Kidnapper Who Raised Newborn As Own Pleads Guilty 20 Years Later

JACKSONVILLE, FL — In the summer of 1998, a woman dressed like a nurse abducted a newborn in a Jacksonville hospital and disappeared. Now, two decades later, the woman has finally pleaded guilty to kidnapping and interference with custody.

Gloria Williams, 52, pleaded guilty in court on Monday, multiple media outlets reported, and seeks a prison sentence of between zero and 22 years under a plea deal. She will remain jailed until her sentencing in May.

Williams kidnapped Kamiyah Mobley and raised the girl, now 19, as her own child Walterboro, South Carolina, a city located on Interstate 95 outside of Charleston.

Williams renamed the girl Alexis Manigo.

DNA analysis matched Manigo with her birth parents.

Assistant State Attorney Alan Mizrahi told WJXT-TV that DNA evidence and some admissions was all the proof they needed.

"There wasn’t really much more to it than that. It would be a lot for anyone to go through, and we have gone through it," he said. "The defendant felt it was in her best interest to plead guilty, as did the state of Florida."

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office announced Williams' arrest on Jan. 13, 2017. A day later, Manigo was reunited with her biological parents in South Carolina. Later that week she told media outlets that Williams was a good mother.

Neither Manigo nor her birth parents were in court on Monday, the Florida Times-Union newspaper reported.

Photo credit: Jacksonville Sheriff's Office via AP