Page 25 - Geri Smith News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> did she ever threaten to do that? >> yeah, many times. we'd do something wrong, and she 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 o...

>> that's it. >> yep, that means it's confirmed. >> i can't believe this is 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 the program. >> i saw the picture of shirley and went crazy. 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...

Wedding anniversary. an amazing reunion. dateline was happy to broadcast it all around the country on march 25th, 2011, no 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 it's confirmed. >> when "lost and found" continues. how's it going down there? that's good. lica misses you. i'm over it though. (laughter) that's fine. i miss her more than you anyway. ♪ ♪ hey, m...

Said. told her about a woman working in the sex trade named geri smith who didn't want her babies and one day shirley showed up at barbara's 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, didn't care. didn't 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 legally adopted their little princess four years later in the fall of 1973. and it was shortl...

Had described her. >> yes, i heard what they said about me. i was not a street walker. i was a waitress all my life. >> you 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 herself for what happened. trusting shirley? >> yes. >> and for not having those kids under your wings all the time? >> that's right. >> tell me about that. >> to me, i fel...