A woman who was kidnapped as an infant and then subjected to systematic abuse by a counterfeit family is optimistic that a new movie recounting her life story will serve as a wakeup call about the distressing billion-dollar sex-trafficking business.
Monique Smith was cruelly snatched from her crib in New York City at the tender age of two and transported to Baltimore by a woman yearning for a child, according to her account.
DESPERATE SEARCH FOR ANSWERS
Over the next twenty years, the courageous Monique, brought up under various aliases that complicated the search efforts, endured physical and psychological mistreatment at the hands of the woman posing as her mother.
The woman – who Monique refuses to call her mom – also stood by as her uncles consistently molested and raped her.
It took her 28 years to realize exactly what happened – and in the process, she became the longest-living missing person on record.
Sadly, her birth mother died before Monique was able to find her, but meeting her sisters after having their lives torn apart for so many years was incredibly emotional.
“It was beautiful,” she told The U.S. Sun, “I collapsed into my older sister’s arms. I thought I had no origin, family, support, or safety net. It was incredible to be with my real family finally.”
The U.S. Sun first met Monique at CrimeCon in Orlando two years ago, when her heartbreaking story was thrust into the mainstream thanks to a harrowing book about her ordeal and a short HBO documentary.
She talked about her despair at seeing a longer film project canned because of the Covid-19 pandemic but proudly spoke of how her life was dramatically turned around by launching herself into vital advocacy work.
Yet this weekend, Lifetime will screen Not My Family: The Monique Smith Story, with Lincoln Lawyer and Chicago Med star Yaya DaCosta in the main role.
The now Baltimore-based 59-year-old hasn’t seen the finished product but admits watching her stranger-than-fiction life acted out before her very eyes was “pretty intense.”
“When I met people on set, they were crying,” she recalled. “They knew what I had gone through.”
EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER
The producers struggled to find child actors to help dramatize the sickening abuse suffered at the hands of her supposed mother, with some of the scenes almost too tough to watch.
“I almost broke down,” Monique admitted as the memories of the vicious mental and physical abuse all came flooding back.
Memories of being smacked so hard as a six-year-old that the bandages protecting her badly gashed knee came off.
Thinking back now to those darkest of days, she recalls throwaway comments from nasty family members, how they would scowl at her to forget about being angry at her chief abuser because “she’s not your mother anyway.”
“Oh my God,” she said, “that’s what they meant.”
She remembers the woman as “like a dictator,” malicious and abrasive in her handling of everything.
She was forced to work as a cleaner when she was just nine years old; the brutal lifestyle of scrubbing floors and toilets in the evening severely affected her schoolwork.
Monique would routinely fall asleep at her desk. Something wasn’t right.
“It was like I was her slave,” said Monique, who had no idea she’d been ripped away from her birth mother. “I would do her hair and clean her home.”
SICKENING ABUSE
Meanwhile, two men who said they were the little girl’s uncles were routinely sexually abusing her.
Forced to go on the run as a teen, she met people on her travels in Florida who groomed her for sexual trafficking.
A woman she met on the bus initially took the teenager in before getting her a landscaping job with a man she knew.
Some days, however, he would “take me around and make me perform certain acts instead of working.” She fell into prostitution.
“I was in sex survival mode,” she said.
This was when the dark world of sex trafficking came into her world.
Today, she works fearlessly in the Washington metropolitan area, helping affected families and raising awareness.
She talks about kids in fifth grade being taught how to groom classmates, and admits one case involved a 16 year-old pregnant pimp.
Other horrifying incidents involved callous criminals cutting babies from wombs to sell them.
“People just need to be believed,” she said. “I told multiple people at high school that I was being sexually abused. But some folk don’t want to get involved.”
Monique says her journey is what “kept me alive.” Her nightmare took a shocking turn when she returned from her trafficking hell at the age of 28.
She wanted to finally stand on her own two feet and carve a life out for herself, yet with her abuser continually refusing to hand over birth certificates or other documentation, drastic action was taken.
This fresh hell continued for a couple of years before a return to Maryland beckoned – and the hope of a new beginning presented itself.
