Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Woman Solves Her Own Kidnapping 23 Years Later - The Carlina White story

Episode Date: February 15, 2025

Ann Pettway kidnapped Carlina White when she was a baby, named her Netty and raised her as her own.

So this woman, her name's Anne, and Anne has a problem. She really wants a baby. But unfortunately, she can't seem to have one. She tries and she keeps having miscarriages. So eventually, Anne gets an insane idea. Why not just steal one? So one day, in 1987, she does just that. She dresses up as a nurse and she goes down to the local hospital and she starts hanging out

and starts trying to pass herself off as a hospital employee. And after about three weeks of doing this, she finally spots a baby she might be able to swipe. And the baby's name is Nettie. And Nettie's 19 days old, and she's in the hospital for treatment. She had like some kind of infection or something. And so anyway, now Anne wants Nettie. And so she waits. She waits around for the right moment.

And around 3 a.m. When the hospital staff's shifts are changing, boom, she nabs Nettie out of her unit, and she casually walks out of the building with her, and no one's suspects a thing. Then she takes her from New York City where the hospital is up to Connecticut where she lives. Meanwhile, back at the hospital pretty quickly the staff discovers there's a whole ass baby missing and they're freaking out. They're like, yo, someone stole a baby. And they go and get a description of Ann from a few witnesses, but other than that, they got nothing. This was the perfect baby heist. So then police have to call and alert the parents, Nettie's real parents. And of course the parents are freaking out too.

But unfortunately, it's too late. Anne is long gone. She's already got the baby she wants because she's about to raise her as her own. And many years pass. And Nettie grows up in Anne's household. And she lives a fairly normal life believing this whole time that Anne is her real mother. And yeah, sometimes she'll ask her about her real dad. And Anne tells her that her real father is a drug dealer she used to date,

who's now in prison. So that excuse covers that. Now eventually, Nettie grows up a little more, and she becomes a teenager, and she's in high school. And it's during this period she starts to notice she looks nothing like Anne or like any of her other family members. But whatever, I suppose that happens sometimes. But the older she gets, the more this bothers her. And eventually, she starts to get a little suspicious. And then one day, she's 16 at this point. She's still in high school and boom, Nettie gets some surprising news. She's pregnant.

I guess she had a little boyfriend for a while and I guess he got her pregnant. Now, pregnancy and kids are really expensive, but Nettie finds out that she can apply to get free prenatal care from her state. All she needs to do is apply and provide some official documents, including her birth certificate. So she goes to her mom and she's like, mom, I need my birth certificate.

And Anne's like, Yeah, I'll handle it. But then, as the days go by, Anne doesn't handle it. And so Nettie reminds her again and again. I mean, this is very important to her, but her mom keeps brushing her off. And eventually Nettie just gets tired of waiting, and she's like, oh, fuck this. And she low-key starts going through Anne's stuff.

And she ends up finding a document with her name and date of birth on it. And yeah, good enough. So she takes it to the county office to try and use it to get a copy of her first. certificate. And so she's there and she gives this document to the clerk and the clerk checks their system and is like, uh, ma'am, we can't find any record of you. And Nettie's like, do what now? And the clerk's like, there's no record of you. And Nettie gets pissed. Like, what do you mean they can't find a record of her? And so a supervisor has to come and intervene and supervisors like, uh, not only is there no record of you, this document you gave us is fake. And he straight up

accuses Nettie of trying to fake her identity. And so naturally, Nettie gets mad and she leaves and she goes home. A few days later, Anne finally agrees to tell Nettie what the hell is going on, why she doesn't have a real birth certificate and why there's a fake document with her name on it. So that night, she comes into Nettie's room and she just starts crying. And that's when she tells her, she's not her biological mom. But she says, your real mom, let's. left you and never came back. And to make it worse, she doesn't tell her much else. Like she says her real mom was a drug addict who abandoned her.

And then she just kind of ends on a cliffhanger. And Nettie's like, what the fuck? And so for months, Nettie begs her mom for more information. But Anne won't really give it. She's just like, ah, I don't remember. And a whole year goes by. And eventually Nettie's like, whatever, I'm going to figure out the truth myself. And she starts investigating.

And she's like asking her other relatives what happened all those years ago and those other relatives are like, uh, yeah, I guess I remember Anne being pregnant. I don't know. And she reaches out to the Department of Children and Families and she asks them if they can like run her DNA to see if it's a match to anyone. And they're like, nah, we don't really do that. And so Nettie is getting nowhere. Her mom's no help, her relatives are no help, and the state is no help. So it looks like she's just never gonna know the truth. Until

7 years go by And she's 23 now And at this point Nettie has long had her baby She's moved to a different city And she started her adult life But of course she still wonders What the hell was Anne talking about

Who was her real mom Who supposedly a drug addict Who abandoned her when she was born Then one night She finally gets a lead She's messing around on the internet Looking for answers and she goes to the website for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,

where they have a database of kids who have gone missing from all over the country. And this database goes way back for decades. And so she's combing through this database, and that is when, boom, she sees it. A picture of a little baby girl, a girl who was around her age and who went missing back in 1987, right around the period when she was born. Not only that, this baby looks identical to her own baby. So Nettie knows she's looking at a picture of herself. And so eventually, she calls them.

She calls the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Hotline, and she asks them to help her sort all this out, and they agree to help. And pretty quickly, they reach out to Nettie's real, actual, biological mom. Her name is Joy. And so they reach out to Joy, and they're like, I think we found your missing daughter from 23 years ago. And Joy's like, no fucking way. So then Nettie and Joy, they start communicating and emailing back and forth.

And soon they're talking on the phone all the time. And eventually, Nettie flies from Atlanta to New York to meet her real mom in person. And she also gets to meet her real dad. He's this guy's name's Carl. And here's an actual picture of Nettie, Joy, and Carl together. And later, the DNA results come back. which confirm that they are in fact her real biological parents. So that's cool.

Then, of course, this story gets out and it blows the fuck up because it's an incredible story. But now, with all this attention on it, the FBI gets involved. Because, you know, this all started 23 years ago with a kidnapping. So now everyone's looking for Anne. And after hiding out for a while, eventually, bam, she turns herself in to the FBI. Here's her mugshot. The woman who allegedly kidnapped a baby 23 years ago here in New York is finally under arrest. And Anne ends up pleading guilty to kidnapping and she's sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Meanwhile, Nettie and her real biological parents sort of have like a public falling out, but then they make up. So I think they're fine now. So good for them. And by the way, here's what Nettie looks like today in real life.