I was snatched from my cot and raised by kidnapper – but I forgive him & he’ll walk me down the aisle with my birth dad
A WOMAN who was snatched from her cot at just three days old has forgiven her kidnapper and says he will walk her down the aisle alongside her biological father.
Miche Zephany, now 25, was dubbed South Africa’s Madelaine McCann after she was taken from the hospital shortly after her birth.
Miche, 25, was snatched from her cot when she was just three days old[/caption]Miche, who was born Zephany Nurse, was stolen away by Lavona Solomon, who dressed as a nurse to take a replacement baby after suffering a late-term miscarriage and faking the rest of her pregnancy.
The kidnapper and her husband Michael renamed the girl Miche and raised her.
Miche only discovered the truth when she was 17 but says that she accepts Michael as the man who raised her.
Her true identity was revealed when friends pointed out that a new girl at her school looked shockingly similar to her.
It turned out to be her biological sister Cassidy.
Discussing that day, Miche told the Mirror: “I was just a normal teenager up until the day I met Cassidy at school. When I saw her face we had this sensation, this connection.”
“We immediately clicked and we immediately became friends. I felt a sense of protection.”
Her birth family are also learning to accept the couple that took their daughter and she insists that both her dads walk her down the aisle.
“I wouldn’t say that Michael and Morne have a friendship, but they respect one another.”
“I want both my dads to walk me down the aisle. I would want them both to have that honour”, she said.
“I was raised by and lived with Michael but I have my birth father Morne too. My children know them both. My kids play regularly with Michael.”
“Then they have ‘Pa’ who is my dad.”
Miche, who now goes by Miche Zephany, is engaged to long-term partner Justin Sheldon, with whom she shares two children.
Her birth parents Morne, 45, and Celeste, 43, separated after the kidnapping but reconciled after their child was found.
Michael always maintained that he did not know that Miche had been taken and always believed she was his child with Lavona.
Lavona was jailed for 10 years in 2016 for kidnapping and violating the Children’s Act
While, she maintains that she’ll “always have love for Lavona”, Miche has recently distanced herself from her ‘mother’ and it has been three years since she last visited her in prison.
Her adoptive father Michael always maintained he did not know she had been stolen[/caption] Miche, then called Zephany, pictured shortly after birth with her biological mother, Celeste[/caption]