Washington: Kamiyah Mobley, the 18-year-old who was abducted from a Florida hospital when she was just hours old, reportedly found out two years ago that she had been kidnapped from her biological family. Arika Williams, who had long believed she was the half-sister of Miss Mobley, told People magazine the revelation came when Miss Mobley was applying for a job and asked her supposed mother, Gloria Williams, for a birth certificate.

“Lexi [the name the alleged kidnapper gave Miss Mobley] didn’t have that so she asked Gloria for it and Gloria kept brushing it off,” she said.

“Lexi kept being hard on her mother, like ‘Momma, where is my stuff? I want to get this job.’ “Then Gloria just broke down and told her: ‘This is why right here, you can’t do this. I kidnapped you’.”

She said Miss Mobley had been “upset”, staying home from school the next day while she tried to digest the news. It was not until last Friday that Gloria Williams, 51, was arrested and Miss Mobley was reunited with her biological parents. Police claim Williams dressed in hospital scrubs and, posing as a nurse, took baby Kamiyah from a maternity ward in Jacksonville. She was in court yesterday on kidnapping charges.

Meanwhile, Miss Mobley has spoken at length for the first time, saying of Williams “she will always be mom”.

Miss Mobley, who was given the name Alexis Manigo by the family who brought her up, pleaded with authorities not to “lock her up and throw away the key”, calling Williams a “gentle woman” who made one mistake.

“From that one mistake I was given the best life. I had everything I ever needed, wanted. I had love, especially,” she told ABC.

“She loved me for 18 years, she cared for me for 18 years.”

Miss Mobley said she was adjusting to her new identity and the sudden attention.

“Your whole life you’ve been known as Alexis, Lexi, you know? And now it’s like people are referring to you as someone else, nationally,” she said.

Miss Mobley said she felt she “owed it” to her birth parents, Shanara Mobley and Craig Aiken, to at least “give them a chance”.