Kamiyah Mobley

Hours after she was born in a Jacksonville hospital, newborn Kamiyah Mobley was abducted by a woman posing as a nurse. For 18 years, her biological family searched for answers while Kamiyah grew up in South Carolina under a different name, unaware of the truth about her identity. Join Mike and Gibby as they examine one of the most shocking infant abduction cases in modern American history — the kidnapping of Kamiyah Mobley, the woman who raised her as her own, and the emotional aftermath that unfolded when the truth finally came to light nearly two decades later. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetime Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hello everyone and welcome to episode 497 of the True Crime All The Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?

• 0:09Speaker 01

  I'm doing good. How about you?

• 0:10Speaker 00

  Doing great, man.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  Having a good week, but I got a lot of stuff coming up. We talked about it on Patreon. Obviously, we're going to Crime Con later this month. Then I'm back for a week and then I turn around and jet off for my daughter's wedding.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  One busy guy.

• 0:26Speaker 00

  That's a lot of leaving the house for me. It really is.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  A lot of anxiety for you.

• 0:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, no doubt about it. All right, buddy. You ready to get into this episode of True Crime All The Time?

• 0:35Speaker 01

  I am.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  We're talking about Kamiyah Mobley. Kamiyah Mobley was abducted from the hospital just hours after she was born. And then 18 years later, she was found alive and well, having been raised by the woman who kidnapped her.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  This is so bizarre.

• 0:51Speaker 00

  It is, but fascinating at the same time. On the morning of July 10th, 1998, 16-year-old Shanara Mobley gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Kamiyah. According to News 4 Jack's, Kamiyah's father, 19-year-old Craig Aiken, was in jail on a charge of lewd assault for having sex with a minor. Because Shanara was 15 when she got pregnant.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:18Speaker 00

  However, the Post and Courier reported that Craig was in jail on a minor marijuana charge. So there's a little bit of discrepancies in the reporting. But a few hours after Kamiyah was born, a woman walked into Shanara's hospital room and introduced herself as a nurse. She spent a couple of hours in the room. And then around 3:00 PM, she told Shanara she needed to take the baby out of the room for a few minutes to check her temperature, which to me would seem strange.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  It would.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  But if you're a 15-year-old new mother, all right, maybe you don't question that because...

• 2:02Speaker 01

  You don't know.

• 2:02Speaker 00

  You don't know yet, right? We're sitting here saying, well, it sounds strange and our kids are grown. So we've been through all the... The things.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  It's also coming from a person of, I don't want to say power, but it's somebody that you trust.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  Authority.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Authority, right?

• 2:19Speaker 00

  Should, should know what they're doing. And most of the time when somebody like that says something, you believe them because they're the professional.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  In that field.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  The nurse comes in and says, I need to take your temperature. I believe her and I flip over and I wait for her to do whatever she's got to do.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. Cause for some reason you prefer to get your temperature taken that way. I still don't understand it.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  More accurate.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  They have the scanner things now, much less invasive. But as this woman was walking out, Kamiyah's paternal grandmother Velma Aiken walked in. The woman told her they needed to do a, a quick test. And would be back in 15 minutes. Velma was disappointed because she wanted to see the baby. The woman briefly showed Velma the baby's face and then left the room.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  I'm sure Velma was disappointed by that, but also think she probably thought something was somewhat strange.

• 3:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, the, something definitely bothered her. She asked Shanara why the nurse had a purse on her shoulder. Velma even said, you don't think that lady's trying to take your baby?

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Wow. Talk about foresight.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  But yeah, well, it is weird, right? If you're working as a nurse, you're not taking your purse from room to room.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:36Speaker 00

  With you. Shanara called, uh, one of the nurseries and was directed to another. She was told her baby was not there.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Man.

• 3:47Speaker 00

  I mean, you, we, we talk about it a lot, right? What's the point in time where somebody really starts to get worried? And this one goes from zero to a hundred, like right away.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, real quick. I mean, and I'm thinking, you know. I don't know what it's like, but to carry a child for nine months, go through the delivery process and then you find out your baby's lost, missing.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, it would be horrible.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:16Speaker 00

  Shanara threw herself onto the floor. She started crawling to the hallway screaming for help, but it was too late. The woman never returned with Kamiyah. And this is, I mean, it's an unbelievable situation.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  It really is. It's just, it's hard to, to think that that can happen. And if it did happen, how you, how someone would get through it?

