Plot Synopsis

In New York City during the summer of 1987, new parents Joy White and Carl Tyson took their 19-day-old daughter Carlina to Harlem Hospital with a high fever. The baby was admitted and put on intravenous antibiotics. During the night Ann Pettway, who had suffered a series of miscarriages and was desperate for a child of her own, posed as a hospital nurse and walked out of the hospital with the baby hidden from view. Although the kidnapping took a terrible toll on their marriage, Joy and Carl desperately searched for their daughter over the years. Only 45 miles away, Pettway was raising Carlina as Nejdra "Netty" Nance in Bridgeport, Connecticut. As Carlina grew older she began to suspect Pettway was not her birth mother and launched her own investigation. After contacting the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, she was reunited with her biological parents in January 2011. On July 30, 2012, Pettway, who pleaded guilty to federal kidnapping charges, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.