Woman accused of kidnapping baby Carlina White 23 years ago turns herself in

The woman who raised a baby snatched from a New York City hospital 23 years ago surrendered to the FBI Sunday and was charged with kidnapping the child.

Ann Pettway tued herself in around 1:30 p.m. in Stratford, Conn., according to Police Det. Keith Bryant in Bridgeport, Conn.

"She's going to tell her side of the story soon enough," said Pettway's cousin, Mary.

Pettway is due in court in Manhattan Monday to face federal kidnapping charges.

"I commend the swift and efficient work of the FBI and the NYPD in this important case," said Manhattan U.S. Attoey Preet Bharara in a statement.

Sources told the Daily News that Pettway confessed to snatching Carlina White as a newbo from Harlem Hospital in 1987.

White, who grew up in Connecticut and Georgia believing Pettway was her mom, solved her own kidnapping last week.

Suspicious of her origins, she checked the website of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and found herself listed as a stolen baby.

One DNA test later, she was reunited with her overjoyed biological parents in the Bronx.

Pettway, 44, whose last known address was in Raleigh, N.C., was spotted Saturday in Bridgeport, trying to pawn jewelry, cops said.

She is on probation until 2012 on a North Carolina embezzlement rap.

Pettway did not ask permission to leave the state. An arrest warrant for probation violation was issued Friday after Carlina's amazing reunion with her parents became public and officials could not locate Pettway to question her.

New York state's statute of limitations for kidnapping has expired, but there is time limit on federal charges of kidnapping.

Nineteen days after Carlina's mother, Joy White, gave birth to a daughter in 1987, the baby came down with a fever.

White took her newbo daughter to the hospital, where the baby was put on an IV. During the night, someone disconnected the tube and took the child.

The suspect was a woman dressed as a nurse who had been hanging around the hospital. There are reports that Pettway had just lost her own baby, which fits a common patte in newbo snatchings.
White was raised as Nejdra Nance by the Pettway family in Bridgeport.

As a teenager, she became suspicious when her family could not provide her with a birth certificate or a Social Security number.