Miche Zephany Sheldon felt strangely connected a new girl in school when she was 17 and had no idea that this was just the beginning of a whole new world for her
In April 1997, a woman dressed as a nurse calmly walked out of a Cape Town hospital carrying a two-day-old baby.
However, this child wasn’t hers to take and it took a long 17 years before the truth finally came out and one of South Africa’s most chilling baby-snatching stories was exposed. Miche Zephany Sheldon had started the first day of her final year in school at Zwaanswyk High in January 2015.
Her friends soon rippled with excitement though when they discovered that a new girl had just started. Cassidy Nurse was three years younger than Miche and the pair looked uncannily like one another.
Miche recalled how she felt an instant connection with the younger teenager, which she described a “scary” feeling. Despite the age gap, they became inseparable, calling each other “big sis” and “baby girl”.
They just laughed it off when others asked if they were sisters, joking: “Maybe in another life!” Then one day the pair took a selfie together.
This photo eventually made its way to Miche’s parents, Lavona and Michael Solomon, who were surprised at how similar they look. However, Cassidy’s parents, Celeste and Morne Nurse, strangely asked their daughter to find out if her friend was born on 30 April 1997.
When she answered “yes”, the life Miche knew was about to be turned upside down.
Weeks later, she was pulled out of a maths class and taken to the headmaster’s office where two social workers were waiting who told her about a baby girl – Zephany Nurse – who was abducted from Groote Schuur Hospital as a newborn and never found.
A DNA test was arranged and it proved indisputably that she and the baby were the same person. The news hit national headlines and Lavona was subsequently arrested.
“Meeting my biological parents… there wasn’t that connection. It was extremely difficult because you’ve grown up thinking this is your family”, Miche said about meeting her birth parents for the first time.
She added: “I was looking for it – but it just wasn’t there in the beginning. I’d been raised by Lavona and Michael my whole life. Both families were just so harsh with each other, as well.
“I really had to adjust to having two different dads in my life. But I knew I’d want them both walking me down the aisle whenever I got married.”
Lavona had been struggling with fertility problems when Miche was born and had experienced a late miscarriage. Disguised as a nurse, she then snatched Miche from her hospital cot in the maternity unit.
While the financial bookkeeper no longer maintains contact with the woman who brought her up, she refuses to view her as a villain. She explained: “I don’t see the mum who raised me as criminal and evil. Everyone just got hurt in the process. We all just needed to heal.”
Solomon was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2016 for kidnapping, fraud and violating the Children’s Act, with the judge noting that she showed no remorse during the trial. In March 2023, Miche asked both Michael and her biological dad, Morne Nurse, to walk her down the aisle.
She said at the time: “My biological dad wasn’t too happy at first. But this day was all about me and my relationship with my husband. But eventually, he said yes to me. It was a miracle! The relationship between my two families is improving.
“They do get along now – we’ve all matured, realised we’re human and are finally coming to terms with what happened. We show mutual respect to one another, and we’re all very understanding.”
