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Suspect In '87 Harlem Baby Snatching Held Without Bail

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The North Carolina woman accused of kidnapping a baby from Harlem Hospital 23 years ago has been ordered held without bail on kidnapping charges.

Ann Pettway wore a blue prison jumpsuit, folded her hands, stared straight ahead and didn't say a word during her five-minute appearance in federal court Monday in Manhattan.

The kidnapped woman's biological father, Carl Tyson, stormed out of the court after facing the woman accused of kidnapping his daughter, reports CBS 2's Tony Aiello.

"I just want to know why, that's all I want to know," he said.

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WCBS 880's Peter Haskell with the latest on the case

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WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reports Pettway's attorney says this case is more complex than it appears.

Pettway confessed to taking the baby during an interview Sunday after she surrendered to the FBI and Bridgeport, Conn., police, a criminal complaint prepared by FBI Agent Maria Johnson said. Pettway surrendered days after a widely publicized reunion between the child she raised -- now 23-year-old Carlina White -- and her biological mother.

Carlina White Then and Now
Carlina White Then and Now

Pettway said she had had difficulty having her own children in the 1980s, was dealing with the stress of trying to be a mother and had suffered several miscarriages, when she went to the hospital and saw the baby, Johnson said.

"Pettway took the victim from the victim's family and this was totally unacceptable. Pettway is truly sorry,'' Johnson said Pettway told her in a written statement Sunday.

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1010 WINS' Juliet Papa reports' Pettway knew what she did was wrong and caused a lot of pain

After taking the baby, Pettway brought her outside the hospital and, when no one stopped her, proceeded to a train and on to her home in Bridgeport, Conn., where she told friends and family members that the baby was her child, the agent said.

"Pettway is sorry and knows that she has caused a lot of pain,'' Johnson wrote.

"She feels badly. She's very upset. She's expressed concern about her family. But she understands the gravity of the charges.," attorney Robert Baum said.

Pettway could face a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison or as much as life if she is convicted.

"Obviously it's alleged she made statements - we need to take a good look at the circumstances surrounding those statements," Baum said. "She's upset, she's concerned about the impact this has on all her members of her family. She is trusting all of the true facts will come out, and when they do, she will be looked at in a very different light."

Brian Pettway, a 38-year-old cousin of Pettway who lives in New Haven, Conn., said his cousin appeared pregnant in 1987 and disappeared, only to return with a baby the family assumed was hers. He said Pettway was a reliable, loving and trustworthy cousin, one of his favorites.

"This is so uncharacteristic,'' Brian Pettway said. "We're all left with our mouths opened. It's kind of like a double loss. We accepted her (Carlina White) as family. Unbeknownst to us, she was not our family.''

He said his cousin raised the girl "as best she could'' in a crime-ridden neighborhood. He said the girl seemed happy and pleasant.

"She just raised that baby like it was her daughter, like she sat in that delivery room and gave birth to her,'' Pettway said. "She never showed any signs of deceit.''

White was 19 days old when her parents took her to Harlem Hospital late on Aug. 4, 1987 with a high fever. Joy White and Carl Tyson said a woman who looked like a nurse had comforted them. The couple left the hospital to rest, but their baby was missing when they went back on Aug. 5, 1987. A police investigation failed to locate the baby.

Carlina White has been living under the name Nejdra Nance in Connecticut and in the Atlanta area. She said she had long suspected Pettway wasn't her biological mother because she could never provide her with a birth certificate and because she didn't look like anyone else in Pettway's family.

Johnson said in the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that a detective who interviewed the victim recounted that Pettway was quoted as saying she did not have identification for her because she had been given to Pettway by a woman who used drugs.

As the child grew up, she lived with Pettway in Pettway's home at times and with Pettway's mother, who also lived in Bridgeport, Johnson said.

Pettway's surrender initially came on a warrant from North Carolina, where she's on probation because of a conviction for attempted embezzlement, FBI supervisory special agent William Reiner said.

Carlina White periodically checked the website of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and while looking through New York photos early this month found one that looked nearly identical to her own baby picture. She contacted Joy White through the center.

White and Nance met in New York before DNA tests were complete, confident they were mother and daughter. After the test results confirmed it Wednesday, Nance returned from Atlanta to be with White again.

Johnson said Pettway during her FBI interview referred to the victim as Nejdra Nance but also sometimes referred to her as Carlina.

Pettway received two years of probation last June after she took items from a store where she worked, which is considered embezzlement under North Carolina law, state correction spokeswoman Pamela Walker said. Under terms of her probation, she wasn't allowed to leave the state.

Department of Correction officials there tried repeatedly to contact her after finding out investigators wanted to question her in Carlina's 1987 abduction.

North Carolina officials said Friday they believed Pettway was on the run from authorities.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

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