Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Steve Carter, 35, discovers he was kidnapped by mother when he was a baby while searching online | Mail Online

'I got chills when I saw it was me': Man, 35, discovers he was kidnapped by mother as a baby while searching missing persons website

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 13:21 EST, 16 April 2012 | UPDATED: 13:55 EST, 16 April 2012

Found: Steve Carter has discovered he was a missing child 34 years after he and his mother vanished when was was six months old

Found: Steve Carter has discovered he was a missing child 34 years after he and his mother vanished when was was six months old

Steve Carter had always had questions about his childhood: why was his birth certificate created a year after his birth; who were his real parents?

Yet the 35-year-old, who was adopted aged four, was stunned when a simple internet search revealed a past that threw up even more questions.

After reading about Carlina White, an Atlanta woman who discovered she was snatched from a Harlem hospital as a baby, Carter decided to conduct his own search.

And he was stunned when he found a picture on missingkids.com of what a baby named Marx Panama Barnes would look like now - and realised it was him.

'I got chills,' Carter, who lives in Philadelphia, told People magazine. 'I was like, "Holy c**p, it's me".'

He discovered that he had been born in Hau'ula, Hawaii, but had gone missing with his mother, Charlotte Moriarty, when he was six months old.

His mother had disappeared before, but after she failed to return after three weeks, her partner and Carter's father, Mark Barnes, reported the pair missing.

Speaking to People magazine, Barnes said he never knew what had happened to his girlfriend and baby son on June 21, 1977.

'I spent about a year and a half going crazy driving around the island,' Barnes, now 61, said. 'It was rough.'

Now Carter has discovered that his mother took him to a stranger's home, where she gave police a fake name and birth date for her son.

Questions: Carter, then known as Marx Panama Barnes, vanished with his mother Charlotte Moriarty, who dropped him into state care before disappearing again. She has never been found

Questions: Carter, then known as Marx Panama Barnes, vanished with his mother Charlotte Moriarty, who dropped him into state care before disappearing again. She has never been found

She was taken to a psychiatric hospital and Carter was put in protective care, People reported. But she vanished a few days later - and has never been found.

With Moriarty missing and a fake name stunting any investigation, Carter became a ward of the state and he was placed in an orphanage 30 miles from where he had lived with his parents.

Three years later, he was introduced to Steve and Pat Carter. 'It was love at first sight,' Pat said.

Yet despite a comfortable upbringing with the couple in a south suburb of New Jersey, he was racked with questions about his childhood. It led him to his life-changing discovery online.

New life: Carter, pictured at three weeks, was adopted when he was four and moved to New Jersey
Shock: Carter looked online and found this picture of what Marx might have looked like at 28 - and realised it was him

Discovery: Carter (left, at three weeks old) was adopted aged four and moved to New Jersey. He looked online for clues to his past and found a picture (right) as he would look aged 28 on a missing children's site

He took a DNA test that confirmed the boy in the picture was him, but he admitted he was 'terrified' about meeting his long-lost relatives.

His adoptive mother Pat said she was threatened by the news. 'I felt like we'd taken someone else's child, though that wasn't true,' she said.

In February, months after the DNA test confirmed his identity, he called Jennifer Monnheimer - Moriarty's daughter and his older half sister.

Monnheimer, 43, was eight and living with her father in New Mexico when her mother and brother vanished.

'Truthfully I thought they were dead,' she said. 'I was really numb.' She added she had grown up 'scanning crowds' for her missing family.

It was due to Monnheimer that the picture had even appeared on the missing children's website.

Location: Carter went missing from his home in Hau'ula, Hawaii, pictured. His adoptive parents moved to New Jersey

Location: Carter went missing from his home in Hau'ula, Hawaii. His adoptive parents moved to New Jersey

In 2001, she convinced Hawaiian officials to re-open the investigation into the disappearances and they created the photo of her brother.

'If it wasn't for her, it would still be a cold case,' Charlene Takeno from the Missing Child Center in Hawaii told People.

Carter has yet to meet his father, Mark Barnes, who now lives in California and has two daughters at college - and who has always wondered about his son since his disappearance in 1977.

When Carter called him in February this year, he was speechless: 'All I could say was, "Wow. Oh wow. Wow".'

Carter, who now works for a medical software company in Philadelphia and is married, said he had often wondered where he came from as a child.

Now, as the discovery begins to settle in, he looks forward to reuniting with his father and sister this summer. 'It's good to know where you've come from,' he said.

CARLINA WHITE: THE STORY THAT SPARKED A SEARCH

Carlina White
Carlina White

In 2011, Steve Carter read the story of Carlina White and was inspired to look on missing people websites.

White was snatched from a hospital in Harlem, New York where she was being treated for a fever when she was just 19 days old.

It is believed a woman dressed as a nurse - but who was not an employee - took her during the night.

She was raised as Nejdra Nance by Ann Pettway in Bridgeport, Connecticut, just 45 miles from where her parents had lived.

She moved to Atlanta, Georgia after high school, where she became suspicious about her identity.

She believed she did not look like her mother or siblings and struggled to obtain a social security card.

White searched missing children's websites and was stunned when she found her picture.

She was reunited with her biological parents, biological parents, Joy White and Carl Tyson - 23 years after her disappearance.

Pettway was arrested in January 2011 and has been indicted on a kidnapping charge. She told authorities she had kidnapped White after several miscarriages made her concerned she would never have a child.

White is now reportedly estranged from her biological parents and continues to go by the name Nejdra Nance.


via dailymail.co.uk

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