http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Cape-Town-girl-found-17-years-after-kidnapping-20150227
Cape Town girl found 17 years after kidnapping
2015-02-27 08:30
Cape Town - An incredible coincidence has led to a family finding their daughter 17 years after she was snatched from her sleeping mother’s arms.
A DNA test has confirmed the girl's identity. She was taken from her mother when she was just 3-days-old in April 1997, reported the Cape Argus.
Her biological sister started Grade 8 at the same school that the 17-year-old attends and other pupils started noticing the striking resemblance between the two.
After the two sisters struck up a friendship, her biological family invited the matric pupil over for coffee and, after seeing the likeness themselves, contacted police.
A 50-year-old woman was arrested by the Hawks at her home in Lavender Hill, reported Netwerk24. She will appear in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Friday.
The arrested woman and her husband have no other children.
In a 2010 interview with the Weekend Argus, the girl's father said he would never give up hope of finding his daughter.
For now, she is in the care of the Western Cape’s social services department, says eNCA reporter Karyn Maughan.
- For legal reasons the kidnap victim in this case may not be identified. No pictures, including any of the accused or family, may be used as they may identify the victim.
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There is always hope.
Hope everything turns out well for all concerned.
I think it is instructive that it is wrong just to write people off as being dead when they disappear without trace unless there is proof that is the case.
Although it can no longer be found on the Sky News link I found the following interesting ...
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snipJoana’s relatives told Sky News Online the pair are innocent and believe whoever took the girl is also behind Madeleine’s disappearance, seven miles away in Praia da Luz.
The family, who do not want to be named, said: “This sort of thing doesn’t happen in Portugal – child abductions are very rare.
“Whoever took Joana took Madeleine too, the distance is too small. And the police ignored everything we told them, they just wanted to solve the case quickly.
“They didn’t look at any of the things we told them about.”
They said the most crucial bit of evidence was a white and brown camper van, parked near Joana’s home in the days before she was abducted.
The vehicle, with German number plates, disappeared around the time she vanished.
They added: “There was a man living in there, but he hardly left the van. A week later the van was found abandoned in farmland in Praia da Luz. We told the police to investigate it, but they didn’t listen to us.”
She said the man had short, curly brown hair and was about 40 years old.
A suspect in the Madeleine case, spotted acting suspiciously near the apartment where she vanished on May 3 last year, was described as between 35 and 40, with long, straggly hair.
Criminologist and child protection expert Mark Williams-Thomas believes there are far too many similarities between the two cases for it not to be a strong line of police inquiry.
He says that because of the huge doubts over the Cipriano convictions, whoever abducted Joana is more than likely to be behind Madeleine’s disappearance.
Like Madeleine’s case, the police investigation got off to a bad start, with officers failing to seal off the house where she was last seen.
