“Mom, where is your baby?” Those are the words that have haunted Celeste Nurse for the past 18 years. She broke down in court earlier this week as she recalled how a woman dressed in nurse-like clothing had snatched her newborn daughter from a Cape Town hospital nearly two decades ago. She sobbed as she told the court that she had named her child Zephany Joyi before her family’s story turned to tragedy.
Last year a DNA test proved that Celeste Nurse and her ex-husband WERE in fact the biological parents of the teenager. And a local woman was arrested in connection with the kidnapping.
The 51-year-old accused cannot be named, in order to protect the identity of the teenager she is accused of kidnapping back in 1997. She faces charges of kidnapping, fraud and the contravention of South Africa’s Child act.
The baby snatcher has pleaded not guilty to all charges. In her plea explanation to the court, she claims to have suffered brutal sexual abuse as well as several miscarriages. She says a woman who had tried to help her with her infertility problems then offered to arrange a so-called adoption for her and she denies any knowledge of Baby Zephany being stolen from her mother’s hospital room.
On Thursday afternoon, the girl’s biological grandmother told journalist she believed that Zephany looked very much like her father.
“We knew that this child was our’s because she looks exactly like Morné, in the face when you look at her. I look like Morné. Morné looks like me. And she’s got the green eyes of Morné. I mean blood is thicker than water when its your child. And I knew. I knew all the years?I new she was alive. And I knew she was near us.”Zephra Nurse, grandmother
The case continues next week, when the accused kidnapper is expected to take the stand.
