This has been a whirlwind week for a young lady the world knows as Alexis Kelly Manigo, but was born Kamiyah Mobley. On Friday, police filed kidnapping charges on the woman Kamiyah has known for 18 years as her mother, Gloria Williams. Because there is no statute of limitations, the woman that Kamiyah has known has her mom is facing a life sentence in prison. Williams kidnapped Kamiyah from University Medical Center in Walterboro, South Carolina back in 1998 when she was only eight hours old; she posed as a nurse in order to commit this crime. Kamiyah has this to say in an emotional Facebook post regarding Gloria Williams,“My mother raised me with everything I needed and most of all everything I wanted, my mother is no felon.” During a jail visit, Kamiyah burst into tears as she yelled for her mother and told her she is praying for her.
While losing the woman she has always known as her mother, Kamiyah has simultaneously been reunited with her birth mother and father. This past Friday at the Walterboro Police Department, the family was reconnected. Her birth father, Craig Aiken, told Channel 5 news that he is still in shock after a 45-minute reunion with his biological daughter. Aiken stated, “First meeting was beautiful, it was wonderful, couldn’t went no better… she was glad to meet us, it’s a feeling that you can’t explain it, it’s hard to put it in words right now it’s hard to deal with this here right now, we are just trying to process it, 18 years, it’s going to be hard to make that up.”
Many are concerned about how Kamiyah will be able to embrace the mother and father that gave birth to her, while trying to deal with the loss of the woman that has cared for her during an 18-year period.
While working on the issues from losing a mother, gaining a new family, and having to deal with a criminal trial, Kamiyah also has to deal with resolving issues with the man that she thought was her biological father. This week, ABC News conducted an interview with Charles Manigo to find out how he reacted after discovering the child he thought was his daughter really belonged to another family. In the interview Charles stated that it didn’t matter and Kamiyah “will always be his daughter.” However, Kamiyah had her own message for her father in a post that has since been deleted, but disputes the fact that Charles was a full-time father. Kamiyah wrote:
“YOU WERE NOTHING TO ME MY WHOLE LIFE, I CAN COUNT ON MY FINGERS HOW MANY TIMES I’VE SPENT THE NIGHT AT YOUR HOUSE….He didn’t even help with [anything] that was done for that prom, He was the reason I didn’t go to my senior prom.”
According to Charles Manigo, 18 years ago, Gloria Williams was his girlfriend, and had told him that she had given birth to Kamiyah while he was away. He went on to say he helped raise Kamiyah and had joint custody.
While the world continues to be fascinated by Kamiyah’s story; one cannot help but to feel worried about how an 18 yr-old, who’s life has become a social media mystery, is able to deal with all of this. According to CBS, Kamiyah has already been assigned counselors to help with the mental stress of this past week’s events. One can only hope that the Walterboro community and the world continues to pray that Kamiyah is able to find her strength through this ordeal.
Source: People
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