Page 13 - Geri Smith News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

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 the girls were little. brought a photo of that, too, and a picture of shirley and also a photo of a ...

Would say, well, you stop doing that or i'm going to send you off to geri's 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 didn't know. and alone and frightened, they held on to each other and watched the shadows of strange men pass by their car until the night when, terri...

About me. i was not a street walker. i was a waitress all my life. >> they also said you didn't 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 wasn't a drug addict either, she says. she's 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? >> that's right. >> tell me about that. >> to me, i felt like it was my fault, because i put them in the hand...

Actually happening. >> how soon could they meet geri, the sisters wanted to know. and what's 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. i had been hoping to find my children before i die because i'm getting old. and it was like a mir...

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 didn't know. not for money, certainly. there were no ransom demands. and without pepper's birth certificate, shirley couldn't use her to score public assistance. though she did use renee that way. frightened, compliant renee, eager for a mother's love, even if that mother figure was shirley. >> i never wanted to do anything wrong. i felt like if i did something wrong or whatever, she wouldn't love me. she would give me away. >> wouldn't lov...