• 4:42Speaker 01

  It's just to me, it's, it sounds like a nightmare. It is a nightmare. And, um, you know, I know when I had my kids, they had better protocol.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, absolutely.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  You know, so.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  But, you know, also, this was, this was like 1998.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  It wasn't.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  So it was about the same time.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe it's just based on different hospitals and things, but I know like today, the protocol's really tight.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  It's really tight.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  With, uh, but, uh, yeah, I mean, this is not, we're not talking about like the 1950s here, where you could probably just walk in and.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Grab the one you want.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  Grab a baby, I guess, out of the nursery. But, uh, so investigators later learned that the woman told hospital staff she was a Mobley family member and told Shanara she was a nurse. The kidnapper was described as between 25 and 47 years old, wearing a nurse's flower print jacket, teal scrubs and surgical gloves. And I, I don't know why this always gets me. Now I get, I'm terrible with ages.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  Not good with ages at all, but that is such a span, 25 to 47.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Pretty big gap.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  It really is.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:04Speaker 00

  I think I could tell the difference between a 25 year old and a 47 year old, but maybe not, maybe not. The, the other problem was the hospital surveillance footage was just too grainy to identify the woman and the camera in the nursery was broken. Cause that's where they really would have gotten a, a good picture of her, probably.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Seems like we always have these. Broken or um, malfunction cameras.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  Or, you know, in, in a lot of cases back in the day, there's a lot of, and there probably still is, but you know, smaller stores that just had like the fake camera.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  It really wasn't attached to anything, wasn't recording anything.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Just trying to scare people off.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. The search for Kamiyah became a, a national story. Over the years, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, received over 2,500 tips. And that's a lot of tips.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  That is a lot of tips.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  I mean, obviously it's the span of time, but, and, and it goes without saying, Chanel was devastated. And her pain was amplified when Kamiyah's father was considered a, a suspect in her daughter's abduction. And she was as well, they, like the two of them were accused of giving the baby away or selling her.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  So on top of not having your child, missing your baby that you gave birth to, but didn't really get a chance to do any bonding with. Now you're being accused of something like that.

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. When we talked about it quite a bit in Unsolved Episodes where somebody dies, spouse, a significant other is looked at right away. And let's say they really are looked at, they're not, you know, ruled out. Well, you, you have that kind of same situation where they're grieving the loss of their loved one, but at the same time, they're kind of battling this suspicion.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:07Speaker 00

  So it's gotta be like doubly tough. The hospital where Kamiyah was born, UF Health Jacksonville, added wristbands and ankle bands for newborns, limited access to the maternity ward, security, and they even started kidnapping drills. Which again, kind of something that comes up all the time. We put things in place as a reaction to something that happened.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  Unfortunately, that's just the way it it seems to be. It'd be great if we could foresee everything and and put things in place beforehand, but it we've never been like that.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  No, it's it's it's tough to have, you know, a control in place until you know why you need to have

• 8:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, it really is. Shanera later later sued the hospital and was awarded a 1.5 million dollar settlement. And you would look at that and say, well, it's a lot of money. And yeah, it is. But it's it pales in comparison.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Not a replacement for your child.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  No, to to what happened to her. Other hospitals across the nation increased security in maternity wards after the kidnapping. Kamiyah Mobley was missing for 18 years. Shanera later recalled how she never stopped thinking about her daughter and how she honored Kamiyah's birthday every year.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you had those milestones, right? The birthdays, the holidays. And then, like, unfortunately, she missed all those other milestones, right? The first time your baby crawled.

• 9:42Speaker 00

  Walk, talk, yeah.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  All those important things that she didn't get to participate in.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  It's really sad.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  It really is.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  Really is. Kamiyah's biological family in Florida had no idea. She was living in South Carolina with a woman named Gloria Williams. This turned out to be the woman who kidnapped her. Gloria would later admit that just before the kidnapping, she left her job at a nursing home in Charleston, South Carolina, still dressed in her scrubs. But instead of going home, she kept driving. She said she was going through a difficult time. She had just lost her sons to their father in a custody thing. She was in an abusive relationship and her boyfriend was in jail for a short time. The month prior, she had

• 10:33Speaker 00

  a miscarriage and hadn't told anyone. So Gloria leaves work. She drove four hours to Jacksonville and stopped at a hospital, random.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:46Speaker 00

  And then she just went to the nursery. And was watching the babies. I mean, obviously there was some stuff going on in her life.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:55Speaker 00

