A case that remained unsolved for 20 years has finally been solved. Here is the story!

When Celeste Nurse, then eighteen, awoke in a Cape Town maternity hospital in 1997, she found her newborn gone. She’d dozed off, her infant nestled against her chest. The young man was abducted by a lady posing as a nurse. The Nurses never gave up on locating her, so they celebrated her daughter’s birthday without her for 20 years.

Unexpected friendship at school
There was a stunning turn of events in 2015. Celeste Nurse’s second son introduced the nurses to Zephany, a new acquaintance.

Zephany bore a striking resemblance to her absent daughter, even having the same birthday. The Nurse family was so taken aback by the revelation that they called the police and requested a DNA study. It was a very confusing situation for all of them and they didn’t know what to expect from it.

And here, Zephany’s identity as her long-lost daughter was confirmed by DNA research. Celeste Enfermera stated, “The outcomes validated our inner feelings.

The detention and legal proceedings
Miché Solomon, formerly known as Zephany Nurse, was disoriented when the police initially questioned her.

Despite her birth certificate indicating otherwise, social workers at Retreat Hospital found no evidence of her birth there.

After the confirmation of the DNA results, Miché’s world came crashing down. Lavona Solomon, the person Miché had always believed to be her mother, has been taken into custody and is facing charges of fraud and kidnapping.

Lavona continued to proclaim her innocence throughout the trial.  She said that the baby had been given to her by a woman named Sylvia, although there was never any proof of this.

Ultimately, she was found guilty of kidnapping, fraud, and Children’s Act crimes and was sentenced to ten years in jail. Miché remembers, “It was like my life broke apart when she dropped the gavel.”

Meetings filled with emotion and unresolved feelings Miché’s social workers went with her to the police station to see her birth parents. While the nurses were ecstatic, Miché couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

Her biological family, whom she had never met, was ready to fill the missing emotions left by the dissolution of her cultural family.

It was a psychological and emotional battleground, with two families claiming me as their own. Miché moved back in with Michael Solomon, whom she views as her father, following the divorce of her first parents since she did not feel at ease living with either of them.