Judge Denies Florida Woman’s Request for a Lighter Sentence for Her Abductor

Kamiyah Mobley, 23, was a newborn at University Medical Center (now UF Health Jacksonville) in Florida when she was kidnapped, and she was raised by her abductor under the name Alexis Kelly Manigo. She didn’t discover the truth of her identity until 2016 when she was a junior in high school. Then nearly grown, she became defensive of her abductor who was also the only parent she had ever known.

Gloria Williams posed as a nurse and befriended 15-year-old Shanara Mobley in July 1998 before taking baby Kamiyah. However, she now claims that she has changed and worked hard to turn her life around. “I have a new perspective on life as a result of my experiences while incarcerated. Rehabilitation within the Department of Corrections comes only to those who sincerely desire to strive for self-betterment and change,” Williams claimed in a motion that she filed to cut her prison term in half.

Now 23, Kamiyah Mobley sent a letter to Florida Judge Marianne Aho in support of reducing the prison term for her kidnapper from 18 years to nine, with nine years of probation. In the letter, she stated that Williams “is my mother.”

“I had a well-rounded life; and I am an independent, college-educated, and deeply spiritual person, because of all my mom gave me. I am fully aware of how our lives came to be, what they are, and how my mom came to be my mom,” Mobley wrote, according to MSN.

Mobley took a DNA test that confirmed her identity as the stolen baby in 2017, and she met her birth parents that same year. Nevertheless, she said in her letter that she needs her mother (referring to Gloria Williams) home and asked for “grace and mercy” from the court in shortening her sentence.

Despite Mobley’s support, the judge dismissed the request from Gloria Williams to reduce her sentence. Judge Jeb Branham noted that Williams did not file her motion in a timely manner and "did not find a basis to undo the original sentencing judges' decision," reported First Coast News.