And then, later, when Carlina found the age-progression photograph on the NCMEC website, part of what she recognized was the resemblance between that photograph and her daughter. The age-progressions are built using family photographs precisely because genetic resemblance is what makes them work — a missing child’s image, aged forward, should resemble that child’s biological relatives because the progression is calibrated to the family. Carlina’s daughter, genetically related to the same White family, would have carried some of that resemblance in her face.
The child who was not born yet when Carlina went missing was, indirectly, part of how Carlina found her way back.
Samani’s private life and identity are not matters of public record, and this article will not characterize them further.
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## The Hospital and the Institutional Questions
The abduction of Carlina White from Harlem Hospital in August 1987 was the first infant abduction from a New York City hospital. It took place at a time when hospital security protocols — particularly around maternity and infant wards — were less developed than they are today.
The surveillance system at Harlem Hospital was not working the night of the abduction. Nurses checked on infants regularly but not continuously. A woman who was not a member of the hospital staff was able to move through the ward, interact with patients and their families, and ultimately remove an infant without being stopped.
The mechanisms by which hospitals have subsequently strengthened protections against infant abduction include electronic security tags attached to newborns that trigger alarms if the infant is moved toward exits, stricter identification requirements for anyone accessing infant care units, enhanced surveillance coverage in corridors and exits, and protocols for immediate lockdown when an infant goes missing. Many of these changes accelerated nationally following a series of hospital infant abductions in the 1980s and 1990s, a period during which the pattern of cases made clear that existing protections were inadequate.