South African woman who stole baby from hospital and raised her as her own sentenced to 10 years in jail

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A South African woman who kidnapped a newborn nearly two decades ago from a hospital and raised the girl as her own was sentenced Monday to 10 years in jail.

Judge John Hlophe in Cape Town announced the sentence, telling the 52-year-old convicted kidnapper that she had caused “immense” pain to the biological parents whose baby was taken from them, the African News Agency reported.

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Publicly, the young woman who was kidnapped as a baby is known as Zephany Nurse, the name given to her by her biological parents and used in the media in the years since her disappearance. After she was found, the girl chose to continue using the name given to her by the kidnapper. To protect her privacy, a judge ordered that her adopted name and the name of her kidnapper not be used by the media.

Judge Hlophe criticized the kidnapper for sticking to her story that she had bought the baby from a woman who told her that the biological parents did not want the child.

“At the very least, one would expect you to apologize, but you chose not to,” the African News Agency quoted Hlophe as saying.

The family of the convicted kidnapper blew kisses to her as she was led to a holding cell after the sentencing, according to the agency. It also reported a confrontation between the kidnapper’s family and Zephany Nurse’s biological family outside the courthouse.

“She belongs to us,” said Chantall Berry, Zephany Nurse’s aunt. “She has our DNA. Her DNA will never change.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "She belongs to us," said Chantall Berry, Zephany Nurse's aunt. "She has our DNA. Her DNA will never change."

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Zephany Nurse was reunited last year with her biological parents, Morne and Celeste Nurse, after the couple’s second daughter befriended a girl at school who looked remarkably like her. A police investigation and DNA tests showed that the two girls were sisters and that the new friend was the Nurse’s missing child.

Zephany Nurse’s biological parents were in court for the sentencing Monday, but their daughter was not. Zephany Nurse has not been allowed contact with the convicted kidnapper but has been living with the kidnapper’s husband, who she thought was her biological father, according to South African media reports.

State prosecutors said the kidnapper snatched a three-day-old baby from her sleeping mother’s hospital bedside in Cape Town in April 1997. The prosecution also said the woman defrauded authorities when she registered the child as her own daughter in 2003 under a false birthdate.