Carlina White was kidnapped from a Harlem hospital as a baby in 1987 and raised as Nejdra Nance by kidnapper Annugetta Pettway. Carlina naturally spent her entire childhood believing that Annugetta was her mother.
On August 4, 1987, Joy White and Carl Tyson took their newborn daughter, Carlina, to the hospital where the girl had a fever. Young parents, a little oh
ndi Carlina White from the hospital and raised the child as her own. It took more than two decades, and after Carlina herself became a mother, for the truth to emerge.
When Carlina began to suspect that her mother wasn’t really her blood mother, she began to investigate. Carlina started looking online and checked the NCMEC, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s database. It is the center for the search for missing and abused children in the United States and has by far the largest database of missing children in the country. It didn’t take long for Carlina to find herself, and as a result, she finally met her parents in 2011. After years of unhappiness and living in a web of lies, Carlina was finally home.
But what has been Carlina’s journey these 23 years?
welcome to the world
Carlina Renae White was born in the hospital in Harlem, New York on July 15, 1987. She was more than welcome to the world and parents had no words to express their admiration for the little girl. Carl and Joy were not a couple but were united in their happiness and determined to be united in raising the child. Carl therefore spent a lot of time at Joy’s with the newborn.
When Carlina was only 19 days old, she suddenly developed a fever which rose rapidly. The parents thought it was safe to have the baby checked out by a doctor, so they took her to the hospital where she was born.
During the examination, it was found that Carlina had swallowed amniotic fluid during childbirth and this had caused an infection. She was put on intravenous therapy, but her parents were told to go home and rest. Let them not worry, the child would be in good hands. Joy and Carl were skeptical, not wanting to leave their baby behind, but eventually gave in to taking the advice of the nurses, but there was one nurse in particular who comforted them and she especially encouraged them to go home. It later emerged that the woman was not a hospital employee, but had been seen wandering there three weeks earlier. The staff were told to keep an eye out for his return, but for some reason no one noticed this new employee.
Disappearance
Between 2:30 a.m. and 3:55 a.m., the woman crept up to Carlina’s crib, removed the tube from her arm, and quietly pulled her away. There was actually a CCTV system installed at the hospital, but it was broken that night and there were no witnesses to the theft.
Carl Tyson would later describe the nurse who greeted them and then urged them so strongly to return home.
Carl and Joy were home but upset that they weren’t with their daughter and decided to return to the hospital. Carl’s girlfriend was visiting and Carl drove her home and followed her inside. He had planned to take a nap before returning to Joy and they went to see little Carlina.
But Carl had barely closed his eyes when the phone rang. On the other end of the line was a police officer who had gone to Joy White’s apartment and informed Carl that her daughter was missing.
Carl’s girlfriend heard the call and started screaming uncontrollably as soon as she heard the word disappear.” It’s safe to say that her reaction largely mirrored the reaction of most who had heard of the theft. .
never before
A baby had never been kidnapped in New York in those days, and no one really knew how to handle the situation.
It didn’t help that none of the hospital staff seemed to know a thing or two and there were no witnesses to the theft. Nurses said they checked on little Carlina every five minutes and roughly agreed she left at 3:40 a.m.
But little by little more was revealed. Staff said they saw the same woman wandering the halls of the hospital for several months, acting strange and evasive. She told those who asked her that she was a nurse at the hospital and was confident in her answers that even real nurses believed her. Drawing a picture after the description, Carl confirmed it was the same woman he spoke to the night he and Joy brought little Carlina to the hospital.
A hospital security guard said he saw a woman exit quickly around 3:30 a.m., but he wasn’t sure she was holding anything.
Carl also recalled that the nurse said a rather peculiar phrase to him when he arrived with Carlina at the hospital. Was it something like the kids don’t cry because of you but you cry because of them. Did she mean they had no business being in the hospital, or at least that’s what we later believed.
