Page 31 - Pepper Smith News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Bed, pepper tried to act like the dutiful daughter, tried to make her comfortable. but there was another terribly important reason to see her then. maybe the most important. one last opportunity to find out who she was. >> as she was dying, did you try to find, do you know, maybe she'd make a death bed confession and say, i did take you and here are what your parents' names are and how to find them. any of that happen? did you ask? >> oh, yeah. >> and shirley had a response for the girl she renamed pepper. the question was, what could see do with that answer? coming up -- if jaycee duggard c...

Number in ohio. she dialed the number. a man answered. 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...

Their amazing similarities. we gave them a few weeks to get to know each other, and then sat down again with pepper and renee. so there it is. you have your mother, but what now? are you -- will you have a relationship with >> move into your house? >> yes. yes. once she gets all her affairs into order, 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. >> ...

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 ...

As shirley explained to strangers that she was their grandmother. that their parents had been 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 ...