Dark secret revealed by school girl's selfie with 'friend'

Miché Solomon was shocked when she took a selfie with a younger friend from school and realised they looked identical.

It was an innocent selfie with a friend from school. But the photo sparked a bizarre revelation for a high school student who had always believed the woman who raised her was her real mother.

Miché Solomon, from Cape Town, had taken a quick snap with her friend, Cassidy Nurse, who was three years younger than her.

When Nurse showed it to her parents, Celeste and Morne, they recognised something about their daughter's friend: she was their child too.

At just three days old, Miché Solomon had been abducted from hospital. But she had no idea that the woman who raised her, Lavona Solomon, wasn't her biological mother.

After the Nurses found out when Solomon's birthday was, they contacted the police.

Miché was told in the school principal's office a few weeks later that the woman who had raised her had in fact stolen her.

Reluctant to believe it at first, Miché obliged to a DNA test.

The results revealed Miché was in fact born as Zephany Nurse, and her school friend was actually her half-sister.

Following the confirmation of Miché's true identity, Lavona Solomon was arrested.

Telling her story to the BBC, Miché, now 21, explained the feeling when she found out: "I sat there in shock. My life was out of control."

She recalled how her classmates would tell her about a younger girl at school who looked just like her.

Miché with her biological mother Celeste before she was stolen when she was three days old.

With no inkling they could be related, the "identical" girls formed a very close bond.

Miché said she and Cassidy would tease that they were just like siblings.

Morne and Celeste Nurse, the biological parents of Zephany Nurse (Miché) following court proceedings. Photo / AP

The whole time. the sisters had lived just 5km apart the.

According to the Daily Mail, Lavona Solomon hid a miscarriage and pretended she was still pregnant before stealing the baby from the hospital and telling people she had given birth solo.

In a reunion with her biological parents, Miché said she "felt nothing" which she knew would be "a shame" for them.

Lavona Solomon is believed to have hidden a miscarriage before stealing Zephany from hospital in 1997. Photo / Getty Images

The Daily Mail reports that despite having three more kids, the Nurse's would always celebrate their missing child's birthday and never gave up hoping that they would be reunited.

Lavona Solomon claimed in court that she was handed the baby by a mystery woman at a train station.

The judge called her story "a fairytale" and that it "should be treated with the contempt it deserves".

A trusting nurse, a missing child

According to an eye witness, In April 1997 a woman dressed as a nurse snuck into the maternity ward of a Cape Town hospital.

Lavona denied the account but was charged with kidnapping, fraud and violating the Children's Act. She was sentenced to 10 years jail time in 2016.

The Daily Mail reports Miché said, "I felt like death was happening to me. I was like, 'How am I gonna cope?'.

"How am I going to get through life without the mother that I had every day in my life?"

Celeste Nurse, Miché's biological mum, never stopped believing she would meet her daughter again. Photo / Getty Images

After her mother's incarceration, she said she formed no bond with her biological relations, adding that she hated that they had taken her mother away from her.

In a search for clarity, Solomon visited her mum and told her: "By knowing I'm not your blood - that I actually belong to someone else, and that you've robbed them of possibilities and changed my whole destiny - hurts me.

"How am I supposed to believe your word when you've lied to me, saying that I am your child?"

To this day, she travels 120km to visit the woman she assumed was her mother jail and is waiting for her release.