It would shape the rest of her life – and finally bring down the appalling human beings who had destroyed her childhood.
FRESH START
After the woman she refuses to name continually declined to hand over a birth certificate—which, of course, she never had—Monique started digging with authorities.
The Department of Social Services and the Board of Education were contacted to locate relevant documentation.
They were instructed to delve into their archives and retrieve records that could help release social security numbers.
Weeks passed without news until one day, an unexpected letter arrived through the post.
“I nearly collapsed,” Monique recalled.
One document stated her birth year was 1966, while another claimed it was 1968.
Strangely, the name Monique Smith was absent.
As it turned out, the woman had applied for three different social security numbers under the names Symbolie Smith, Symbolie Terrie, and Symbolie Terri.
Her listed birth dates were May 11 and May 13, 1966.
“It felt like my whole world was crumbling,” she confessed.
A crushing reality began to dawn on her.
She launched a nationwide search, reaching out to both the police and the FBI, accusing the woman of having kidnapped her as a baby. The paperwork she eventually received shattered her understanding of her identity, proving that Monique wasn’t who she thought she was.
“They didn’t know what to make of it,” she said. “I’d spent years chasing after someone called Monique Smith, never realising that person was a complete fabrication. The names, the identities – all of it was a lie.”
It took two long years before her name was finally added to the national database. She became missing child number 129 – the latest label in her quest for answers.
AGONIZING TRUTH
Determined, she printed posters and mailed flyers far and wide. The irony wasn’t lost on her: Monique was on a nationwide search to find herself.
As for the woman who’d pretended to be her mother, she remained as cruel as ever.
“She told me to go to hell and that she’d take the truth of what happened to her grave,” Monique said.
It was the last time she ever spoke to her before she passed away at the age of 77.
Monique’s search for answers was draining her financially, emotionally, and physically. To keep going, she spent thousands traveling across states, arranging overnight daycare for her children.
She knocked on the doors of homeless shelters and even contacted the Salvation Army, clinging to the hope that someone, somewhere, might recognize her story.
“I got a letter calling me a living Jane Doe,” she recalled. “They said they’d never seen anything like it.”
Determined that her children would one day understand where she came from, Monique began writing a book. At the same time, she reached out to chat show hosts—Oprah, Ellen DeGeneres, Ricki Lake—hoping her face or voice might strike a chord with someone watching.
She contacted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, but even they were at a loss.
Eventually, she was listed in NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System—a database typically reserved for deceased individuals, often found in shelters or whose bodies were never claimed.
Then everything changed.
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
Renowned genealogist CeCe Moore entered the picture. Piecing together Monique’s DNA, she uncovered a lead: a woman in her 60s searching for the death certificate of her baby sister.
“When I heard, I was like, ‘Wow,'” Monique said, holding back the tears.
The woman turned out to be Veronica, her biological sister, who remembered seeing Monique on the bed one day and then gone the next.
Their birth mother, a troubled teenage mom, had died at just 34. Monique learned she had seven sisters, each with a different father.
With her identity finally unraveling, Monique turned her attention to justice. She wanted accountability and the people who had tried to erase her punished.
But justice was elusive.
Maryland police pointed her to New York; New York passed the case back to Maryland. Worse still, the people who had hurt her—who had stolen her past—were all dead.
Even the woman who raised her under pretenses had passed away the same year Monique discovered her real name.
She has always wondered why she was treated so appallingly, especially considering the woman’s desperation to have children was so extreme, she decided to steal one.
“It must have been mental illness,” Monique said.
She will settle down this weekend to watch her film for the first time as a successful businesswoman and tireless advocate for the kids of tomorrow.
Her push for change has seen a new missing person’s law passed in Maryland. She has also helped establish a day in the local area to commemorate and raise awareness.
Every May 25 is now Missing Children’s Day.
“Sex trafficking is a $150 billion industry,” Monique concluded.
“I want people to speak up.
“It’s horrible how people can easily violate human rights, but I am desperately trying to make a difference. I don’t want other kids to suffer like I did.”
