Page 27 - Pepper Smith News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> renee was feeling abandoned. >> i told her don't go. stay here. i need you. you're my sister. so she went. she did her thing, and i was upset, and i was sad. >> by 1986 and on her own now, pepper had given hope she'd ever find her real parents, but she had an immediate problem, the trouble that comes with having no real name, no i.d., no birth certificate. she was under rhonda smith at shirley's urging at school. she had no way to prove her legal name, and without some cooperation from shirley, her search for such documents seemed hopeless. and then -- how did you find out she was sick? >> ...

>> when i looked at the e-mail, i just couldn't even believe it. >> something quite incredible happened after our show ended. and now, after so many tears, so many years, so many turns in pepper's story -- >> i was, like, whoa! >> -- there are still more stunning twists to be revealed. >> it's amazing. the best gift ever.

Pepper, now officially ronique, who set out to find a birth certificate and found a past richer and more complex than even she dreamed possible. to find first the mother of her memory and then her long lost birth mother, to discover that renee was her actual sister and now to learn she had a brother. raymond leonard smith jr. is what jeri called him before he, too, was snatched away, abducted by the babysitter, shirley. where was he now? jeri gave us a copy of his birth certificate. he'd be just about 40 now. and our chances of finding him seemed, frankly, slim. we called 40-year-old ray smith...

He said yes. i said, are you married to barbara blackwelder or were you? he said yes. i said, i think i'm rhonda christie or did you know rhonda patricia christie. >> this is who she was talking to, his name is bob christie. >> i almost dropped the phone. she knew i had hesitated and 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 pick up the phone. he said, rhonda is on the phone. she picked up the phone and the first thing out of her mouth was, shirley stole you. >> pepper was sha...

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. and everywhere pepper went from then on, shirley's poisoned gift followed. because of that woman and what she did, pepper was officially at least a nonperson. 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 department...