This New York Daily News article has a photo of the kidnapper and a booking photo from a former arrest. Her name is Ann Pettway. She looks nothing like Carlina, and Ann’s family (who, they say, were ignorant of the real facts) would joke about this.
The authorities are keeping it quiet as to what’s going on legally, other than to say no charges have been filed yet. (They keep calling her the “alleged” abductor. Heh.) They’re not saying where Ann’s at, if they even know. Perhaps she’s in jail already for something else. I believe this would be a federal crime, since Ann took Carlina across state lines.
I can see why there’s no rush to file charges. We all basically know what happened, and Carlina is out of danger and reunited with her family. I highly doubt Ann has the resources to be able to skip the country and live out the rest of her life in Morocco or something. There’s plenty of time to sort things out in the criminal courts. But I certainly hope charges ARE filed. Just because it took 23 years to find Carlina doesn’t mean Ann Pettway, and whoever may have helped her with this, should get away with it. This was a terrible crime.
The Charley Project Blog 
I am still blown away by this, hopefully this case even urges other people in simmilar circumstances to wonder about themselves.
I agree with you, hopefully other individuals will dig deeper into their past if they have any feelings of doubt about their paternity.
The HLN network has made a good point by stating that just because Anne is the “fake mother” doesn’t mean that she is the actual woman who kidnapped Carlina. If Anne is not the kidnapper this story could get interesting. If you think about the facts, how could a drug addict have enough sense to 1. get a nurses uniform, 2. patrol a maternity ward without other nurses and doctors getting suspicous of her odd behavior. If anyone has ever been in the presence of a drug addict you would immediately notice their nervousness, constant scratching and/or picking of their skin, etc.
It’s been pointed out elsewhere that this was Harlem at a time of very high crime. The hospital staff may have noticed that she was a little off, but had higher-priority things on their mind. (Also, she was in the ER, not the maternity ward: ERs are always crazy.)
Being a drug addict doesn’t necessarily mean you’re also stupid or can’t be coniving. In fact, lots of junkies are very cunning and coniving.
Black market baby maybe? Or something like Tiffany Stasi? I know her circumstances were way different, but the same outcome. The one comforting thing about a lot of these infant abductions (proven, that is), is that they may have been raised by someone who wanted them. At least they might be alive.
There was speculation she was a black-market adoption, along with some other black infants and toddlers who went missing in the area. It’s worth checking out.
Carlina apparently has a brother, whom her kidnapper raised. I wonder if he’s another missing kid.
Oh surely not … that would be getting quite crazy! Poor guy would maybe be wondering tho.
If authorities originally believed that the handful of cases (Shane, Andre, Christopher, etc) are connected, they may investigate the ‘brother’ too.
Almost certainly not connected, but fwiw, Carlina’s “mother”/possible abductor looks a whole like the suspect sketch of the woman who took Kamiyah Mobley in 1998. And what of Tavish Sutton, abducted much the same way as Carlina in 1993 from an Atlanta hospital?
Well, a couple things. Just because she’s a drug addict NOW does not mean she was one then. As a nurse, let me tell you how EASY it is to buy scrubs and look like you know what you’re doing/ that you belong at a hospital.
And I think that regardless of whether state lines are crossed, I believe that kidnapping is ALWAYS a federal crime – like child pornography.
Kidnapping is not a federal offense by itself. Crossing state lines is just one way it can become federal. A ransom demand will also do that.
I don’t know about back in 1987, but now nurses don’t just wear the old-fashioned white dress and cap and shoes. Lots of scrubs are as pretty as regular clothes and you see them not just on nurses but on dental techs or lab people or I’ve even seen them on cleaning staff sometimes.
You can buy scrubs at Wal-Mart, Dollar General, etc. My mom works as a hospital lab tech and she buys her scrubs there.
Does anyone have a list of other kidnapped infants? I can think of a few Marlene Santana, Tavish Sutton, Sabrina Aisenberg, Andre Bryant and Kamiyah Mobley.
https://charleyross.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/raymond-lamar-green-and-other-missing-babies/
Thanks for the link
I agree with SM Kamiyah Mobley’s abductor looks A LOT like Ann Pettway
Donel Minor, maybe Christopher Abeyta. His is pretty iffy though and so is Sabrina Aisenberg’s.
Vinyette Teague? She wasn’t a little tiny baby but she was only about a year or so old.
I know Vinyette’s mother on facebook. I’ll ask her.