Page 15 - Pepper Smith News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> i said, are you robert dean christie? it was on the birth certificate. he said yes. are you married to a barbara or were you married? he said yes. i said, i think i'm rhonda christie or do you know rhonda patricia christie? and then there was a long pause. >> this is who she was talking to. his name is bob christie. >> i almost dropped the phone. she knew i had hesitated. she said, this is your daughter rhonda. and there was something that clicked in my mind that i -- the voice rang a bell. >> and he called to my mom, barbara, to pickup the phone. he said, rhonda is on the phone. she picked...

We gave them a few weeks to get to know each other. then sat down again with pepper and rene. so, there it is. you have your mother, but what now? will you have a relationship with in with me. >> move into your house? >> yes, yes, once she gets all her affairs in order. we're going to move her in. >> why? >> because i want her. my husband wants her, too, there, so. i want to have a relationship with my mom. like i was telling you earlier, i want to go shopping. i want to have lunch. i want to go buy stuff. i want to have christmas, thanksgiving, her there with me. >> and pepper? well, for on...

Rene, now 19, got on with life, moved in with her boyfriend. soon pepper showed up at their apartment, homeless and nowhere else to turn to. and everywhere pepper went from then on, shirley's poison gift followed because of that woman and what she did, pepper was officially, at least, a non-person, so it took a little while for her determination to come back. she was in her mid 20s, a single mother by then. if only she could find her birth certificate, that could lead her to her parents. anyway, she needed documents to live. she needed a passport. so, she contacted state offices, their departm...

Dysfunction was as troubled and messy as her own life was. she swallowed her pride and moved back to room 110 colonial motel, even though by then, says pepper, shirley didn't seem to care much what she did. >> i remember when i was trying to so-called run away, plot my escape before it went into action. i was in my mind going, i'm going to show her. i remember thinking that. but she didn't care. she didn't come to get me. >> still, having tasted freedom once, pepper was determined to get away from her kidnapper for good. a second time she took a chance, moved out with a family and a second tim...

In los angeles county and took a job as the motel's cleaning woman in did change for a free room. and if it wasn't much, at least it gave them some measure of stability, and they signed up at a local school, junior high for pepper, high school for rene. much to shirley's disapproval. >> shirley would tell us, girls don't go to school. they get married. why do you want to go to school? i didn't like being late to school. i didn't like being absent all the time. >> so they got themselves up every morning and went to school and kept going. and then pepper was 12. eight of those years with shirley...