  It's not normal to get off work and just drive four hours and stop at a random hospital.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  No, that's not typical at all.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  She then entered room three twenty eight where Shanara was staying, spent several hours with her before abducting Kamiyah by placing her in a bag and sneaking her out of the hospital. And you know, for me, you want to say, or you want to think at least that that just shouldn't be possible.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, shouldn't happen that way.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  But it did. She drove Kamiyah back to South Carolina and then passed her off as her biological daughter. She renamed her Alexis Kelly Migno. Gloria's mother was surprised when she arrived home with a baby. Gloria said she had gone into labor while at work and then went to the ER. She had been gone overnight, so it was odd, but not implausible.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  So it kind of didn't make sense, but there was enough stuff there that maybe it did happen that way.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Well, we, we mentioned, I mentioned it, right? She had a miscarriage.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:03Speaker 00

  So I think people knew she was pregnant. She hadn't told anybody about the miscarriage. I don't know how far along she was. But there are people who don't really show a lot.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that happens probably more frequently than people realize.

• 12:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, when I was much, much younger, I worked with a lady and she said she was nine months pregnant. She did give birth right after that. You couldn't even tell she was pregnant.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:36Speaker 00

  She was very thin and just didn't really show at all. I was shocked.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Probably just a tiny baby bump.

• 12:44Speaker 00

  I, I didn't even see that. I, I thought it was strange, but I've since learned or seen other people that they just don't gain that much weight. Somehow, Kamiyah later recalled that she had a happy childhood with her family. She had a close bond with Gloria.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's probably did happen, can't, could happen that way. But how do you excuse how she became your, your mom?

• 13:11Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, I mean, that's going to be tough for Kamiyah.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  But I, I think going back to what you said, I, I don't think we're talking about a serial killer here.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  No.

• 13:23Speaker 00

  Not to downplay what she did, because what she did was absolutely horrible. But she might've been a really good mother.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  To, to this person.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, good mom, a good person generally, besides this.

• 13:36Speaker 00

  Could have been.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  This could have been the only bad thing she did in her life.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, but it was horrible.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  It was.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  Gloria's life improved greatly. She left her abusive boyfriend, regained custody of her sons and even remarried. In an interview with Good Morning America, Kamiyah said, she was very open to all my friends. I brought through that door. She was one of those mothers, she was like, open to sleepovers, open to company, always smiling, always upbeat, up tempo about everything, very hardworking. See, she was actually getting her masters before she was incarcerated. So, I mean, again, according to Kamiyah, she had a great childhood. But like you asked, the, the question's going to be, how does she react when she finds out? And what does she do with that information?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  And what does it, yeah, like you said, well, how's she going to react? Because you had this great childhood, but how much of it was real? I mean, it's real, but not with your birth mom.

• 14:40Speaker 00

  No, but everything was real.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  It was said that Kamiyah learned the truth when she was 16 years old. She tried to apply for a job, but she couldn't because she didn't have a social security number. Gloria broke down and admitted that she had posed as a nurse and abducted her. She explained that she was in an abusive relationship, had a miscarriage and raised Kamiyah as her daughter.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Wow, you imagine being a 16 year old hearing that story?

• 15:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know some people find out later in life that, that they were adopted. And I'm sure that can. You know, come with its own struggles, right?

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:27Speaker 00

  Hard to deal with, but this is a different situation. You weren't adopted, you were stolen.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  And you lived your life for the first 16 years under a lie. Now, it might've been a good life.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  But it wasn't completely truthful.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:46Speaker 00

  Obviously. According to the Post and Courier, Gloria offered to turn herself in and Kamiyah said no. Kamiyah knew what Gloria did was illegal, but she didn't want to lose the woman she considered her mother. So she kept the secret.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Because she had a good life, you know? I'm guessing if she had a terrible life, maybe she would have thought differently.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  But drop a dime on her, yeah, real quick. But I think that that kind of answers your question, right? What do you do with that information? I mean, if you're Kamiyah, this woman Gloria is the only mother you've ever known.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:26Speaker 00

  She is your mother for all intents and purposes, right? Do you want to lose your mother and have her go to prison? And I think for Kamiyah, she said, no, that's, that's not what I want.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  I want stability.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  And I can't blame her for that. I mean, it's, I think it would be hard to. Now Kamiyah did tell a friend about her real identity. In 2016, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received an anonymous tip regarding Kamiyah's whereabouts. That tip was sent to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. They found an 18 year old girl living in Waterboro, South Carolina, with a different name, but Kamiyah's birthday. So investigators obtained a court order for DNA testing, which confirmed Alexis Manigo was Shanara Mobley's daughter.

