The family of Carlina Renae White, a 23-year-old woman who was kidnapped from a New York City hospital as an infant and was recently reunited with her parents, is demanding justice in the case.
"I want her to go to jail," White's aunt, Lisa White-Heatley, said of the alleged kidnapper on NBC's "Today" show this morning. "I want [the authorities] to give the time they are supposed to give her for what she did -- what she did to my family.
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Carlina White was not yet a month old when she was kidnapped from a Harlem hospital on Aug. 4, 1987, authorities said. They say a woman posing as a nurse stole the baby, but they were unable to find any trace of the missing infant.
"[The kidnapper] destroyed my family," White-Heatley said on NBC.
Meanwhile, a girl known as Nejdra Nance grew up in Bridgeport, Conn. As a teenager, she began to suspect that she wasn't related to the family that raised her. And she was puzzled about not being able to get a copy of her birth certificate.
In December, Nance found a photo of a missing baby named Carlina Renae White on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's website. Officials then used DNA tests to confirm that Nejdra, who now lives in Georgia, is Carlina, the biological daughter of Joy White and Carl Tyson, who was 22 when his baby was kidnapped.
Nejdra, now 23, traveled to New York last weekend and met the family she had not seen in more than two decades. White-Heatley was at the reunion.
"It was a beautiful experience," she told NBC. "Just to see your niece after so many years. ... I was just so happy. I was so happy to see her. Then my sister seen her, [and] my sister started to cry, and Carlina said, 'Mommy, don't cry,' and my sister, she couldn't hold back the tears."
Even though the reunion was a joyous occasion, White-Heatley said the girl's alleged kidnapper needs to be brought to justice.
"My niece [has] been gone so long, and I think she [the kidnapper] deserves to be punished for that," she said.
Police have not named a suspect in the alleged abduction. According to the New York Post, the New York Daily News and The Associated Press, White was raised by a woman named Ann Pettway, and the Post alleges that she has a lengthy rap sheet that includes arrests for embezzlement, forgery and theft.
Pettway's current whereabouts are unknown. She is allegedly on parole, and the Department of Corrections in North Carolina issued a warrant for her arrest this afternoon, the Post reported.
Officials with the Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AOL News today.
According to a law enforcement source, the case is being investigated by both local and federal law enforcement agencies.
"Charges will likely be brought by federal law enforcement," the source told AOL News.
The FBI and the district attorney in New York both declined to comment on the case today. The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan said it could not "confirm or deny" the existence of an investigation.
That’s a scary story and it’s even crazier that the kidnapped gurl is a Leo like I am, as well as her last name is White. Just like mine, Weird!
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