Heartbreaking Twist: Family of Abducted Newborn Uncovers Brother’s Tragic Fate

Experiencing any parent’s worst nightmare, a Florida father faced unimaginable heartbreak when his newborn daughter was snatched from a hospital. Yet, for Craig Aiken, the ordeal would linger for years.

At 51, Craig Aiken has shown remarkable resilience after enduring an 18-year-long separation from his daughter, Kamiyah Mobley. Kamiyah was taken from her mother’s embrace by a woman posing as a nurse in what became one of America’s most shocking kidnapping cases.

The abduction in July 1998 haunted the family for nearly two decades. It wasn’t until 2017 that they were reunited with Kamiyah, who had come to understand that her upbringing was a life built on deception.

Kamiyah grew up in rural South Carolina, believing she was Alexis Kelli Manigo, under the care of her kidnapper, Gloria Williams, who had assumed the role of her mother throughout Kamiyah’s childhood.

Craig Aiken, a father of eight, recalls the emotional reunion on January 17, 2017, when Kamiyah, then 18, instantly connected with her siblings, forming a special bond with her younger brother, Craivon.

But Craivon was cruelly taken away just six years later on March 1, 2023, when a cold-blooded killer shot him in the head while he slept. 

‘I cried so much a long time ago that I don’t cry anymore,’ Aiken told the Daily Mail this week, as he reflected on the emotional toll of the last few years.

After enduring the traumatic trial of Kamiyah’s kidnapper, which saw Williams jailed for 18 years in 2018, the family has been back in court for the case of Craivon’s killer.

Craig Aiken (right) was reunited with his daughter Kamiyah Mobley (center) in 2017 after she was kidnapped from him as a newborn, only for his son Craivon Aiken (left) to be murdered six years later

Kamiyah with her younger brother, Craivon, on the day they were reunited after growing up in different states. Aiken told the Daily Mail that the long-lost siblings immediately bonded when they met for the first time, aged 18 and 14, in 2017

Kamiyah was abducted at birth by Gloria Williams, who brought her up in rural South Carolina as her own daughter, using the name Alexis Kelli Manigo. Above, Kamiyah and Williams

Darien Mixson, 20, was convicted last month of murdering Craivon, 20, and his friend Devon Taylor, 19. He is awaiting sentencing and faces a minimum of 40 years to life behind bars, according to State Attorney Melissa Nelson.

Aiken said he hopes Mixson receives the maximum jail time possible for cruelly bringing his son’s life to an end just six years after he was reunited with his long-lost sister. 

‘My emotions honestly have been messed up years ago, from when this happened with Kamiyah and how the police treated me,’ he told the Daily Mail, referring to him initially being labeled as a suspect in Kamiyah’s case.

‘It’s hard for me to be in touch with emotions anyway. I just deal with it,’ Aiken added from his Jacksonville home. 

‘I miss my son, I love him to death, I wish he was here. But my life situations, I guess, prepared me for this.

‘I’m glad that it’s over,’ Aiken added, as he reflected on Mixson’s trial. His son’s killer was just 17 when he carried out the double murder. 

‘I’m glad that it’s finally bringing peace to the mothers of the victims, my son’s mother and Devon’s mother.

‘Justice was served. As far as the trial, you know, it was hard watching the evidence. 

The family has a much-needed glimpse of joy on the horizon, as Kamiyah, now 27, revealed on social media that she is pregnant with a baby girl

The proud father with Kamiyah and his late son Craivon, who was murdered in his sleep

Kamiyah Mobley, who now works for a loan company in Duval County, with her biological parents, Shanara Mobley and Aiken

‘He has two kids, he was very outgoing, he was popular. He was the youngest out of eight kids, but he acted like he was their big brother. And he was loved,’ Aiken said of his son Craivon

‘It was hard to look at the evidence but I couldn’t turn away from it… to see my son murdered in his sleep.

‘And I wish that no other parent would have to go through this or see this in their life.’

Aiken said Craivon had been at his house just hours before he was killed.

‘I had got a phone call after I had just seen my son… that he was murdered,’ Aiken recalled.

The father said Mixson shot his son and Taylor for their ‘money and guns’ after they had been kind enough to give him a roof over his head for the night.

‘My son had two guns, they were legal guns,’ he said. ‘His friend had guns. 

‘They were looking out for him [Mixson] and letting him spend the night because his mother was in jail and he had nowhere to go, and he was hungry.

‘He was walking the streets, and he had nowhere to go for a couple of days, so my son and his friend let him come over to his friend’s mother’s house.

Darien Mixson, now 20, was just 17 when he murdered the two friends who had offered him a roof over his head for the night on March 1, 2023

‘That’s where he killed them. While they were sleeping, he came into the room, shot my son in the head, then shot Devon in the head.’

Aiken said Mixson was a friend of Devon’s and that his son met him through their mutual link.

