![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Selfie.jpg\" "\\"Selfie\\"\/")
In April 1997 a woman dressed in a nurse\u2019s uniform walked out of a Cape Town hospital carrying a three-day-old baby taken from the maternity ward as the baby\u2019s mother lay sleeping. It was only by chance, 17 years later, that the stolen child discovered her true identity.<\/p>\n
It was the first day of term at Zwaanswyk High School in Cape Town and the beginning of Mich\u00e9 Solomon\u2019s final year.<\/p>\n
And that January day in 2015, 17-year-old Mich\u00e9 was mobbed by other students excitedly telling her about the new girl, Cassidy Nurse, who was three years younger but looked almost identical to her.<\/p>\n
Initially, Mich\u00e9 didn\u2019t think much of it.<\/p>\n
But when the two girls later met in the corridor, Mich\u00e9 says she felt an instant connection she couldn\u2019t explain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI almost felt like I knew her,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was so scary \u2013 I couldn\u2019t understand why I was feeling like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the age difference, Mich\u00e9 and Cassidy began spending a lot of time together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say, \u2018Hey, baby girl!\u2019 And she would say, \u2018Hey, big sis!’\u201d Mich\u00e9 recalls. \u201cSometimes I would go to the bathroom with her and say, \u2018Let me brush your hair, let me fix you up with some lip gloss.’\u201d<\/p>\n Photo of Mich\u00e9 Solomon today<\/strong><\/p>\n When anyone asked Mich\u00e9 and Cassidy if they were sisters they would joke, \u201cWe don\u2019t know \u2013 maybe in another life!\u201d<\/p>\n Then one day the two girls took a selfie together and showed it to their friends. Some asked Mich\u00e9 if she was sure she hadn\u2019t been adopted. \u201cNo! Don\u2019t be crazy!\u201d she insisted.<\/p>\n Then Mich\u00e9 and Cassidy went home and showed their families the picture, too. Lavona, Mich\u00e9\u2019s mother, who called her daughter \u201cPrincess\u201d and would take her to the mall and to the movies, commented on how similar the two girls looked.<\/p>\n Michael, Mich\u00e9\u2019s father, said that he recognised his daughter\u2019s new friend \u2013 Cassidy\u2019s father had an electrical store where he sometimes shopped.<\/p>\n But Cassidy\u2019s parents, Celeste and Morne Nurse, gazed intensely at the photograph. They told Cassidy they had a question for Mich\u00e9, and when the two girls next met Cassidy came out with it: \u201cWere you born on 30 April 1997?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Why? Are you stalking me on Facebook?’\u201d Mich\u00e9 says.<\/p>\n Cassidy assured Mich\u00e9 that she wasn\u2019t stalking her, she just wanted to know when Mich\u00e9 had been born. So Mich\u00e9 replied that yes, she had been born on 30 April 1997.<\/p>\n Weeks later, Mich\u00e9 was unexpectedly summoned from her maths lesson to the headmaster\u2019s office, where two social workers were waiting. They told Mich\u00e9 a story about a three-day-old baby girl called Zephany Nurse, who had been abducted from Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town 17 years previously and had never been found.<\/p>\n Mich\u00e9 listened to the story unfold, feeling unsure why they were telling her this. Then the social workers explained that there was evidence to suggest that Mich\u00e9 could be the child who had been taken, all those years ago.<\/p>\n To set matters straight, Mich\u00e9 explained that she hadn\u2019t been born at the Groote Schuur Hospital \u2013 she had been born at the Retreat Hospital, about 20 minutes\u2019 drive away. That\u2019s what was on her birth certificate, she said. But the social workers replied that there was no record of her being born there.<\/p>\n Photo of Lavona Solomon pictured at home with the newborn Mich\u00e9<\/strong><\/p>\n Still feeling that this must all be some terrible mistake, Mich\u00e9 agreed to a DNA test.<\/p>\n \u201cI had so much belief in the mother who raised me \u2013 she would never lie to me, especially about who I am and where I come from,\u201d Mich\u00e9 says. \u201cSo my mind was made up that the DNA test was going to be negative.\u201d<\/p>\n But things did not go as she hoped. The test results came back the following day and proved indisputably that Mich\u00e9 Solomon and Zephany Nurse, the baby snatched from the Groote Schuur Hospital in 1997, were the same person.