An Atlanta woman who was sold for drug money when she was a baby has been reunited with the two sisters she never knew she had.
Tiera Rice's mother sold her for drug money years ago. She later died in prison, where she was serving time for murder.
Her two sisters always had questions about the baby who'd disappeared so abruptly. All Crystal Smith and Teesha Jenkins had to remember Rice were two small pictures.
"I remember feeding her, and then it was just kind of hush-hush," Teesah Jenkins tells Channel 2 Action News.
The sisters said just days after Tiera was born, their mother, Wanda Gee, took her to live with an aunt. After that, Jenkins and Smith didn’t see her for 22 years. Smith was 12 and Jenkins was six years old. Their family never gave them an explanation about what happened.
"I saw her maybe three times, then I went back another time and she was gone. And I said, 'Where's the baby?' and they just said, 'We don't know.' They just wouldn't tell me. And nothing was ever said about it. Every time you would mention it they would just get mad," Smith said.
http://bcove.me/2yjelzy5
Rice was raised under another name 40 miles away in Madison County. Questions about her past started when she was 12. Rice found a baby bracelet with the name “Tiera” and her birthday.
At age 15, the woman Tiera thought was her mother died of a drug overdose. That's when Rice said her family broke the news.
"They said they were sorry to tell me that my mom had died and my dad wasn't my dad, my mother wasn't my mother, and I'm not Candace Flores," Rice said.
She had long been told there was no point in trying to find her biological mom.
Rice, 22, is an exotic-dancer now with a 6-year-old son of her own. She hired a private detective to find out more about her past. Within days he told her who she was and that she had two sisters.
They recently reunited, tearfully Thursday in Clermont, Ga.
"They have been looking for me for a lifetime, and I never knew that I was lost in the first place," says Tiera.
Now they'll have a big family Thanksgiving.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured