Three decades after her daughter was stolen by a couple, a Cape Town mother is reliving the trauma every day as if she has lost her daughter for a second time.
A decade ago, Delores Cyster, 65, was reunited with her daughter, Johnica Bailey, who had just celebrated her 21st birthday. But Bailey relocated back to Port Elizabeth two years ago to relatives of the couple who were part of her kidnapping in 1993.
Bailey had been snatched aged two-years-old by a couple named Johanna and Phillip Ambral, who were paid by Cyster to look after her while she worked the night shift.
Missing persons organisations who dealt with such cases said often children are left with psychological trauma due to the life they shared with their kidnapper.
In Bailey’s case, she was led to believe that her mother had abandoned her.
In December 2011, Cyster received the best Christmas gift after dedicated detectives travelled to PE to trace Bailey down.
In 2012, police confirmed that their investigation into Bailey’s disappearance was ongoing after she had been located living in PE.
Cyster made various appeals in newspapers in her quest to find her daughter, and it was thanks to Warrant Officer Nicholas du Plessis, from the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit in Mitchells Plain, who managed to bring Bailey back home.
The couple who had kidnapped Bailey had both died, and she was a mom of two young children when she made her decision to meet her biological mother.
During an interview in 2012, Bailey said she was shocked to learn that she had another mother after having buried her 'mother'.
But it was not a fairytale ending for Bailey and Cyster.
What followed led to court houses, the police and tears.
Bailey, who uses her kidnappers’ surname - Ambral, declined to comment.
Inside Cyster’s home, photographs can be seen of Bailey, happy and content.
Cyster reaches for a file. Inside are court papers where she had a charge of attempted murder withdrawn against her.
According to the document, the court’s decision was not to impose a sentence but to withdraw the case in April 2013.
The case had allegedly been made by a relative, accusing the mother of wanting to harm one of her grandchildren.
“I spent seven days inside prison. I am a woman that serves God, and that is a time in my life that I will never forget. I would never harm my grandchildren,” she said.
“The Magistrate had the case withdrawn against me and said I must go home to my family.
“I had to get a police clearance after that. I had so many people praying for me.”
Cyster said Bailey moved away and later returned to live under her roof, where she has tried to mend their relationship, never giving up.
“She lived here for five years and moved back to PE two years ago and now has three children,” she said.
“I never gave up looking for her. I used to go to PE with my two sisters, and that couple would hide my child away.
“I approached the police again and told them I know where they are, and I said it would be better if the police went and they learnt that both parents (kidnappers) had died.
“I feel empty today and lost without her. I have asked her if she will come back to Cape Town. I just want to see her face.
“I have forgiven the person who made that case against me because I am a Christian.”
Michelle Ohlsson, the mother of nine-year-old Matthew Ohlsson, who vanished in 1997 in Mitchells Plain and founder of Concerned Parents of Missing Children, assisted Cyster with her case and with her reintegration with Bailey.
She said Bailey had been told by the kidnappers that her mother had abandoned her.
“She was told by her kidnappers that her mother did not want her, and she had that anger inside of her,” said Ohlsson.
“This mother never gave up searching for her child and opened her home to her and pushed her other children aside to make life comfortable for her.
“Not every case is the same. Not every case has the same outcome, and there is often no happy reunion.
“That child is left with that psychological trauma.
“In this case, the mother knew who took her child.
“This mother was placed inside jail during this period for something she did not do.”
In June, the movie Girl Taken hit the big screens, which showed the journey of couple Morne and Celeste Nurse, their heartache, pain and joy after their three-day-old baby Zephany was snatched by seamstress Lavona Solomon from Seawinds at Groote Schuur Hospital in April 1997.
Zephany was reunited with her parents 17 years later.
She had attended the same school as her youngest sister, Miche, and they resembled one another.
DNA tests proved the girl was, in fact, the Nurse’s long lost daughter.
Miche told Weekend Argus during the film premiere that it was not an easy journey for her family. She said: “This is a huge achievement as a family, and although we are still not where we would like to be, we are working on it.”
SA Society of Psychiatrists spokesperson Dr Gagu Matsebula said acute stress disorder has similar symptoms to PTSD, but is shorter-term, lasting from three days up to a month.
“Different people experience and respond to trauma differently. Sometimes it is not the victim of the traumatic event who develops acute stress disorder – it could be someone who witnessed the event, or even the perpetrator,” he said.
“The flashbacks are involuntary and intrusive, in that the memories keep coming back even though you don’t want them to, and they lead to feelings of distress, feelings that one is re-experiencing the trauma.
“In order to avoid thinking about or remembering the event, people tend to exercise or work themselves to exhaustion so that they don’t have time to think about it and can just go to bed and sleep,” he said.