<\/p>\n \u201cI sat there in shock,\u201d Mich\u00e9 says. \u201cMy life was out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n The story of the stolen baby, now a young woman on the brink of adulthood, being found quite by chance almost two decades later made headlines in South Africa and around the world and Mich\u00e9\u2019s life changed immediately.<\/p>\n She was told that she would be unable to return home \u2013 it would be another three months before she would turn 18 and be allowed to make her own decisions. For now she had to stay in a safe house.<\/p>\n Then Mich\u00e9 received more devastating news. Lavona Solomon, the woman she had grown up believing was her mother, had been arrested.<\/p>\n \u201cThat broke me,\u201d Mich\u00e9 recalls. \u201cI needed her. I needed to ask her, \u2018Why? What\u2019s going on?\u2019 I was so overwhelmed that I belonged to someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n Photo of Eight-month-old Mich\u00e9 with Michael<\/strong><\/p>\n Mich\u00e9 was present when Lavona\u2019s husband, Michael \u2013 the man Mich\u00e9 regarded as her father \u2013 was questioned by police.<\/p>\n \u201cI could see the stress in his face, I could see the bloodshot in his eyes and I was really scared,\u201d Mich\u00e9 says.<\/p>\n The police wanted to know whether he was part of the kidnapping plot.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father is soft and he\u2019s gentle,\u201d Mich\u00e9 says. \u201cBut he\u2019s my rock, he\u2019s my hero, he\u2019s my daddy, he\u2019s the man. And here\u2019s this other man making him look like such a small child, while my father\u2019s saying, \u2018No, I didn\u2019t do this. Mich\u00e9 is my daughter \u2013 how can she not be my daughter? I wasn\u2019t part of this.’\u201d<\/p>\n The police never found evidence that Michael Solomon had known that Mich\u00e9 had been taken from her biological parents without permission and he was released.<\/p>\n Michael says that Lavona had been pregnant. It\u2019s thought that she concealed a miscarriage and then faked the remainder of her pregnancy, before stealing Zephany Nurse, bringing her home and pretending she had given birth to the baby herself.<\/p>\n And now Lavona Solomon was in custody, awaiting trial on charges of kidnapping and fraudulently claiming to be the mother of a child.<\/p>\n Photo of Celeste Nurse (left) and her second-born child, Cassidy<\/strong><\/p>\n Although Celeste and Morne Nurse had gone on to have three more children, they\u2019d never stopped looking for their firstborn, Zephany, and had celebrated her birthday every year \u2013 even after they had divorced.<\/p>\n But all the while their stolen child had been growing up nearby. The Solomon home is just 5km from the Nurses\u2019 \u2013 as a small child, Mich\u00e9 would run around on the field opposite the Nurses\u2019 house, while Michael played soccer.<\/p>\n Now, after an extraordinary turn of events, the Nurse family\u2019s prayers had been answered. Mich\u00e9 was reunited with her biological parents at a police station with social workers on hand.<\/p>\n \u201cThey hugged me and squeezed me and started crying,\u201d Mich\u00e9 says. But she wasn\u2019t comfortable. Something didn\u2019t feel right.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, \u2018Just go with it because it\u2019s a shame for these people, they have been through a lot,’\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s sad, but you know, I felt nothing, I didn\u2019t feel that I\u2019d missed them.\u201d<\/p>\n Mich\u00e9 was in emotional turmoil. One set of parents were elated and desperate to make up for lost time, but strangers to her. The others \u2013 the ones she loved \u2013 were devastated, and one of them was behind bars.<\/p>\n Lavona Solomon (with her face covered) arriving at the Cape Town High Court during her trial<\/strong><\/p>\n Lavona Solomon\u2019s trial at the high court in Cape Town began in August 2015. Both Mich\u00e9 and her biological parents were there to hear Lavona\u2019s testimony.<\/p>\n Throughout the trial, Lavona Solomon denied any wrongdoing. She told the court of her numerous attempts to conceive\u201a a number of miscarriages and her desperation to adopt a child. Lavona then said she had been offered a baby by a woman called Sylvia who had been giving her fertility treatment. Sylvia had told Lavona that the baby belonged to a young girl who was not interested in keeping it and wanted the baby to be adopted. But there was no evidence that Sylvia existed.<\/p>\n Furthermore, almost two decades after the incident, a witness who remembered seeing the woman dressed as a nurse who carried baby Zephany away as Celeste lay sleeping, picked Lavona Solomon out in an identity parade. The judge concluded that the evidence against her was overwhelming.