• 17:26Speaker 00

  And I think we have to talk about Shanara here, right? She has spent 18 years, in her own words, not a day went by without, you know, thinking about her daughter, wondering where she is, what happened to her.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  I mean, imagine going through all of that and then eventually learning that your daughter's a lot and well, but living under a different name, having been raised her entire life by the woman who kidnapped her.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  And that's a whole different problem, right? I mean, you're happy, you know where your daughter is now, but then you find out that she's happy. Do you say to yourself, ah, do I want to cause problems and interrupt that? You know, do I want her to have to go through all this trauma?

• 18:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, you're gonna have, there's gonna be tough choices.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  With everyone involved. Kamiyah has to make a tough choice. Shanae is gonna have to make a tough choice. Does she reach out? Does she, you know, what does she do? Kamiyah was informed of the results and on January 13th, 2017, 51 year old Gloria Williams was arrested and charged with kidnapping and interference of custody.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:51Speaker 00

  Which she should be, what she did was extremely criminal.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  It was.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  She might've been a great mom to Kamiyah and Kamiyah's even said so, but that doesn't excuse you from what you did, right? You gotta pay for your crime.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you kept the real mom from being a mom.

• 19:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it was that same day that Gloria was arrested that Shanae Mobley learned Kamiyah was alive and safe. She described it as one of the happiest days of my life.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  Again, I cannot imagine these emotions. And I don't think anybody can really fully understand them unless you've lived through it and who, how many people have lived through something like this?

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, exactly. Wouldn't want to.

• 19:35Speaker 00

  Baby is stolen right after it's born. 18 years later, you find out that your daughter is alive and has been living with the woman who kidnapped her. Kamiyah traveled to Florida to meet her biological mother, father, and five younger siblings.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Man, whole family waiting on her.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  She also maintained relationships with her older brothers and grandparents in South Carolina, and Gloria Williams, who was in jail awaiting trial. In February 2018, she did an interview with First Coast News, and Kamiyah said she doesn't see herself as a victim. She said, "Everybody's always asking me how you're handling stuff. To be honest, I dealt with it probably better than what people think."

• 20:22Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  You know?

• 20:25Speaker 00

  I don't know that everybody would, but it sounds like she... To her, it wasn't like the biggest deal in the world, I guess.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Maybe that's because she had a good life versus somebody that might have had a really shitty life.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, she even said that she made jokes about having more than one mom. So, I mean, yeah, for her to say she's taking it pretty well, I would say, yeah, she is. Now, she's also known about this for a couple of years. I remember we said she found out when she was 16 years old.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  This is now two years later. So, it's not like the bombshell is just being dropped on her.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  She's had some time to deal with it, think about it.

• 21:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. She also talked about how she was focused on the future, saying, "What I've been through is hard, but not hard enough for me to be sad all the rest of my days. My future is only going to get better." So, she does have a positive outlook.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  It is a good way to look at it.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  It is.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  You could go back and dwell over the last 18 years and say, "Oh, poor me," and this and that, but...

• 21:35Speaker 00

  What could have been.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  I do agree with you. I think if she would have had a terrible life, childhood with Gloria, maybe you have more of that "what if," right? How much better would my life have been if I wasn't kidnapped and I was with my biological mom?

• 21:56Speaker 00

  Sounds like she had a good life, so she may have not had as much of that. You're always gonna have some. She said about Gloria's fate at her impending trial. Of course, I'm not going to say throw her in jail and throw away the key or throw her underneath the jail. I don't want to see so many years, but I understand a crime was done. So I understand some punishment has to be rendered.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  I mean, if you think about what she did and what those impacts were to your real mom. I mean, those are pretty substantial impacts, right?

• 22:31Speaker 00

  It's a serious crime.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Taking.

• 22:34Speaker 00

  It's a federal crime.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  It's a federal crime.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  Right? It's kidnapping, crossing state lines. All of that's federal.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  But you know, your biological mom is every day worried. What happened to you? Where are you at? What's going on? What happened to my girl? And to live that every day would be so traumatizing.

• 22:57Speaker 00

  Well, and I think if you're Kamiyah, you have to be cognizant of that. You have to think about that, but at the same time, the only mother you've really known is in jail and you don't want her to go away forever.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  You don't want her to suffer either because that's somebody you have love for.

• 23:17Speaker 00

  So Kamiyah explained that she was able to stay positive because that's just who she is as a person. She said, I just think things are going to get better. I always believe that. I just think there's always a rainbow on the other side. She also said that Gloria was still a mother behind bars. And she said, she stays on me hard. Like, hey, what are you doing? You got this yet? What are you doing? What college you going to?

