She was also aided by an unlikely source from within the Pettway family: Pettway’s sister, Cassandra Johnson. According to the Marie Claire account of the case, Johnson helped Carlina make the initial contact with NCMEC. The nature and extent of Johnson’s assistance is not detailed in available sources, but her role appears to have been meaningful in helping Carlina take the step from private suspicion to official inquiry.
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## The Call to NCMEC and What Followed
Carlina White contacted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in December 2010.
NCMEC, based in Alexandria, Virginia, operates the national missing children hotline and maintains the CyberTipline database of reported missing children, including the infant abduction cases that arrive through hospital incident reports and law enforcement referrals. Its forensic artists and case managers work with law enforcement across the country to maintain and update the records of long-term cases. When a person contacts NCMEC with a potential identification — whether they believe they know a missing child or believe they might be one — the center’s staff assess the contact, liaise with relevant law enforcement agencies, and facilitate the verification process.
When Carlina’s contact came in, NCMEC staff reached out to Joy White. The contact — the first credible potential identification of Carlina Renae White after twenty-three years — came on January 4, 2011.
Joy White, then in her late thirties and living with what she had carried since that August night in 1987, received the message that someone was claiming to be her missing daughter. The contact “sounded legitimate and credible,” Detective Martin Brown of the NYPD Missing Persons Squad told reporters. Investigators followed up with Nejdra Nance — Carlina, as she was now identifying herself — and began the process of formal verification.