Remembering his son, Aiken shared a photograph from the day he met his sister, Kamiyah, for the first time on January 17, 2017.  

‘They were really close. They looked like twins,’ Aiken told the Daily Mail.

‘He has two kids, he was very outgoing, he was popular. He was the youngest out of eight kids, but he acted like he was their big brother. And he was loved.

‘He was always trying to tell them what to do and trying to protect them everywhere they go. He knew what was best for them, and he was the youngest.’

Aiken said what Mixson did was ‘cowardly’ and added: ‘He killed them while they were sleeping. You don’t get any respect for that. You don’t get any sympathy for that.’

A Duval County jury found Mixson guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, armed burglary and grand theft auto on April 1. 

Williams was sentenced to 18 years at Hernando Correctional Institution in Florida in 2018

Kamiyah was months away from graduating high school after living out her childhood as Williams’s daughter in the South Carolina city of Walterboro, when the truth came to light

Images generated and released by police during the hunt for Kamiyah’s kidnapper. She was not photographed before the kidnapping, which happened hours after she was born 

The home in Walterboro, South Carolina, where Williams raised Kamiyah

The attorney’s office said Mixson tried to flee the home where he killed Craivon and Taylor in a car stolen from outside the property, which the owner tracked and police quickly located him.

‘Inside the stolen vehicle, detectives recovered four stolen firearms, including the murder weapon,’ the attorney’s office said. 

‘Outside the car, detectives discovered blood smears on the driver’s door handle, which matched one of the victims. 

‘Blood from one of the victims was also found on Mixson’s shoe and hoodie.’

However, the family does have one much-needed glimpse of joy on the horizon – as Kamiyah, now 27, revealed on social media that she is pregnant with a baby girl. 

Aiken said the new addition will be his sixteenth grandchild. 

‘I will be the best granddad I can be,’ he told the Daily Mail, adding that he would leave giving any additional details about the baby to Kamiyah. 

The kidnapping survivor has shared photographs of her baby bump and her gender reveal party at Terra Gaucha Brazilian Steakhouse in Jacksonville. 

Kamiyah is expecting a girl in August with her boyfriend, Rion Heywood

The cake at Kamiyah’s gender reveal to celebrate the family’s incoming addition

Kamiyah (center-right) hosted her gender-reveal party at Terra Gaucha Brazilian Steakhouse in Jacksonville. From left, her stepmom, boyfriend and father

Kamiyah, who now works for a loan company in Duval County, donned pink and baby-blue acrylic nails and a pink dress for the party, appearing alongside her father-to-be boyfriend, Rion Heywood. 

She even revealed the name she intends to give her baby girl – Kamiyah Kelli Elise Heywood. 

Interestingly, Kelli is the middle name her abductor gave her back in 1998, when she was named Alexis Kelli Manigo. 

Her father, Aiken, previously revealed that Kamiyah still has a soft spot for Williams all these years later, which has caused tensions with her birth mother, Shanara Mobley. 

‘We know Shanara doesn’t like Gloria, and we know Kamiyah likes Gloria,’ Aiken told the Daily Mail in September. 

Speaking about the mother-daughter rift, he added: ‘It’s never going to be totally healed. They just have to deal with it.’

Kamiyah initially visited Williams in prison and even saved Duval County Jail’s number as ‘Mommy’ in her phone during the early days of her imprisonment. Williams was jailed for 18 years for the kidnapping in June 2018. 

Meanwhile, her birth parents live in fear of the day Williams is released, and Shanara even called for the woman who snatched her daughter away to face the death penalty.  

Kamiyah was 18 when she discovered her true identity after she went to apply for a job at a restaurant

Kamiyah had glittering nails for her gender reveal party at the Florida steakhouse

Kamiyah with Aiken, who was in jail when she was born in 1998 

Kamiyah was 18 when she discovered her true identity after she went to apply for a job at a restaurant and was asked to provide a birth certificate and social security information. 

When she asked Williams for them, she broke down and confessed.

She was then reunited with her birth parents, who never gave up hope of finding her. 

At the time of her abduction, Aiken was behind bars on marijuana-related offenses, and Shanara was just 16.

On April 13, she posted on Facebook: ‘It’s getting real now, the more stuff I buy and the kicks I feel.’ 

Kamiyah, who is due to give birth in August, later added that she wanted her daughter to have ‘hair like me so bad’ and added: ‘Like I’m not having heartburn yet, I’m scared. She can take after everything else on that man but let the hair come from me.’ 

Aiken said that despite the pain of the last few decades, he enjoys a close relationship with Kamiyah, who lives nearby and gets on well with her siblings on her father’s side.

‘It’s beautiful. We have fun,’ Aiken told the Daily Mail back in September. ‘When I first looked at her, I knew she was my child.

‘When she started hanging around with the family, I definitely knew she was one of my kids. They act alike.’

The Daily Mail has reached out to Kamiyah for further comment.