‘I need my mother home’: Kamiyah Mobley writes letter in support of reducing kidnapper’s sentence

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Kamiyah Mobley is asking the court to show “grace and mercy” in support of her kidnapper’s request to the judge for a reduction of her prison sentence.

Action News Jax reported in June 2018 when Gloria Williams, the woman convicted of kidnapping Mobley from a Jacksonville hospital in 1998, was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Authorities said Williams pretended to be a nurse when she took Mobley just hours after she was born at University Medical Center — which is now UF Health Jacksonville — and raised her as her own in South Carolina under the name Alexis Manigo.

Tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children led officials to Walterboro, South Carolina in 2017, where they found a young woman with the same date of birth but with a different name and fraudulent documents. After collecting her DNA, officials said the results came back as a match for Mobley.

Though Mobley has since reunited with her biological mother and father, in a letter dated Sept. 30, 2021, Mobley wrote a letter to the court making it “very clear” that Williams is her mother.

“I had a well-rounded life; and I am an independent, college educated, and deeply spiritual person, because of all my mom gave me. I am fully aware of how our lives came to be, what they are, and how my mom came to be my mom,” Mobley wrote.

“I understand that none of this modifies the truth of the past, Nor does it justify my mom’s actions in any way,” Mobley added. “I ask for the court’s grace and mercy, as I need my mother home,” Mobley wrote.

View the letter in its entirety below:

According to court documents filed in December 2021, Williams included Mobley’s letter in her motion for the judge to consider modifying her sentence.

In Williams’ letter addressed to Judge Marianne Aho, she “prays” that the court will enter an order granting her motion to modify her sentence to a split sentence term of nine years in prison to be followed by nine years on felony probation, “or whatever relief this Court deems appropriate.”

She also mentions in the letter that she’s been a model inmate, has completed a faith and character program, and that she is actively pursing the completion of her Master’s degree in business administration.

“I have received no disciplinary reports whatsoever, and I have maintained an above satisfactory rating by both security and in my work assignment performance issued once a month by the Department of Corrections,” Williams wrote.

“I understand that this in no way mollifies my actions, however, I ask this Court for mercy and grace in considering modifying/reducing my sentence to a split sentence...” she added.

Court records do not indicate whether her motion was granted.

Williams’ full letter can be read below:

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Alexis Manigo (left) posted photos of herself and a woman thought to be Gloria Williams on Facebook. 

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