FBI: NC mom of kidnapped NY child now in custody
BRIDGEPORT, CT
Ann Pettway surrendered Sunday morning to the FBI and Bridgeport
police on a warrant from North Carolina, where she's on probation
because of a conviction for attempted embezzlement, FBI supervisory
special agent William Reiner said. She turned herself in days after
a widely publicized reunion between the child she raised, now an
adult, and her biological mother.
Pettway received two years of probation last June after she took
items from a store where she worked, which is considered
embezzlement under North Carolina law, state correction spokeswoman
Pamela Walker said. Under terms of her probation, she wasn't
allowed to leave the state.
Department of Correction officials there tried repeatedly to
contact her after finding out investigators wanted to question her
in the 1987 abduction of Carlina White.
North Carolina officials said Friday they believed Pettway was
on the run from authorities. They said Sunday they would seek her
extradition.
Carlina was just 19 days old when her parents took her to Harlem
Hospital in the middle of the night with a high fever. Joy White
and Carl Tyson said a woman who looked like a nurse had comforted
them. The couple left the hospital to rest, but their baby was
missing when they went back. No suspects were identified.
Carlina is now 23 and has been living under the name Nejdra
Nance in Connecticut and in the Atlanta area. She said she had long
suspected Pettway wasn't her biological mother because she could
never provide her with a birth certificate and because she didn't
look like anyone else in Pettway's family.
She periodically checked the website of the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children and while looking through New York
photos early this month found one that looked nearly identical to
her own baby picture. She contacted Joy White through the center.
White and Nance met in New York before DNA tests were complete,
confident they were mother and daughter. After the test results
confirmed it Wednesday, Nance returned from Atlanta to be with
White again.
Pettway remained in custody Sunday and couldn't be reached for
comment. She was to appear in federal court in New York on Monday
to face kidnapping charges, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.
Nobody answered when a reporter on Friday knocked on the door of
a house where Pettway lived in Raleigh, N.C. A woman who answered
the phone at a Pettway relative's home in Bridgeport on Sunday
refused to comment on her surrender.
Nance told the New York Post in an interview posted Thursday
that reuniting with her family was like a dream.
"I'm so happy," she said. "At the same time, it's a funny
feeling because everything's brand new. It's like being born
again."
Members of her biological family didn't return telephone
messages seeking comment Sunday.
Authorities had been considering whether federal investigators
would take the case because the statute of limitations may have
expired in New York, New York Police Department chief spokesman
Paul Browne said earlier in the week. There is no limitation in
federal missing-children cases.
A woman who lives near Pettway in North Carolina, Sonova Smith,
said Pettway mentioned that she had a daughter in Connecticut but
had moved to Raleigh with her son. Smith and Pettway both had
teenage sons who would often play together, and Smith said her
neighbor seemed to be a good mother.
"She was friendly. She was kind. She loved her son," Smith
said. "We talked about our boys often. She talked about family.
So, it's just really been surprising."