JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Craig Aiken sits down in a candid interview with First Coast News anchor Keitha Nelson to talk about what life was like for the biological parents of Kamiyah Mobley before, during and after her kidnapping.
Aiken holds on to pictures of the flyer with a sketch and details of his eight-hour-old baby who was stolen from University Medical Center in 1998. He vividly recalls being reunited with her 18 years later after she was found in Walterboro, South Carolina being raised under the name Alexis Manigo by Gloria Williams.
Aiken says while people may have seen the emotional reunion on television between himself, Kamiyah and her mother Shanara Mobley, there is so much more the public did not see.
He details the painful and joyous times surrounding the kidnapping. Aiken recalls meeting Shanara Mobley in Jacksonville in 1997.
“Both of us were young, you know," he recalled. " At the time I thought Shanara was 18 because she told me that.”
Shanara Mobley was 15 years old when she met Aiken.
“I was like 20, 21 when we first met,” Aiken said. “She was funny, she was also aggressive. She reminds me a lot of her daughter Kamiyah.”
Things moved quickly for the pair. Within months they were living together and expecting a baby girl.
“Shanara, she was happy when she first told me she was pregnant,” Aiken said. “At first I didn't believe her. She started getting bigger and eating more and I realized she was pregnant. We were going through things in the beginning of the relationship, but once we found out she was pregnant we started planning for the baby."
Born in Jacksonville and raised on the city's Northside, Aiken found himself caught up in the street life. He was arrested on drug charges as Shanara Mobley eagerly awaited the arrival of her daughter.
"It was like seven months or so into the pregnancy when I got incarcerated,” Aiken said. “We spent most of her pregnancy together. We were young. Most of the things my mother got. We bought clothes. Shanara even bought a bassinet. She got things too when I got locked up in jail.”
It was in jail that Aiken found out the happiest news only to soon hear devastating words from an officer.
“She said 'I have good news and I have bad news,' Aiken said. "I said 'What's the good news?' because I am already in jail. What could be worse than this? She said 'Your daughter, Kamiyah, was born seven pounds eight ounces.' She said her name is Kamiyah. I was happy, I started to get excited and then I noticed no one else was excited. I asked her what the bad news was and she said your daughter was kidnapped. I was like 'Kidnapped?!' As far as I knew about kidnapping it only happens on TV and movies. Not to a person like me. Last thing I remember at that time she was like 'Craig are you OK? And I remember telling her no."
Three days later, he cried in his jail cell.
“It did a lot to me in there, because I felt like I didn't do my job to protect her or Kamiyah,” Craig said.
His relationship with Shanara Mobley quickly fell apart.
“Trying to talk to Shanara the next day, I heard the pain in her [voice],” Aiken said. “She blamed me too and I could understand that because at that time we were all we had.”
A month later, the sadness people appeared to feel for Shanara Mobley and Aiken grew into suspicion.
"I'm riding on the city bus and I'm hearing people talking about it, they're talking about me,” Aiken recalls people accusing him of taking his own child. “' The father had something to do with it. The mother had something to do with it.' I'm sitting right there and they're talking about me! Don't even much know me. Not trying to get to know me. They turned their back on us in our time of need ... I wasn't looking for money, I was looking for help."
With more support, Aiken believes his child would have been found sooner.
"From the community, from the city, from the hospital,” Aiken said. “Anyone that could have had a voice to help us find our daughter. It took 20 years later for people to finally stop saying we had something to do with it."
Aiken and Shanara Mobley's relationship would never be the same. But they’ve united for Kamiyah.
“We always called each other on her birthday,” Aiken said. “We always put aside any bad feeling we had around Kamiyah's birthday. She always took a piece of cake and put it up for Kamiyah. She has always done that.”
They've always held on to a feeling that she was still alive and somewhere out there. He was able to see in person and hold his daughter for the first time in January of 2017.
“It was like breathtaking you know,” Aiken said. “She just looked beautiful. She just looked like the rest of my kids. I just wanted to grab her and not let go and that's what we did. We hugged for a long time.”
Life sped up. He had appearances on national television, Kamiyah's kidnapper, Gloria Williams was sentenced to 18 years in prison, a movie was made about their ordeal and so were many assumptions.
"I haven't received anything from Kamiyah,” Aiken declared. “Nothing from Shanara, nothing from any city or anything. I work hard for everything I got."
Aiken says he’s now simply looking forward to the future with his daughter who has decided to move from Walterboro, South Carolina to Jacksonville, Fla. They're making up for stolen time.
“A lot of people say that she looks like me and she loves it,” Aiken said. “She loves taking pictures with me.”
As for Shanara Mobley and Williams, Aiken wishes one of them the best and says he doesn’t think about the other.
"It's not Gloria's blood pumping through Kamiyah, it's our blood, and the resemblance she has is of us not Gloria,” Aiken said. “So to me, she's no competition to neither one of us. When Shanara is ready to deal with that she will."