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  So it's a very strange story for us.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  It is.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  You know, normally the perpetrator is this horrible person kind of throughout normally. Right? Down to their core. I don't know that Gloria Williams was that type of person. Again, what she did was horrible and criminal.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:09Speaker 00

  But I don't know that she was a horrible person outside of this one incident. She certainly wasn't horrible to Kamiyah.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  It sounds, it sounds like she was probably. Good all the way around, except for how she got.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  Which is really strange, right? When you think about a true crime case, even for people who seemingly lead a good life, there are a bunch of people that normally come out after the fact and say, oh yeah, but let me tell you this story and that story and, and all of that about someone after, you know, what they did's been revealed.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  But you know, when a, for a woman to have a miscarriage, that could take somebody that, you know, has never done anything wrong, doesn't want to do anything wrong, but that can put them in a different space in their mind. And maybe they end up doing something that they normally would never, ever do.

• 25:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I think it's something that we'll definitely talk about. Kamiyah's father, Craig Aiken, told First Coast News, I blame the hospital before Gloria because ain't no way she shouldn't have been able to get in there and steal the baby like she did. I do blame the security at the hospital. I blame them because if it wasn't here, it could have been somebody else.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree with them. I think the hospital, that's why the hospital would have paid them, you know, 1.5 million.

• 25:30Speaker 00

  And changing a bunch of protocols. Obviously it was too lax or whatever. Craig also said that it felt as if Shamaya was never gone and she fit in seamlessly with her sibling.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  That's always nice.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, it's amazing. Shanara told First Coast News, they were working on their relationship and Kamiyah had grown closer to her father. So the whole, the whole thing is somewhat of a feel-good story in a weird way, with the exception of Gloria, right? She's in prison or she's awaiting trial, most likely gonna go to prison, but even Kamiyah doesn't hate her. She still thinks of her as a, as her mother. Now she's got this other mother, her biological mother and father and other siblings, and they're working on

• 26:24Speaker 00

  a relationship. On February 12th, 2018, Gloria Williams pleaded guilty to kidnapping and interference with custody. In Florida, kidnapping carries a possible life sentence, but the plea deal limited the maximum sentence to 22 years.

• 26:43Speaker 00

  You know kidnapping is is no joke and it should be a very severe sentence.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  Now kidnapping does get thrown around in some strange circumstances.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  It does.

• 26:56Speaker 00

  Right? I've seen it like in a robbery scenario where you lock somebody or take them from one room to another and technically that becomes kidnapping. This is like what I think of true kidnapping. I don't want to say the other ones or not, but um, this is what I think of as kidnapping. You take you're taking someone away from wherever they are and taking them somewhere else against their will.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  And that's kind of everybody thinks of the old.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  School kidnapping.

• 27:28Speaker 00

  Kind of the old school definition of kidnapping. To help make the decision on sentencing, the judge held a hearing in early May to gather testimony. Shanara Mobley gave an emotional statement during the sentencing hearing. She recounted what she felt when Kamiyah was born, saying per First Coast News. It was like God was giving me another chance to straighten up and I had a reason to. As a teen, she ran away from home. She was, you know, having fun, but one day she woke up and didn't want to do those things anymore. She found out she was pregnant a couple of weeks later and she wanted to better her life. But she never got the chance to take Kamiyah home from the hospital and and raise her.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  She said Gloria Williams spent hours with her and her baby. Shanara recalled, she was real nice. I trusted her. Oh my God, that woman touched me. She preyed on a child because I was young. She preyed on a child and took my child. And again, you can't lose sight of the fact that Shanara was only 15 years old.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Right. She was a baby herself at that time.

• 28:38Speaker 00

  And had just gone through a delivery, had just given birth.

• 28:44Speaker 00

  She said she panicked when she realized Kamiyah was not supposed to be taken from the room. She threw herself to the ground and crawled on the floor trying to find them. And that's a visual.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  It is. Heart wrenching.

• 28:58Speaker 00

  Right? I mean, you think about what it's like after giving birth. I mean, I can't describe it myself, but saw my wife in that situation twice and she wasn't, you know, gonna jump out of bed and run after somebody. She was not in that, that condition. But it, it really just kind of paints a picture of what she was feeling at that time, that she's like just flopping out of bed crawling, because that's all she can do.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Anything she can possibly do to try to find her baby.

