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Tuesday 16 August 2016

Woman Jailed 1o-Years For Kidnapping Newborn Zephany Nurse 19-Years Ago


Zephany Nurse, a 17-year-old South African girl, has been reunited with her family after being kidnapped when she was only 3 days old. She came into contact with her family by chance, after seeing her biological sister at school.
Nurse was kidnapped in 1997 just three days after she was born. She was taken while her mother was asleep. The police report said, “Zephany was only three days old when she was abducted by an unknown coloured female at about 15.30 out of the hospital.”

It continued, "The unknown female spoke to the mother about the baby and the mother fell asleep, when the nurse came to wake the mother up, Zephany was gone."
Even after 17 years, her parents always believed that they would get her back.
Her parents, Celeste and Morne, celebrated Zephany’s birthday every year. In 2010, her father said: “I'll never, ever give up hope. I can feel it in my gut - my daughter is out there and she is going to come home."
Classmates at school began pointing out how similar Zephany was to another student, and Zephany’s biological parents heard about the similarities.
They invited Zephany over for tea and called police after seeing her stunning resemblance to her sister. Police confirmed Zephany’s biological parents through a DNA test.
A 50-year-old woman was arrested for the kidnapping of Zephany. She raised her with a different name and as a part of her own family. Zephany never knew that the woman was not her biological mother.

Local media has previously reported that Zephany considers the woman who kidnapped her as her mother and does not wish to have a relationship with her birth parents, theBBC reported.

The South African woman who snatched baby Zephany Nurse from hospital nearly 20 years ago has been sentenced to 10 years in jail.
The woman had pleaded not guilty during her trial, claiming she believed she had legally adopted Zephany 19 years ago. She was found guilty of kidnapping in March this year. 

At her sentencing on Monday Judge John Hlophe in Cape Town said the crimes committed by the woman were serious, but that he had taken into account her previously clean record and other mitigating circumstances in deciding the sentence.

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