This is the emotional moment a woman accused of kidnapping a baby at birth and raising her as her own daughter was reunited with the distraught girl soon after her arrest.
Gloria Williams, 52, is currently in a South Carolina prison on kidnapping charges after she was arrested in January last year.
She is accused of snatching Kamiyah Mobley, now 19, from a Florida hospital in 1998 when she was just eight hours old and posing as her biological mother for the girl’s entire life.
Footage has now been released by Florida prosecutors of the moment the teenager was allowed to briefly meet with Williams under the watchful eye of police following her arrest.
Footage has been released showing the moment Gloria Williams, 52, was reunited with Kamiyah Mobley – the girl she is charged with kidnapping at birth from Florida
‘I’m sorry baby. I love you,’ Williams can be heard telling an emotional Mobley in the video obtained by ABC News.
Mobley then spoke of the officers who came to arrest the woman who raised her, saying: ‘They are sending three people like you are some kind of violent person.’
Williams responded: ‘They just want to make sure you are okay.’
The 52-year-old faced court briefly in Jacksonville on Thursday as her lawyers asked to delay her trial, which is scheduled to start on Monday.
It comes just weeks after Mobley, who was raised as Alexis Manigo, issued an extraordinary plea for leniency ahead of Williams’ kidnapping trial.
Mobley told DailyMail.com that she refuses to label Williams a criminal and has already forgiven her for the astonishing deception.
‘Don’t get me wrong, I do feel like it was wrong. But we talked about it and I can understand at the time what was going on,’ she said.
The video, released by Florida prosecutors, shows the moment the teenager was allowed to briefly meet with Williams under the watchful eye of police following her arrest
Williams (right) is accused of snatching Mobley, now 19, (left) from a Florida hospital in 1998 when she was just eight hours old and posing as her biological mother for the girl’s entire life
‘I sympathize with her, I’m not mad at her – of course I forgive her.
‘I am certain that she’s going to get time but I’m hoping not very, very long. I think they should be lenient. It’s not like she took me and tortured me my whole life. She took care of me very well.’
The 52-year-old, pictured above in her 2017 mugshot, faced court briefly in Jacksonville on Thursday ahead of her trial next week
Mobley has spent the last 12 months forging new ties with her biological parents, Shanara Mobley, 36, and Craig Aiken, 42, as well as getting to know the numerous siblings she never realized she had.
She has already formed an ‘incredible bond’ with her biological father and has been staying at his home for weeks at a time. The teen celebrated Christmas with Aiken, his wife Shannon and her eight half-siblings.
But her defense of Williams has made it harder for the teen to rebuild her relationship with her biological mother. Shanara Mobley wrote on Facebook last year: ‘The tears won’t stop. I see my baby girl wanting this lady in her life and not me.’
‘It’s been harder for my mother to cope. We are working on our relationship. I don’t like to define which one is my mother, I like to be respectful of both parties,’ the teen said.
‘I don’t like to take away from either one of their duties or what they did. I don’t want to pick sides.’
Mobley, who was raised as Alexis Manigo, issued an extraordinary plea for leniency last month ahead of Williams’ kidnapping trial. Mobley is pictured above in January
The teen first met her biological parents when Shanara Mobley and Craig Aiken, who had separated after the abduction, raced to see her following Williams’ arrest (above)
Growing up, Mobley insists she had no reason to doubt that Williams was her mom or question her identity. She was the ‘princess’ of the family and loved to fool around with her brothers.
‘As a mom, she was very smart, very loving, and generous. She was always giving everything she had to me and my friends,’ Kamiyah said. ‘She wasn’t a parent who could say no. I was very spoiled. I know she loved me.
‘She taught me the difference between right and wrong. We went to church. She may have had a few speeding tickets, but she was never in any trouble. She is a good person.’
The deception began to unravel when Mobley applied for a restaurant job two years before Williams was arrested, according to court documents.
When she demanded her social security number, Williams supposedly broke down and confessed to the abduction.
Mobley said she quietly pieced together the majority of her backstory by herself from Google. She once called her biological mother but hung up when she heard her voice.
The teen first met her biological parents when Mobley and Aiken, who had separated after the abduction, raced to see her following Williams’ arrest.