A woman who was stolen at birth has revealed how a selfie proved her real identity.
Miché Solomon, 21, from Cape Town, South Africa, had no idea that Lavona Solomon, the woman she knew as ‘Mum’, had in fact taken her from a hospital as a newborn.
The truth was revealed 17 years later when a new girl, Cassidy Nurse, started at Miché’s school and all of the other kids remarked on how much they looked alike.
Then when the two met in the corridor she felt an instant connection to the girl who was three years younger than her.
‘I almost felt like I knew her,’ she told the BBC. ‘It was so scary – I couldn’t understand why I was feeling like this.’
The pair struck up a friendship and Cassidy would even call Miché big sis’ and they’d joke that they knew each other in a another life.
Then one day in 2015 they took a selfie at school which Cassidy then showed to her parents Celeste and Morne Nurse she got home, they immediately asked when Miché’s birthday was.
Their daughter Zephany Nurse, Cassidy’s older sister, had been stolen at birth and now they wondered if Miché was their missing girl.
So next time the girls met, Cassidy asked Miché ‘Were you born on 30 April 1997?’
It turned out she was.
Armed with proof, the Nurses went to police with their suspicions. Then three weeks later Miché given the shocking news by her school headmaster. Although she didn’t believe her mum would have done something like that, she agreed to a DNA test.
‘I had so much belief in the mother who raised me – she would never lie to me, especially about who I am and where I come from,’ Miché said. ‘So my mind was made up that the DNA test was going to be negative.’
But it wasn’t and it turned out Miché Cassidy were sisters – and Miché’s real name was Zephany Nurse.
Miché was shocked by the news and then became even more distressed when her fake mum, Lavona Solomon, was arrested.
During her trial in 2016, it was revealed that Lavona had dressed up as a nurse to snatch baby Zephany from hospital after she’d suffered a miscarriage. She was sentenced to 10 years for kidnapping, fraud and violating the Children’s Act.
Meanwhile the Nurse family tried to form a relationship with the daughter they’d never stopped loving. Morne and Celeste Nurse had never given up hope of finding their daughter and had celebrated her birthday every year since her disappearance.
But Miché struggled to bond with her biological parents, who were now divorced, and even admitted that she ‘hated’ them for taking her beloved mum away.
Fours years after the truth was revealed, Miché visits Lavona in prison and counts down the days until she’s released.
Today she’s made peace with her past and goes by the name Miché or Zephany.
‘Zephany is the truth and Miché, the 17-year-old girl that I was, she was a lie. So I’ve managed to balance both names,’ she says.