Page 6 - Pepper Smith News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

You know you have to go to an official and ask for something that you really, really, really need and you kind of know, you think how it's going to go. >> i get emotional usually. 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 ...

Powers of reasoning grew, the question grew, too. did her mother bobbie actually give her away? shirley told pepper that renee was her sister. the two girls listened wide-eyed 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 d...

Babysitter for the couple next door in room 109. and when the family moved out of the motel, pepper went with them. but it didn't last long. pepper's new household caught in its own spiral of alcoholism and 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, shirley didn't seem to care much what she did. >> i remember when i was trying to so-call run away, plot my escape, before it went into action, i was in my mind going, she -- i'm going to show her. she'll care. like i remember thinking that. but...

I want to go buy stuff. i want to have christmas, thanksgiving, her there with me. >> and pepper? well, for one thing, pepper has adopted her real birth name, the one that her parents gave her before it was lost in the abductions and the documents, it's ronique. ronique smith. >> i have been very content of finding out who i am, finding my mom, and my real identity and my biological father, and the fixtures of him and all of the exciting things going on. but i think it's not over yet. i don't feel that the journey is quite over yet. it is just starting. this part of it is just starting. >> so ...

>> pepper was shaking inside and out. >> i went into the most emotions i've ever had in my entire life, ever. >> the memories were true, or so it certainly seemed. she got on a plane for ohio. they were all, of course, 37 years older and in a way strangers now. but here they were. all the images she had clung to in fantasy, dreamed about for those 37 long years. >> and there you are in your bath. >> all those rolls, too. >> chubby little baby. >> and happy. >> and look at you just learning to walk. and smiling the whole way. you had a good life, honey. >> i know. >> so it was happy and sad, co...