Pretoria - The 52-year-old woman, who was sentenced to 10 years for kidnapping three-day-old Zephany Nurse from her mother's bedside at Groote Schuur Hospital in 1997, will face the parole board hearing on Friday, CapeTalk radio station said on Thursday.
Lavona Solomon from Lavender Hill in Cape Town, was sentenced in 2016. She maintained her innocence throughout the trial.
She told the court she hid a miscarriage from her husband and had bought the baby after she met the seller by the name of Sylvia a Wynberg train station after she had promised to help her with an adoption.
Solomon had changed the girl’s identity and named her Miché Solomon.
The Nurse's 17-year search for their missing daughter finally ended in 2015 when their younger biological daughter started high school at the same school as Zephany.
Classmates remarked on the sisters' striking resemblance and when the younger sister told her father, he contacted the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks).
DNA tests revealed that Zephany, who was in matric at the time, was indeed the missing child.
Department of Correctional Services spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo said he could not confirm Solomon’s appearance as he is not privy of the details in the parole board.
“It will be difficult to confirm because the parole board is an independent body, we are not even part of the meetings they have with the person. We only get communication after the person has appeared before the board and a decision has been made,” Nxumalo said.
Attempts to get a hold of the parole board in the Western Cape were unsuccessful.
In 2019, Zephany, who was still using Miché as her name, spoke to eNCA after the release of her book Zephany, which tells her story - from finding out that she was not Levona and Michael Solomon's daughter and that Morne and Celeste Nurse were her biological parents.
"What Levona did was wrong, but I wasn't abused, I was not neglected ... I'm not condoning what she'd done ... she's taken a part of me and my biological parents away and that is something we will never get back ... but what I can say is that she really took good care of me.
"In my book as well, I do mention that her just risking everything to have this baby, to have myself - it just shows she was so desperate, it proves to me her unconditional love and the measures and lengths she would go to have this baby,“ she said in the interview at the time.
A documentary about Zephany’s life story was released in June.
The short film which is called Girl Taken features interviews with the Nurse family, Lavona's husband and Zephany.
IOL