Metro

Harlem infant who was kidnapped in 1987 finds her real mother

Carl Tyson and Joy White in 1987.

Carl Tyson and Joy White in 1987. (
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A 19-day-old old infant snatched from Harlem Hospital in 1987 has been amazingly found alive — and reunited with her biological mother — after she discovered baby pictures of herself on a missing children’s website and contacted the NYPD, authorities said.

Carlina White, now 23 and raised in Connecticut and Georgia, went missing on Aug. 4, 1987, after she had been admitted to Harlem Hospital because she was suffering from a 104-degree fever. The next morning, the baby’s mother, Joy White, then 16, discovered the infant was missing.

Twenty-three years later, Carlina White — who was raised Nejdra Nance — suspected she was not biologically related to the family that raised her. As a teenager, White said she had never been able to find her birth certificate.

After doing an Internet search, White wound up on the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children site and spotted a photo of a girl named “Carlina Renae White.”

On Jan. 4, the center called the woman Carlina believed to be her her biological mother and forwarded her the baby picture snapped by the family she is now living with.

“It’s a wonderful feeling. Now I can sleep,” Joy White told The Post. “I’ve been worried for all these years. I never took her picture off my dresser.”

White added, “I never gave up looking for her.”

Meanwhile, the woman who allegedly took Carlina abused her, hitting her so hard with a shoe that it left an imprint on her face, Joy White said.

The woman, kept guns by her bed, took drugs including crack and would leave Carlina and her “brother” unattended for long stretches of time, Joy White said her daughter told her.

White agreed that there were striking similarities between the baby pictures each one had. The two women contacted the NYPD and got DNA swabs from the biological mother and the biological father, Carl Tyson, in order to see if there is a match.

On Tuesday, the NYPD matched the DNA and learned that she is indeed the Carlina White who was kidnapped in 1987.

When they reunited, Joy White said, “We had a ball. I cooked and invited all the family. We hugged and cried. She wanted to know about everyone.”

At the time, cops were called and a $10,000 reward was offered, but little Carlina was never found and kidnappers never arrested.

Joy White had gone home to rest after little Carlina was admitted. When she returned later that morning, the baby was gone, taken by a mystery woman who’d dressed as a nurse and been hanging around the hospital for weeks.

The city offered a $10,000 reward and questioned a Baltimore woman who’d been spotted skulking around the hospital, but no arrests were made.

In 1992, White and Tyson, who was 22 when Carlina was born, obtained a $750,000 settlement in their lawsuit against the city, which runs Harlem Hospital.

When she got the call from the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children that her daughter was found, Joy White said, “I was at work. I screamed and cried and ran downstairs. After that, it was just crazy. … I missed the last 23 years of her life. I have to take it all in, for now just take it day-by-day.”

The kidnappers, who have not been identified, could face federal prosecution, as there is no statute of limitations for the kidnapping of a child under 18 as long as that child remains alive.