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Mother Wants Relationship with Kidnapped Daughter

By DNAinfo Staff on February 8, 2011 5:38pm  | Updated on February 8, 2011 5:41pm

By Jennifer Glickel

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — A mother who was reunited last month with her daughter who was kidnapped 23 years ago from Harlem Hospital says she wants a relationship with her biological child, despite the daughter living in Atlanta.

Joy White wants to develop a relationship with her daughter, Carlina White, 23, she told NBC's Today show on Tuesday.

Carlina White was raised in Bridgeport, Conn., under the alias Nejdra Nance. She was kidnapped on Aug. 4, 1987 from Harlem Hospital after her then 16-year-old mother, Joy White, brought her in with a high fever.

Ann Pettway, 44, of Raleigh, N.C., was apprehended by the FBI and is being held without bail on charges that she kidnapped White from Harlem Hospital on that summer day in 1987.

White said that her first reunion with Carlina late last month went wonderfully, but their relationship has become rocky ever since.

"We just enjoyed that moment and it was so great," White said.

But things changed once Carlina returned home to Atlanta, White said, indicating that her daughter has been reluctant to maintain a relationship with her biological family in New York.

"But I do have to understand that [the Pettway family] is her family," Joy White said on Tuesday. "She was brought up by them. I'm her mom, and it hurts not to have a relationship with her," White added as she began to cry.

"I want her here and I want her to spend time with me and the family and I want her to get to know me," White said.

"It's like we're two strangers. It's like we don't know each other."