Dad kidnapped 5-yr-old daughter while mom was away—10 years later, Facebook request from a nun turned mom's life around
For parents, it is really hard to stay away from their child even for a day. A mom had to stay away from her daughter for over 10 years. The girl, Cynthia, had been kidnapped by her father when she was only 5 years old. While her mom, Kadisha Montanez, was heartbroken, she couldn't do much because Cynthia's dad had threatened her. However, she received a message on Facebook years later that changed her life, per 11 Alive.
Montanez was in jail and had left Cynthia and her other two kids with her parents back in 2009 when the incident happened. "Two weeks after her fifth birthday, my mom showed up (to visit) with the other kids and I said, 'Where is Cynthia?' She said, 'Kadisha, I didn’t want to tell you in hopes that he would return, but, um, she’s gone,'" Montanez recounted. The girl's dad used to take care of her during the weekends while the mom was in jail, but on one of those weekends, the man didn't bring her back to her grandparents' house at all. The mom had no idea where her daughter was and was too scared to call the police, as the man had threatened her before.
"I would go to sleep wondering if she was crying for me, if she was eating, if she was happy," Montanez expressed. On the other hand, 15-year-old Cynthia revealed that her dad had made her believe that her mom had abandoned her. The man took her to Nicaragua with him at some point, but she ran away and ended up at an orphanage in Diriomo, Nicaragua, for almost 2 years. But then some nuns started taking a keen interest in her and her life. "She's Cinthya. Her dad left her here. She's from the United States and she's like 'What? And where's her mom from? She's Puerto Rican and her dad is Mexican, so what is she doing here in Nicaragua?" Cynthia recalled a conversation between two nuns.
The nun who had been at the orphanage for a week understood that there was something strange about Cynthia's story and started paying more attention to her. The nun found Montanez's Facebook page and asked her quite a few questions until she figured out that she had actually found the teen's mom. "All I could say was 'Cynthia!' and she said 'Yes, that’s her!'" Montanez recounted. The nuns gave the news to the teen that her mom had been found. The woman gathered the documents to prove that Cynthia was her child, took permission to travel and went to Nicaragua from the United States to finally see her daughter. "She wanted to jump out of the car! I was just wanting to grab her!"
Montanez saw the dot on Cynthia's tongue that had been there ever since she was a child and could confirm that it was her daughter. On the other hand, Cynthia remembered that her mom had a beauty mark on her forehead. She could also remember some details of the time she had spent with her siblings as a kid. The teen girl could eventually meet her siblings and her grandparents over dinner after all those years in 2019. It is still not known how the dad took Cynthia out of the country without any travel documents. The family hoped to go to Universal Studios in Orlando to make up for the time lost with Cynthia.
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