FBI: Woman Confessed to Carlina White Kidnap

Updated 2:25 p.m. ET

NEW YORK - A woman who raised a child snatched from a New York hospital more than two decades ago has admitted kidnapping the baby after her own attempts to have children failed, saying in a statement she was "truly sorry," the FBI said in court papers Monday.

Ann Pettway confessed to taking the baby in early August 1987 from Harlem Hospital during an interview Sunday after she surrendered to the FBI and Connecticut police, a criminal complaint prepared by FBI Agent Maria Johnson said. Pettway surrendered days after a widely publicized reunion between the child she raised — now 23-year-old Carlina White — and her biological mother.

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Pettway said she had had difficulty having her own children in the 1980s, was dealing with the stress of trying to be a mother and had suffered several miscarriages, when she went to the hospital and saw the baby, Johnson said.

"Pettway took the victim from the victim's family and this was totally unacceptable. Pettway is truly sorry," Johnson said Pettway told her in a written statement Sunday.

After taking the baby, Pettway brought her outside the hospital and, when no one stopped her, proceeded to a train and on to her home in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she told friends and family members that the baby was her child, the agent said.

A cousin of Pettway's said that she appeared pregnant in 1987 and disappeared and that when returned with a baby, the family assumed was hers.

"We all assumed that she had the baby we visibly saw her pregnant with," Brian Pettway said.

The family was shocked to learn the revelations, he said, describing Pettway as one of his favorite cousins who was reliable, loving and trustworthy.

"This is so uncharacteristic," Brian said. "We're all left with our mouths opened.

"It's kind of like a double loss. We accepted her as family. Unbenownest to us, she was not our family," he said of the girl his cousin brought up.

Brian Pettway, a 38-year-old New Haven resident, said his cousin raised the girl "as best she could" but said she lived in a crime-ridden neighborhood in Bridgeport. He said the girl seemed happy and pleasant.

"She just raised that baby like it was her daughter, like she sat in that delivery room and gave birth to her," Pettway said. "She never showed any signs of deceit."

Prior to representing Pettway at a court hearing Monday, attorney Robert Baum said: "She feels badly. She's very upset. She's expressed concern about her family. But she understands the gravity of the charges."

Baum said he did not plan to request bail for Pettway, who could face a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison or as much as life if she is convicted.

Brian Pettway, a 38-year-old cousin of Pettway who lives in Connecticut, said his cousin appeared pregnant in 1987 and disappeared, only to return with a baby the family assumed was hers. He said Pettway was a reliable, loving and trustworthy cousin.

"This is so uncharacteristic," Brian Pettway said. "We're all left with our mouths opened. It's kind of like a double loss. We accepted her (Carlina White) as family. Unbeknownst to us, she was not our family."

The Connecticut man said his cousin raised the girl "as best she could" in a crime-ridden neighborhood. He said the girl seemed happy and pleasant.

"She just raised that baby like it was her daughter, like she sat in that delivery room and gave birth to her," Pettway said. "She never showed any signs of deceit."

White was 19 days old when her parents took her to Harlem Hospital late on Aug. 4, 1987 with a high fever. Joy White and Carl Tyson said a woman who looked like a nurse had comforted them. The couple left the hospital to rest, but their baby was missing when they went back on Aug. 5, 1987. A police investigation failed to locate the baby.

Carlina White has been living under the name Nejdra Nance in Connecticut and in the Atlanta area. She said she had long suspected Pettway wasn't her biological mother because she could never provide her with a birth certificate and because she didn't look like anyone else in Pettway's family.

Johnson of the FBI said in the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that a detective who interviewed the victim recounted that Pettway was quoted as saying she did not have identification for her because she had been given to Pettway by a woman who used drugs.

As the child grew up, she lived with Pettway in Pettway's home at times and with Pettway's mother, who also lived in Connecticut, Johnson said.

Pettway's surrender initially came on a warrant from North Carolina, where she's on probation because of a conviction for attempted embezzlement, FBI supervisory special agent William Reiner said.

In an appearance on NBC's "Today" show on Monday, Tyson said he was very happy to have found his daughter, now a 23-year-old adult.

"I have my whole puzzle. I have all my four kids now," he said. But he admitted he didn't know what he was supposed to be doing with a 23-year old.

"Should I be feeding her baby food?" he joked.

Tyson said he would like to ask Pettway "why she did this to me for 23 years."

Carlina White has been living under the name Nejdra Nance in Connecticut and in the Atlanta area. She said she had long suspected Pettway wasn't her biological mother because she could never provide her with a birth certificate and because she didn't look like anyone else in Pettway's family.

She periodically checked the website of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and while looking through New York photos early this month found one that looked nearly identical to her own baby picture. She contacted Joy White through the center.

White and Nance met in New York before DNA tests were complete, confident they were mother and daughter. After the test results confirmed it Wednesday, Nance returned from Atlanta to be with White again.

Reportedly, Pettway was pregnant around the time of the alleged kidnapping but miscarried. Authorities are trying to determine whether she "replaced" that baby with Carlina White.

Speculation has already started over the type of defense her legal team might use.

CBS News Legal Analyst Jack Ford said on "The Early Show" Monday the federal charges are serious.

He explained, "In the federal scheme of things, kidnapping is one of the top charges you can get. You know, interestingly, there was no federal kidnapping offense until after the Lindbergh kidnapping which took place back in the early '30s. At that time, actually authorities found themselves unable to handle that case the way they would have liked to. That was the genesis of kidnapping statutes. It's a significant crime in the federal scheme of things - a range of 10 years to life in prison."

What could a defense look like for Pettway?

Ford said it's "hard."

"If I'm her lawyer, the first thing I'm going to take a look at is what was her mental state at the time," Ford said. "We've seen some situations over the year, very sad stories where somebody either lost a child, there's some suggestion that she was pregnant and lost a child, or for whatever reason they were just driven to a state, a mental state that they weren't responsible for what they're doing, or as responsible. So I'm her lawyer, I want to take a good, hard look at what was going on in her mind at the time."

Pettway received two years of probation last June after she took items from a store where she worked, which is considered embezzlement under North Carolina law, state correction spokeswoman Pamela Walker said. Under terms of her probation, she wasn't allowed to leave the state.

Department of Correction officials there tried repeatedly to contact her after finding out investigators wanted to question her in Carlina's 1987 abduction.

North Carolina officials said Friday they believed Pettway was on the run from authorities.