her name is pepper. i lived a secret life. she was kidnapped at age four. we got in the car, and we never went back. she spent decades trying to find her way home again, and she finally made it. or, so she thought. i said, i think that i am rhonda patricia christine. i said, do you know her? and there was a long pause. her story had many ups and downs. when i looked at the email, i just could not even believe it. but after so many tears, so many years and so many turns in her story. i was like, wow. there are still more stunning twists to be revealed. it is amazing, the best gift ever. welcome to dateline. a four year old girl was adopted and raised by her kidnappers. for decades, she searched for her family, and her identity. her story has an extraordinary ending, but as it turns out, that ending was just the beginning. here is keith morrison. our story begins with this much mother of a teenage daughter. a woman who had spent much of h
four. we got in the car, and we never went back. she spent decades trying to find her way home again, and she finally made it. or, so she thought. i said, i think that i am rhonda patricia christine. i said, do you know her? and there was a long pause. her story had many ups and downs. when i looked at the email, i just could not even believe it. but after so many tears, so many years and so many turns in her story. i was like, wow. there are still more stunning twists to be revealed. it is amazing, the best gift ever. welcome to dateline. a four year old girl was adopted and raised by her kidnappers. for decades, she searched for her family, and her identity. her story has an extraordinary ending, but as it turns out, that ending was just the beginning. here is keith morrison. our story begins with this much mother of a teenage daughter. a woman who had spent much of her life trying to figure out who she was. what was her name? where did s
when i look at the email, i just could not even believe it. i looked at it for about three times. am i really seeing this? it was a woman, claiming to be the biological mother of both pepper and rene, claiming to be the woman who, according to shirley and barbara, was a child abandoning, drug adult prostitute, probably dead. could this woman really be their mother? hardly a claim she could take on simple faith. i asked her to come in to see me the very next day, which she was very anxious and happy to do. i asked her to bring whatever evidence she had. and in that meeting, the woman presented her evidence. she brought some photos that she had. photos of pepper and rene, when they were very little. she told her she had been a waitress when the girls were little, had a photo of that as well, and a picture of shirley,
after all of those years? all of those years, and there they are. what did that feel like? it felt great. i was hoping that would find my children before i died, it because i was getting old, and it was just like a miracle. jeri s story? that who shirley who took the girls, have been her friend, turned roommate, turned babysitter. she said, i will babysit for, you take care of her while you work. i said, that is great because i really thought that i was blessed. first it was renée she looked after, then rene and pepper. then two years later, little brother, raymond leonard smith junior wait, brother? it was not just the two girls. there was a younger brother that the girls never knew they had. the father was not around very much, jeri supported them all
and terribly frightened at first. she begged, take me home. shirley ignored her. she imagined running away. i have nowhere to go. and i was too scared. then as the weeks and months, and then years went by, as her powers of reasoning grew, the question grew, too. did her mother bobby actually give her away? shirley told pepper that rene was her sister. the two girls listened wide eye as shirley explained to strangers that she was their grandmother. that their parents had been killed in a car accident. i knew that everything that was happening to us was completely wrong, at a very, very young age. why had she been taken? she didn t know. not for money, certainly. there were no ransom demands. and without pepper s birth certificate, shirley couldn t use her to score public assistance. though she did use rene that