Carlina White Update: Ann Pettway Declared Probation Absconder, Sought by Authorities

NEW YORK (CBS/AP) Ann Pettway, the woman believed to be responsible for the kidnapping of Carlina White, who at 19-days-old was abducted from a New York hospital and then was finally reunited with her biological family  twenty-three years later, has been declared a probation absconder.

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North Carolina officials saying they believe she's actively fleeing authorities.

Pettway is on probation because of a conviction for attempted embezzlement. North Carolina Department of Correction spokeswoman Pam Walker said officials have tried unsuccessfully to reach Pettway several times. She was declared an absconder Friday and put into a national law enforcement database.

"As we've learned of her involvement in this abduction, we've been working to locate her, and we haven't been able to reach her," Keith Acree, a spokesman for the Department of Correction in North Carolina, told the New York Post.

Pettway is on parole in North Carolina until June 2012.

Authorities say a woman dressed as a nurse abducted a newborn Carlina White on Aug. 4, 1987 from a crib at Harlem Hospital in New York City.  White was raised as Nejdra Nance.

Her biological parents, Joy White and Carl Tyson, said they left the hospital to rest after their baby was admitted in the middle of the night with a high fever. But when they returned they received the shocking news that their newborn was gone.

Relatives told CBS station WCBS that White was raised in an abusive home in Connecticut and then later moved to Georgia.

Carlina White said she became skeptical of her past after Pettway could never provide her with a birth certificate. She discovered her true identity after contacting the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.