• 29:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. The days and months that followed were difficult. She had nightmares. She said she self medicated, thinking about suicide every day. People watching me all day, every day. No one was leaving me unattended.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  I mean, look, I mean, a lot of women will get that post pardon. Am I saying that right?

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Pardon.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Pardon, post pardon. Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  Post pardon. Like you've been, like after you've been pardoned.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. We're gonna pardon you again. Post pardon. And then if you have something like that with this, or just this alone, I mean, I think it'd be, even as a dad, I think it'd be hard to wake up every day, knowing that somebody took your child.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  But as the mom that carried and delivered, I don't, I don't know how you even function. The fact that she was able to function is amazing.

• 30:32Speaker 00

  I, I don't know. There for a while, maybe she wasn't.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:35Speaker 00

  Is kind of what I'm, I'm getting. She said, it doesn't heal now. I'm still hurting. When you're reaching out to my child, I am your mother, Kamiyah. I am your mother.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:47Speaker 00

  Chanel also said it hurt to see that Kamiyah had Gloria's number saved in her phone as mommy.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  But that's how she knew her.

• 30:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. But it's not gonna help or it's not gonna keep Shanara from feeling hurt.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  Right? She thought about Kamiyah every single day she was missing and would cry when she thought about. Shanara said she would recommend the death penalty if she could, but she recommended the maximum 22 year sentence, saying, because I need her away from my child, I need her far away where she can't contact my baby, where my baby can't even get to her.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you think about the fact that she took the baby away from her for 20, for 18 years, right? You know, so for her to have to go to prison for 22 years, I mean, it doesn't seem that harsh.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  Well, it should at least be as long as.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:45Speaker 00

  She's kept the, the child away from the biological mother, right? At least, which it is. Towards the end of her statement, Shanara said, I missed the first walk, the first word, graduating prom, I missed all that, but I was always trying to look at it like life is a positive to a negative. When she gets pregnant, I get to be the grandma. When she graduates, graduates college, I get to be there. The future has so much to offer us now.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  So, you know, again, she's being pretty positive as well. Now, she is reflecting back on all the things she missed and some of those we talked about.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  I don't think it's gonna be a easy steps forward. I mean, because you're always gonna have those moments that you're gonna think about all the things you missed out on and you're gonna wanna blame Gloria, which is the person that is to blame, but then you have to be kinda careful because your daughter.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  Has a special bond with that woman. Yeah. And the other thing that I was thinking about is, it's not like when the two of them get together, they have this instant mother-daughter bond, right?

• 32:59Speaker 00

  Because they never had it.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 33:01Speaker 00

  So it has to take some time to develop. Kamiyah chose not to testify. Gloria was the last to speak at the hearing. She said, I really just cannot tell you what was on my mind. In my head back then, I was a different person. My head was in a different place. I was just broken. I had a broken heart. I had a broken spirit. And you kind of touched on this earlier, but she did blame her miscarriage on her former boyfriend's abuse. The prosecutor asked why she didn't leave. Gloria said she tried to bring peace and assumed because he apologized, he wouldn't hurt her again. She thought she could change him.

• 33:46Speaker 00

  She said she didn't plan to kidnap a baby when she drove to the hospital. And she admitted that the joy Kamiyah brought her wasn't hers to take. And that's, that's a very interesting statement.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  And factual, it's, it's very true. Imagine the joy that your kids brought to you in the first 18 years of their life.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  All the different things. Now, there's things that are not so joyful, right? And raising kids, they can be a real pain in the, you know what, sometimes, but all in all, they're amazing. And there's so many great moments. She experienced all those.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  She did.

• 34:30Speaker 00

  And Shanara got none of those.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 34:33Speaker 00

  So for her to say, you know, those weren't mine to take. She's, she's correct. Like I always say, I wonder, you know, how much of this is kind of what I call courtroom speak? Which is, well, I know the judge or whoever wants me to say these things. I've got to say it a certain way to make myself, you know, not look as, or look a little bit less terrible. She said directly to Shanara and Craig, I know I wronged you and I'm so sorry. So many days, so many days. Just wanted to pick that child up and say, come on, let's get in this car and go.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  I just couldn't. When I left Jacksonville, I didn't look back. I didn't know what you went through. I know you hate me right now. I just love that child. So, and I never meant to hurt you. Never meant to cause you any harm, any pain, any of that. And I'm sorry. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. So, you know, there's a lot in there. The one thing that I do struggle with is when you say, I never meant to hurt you, never meant to cause harm. How could you think what you're doing is going to do anything else but that?

