Page 7 - Geri Smith News Today

Barbara, was a child abandoning drug addled prostitute, probably dead. could this woman really be their mother? hardly a claim allred could take on simple faith. >> i asked her to come in and see me the very next day, which she was very anxious and happy to do. i asked her to bring whatever evidence she had. >> in that meeting, the woman presented her evidence. >> she brought some photos that she had of pepper and renee when they were very little. >> she told allred she had been a waitress when ...

Would say, well, you stop doing that or im going to send you off to geris house. >> and so they lived a life of packing up and fleeing state to state, one flop house to the next, searching for the cheapest place to stay and then skip out of. hunger constant. medical care, nonexistent. when money ran out, as it often did, shirley drove to the nearest truck stop. the girls would bed down in the car and watch shirley sneak off to do -- well, they didnt know. and alone and frightened, they held on t...

About me. i was not a street walker. i was a waitress all my life. >> they also said you didnt really want your children. you were happy to abandon them. >> i never abandoned my children. never. ever. and would never, ever do that. >> and she wasnt a drug addict either, she says. shes not had a smooth or easy life. and for much of it, she has missed her children and blamed heelfor what happened. trusting shirley? >> yes. >> and for not having those kids under your wing all the time? >> thats rig...

Actually happening. >> how soon could they meet geri, the sisters wanted to know. and whats she like? how did she know shirley? we arranged a reunion for the next day. geri arrived first and told us how she saw the long lost girls on our program. >> i saw the picture of shirley and went crazy. i was hysterical because i knew who she was. and then when i saw the girls, i knew they were mine. >> after how -- all those years? >> 37 years. there they are. >> what did that feel like? >> it felt great...

Killed in a car accident. >> i knew that everything that was happening to us was completely wrong at a very, very young age. >> why had she been taken? she didnt know. not for money, certainly. there were no ransom demands. and without peppers birth certificate, shirley couldnt use her to score public assistance. though she did use renee that way. frightened, compliant renee, eager for a mothers love, even if that mother figure was shirley. >> i never wanted to do anything wrong. i felt like if ...

Told her about a woman working in the sex trade named geri smith who didnt want her babies. and one day shirley showed up at barbaras house with a 3-month-old baby she called rhonda patricia smith. barbara could see it was a little iffy but she wanted that baby so badly. and so she said she ignored the red flags. >> nope, didnt care. didnt really care. >> she was going to see to it, she said, that rhonda was loved and cared for by the best parents she could ever possibly have. bob and barbara le...

She was very anxious and happy to do. i asked her to bring whatever evidence she had. >> in that meeting, the woman presented her evidence. >> she brought some photos that she had of pepper and renee when they were very little. >> she told allred she had been a waitress when the girls were little. brought a photo of that, too, and a picture of shirley and also a photo of a man she said was the girls father, long since dead. she said her name was geri. >> i asked her immediately, geri, would you ...

Idea that something quite unbelievable would happen because one of the people who tuned in that night was a woman named geri, and oh, what a story she had to tell. coming up -- it was a story two sisters had waited a very long time to hear. >> 99.99% probability. that means its confirmed. >> when "lost and found" continues.

A year with xfinity mobile. plus, ask how to keep your current phone. visit your local xfinity store today. and now for the conclusion of "lost and found," here again is keith morrison. >> it was peppers story when we began. pepper officially now ronnique who set out to find a birth certificate and discovered a past that was richer and more complex than even she dreamed possible. to find first the mother of her memory and then her long lost birth mother and to discover that renee was her actua...

I said, well, thats great because i really thought i was blessed. >> first it was renee she looked after. then renee and pepper and then two years later little brother raymond leonard smith jr. wait. brother? it wasnt just the two girls. there was a younger brother the girls never knew they had. the father wasnt around very much. geri supported them all with what she could make as a waitress. and shirley made a change, a positive one, it seemed, at least financially. >> she got this job supposed...