VIDEO: Carlina White Estranged From Family Again -- The Reason? Money
Feb. 8 2011, Published 9:50 a.m. ET
Carlina White, the 23-year-old Atlanta woman who found out she was kidnapped as a baby in 1987 from a New York hospital, has had a falling out from the family she reunited with last month over money, her teary-eyed mother Joy White told The Today Show on Tuesday.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, then-teenage mother Joy took Carlina, just 19 days old and running a high fever, to Harlem Hospital August 4, 1987 where she was allegedly kidnapped by a woman named Ann Pettway, who was dressed as a nurse.
As she grew older, Carlina was suspicious of her own identity and used search engines such as Google and Yahoo for information to learn more about her roots. At the same time, Officials from the Center for Missing And Exploited Children began working with New York police, while Carlina, after seeing photos Joy had posted on a missing children's website, told Joy she thought she was her long-lost daughter, which DNA tests proved correct.
Unfortunately, after an emotional, televised reunion earlier this year, Joy said she and Carlina have had a falling out, over long-since-spent money.
Watch the video on RadarOnline.com
"It's been pretty tough," Joy said Tuesday. "I wanted to have a relationship with my daughter ... everything seemed so great ... I was on such a high when I was reunited with my daughter ... I was floating on air."
Carlina has since moved back to Atlanta Georgia, and is using the name Pettway gave her after the kidnapping, Nedra Nance.
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Joy said she's "heartbroken, but I do have to understand that is her family, she was brought up by them.
"She's with that family," Joy said, crying. "That's all she knows. But I'm her mother. It hurts not to have my daughter. I want her back ... its like we're two strangers."
Joy said a sticking point between she and Carlina revolves around money she received from the hospital in 1992 as a settlement over Carlina's disappearance.
Both Joy and her husband Carl Tyson received $163,000 apiece in the settlement, with the rest held in a fund for Carlina if they found her before she turned 21 two years ago. They didn’t, and spent the money.
Joy said the money is "gone" and that she's "disappointed, because this was a miracle that happened. It's mind-blowing ... it really hurts me that it's about money."
Carlina declined to talk to the Today Show, who said she’s demanding money to do interviews.
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