TikToker learns she was kidnapped and sold by her mother in a dark family secret

Utah - Before her wedding, Shawnette Davis tried to track down her birth mother – but in the process, she stumbled upon a horrifying family secret.

TikTok user thebeardedmom (42) learned by chance that she had been reported missing as a child.
TikTok user thebeardedmom (42) learned by chance that she had been reported missing as a child.  © Screenshot/TikTok/thebeardedmom

Back in 2005, Shawnette Davis was getting ready to get married when she decided it was time to track down her biological mother.

On TikTok, under the name thebeardedmom, she shared a series of posts documenting the shocking things she learned in her search.

When she was just 14, her abusive parents split, and her mother told Shawnette that a different woman had given birth to her.

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Shawnette ended up in foster care, and didn't try to solve the riddle until she was 26, already a mother herself, and prepping for her wedding.

"I don't know what prompted me to call the sheriff's department in the town where I was born - it just seemed to make sense at the time," she said.

When she checked with the law enforcement office, she incredibly learned that her name was on a missing persons list!

"That's how I found out I'd been kidnapped," she said in her first TikTok video of the series.

At the time, the sheriff told her he couldn't find any information about her mother, but was certain she had been reported missing - and as far back as 1980.

"There was a police investigation that I couldn't access because the records had been archived, but [he said] that I had been abducted," she recounted.

Shawnette hired a private detective to find her birth mother

Shawnette Davis was sold as a baby for drugs (stock image).
Shawnette Davis was sold as a baby for drugs (stock image).  © 123RF/rafaelbenari

Now 42, Shawnette said she spent years and thousands of dollars on private investigators to try to find out what happened.

After discovering multiple social security numbers and a falsified birth certificate, she finally tracked down her birth mother, and they had a wonderful reunion – at first.

She went on to explain the warning signs she began to notice from her biological family, and that her mother was incredibly unstable. Yet, she proceeded with caution.

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Shawnette then spent 10 years trying to rekindle a relationship, only to realize that she hadn't actually been kidnapped at all, but sold by her birth mother for drugs.

"My mother's family, they all believe I was kidnapped, the family that kidnapped me, her [extended] family, they all believe I was saved from a crazy woman," she explained of the mystery that everyone fell for.

She also said her birth mom has been married a total of 17 times in the intervening years.

With a lot of therapy, Shawnette has been able to deal with the emotional rollercoaster of realizing she'd lost a family, finding that family, and eventually cutting them off again – without the help of authorities.

Cover photo: Screenshot/TikTok/thebeardedmom

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