24 years after disappearing as an infant, disorientation leads woman to discover her real identity
According to reports, a woman who had disappeared in Arizona when she was a baby more than 24 years ago has been found to be alive and well in Connecticut. Aleacia Stancil was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and was just 9-months-old when in December 1994 her mother had left her with a friend with the alleged claim that she needed to "clear her head." The authorities said that the mother, Toni Stancil, went back a couple of days later to collect her daughter but found out that the child had gone missing. With her mother being completely unaware of where her child was, the infant was passed along through a few people before she finally made her way to the custody of the police. The officers who took her in had no idea what her name was, however.
AZFamily.com reported that the mother had been arrested and put in jail but did not report that her infant daughter was missing until March the following year. Aleacia was already in the care of the Child Protective Services (CPS) by that point.
The officials at that time, unfortunately, did not put the two cases together. Phoenix Police Detective William Andersen told the site: "Without that one and only witness, I’m very limited in how to proceed with the investigation."
Then, in 2014, a breakthrough in the case was made in the opposite end of the country. The authorities said that a young woman, who was quite disoriented, went to a hospital in Connecticut without any identification. One of the nurses reportedly found it very strange that the woman did not know much about herself and started digging through missing persons records online. She stumbled across an age progression photo of Aleacia Stancil and that's when the connection was made.
The diligent nurse then immediately informed the authorities and the disoriented young woman went through a DNA test to see if she was a match to the unnamed infant from the past. Three years after the DNA samples were taken, it has now been confirmed that the young woman is definitely Aleacia Stancil. According to AZFamily, Stancil had been adopted as an infant and had been raised by her new family under a different name.
Frances Ford, Stancil's grandmother who currently lives in Georgia, said that her granddaughter wants to stay away from the media glare. She admitted that they were able to meet in person and from that meeting, she was able to see that Stancil's life had been complicated and quite confusing. Ford said that she hopes to have a relationship with her granddaughter one day.
She said: "I would want the world to know that these are the things that can happen to kids, and not every story is not a happily-ever-after, and it doesn't mean that they came from someone who didn't want them or didn't care." Phoenix Police Sergeant Armando Carbajal told KTAR: "Even after 20-plus years, happy outcomes can come."