JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The woman who admitted to kidnapping Kamiyah Mobley when she was a baby is now awaiting an evidentiary hearing on a motion for post-conviction relief.
Gloria Williams pleaded guilty in 2018 to the 1998 kidnapping of a baby from a Jacksonville hospital. She was sentenced to 18 years in prison, one year for every year Mobley was without her biological family.
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Williams, who admitted to kidnapping and raising Mobley as her own, has asked the court to reconsider her case several times. She has appealed her sentence, asked for a reduction to her sentence twice, and now she wants the judge to throw out the judgment and sentence and start over.
Williams says her attorneys didn’t investigate her mental health. She argues her counsel didn’t ask for a hearing to decide if she was incompetent to proceed. She says her counsel didn’t prepare a defense, which gave her no option but to take a plea.
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An amended motion that Williams filed in June of 2024 argues she should be allowed to withdraw her plea and asks for an evidentiary hearing to be scheduled.
On Wednesday, Circuit Judge Jeb T. Branham signed an order allowing the Public Defender’s Office to withdraw as attorney for Williams and be relieved of any further responsibility in the case after declaring a conflict.
The Public Defender’s office previously represented Williams during a 2018 appeal. She was represented by a private attorney from her arrest up through her sentencing.
Victoria Welch, with the Office of the Regional Conflict Counsel, was appointed to represent Williams, who is currently serving her sentence at the Lowell Correctional Institution-Annex in Ocala.
News4JAX has requested additional court documents to find out more about the conflict with the Public Defender’s Office. We’re also working to find out when the evidentiary hearing will take place.
18-year secret unravels
During her sentencing hearing, Williams said she didn’t tell Kamiyah her true identity until Kamiyah discovered she couldn’t get a driver’s license because she didn’t have a valid birth certificate or Social Security card. In January 2017, police announced they had found Mobley in South Carolina, living under the name Alexis Manigo.
Kamiyah’s abduction became the subject of a Lifetime movie: “Stolen By My Mother: The Kamiyah Mobley Story.”
Williams admitted she took Kamiyah from the hospital at a time when her life was spiraling out of control. Williams said she was coping with depression and an abusive relationship.
She also apologized to Kamiyah and the girl’s biological parents at the sentencing, saying if she could go back in time, she would not have taken the baby.
Mobley’s biological father released this statement about the motion, “She (Williams) can keep trying to do what she can to get out. I’ll do whatever I can to keep her in there.”