<\/p>\n In 2016, Lavona Solomon was sentenced to 10 years in jail for kidnapping, fraud and violating the Children\u2019s Act. The judge criticised her for showing no remorse during the trial.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like death was happening to me,\u201d Mich\u00e9 says. \u201cI was like, \u2018How am I gonna cope? How am I going to get through life without the mother that I had every day in my life?’\u201d<\/p>\n Later that year, Mich\u00e9 visited Lavona in prison and was able to speak to her for the first time since the social workers had arrived at her school.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first visit was behind a window, it was not a contact visit,\u201d Mich\u00e9 says. \u201cAnd I saw my mother in the clothing that female prisoners wear and it broke my heart. I cried and cried.\u201d<\/p>\n Mich\u00e9 really wanted to know the truth, to find out what had happened on the day that Lavona had taken her from her mother in hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cI told her, \u2018By knowing I\u2019m not your blood \u2013 that I actually belong to someone else, and that you\u2019ve robbed them of possibilities and changed my whole destiny \u2013 hurts me. How am I supposed to believe your word when you\u2019ve lied to me, saying that I am your child? You broke your trust with me. You are going to have to come clean if you want to have a relationship with me.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAnd she said, \u2018One day, I will tell you.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cShe still says that she didn\u2019t do it, but I think she did.\u201d<\/p>\n However, Mich\u00e9 says she doesn\u2019t hold any grudges.<\/p>\n \u201cForgiving brings so much healing into your heart,\u201d Mich\u00e9 says. \u201cLife must go on. She knows that I forgive her, and she knows that I still love her.\u201d<\/p>\n It has now been more than four years since Mich\u00e9 discovered the truth about her identity. When she turned 18 at the end of April 2015, she considered moving in with one of her biological parents, but decided against it.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were divorced, that family unit had been messed up,\u201d Mich\u00e9 says. \u201cSo I went for the obvious decision and the stablest decision \u2013 to move back in with Michael, that was my safe space, that was my home.\u201d<\/p>\n Mich\u00e9 has struggled to form a relationship with her biological family, and says that at times she even felt that she hated them for taking her \u201cmother\u201d away.<\/p>\n Photo of Michael with Mich\u00e9\u2019s daughter on the way to visit Lavona in prison<\/strong><\/p>\n She still visits Lavona in prison in Worcester, about 120km from where she lives, but it\u2019s a long drive, especially now that she has two children of her own.<\/p>\n Lavona Solomon is due for release in six years and Mich\u00e9 says she often wishes time would \u201churry up\u201d. She\u2019s still living in the family home and waiting for her mother to return.<\/p>\n Perhaps surprisingly, Mich\u00e9 Solomon has chosen to keep the name that she was raised with rather than the one with which she was born. But somehow, despite the psychological catastrophe of discovering that the woman who raised her had actually stolen her, she has somehow made peace with both of her identities.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I hated Zephany in the beginning,\u201d Mich\u00e9 says.<\/p>\n \u201cShe came with such force, such an uninvited invitation, so much suffering, and so much pain. But Zephany is the truth and Mich\u00e9, the 17-year-old girl that I was, she was a lie. So I\u2019ve managed to balance both names. You can call me Zephany or Mich\u00e9, it\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another selfie, taken some years after the first, shows the striking similarity In April 1997 a woman dressed in a nurse\u2019s uniform walked out of a Cape Town hospital carrying a three-day-old baby taken from the maternity ward as the baby\u2019s mother lay sleeping. It was only by chance, 17 years later, that the stolen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":732210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-732209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-odd-but-true"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Mich\u00e9](\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/_108958496_zephany_976b.jpg\")
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