Family reunited with daughter abducted 10 years ago

DORAVILLE, Ga. - It's a reunion that seems straight out of a movie. More than a decade after her 5-year-old daughter Cinthya was abducted, mother Kadisha Montanez was able to hold her daughter in her arms again.

Montanez said Cinthya had been kidnapped by her father in 2009, and her family never heard from him or saw the little girl again. At the time, Montanez was in jail, so she said that made things even harder.

"All I could do was cry," Montanez said. "My baby was gone, and it was very hard. I'm behind bars, I can't go out and look for her," she said.

She said she received a Facebook message that she will never forget: 

“It may be coincidence or the province of God … Tell me, could she be your daughter?”

Montanez was in shock. An orphanage in Nicaragua contacted her saying her daughter had been abandoned at their doors more than a year prior.

The mother of three said she believed this to be a scam. The nun who messaged her then shared several personal details about her daughter Cinthya, and at that point, Kadisha said, she knew her daughter was alive.

She spent weeks making arrangements with the U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua and gathering documents so Cinthya could come home.

This past Saturday, the teen's family gathered anxiously, waiting for her to arrive in the United States. The reunion was beyond emotional.

Kadisha said she was brokenhearted to learn from her daughter that for the first six years after her disappearance, she and her father lived in Lawrenceville, just one county over.

Cinthya also told her mom her father said Montanez abandoned her, trying to make sure she would never reach out to the rest of her family.

"The story that my dad told me was that my mom abandoned me, and he told me, 'They don't love you, they hate you,'" said Cinthya Miranda.

Before Cynthia disappeared, her father told Montanez that he could take her away at any time.

"He always told us, 'If you ever look for her, I will make her disappear," she said.

Cinthya said she eventually was taken to Nicaragua by her step-grandmother. After several years, she ran away to an orphanage, where the nuns there helped her reach the family she's now reunited with. 

Now, Cinthya and her family are working to acclimate her back to living with a family who loves her so much. Cinthya has her own room and will soon return to school. Kadisha said she wants other families waiting in agony for answers about their missing child to see her family as a beacon of hope.

Her family said being together is the biggest blessing they could ever ask for. They will never take time together for granted and are already planning a trip for next summer to make up for all the family memories they lost over the last ten years.

If you'd like to help out, the family set up a GoFundMe account. Click HERE to donate.