SYNOPSIS: On February 9, 1965, a young mother dropped her infant daughter off at a Richmond, Virginia hospital for eye surgery. She never came back. Today, Kimberly Smith, 37, is hoping to find her birth parents to get some answers and a clear picture of her family medical history, including the congenital glaucoma that she fears she may pass on to her own children.

A tall, strikingly pretty woman, who appeared to be in her early to mid-thirties, walked into Grace Hospital in Richmond, Virginia on February 9, 1965, and admitted a baby girl for the first in a series of operations for congenital glaucoma that would be necessary to save the child's eyesight. Since the case was a referral from a nearby clinic at the Medical College of Virginia, the admissions staff asked few of the usual questions, assuming referral records would be forthcoming to fill in any gaps. The woman, who said her name was Mary Carson gave the baby's name as "Kim," and said she was 2 1/2 months old. Saying she had to return home to take care of other children, the woman then left, promising to come back the following day.

When "Mary Carson" didn't return the following morning, for Kim's scheduled surgery, the nurses tried calling the telephone number she had left, but it was not in service. Since they needed her release to proceed with the operation, a hospital administrator went to the address but found the address was a vacant lot used for public parking. The records from the Medical College were of little help. They contained the same fraudulent address and telephone number as the Grace Hospital admission forms. Reports in the Richmond Times newspaper elicited an outpouring of donations and offers of free medical care for the ailing baby, but turned up not a single tip as to whom might have abandoned her at the hospital. Nor did an intensive police investigation turn up any clues as to who or where "Baby Kim's" parents might be.

A year-and-a-half, numerous surgeries and several foster homes later, "Baby Kim," was put up for adoption, but social services knew it wasn't going to be easy to find a good home for a child with impaired vision who was going to require expensive on-going medical treatments. Once again, they turned to the newspapers for help. This time it worked.

Richard and Sandra Butler were visiting Richard's ailing mother in the hospital when they read the Richmond Times article about the lively little girl who couldn't see very well, but loved everybody she saw. Before anybody in the room had time to dry their tears, Richard was out the door and on his way to a telephone to call social services. "How soon can we take her home?" was the first thing he asked. The Butlers, who already had two biological children, saw to it that the little girl they named Kimberly Dawn had as normal a childhood as possible and that she learned to cope with her disability as a challenge rather than a handicap. Although legally blind, Kim says she sees "well enough to get by." But she's done a lot more that that. Kim attended college and married Michael Smith, a deputy with the County Sheriff's Department. Kim taught pre-kindergarten classes at a private school in Richmond for six years before 'retiring' to be a full-time mother to their two children. So far there has been no trace of glaucoma or any other hereditary disease in the children, but worries still lurk about conditions that could surface.

Kim says that it's very important to her to know their medical background, and she'd also like to learn about the woman who left her at Grace Hospital 37 years ago. Was that woman her mother? And why didn't she return for the little girl? Was it because she couldn't give her the care she needed or couldn't afford the medical treatments, or was she simply unable to cope with the fact that the child had an eye disease that might render her blind someday? Whatever the answer, Kimberly Smith would like to know.

If you have any information about Kimberly Smith, please call the Unsolved Mysteries hotline, 1-800-876-5353.