Page 17 - Pepper Smith News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

It was june 5th, 2010. >> i said are you robert dean christie, he said, yes. i said are you married to a barbara blackwelder, or were you? 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'd hesitated and she said this is your daughter rhonda. and it was something that clicked in my mind that i reck -- the voice rang a bell. >> and he called to my mom, barbara, to pick up the phone. rhonda is on the phone. she picked up th...

>> when we first told you the story about pepper smith and her lifelong journey to find her family, her identity, it was a friday night in march 2011. and the following monday morning -- >> my office received a call, and then i received an e-mail. >> attorney gloria allred found herself looking at a remarkable message. allred had been helping the two sisters deal with their new identity issues, and there it was. the ping of a message on her blackberry. >> when i looked at the e-mail, i just couldn't even believe it. i looked at it about three times. am i really seeing this? >> it was a woman c...

Renee, 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 nonperson. so it took a little while for 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 departments...

I usually cry. it was really -- i would -- it just brings me to a sad place. >> you'd be sitting across the desk from somebody crying. >> oh, absolutely. >> and they wouldn't do anything for you? >> no. they could say i can't do anything for you probably. >> you need this document. this is what you need to provide. >> sorry. >> i have no way to get this document because i don't know my parent's name. i don't know my real name. pepper. >> and once again, pepper felt, perhaps understandably, like giving up. but by then she was living with her daughter in south lake tahoe working as a waitress an...

>> i don't know. i'm sure -- over time everything's been getting better, but i'm still not ready to be trusting everyone so easily. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline extra." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. her name is pepper. >> i lived a secret life. >> she was kidnapped at age 4. >> we got in the car, and we never went back. >> she spent decades trying to find her way home again, and she finally made it. or so she thought. >> i said, i think i'm rhonda christie, or do you know rhonda patricia christie. and then there was a long pause. >> pepper's story had many ups and ...