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you've got some blinders on.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. So, I mean, that is a little tough to, to understand, right? How Gloria could stand up and say that because I don't know how you don't think that's going to cause somebody harm stealing their baby. Now, she can say everything she wants to now, but that part, um, I struggle with.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  She also addressed Kamiyah using her birth name and said, I will always love you. The joy that you brought me, I thank God, the world can't take it away from me, but you're not mine. Your mother and father are sitting right here. So, again, I do think she loved Kamiyah very much. I also think some of the things she's saying, I don't want to say she didn't fully believe them because I don't know what's in her mind, but you can make the argument that, you know, those are things that a lot of defendants say. Because, or the, the types of things that defendants say, because they know that's what people want to hear.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're in the eye of the public now.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  Yeah. And they're in a little bit of CYA.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 37:04Speaker 00

  Right? How can I make myself look a little bit better? I'm not going to make myself look great because there's no way to do it. On June 8th, 2018, Gloria Williams was sentenced to 18 years, representing each year Kamiyah was missing. So, you know, they wanted death, they wanted life. There was a plea deal for 22. She got sentenced to 18.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  I think that's the minimum that. She should get.

• 37:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think any, anything short of that, and we probably would be up in our.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:35Speaker 00

  You could still make an argument that 18 years is not long enough.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  But I don't think, you know, I'm, I'm personally not going to jump up and down and say, oh my gosh, I can't believe it's that.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  We cover cases in Canada where somebody gets seven years for murder and in two years they're on day patrol, parole.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 37:58Speaker 00

  You know, it's, uh, it is what it is. Kamiyah's lawyer, Justin Bamberg, told First Coast News shortly after sentencing that Kamiyah had finally gotten a social security number and would soon take her driver's license test and start working.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, cause now she knows what her real name is.

• 38:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it, you know, that's the other thing about Gloria. She had to have known, right, that at some point in the future, this was gonna come up. Right? You need a social security number to do certain things.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  So either start working with somebody to get a fake one, or you're gonna have to come clean.

• 38:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. So because she didn't do the first part of that, she had to have known that at some point in time, she was gonna have to come clean. Kamiyah has chosen to use her birth name on her official paperwork, but she also didn't mind being called Alexis. Bamberg explained, she has accepted her hybrid type presence, so to speak. And I get that. I mean, you know, here's a, a woman who is kind of living in two different worlds almost. She, she has the past where for 18 years she was Alexis.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's how you know yourself.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  And now she knows her, her birth mom and dad. She's got some new siblings. She knows that her birth name was Kamiyah. Her legal name technically is Kamiyah, but.

• 39:36Speaker 00

  It's not like you can just throw Alexis out the window. That's who you were for 18 years.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it can be tough to move on from that.

• 39:43Speaker 00

  It was difficult for Kamiyah to get a social security number because she had to prove her identity. Her birth certificate has the name Kamiyah, but all of her other paperwork has the name Alexis Manico.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  I'd be like, haven't you read the newspaper, buddy?

• 40:00Speaker 00

  It's everywhere, right? It's a, it's a big case. In her first interview since Gloria was sentenced, Kamiyah told Good Morning America that she still loves Gloria, visits her in prison, speaks to her on the phone several times a week. She was still living in Walterboro, South Carolina, and was still getting acquainted with her biological family. She conceded that it was a balancing act to appease both families, but things were easier since the court proceedings were over and she felt closure. She said about Gloria's sentence, it was actually good because at least I didn't expect like eight and she got 18. I figured that was gonna happen, but

• 40:42Speaker 00

  I mean, she'll still be alive. They didn't give her like 30 or 45. She'll come out walking and talking. It's fine. In a July 8, 2018 interview with ABC News 4, Shannara Mobley said she and Kamiyah were not speaking.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  That's rough.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. She said she was willing to look past her disappointment when she learned Kamiyah didn't immediately alert police when she found out the truth. But Shannara was hurt. That Kamiyah said she hoped Gloria did not receive a long prison sentence. She said, I don't deal with disrespect. I wish they never would have found her. So that went south very quickly.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  Sure did.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  So she felt like that was disrespectful because Kamiyah didn't want Gloria to, you know, receive a very long prison sentence. And I, I guess I get that, but then I don't. Because like we talked about, right? For 18 years, that was the only mom she knew.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  Now she found out when she was 16, but. She didn't know her, her biological mom at all.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  But her mindset was, this is the person that gave me love.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  This is my mom.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's kind of like, uh, what's that syndrome? Stockholm syndrome? I guess a little bit, maybe, you know, your mind's conditioned that this is the person.

• 42:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't think that's like a perfect comparison, but we'll go.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I'm saying, but your mind's.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  I, I, yeah, I get where you're going.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  And for you as the, the biological mom to say, you need to just be on the same page with me. And you should, should have went to authorities right away and you should have.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  Or to be mad about that, that's kind of, I mean, I don't, I don't want to speak badly about Sinead either, but it's, it's hard.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  It's hard to understand that because it seems like they don't have a relationship at all.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  Now.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, tough.

• 42:45Speaker 00

  Assistant State Attorney Alan Mizrahi, who had occasional contact with Sinead, said in 2019 that the stories claiming they weren't speaking were untrue. On March 1st, 2023, Kamiyah's family faced another tragedy when her brother, 20-year-old Cravon Aiken and 19-year-old Devon Taylor were killed in a shooting in Arlington. 17-year-old Darian Mixon, a high school student, was charged in connection with the shooting. On April 1st, 2026, a jury found Darian Mixon guilty of double murder. He was also found guilty of armed burglary and grand theft auto. So it sounds like a, maybe like carjacking.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  Scenario. Gloria Williams has appealed her sentence several times. In a December 2023 filing, she asked for her guilty plea to be revoked. She argued that her counsel was ineffective and failed to investigate her mental health. They didn't ask for a hearing to decide if she was competent to proceed with trial. And they didn't prepare a defense, which gave her no option but to take a plea. According to the filing, Glory was diagnosed with depression, social anxiety disorder, PTSD, and pseudocysis, a disorder where a woman feels like and believes she's pregnant,

• 44:12Speaker 00

  but is not. Okay, we've done a lot of stories.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:17Speaker 00

  That is not something I've ever heard of. Her counsel sought an opinion from an expert, but didn't present that evidence or try to argue she shouldn't go to trial. Her pseudocysis was described as part of her motivation for the kidnapping and that she may have believed a lie that the baby was hers.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, maybe that would have changed the outcome of the trial.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't think so.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  No, but that's what she's gonna

• 44:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  claim.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  I mean, ineffective assistance of counsel is, you know, something that a lot of

• 44:53Speaker 00

  people file on, right? As far as appeals go, I do think there are a lot of things that attorneys, they look at and they make the decision. Is this in my client's best interest to introduce her or not? And they may have said, no, we don't think it is.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:11Speaker 00

  And if that's a case, then it's really not ineffective. It's just the decision that they made. But who knows? I mean, I don't think she would get another trial, but you never know.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 45:26Speaker 00

  In September 2025, her attorney was allowed to withdraw due to a conflict. Glory was appointed a new attorney and she's now waiting in evidentiary hearing on her motion for post-conviction relief. So could happen, could not happen, you never know. But as we wrap this one up, Gibbs, it's a different type of case. You know, you feel for Um, really everyone involved except for Gloria.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  It's hard for me to feel bad for her because she did something she wasn't supposed to. She did something criminal.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  But you feel bad for Kamiyah for a number of different reasons. And, and there it's, it's complex, right? She was taken away from her birth mother, but even from, you know, her own, uh, admissions to papers and, and outlets, she had a great childhood with Gloria.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:23Speaker 00

  And that's, that's the really strange thing here. It's not like she was kidnapped and kept in a dungeon. That doesn't make the kidnapping better.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  No.

• 46:33Speaker 00

  I'm just saying, and then I feel bad for Kamiyah because she lost the relationship with her kidnapper. And then I, I don't know how to feel about that.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  A lot of emotions.

• 46:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. And there, and some of them are weird.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:46Speaker 00

  Right? Kamiyah can't stop thinking of Gloria as her mom because it's really the only mother she's ever known.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  I mean, if that's what you've known every day for 16 years, it's going to be hard to reverse that.

• 47:00Speaker 00

  It is, it is. And then, you know, obviously you have to feel bad for Shanara because she missed out on so much. Like, like we said, I don't know what the state of their relationship is. If it's no relationship and that's because Shanara can't get past the, the issues of, you know, Kamiyah not turning Gloria in sooner or not wishing her a longer sentence. I mean, that, that would be a shame.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  It would be.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  It really would.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Hopefully one day they get past all that and baby steps and eventually find themselves spending more time with each other.

• 47:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, you would hope so.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:43Speaker 00

  But that's it for another episode of True Crime All The Time. So for Mike.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  And Gibby.

• 47:47Speaker 00

  We'll talk to you next week.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  See ya.