instant horror of where is she what had happened to baby savanna? the answer would come decades later and astonish the world. it happened so fast, couldn t fathom what was going on imagine, your mother fugitive. your father stranger. your home, your name your past was any of it real? the first thing i felt, jus a pit in my stomach. i jus felt like it was my fault. a mother s crime. a father pain what kinds of emotions di it stir up when you would se that crib? it would just make me cry a daughter forced to face the shattering truth i was shocked and i was jus terrified. hello and welcome t dateline a father left childless and daughter left questioning he very identity. it was a case that started as custody battle, but turned int an international mystery tha spanned two decades and took investigators nearly 10,00 miles around the world all driven by a determined dad searching for answers and hi daughter here s andrea canning with finding savanna. in
was lee s friend and savanna s baby-sitter. she went with lee to pick up savanna for a visitation weekend two weeks after the verdict and said she was horrified when harri handed over baby savanna she had black and blue mark on her forehead. she had blood on her nose. lee sat in th backseat with the baby and she was crying, and we went to the emergency room reporter: did you ever harm savanna? did you ever abuse her heavens, no. she fell whe she was with my mother at th house. that s all it was reporter: the emergency roo report supported what harris had told lee. savanna injuries were consistent with minor fall. the e. r. doctor wrote he found no signs of abuse. i mean, i would never hav let a hair on that baby s head be harmed. reporter: but lee was convinced harris was an unfi parent and refused to return savanna until harris forced he
reporter: time marched on harris continued working as financial adviser at merrill lynch. he had a fe relationships, but he neve remarried. after ten years, th fbi assigned a new agent, ed klimas, to the case, but nothing new turned up. i believe that the chance of success for this case wer probably very slim at that point. that they had disappeared to a foreign country that we would never be able to locate them. reporter: about the onl thing that changed were th images on the missing person posters. from the baby harri had loved, to a computer simulated image of a teen he barely recognized. if i die before i wake from this nightmare - reporter: he d stoppe filming his messages to savann long ago, but he wrote one las poem and please do keep an eye out across the fields. watch the end of the long driveway someday my daughter will b there asking for me.
reporter: that maybe this i real yes, yeah reporter: the e-mail wa from a couple living in a beac town on the sunshine coast o australia. they claimed to hav known lee and savanna for more than 12 years. harri immediately wrote back do you have any pictures? anything that you could send m to corroborate this? it s horrible thing to have to admi that i have no idea what m daughter would look like a this age reporter: but you would kno what your ex-wife would look like i would reporter: the photo arrived a couple of days later and there was no doubt. that was his ex-wife, dorothy lee barnett. and there on th opposite side stood a tall girl, nearly a woman. would that be savanna on the left? , harris asked. hi, harris, the couple wrote, that beautiful girl on th left is indeed your daughter savanna. were you just floored? completely floored. you know, how wonderful is it to have picture of your grown daughter to just see, you know, how pretty she is and she had a b