Woman made incredible discovery that solved her own abduction 24 years after vanishing as a baby
A woman who solved her own abduction after 24 years almost missed making the incredible discovery.
Nejdra Nance, known as 'Netty', grew up in Connecticut, US, in a fairly large family. She and her mum Annugetta Pettway seemingly had a good relationship, despite the parent dealing with a number of legal troubles in the early 90s.
Pettway had been arrested multiple times for drug possession and larceny.
Apart from that, life ran pretty smoothy for Netty up until 2005, when she became pregnant.
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Aged 17 at the time, Netty thought it was necessary to obtain health insurance, and a birth certificate was needed for the application.
However, her mum was unwilling to give it to her.
But after eventually giving in, Pettway handed it over, only for it to be classed as fake by the insurance office.
That's when the so-called mum confessed that she wasn't her real birth mum.
Despite the admission, Netty couldn't get much out of her, as Pettway just kept saying that she couldn't remember the details.
All she said was that her birth mum was a drug addict and didn't want her.
“Your mom left you,” Pettway told her, “and she never came back.”
Attempting to move on with her life after the pregnancy, Netty went to Atlanta with her daughter in 2009 - though the thought of not knowing her birth parents was eating her up inside.
She went and had a look at the Centre for Missing and Exploited Children's website, and spent hours looking at a photos of missing African-American children.
After hours and hours of searching, she spotted a missing-persons flyer for a very familiar-looking baby.
The image of the baby was strikingly similar to her childhood photos and this discovery brought her to the case of Carlina White, a baby kidnapped in 1987.
In 2010, Nejdra contacted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and after investigating her claims, authorities arranged for a DNA test.
It confirmed that Nejdra Nance was, in fact, Carlina White.
Netty was eventually reunited her with her biological parents, Joy White and Carl Tyson, while Pettway was subsequently arrested in 2011 and plead guilty to kidnapping, receiving a 12-year prison sentence.
“There was a part of me that wasn’t even there, and now I feel whole," Netty told NY Mag in 2011.
"Even in the beginning of the year, with all the drama and stuff, I was kind of cloudy. But now I know who I am. That’s the main thing—just to find out where you come from and who you are."
Anish Vij