted bail to the woman, who had been held in a police cell since her arrest last month. But he warned her not to try to contact Zephany, either in person, by phone, on Facebook or through any other means.
Celeste Nurse had given birth to her daughter in the Groote Schuur hospital by Caesarean section on April 28, 1997. In photographs taken just after the baby was born, she cuddles the infant, looking ecstatic and proud.
On April 30, Celeste Nurse dozed groggily in the hospital ward, her baby beside her. At one point, she woke up to see a woman dressed as a nurse beside her bed holding the baby, then she dozed off again. Later, she was woken by a nurse asking her where her baby was.
In South Africa, there have been scattered cases of infants being abducted from maternity wards. A woman who abducted a baby boy in 2009 was sentenced to 10 years jail.
In January, a baby boy was stolen from the same hospital Zephany was taken from.
Follow @robyndixon_LAT on Twitter for news out of Africa
Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles TimesAnda sedang membaca artikel tentang
South African teen stolen at birth found in chance encounter
Dengan url
http://sehatumbuah.blogspot.com/2015/03/south-african-teen-stolen-at-birth_6.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
South African teen stolen at birth found in chance encounter
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
South African teen stolen at birth found in chance encounter
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar