She said she was handed a new-born baby at a busy railway station by a girl called Sylvia, who can’t be located.
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The state argued in court this morning that the 51-year-old female suspect was a danger to society.
The woman – who is now 50 and can’t be named for legal reasons – faced charges of kidnapping, fraud and breaking South Africa’s child protection laws.
She claimed to have never heard from Sylvia again.
Ahead of the verdict her husband told reporters that “we were like father and daughter and family together”. She could have told police the truth, but instead maintained that she was the child’s biological mother, he said.
His suspicions that the matric teenager was his long lost daughter were confirmed when the Hawks investigated, and DNA tests confirmed that she was the biological daughter of Celeste and Morne Nurse.
A week before she was given Zephany, she testifed that Sylvia had called her to say a young woman wanted to give up her child.
The woman told the court she had adopted the baby after struggling with infertility and was not aware the child was kidnapped, but was unable to produce any official paperwork.
Earlier this week, the teenager put out a statement in which she spoke against media saying her privacy, and that of her loved ones, had been violated.
The kidnapper had also sobbed in court during the emotionally-charged case, as she told of being barred from seeing the girl after her arrest in February past year.
“I didn’t know the baby was stolen”, the woman testified, according to the African News Agency. “You made him believe you were still pregnant”.
“I asked her if I could be present for the birth”. “Why the haste in finding a baby – in April 1997”.
Sentencing proceedings begin on 30 May and Judge Hlophe has extended no bail, which means the accused will have to remain behind bars.
Family and friends of the woman convicted of kidnapping Zephany Nurse expressed anger outside court this afternoon.
But prosecutors said that the woman snatched the baby and tricked her husband into thinking Zephany was his biological daughter after suffering a miscarriage.
The child’s mother told authorities she saw a woman dressed in a nurse’s uniform holding her baby before the child disappeared. She paid an R800 deposit, and was given fertility tablets but when that didn’t work, she opted for adoption.
On the 30 April 1997, the day Zephany Nurse was snatched from her mother’s bedside at Groote Schuur hospital, the accused claimed she was given a baby by a stranger at the Wynberg train station.
But the accused insisted Sylvia was very “convincing” and she believed the adoption process was legitimate.
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Hlophe is expected to deliver judgement at 10am on Thursday.