The mysterious woman
A massive search has begun for the mysterious woman. Many suggestions were received, but none proved successful. Carlina White seemed to have evaporated from the face of the earth along with the unknown.
The woman’s name turned out to be Annugetta Pettway, born and raised in the town of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
She had repeatedly come into conflict with the law as a teenager due to robberies, assaults and arson, but police never took her seriously and said she was harmless. When Annugetta grew up, she was absorbed in and out of the drug world, was rootless, and struggled to find her feet in life.
By 1987, Annugetta had been in many relationships and suffered multiple miscarriages. She started telling her friends that she was pregnant again, but after a few months she disappeared. Family and friends knew that Annugetta was unpredictable and would probably have gone into labor in peace. When she returned to Bridgeport, her newborn daughter was with her, which obviously explained her temporary disappearance. Or so it was thought.
A question about paternity
It is unclear whether Annugetta ever revealed the child’s paternity, but most assumed it was Robert Nance, a man with whom Annugetta had a rocky relationship with whom they moved and dated regularly. one another.
Carlina White grew up in the early years in Bridgeport, but later moved with her mother to Atlanta, Georgia. When she came to her senses, she sometimes wondered if it was possible that Annugetta was not her mother, she was nothing like her and had never felt any particular connection with her, but thought it was just a nonsense to her. But still, there was always a doubt, something that gnawed at the girl and she couldn’t get rid of it.
Carlina became pregnant in 2005 and therefore naturally had to receive health care during her pregnancy. To apply, she had to present a birth certificate and she asked her mother for a copy. Annugetta hummed to it for a long time, but Carlina pushed hard for the certificate, and in the end Annugetta gave it up.
Carlina, on the other hand, was informed that the certificate was fake.
Paternity?
Carlina demanded answers from Annugetta and she confessed that she was not her biological mother. She told Carlina’s mother that she had abandoned her at birth, had been a drug addict, and wanted nothing to do with the child. If Annugetta had saved Carlina.
The following year, Carlina Annugetta continued to demand information about her birth mother, but Annugetta said she didn’t remember much, it was too long ago. The next year was the same, there were no answers, and Carlina didn’t believe a word Annugetta said and started searching the internet for answers.
And ended up on the NCMEC site where she looked at a baby, abducted from a New York hospital in 1987. Her year of birth. And besides, the little girl in the photo had a birthmark in the exact same place as Carlina.
Annugetta’s sister, Cassandra Johnson, had always suspected something was wrong with her niece, and when Carlina asked her for help, she was quick to respond. She contacted NCMEC, who then contacted police, and Joy White and Carl Tyson were quickly called to a meeting, just before Christmas 2011, and told their daughter could be found. A DNA test quickly confirmed everyone’s suspicions.
Happiness was great. Joy said she always knew that if she ever found her daughter, she would have never doubted Carlina would be alive. She would have felt it in herself as a mother.
Difficulties
Carlina struggled to connect with her blood relatives at first, she especially found it odd to have a father, but Annugetta had never lived with her alleged child’s father. Carlina said it was completely foreign to her.
Specialists helped and gradually a closer relationship began to develop and extended families welcomed Carlina with open arms.
Her grandmother said that Carlina nailed the pattern from the first meeting and it was pure adventure.
In January 2011, Annugetta turned herself in to the police as there was a warrant for her arrest. She was charged with kidnapping and sentenced to 12 years in prison. It was released in 2021.
Carlina, who had never known any name other than Nejdra, changed it to Carlina. She had a harder time adjusting than her parents and said in an interview that she had long been full of guilt over Annugetta, the only mother she knew. And loved, despite everything. However, the relationship between Joy, Carl and Carlina has grown beautiful over the years.
Carlina said in a recent interview that she will probably never be completely mentally healthy, she will always be accompanied by her love for Annugetta and her blood relatives, but she is as healthy as can be.
“I know who I am and I know where I’m from. And that’s priceless#
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