JACKSONVILLE, FL (WCMH) — For 19 years, Craig Aiken didn’t even have a picture of his daughter–only an artist’s rendering from a nationwide search.
The baby, named Kamiyah Mobley, was stolen from a hospital hours after she was born.
“(I) never gave up hope,” Aiken said. “always thought I’d find her.”
In a private reunion, he got the answer to his prayers.
“First meeting was beautiful, it was wonderful,” he said Saturday.
For so long, Shanara Mobley prayed her daughter was alive.
Police investigators say it was a DNA match that confirmed the teenager’s own recent suspicions that she might have been kidnapped. Police arrested a woman named Gloria Williams in South Carolina who raised Kamiyah as her own.
Kamiyah, now a teenager, was found living with Williams in the small town of Walterboro, South Carolina. Neighbors describe Williams as well-respected in the community.
Now, 200 miles south in Jacksonville, Florida, Kamiyah’s grandmother Velma Aiken is overjoyed.
“I haven’t seen her since that day was taken from the hospital,” Aiken said. “So I just got a big, big hug for her that’s all.”
Aiken says it was difficult to see images of the teenager at a court hearing for Williams–crying, their fingers touching through a grate.
“I saw her telling her mom that she loves her but that was the mom that she knew.”
She says she understands how confusing it may be, but wants Kamiyah to know she has been loved and missed by her real family, who never gave up hope.