So after the kidnapping, relatives and associates received a letter and a videotape from dorothy lee. And it states, to whom it may concern, i recently lost custody to my beautiful 9 1 2monthold nursing baby. This happened because of a truly evil person, b. Harris todd, and a totally corrupt family court system. Reporter now agent quick knew this child abduction was not a spur of the moment decision. Lee had a well thoughtout plan. I promise and swear on my life that i will continue to take care of my daughter. I will keep her safe. I will never allow anybody to i mean, that was an attempt to embarrass and destroy me. But its not surprising. You know, she is building a case for whatever else, to justify what she did. I just hope you know that i love you. Reporter though he had his own home video, a message to savanna. I just hope youre safe and clean and healthy out there wherever you are. Reporter it took a lot out of harris to shoot that video in savannas room. Every morning i would come in and wake her up, feed her, dress her, and wed head off. And you know, i couldnt bear to see the crib empty. Reporter what kind of emotions did it stir up when you would see that crib . Mostly tears. And it would just make me cry. So i left the id keep the door closed. When i walked down the hall, id just touch the door. That was about all i could do. Reporter but harris also began to take action. He wrote to john walsh of americas most wanted who recorded a Public Service announcement for him. Im john walsh. 1yearold savanna lee barnett is missing from isle of palms, South Carolina. Reporter and he appeared on dedicated an entire segment to his case. I wake up now every morning with a broken heart. Reporter harris tv appearances generated hundreds of leads. Those leads came from everywhere, anywhere from california, georgia, alabama. We would follow those up and try to determine if that was dorothy lee or the child. Nothing. Nothing panned out. April 24th, 1996. Youre gone two years now, which is unimaginable. I dont know how old youll be when you see this, if you ever see this. Ill be here for you whenever you do come back. Reporter then finally, four years into his search, harris thought that moment had arrived. Someone had seen a little blondhaired girl about 5 years old, walk into a Grocery Store the woman who called in was there when the little girls mother came to the door and said, savanan, come on. You need to come home. Reporter coming up mexico . Private detectives are on the case. The lady said that, yes, the lile girl comes in here by herself because her mother has bad headaches and doesnt come out sometimes for days. Reporter did that sound like lee to you . It did, yes. Had mother and daughter been when dateline continues. So this is where i keep all the files and notebooks that ive amassed over the years. I have got everything in here from maps and letters and copies of everything. Reporter are there a lot of dead ends here, too . Oh, there are plenty of dead ends. Reporter but after four years of searching, harris todd thought hed found his daughter in a small town in mexico. Especially after a source gave a description of the girls mother. The lady said that, yes, the little girl comes in here by games or whatever because her mother has bad headaches and doesnt come out sometimes for days. Reporter did that sound like lee to you . It did, yes. Mmhmm. Reporter harars hired private detectives to check out the lead. What was the report you got from the detectives . They found absolutely nothing. You know, they checked everything out. They went everywhere, and they never found the little girl, for that matter. Reporter perhaps lee and savanna had been there and left. Or maybe it wasnt them at all. Either way, it was another dead end. You run through the cycle of excitement and disappointment enough times and you just say, well, look, do you really want to put yourself through that again . Because theres a wealth of pain associated with this, and i can only dip into it so often and survive. Reporter how much do you think youve spent on your i spent everything i had and everything i could borrow. Graham sturgiss, my attorney, told me that i better quit spending enough money or there wouldnt be anything for her to come back to. Reporter fbi agent chris quick knew the chance savanna would come back was getting smaller and smaller. You were kind of grasping for straws. To some extent, youre right. Reporter must have felt cold . Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely. After the three or four years, its considered a cold case. Reporter harris tried to move on. Tried to fill that gaping hole in his life. One thing that helped, he said, was his niece, who was just three years younger than savanna. I spent an awful lot of time with her. I mean, from a very early age. E. I did homework with her every day. Would walk her to school, pick her up from school. Reporter did you think to yourself i should have been doing this with my daughter . Yeah, i thought about it. You know, when you go see your child in the thanksgiving play, christmas pageant. Well, i was watching my niece instead of my daughter. But i was thinking about my daughter at that time. Reporter time marched on. Harris continued working as a Financial Adviser at merrill lynch. He had a few relationships, but he never remarried. After ten years the fbi assigned a new agent, ed klimas, to the case, but nothing new turned up. I believe that the chances of success for this case were 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 only thing that changed were the images on the missing persons posters. From the baby harris had loved to a computer simulated image of a teen he barely recognized. If i die before i wake from this nightmare reporter hed stopped filming his messages to savanna long ago, but he wrote one last poem. Across the fields. Watch the end of the long driveway. Someday my daughter will be there asking for me. Reporter had you given up . No, but one has to face reality. I mean you just say, well, look, here it is. Shes 16. Shes 17. Shes 18. And you dont know where she is. So reporter perhaps the only sign that harris had not abandoned all hope was savannas room. It stood just as she had left it almost 18 years before. Then you get an email totally out of the blue. I did. Reporter what did it say . It said essentially, i have information about your daughter. But again i learned to temper r expectations over the years. Because the well had long since gone dry. So all of a sudden the bucket goes down again and this time it it. Coming up were you just floored . Completely floored. That mysterious email. Turns out someone else had been doing some detective work, too. They tracked you down. They told me, we feel like politely wait, wait, wait you cant put it in like that, you have to rinse it first. Thats bakedon alfredo. Bakedon . Its never gonna work. Dish issues . Trust your dishwasher with cascade platinum. It powers. Through. Your toughest stuckon food. Better than finish. Cascade. Phil oh no. under his breath hey man hey peter. unenthusiastic oh. Ha ha ha joanne . Is that you . Its me. You dont look a day over 70. Am i r rht . Jingle jingle. If yououe peter pan, you stay young forever. Its what you do. If you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. Its what you do. You make me feel so spring has sprung. Are you tired of hazardous glass made so clear by sfx slide show windex that you dont even know its there . Sfx slide show smudge it with the new smudge stick even clear glass gets visibly smudged in a snap. Sfx smudge sounds against glass t it now and say no to spotless clear windex glass. We are in the age of ageless. Age neutral. Age defiant. Age agnostic. Olay is a purveyor of ageless. Only the best 1 of ingredients make it into our products. For transformed skin without expensive brands or procedures. Its the ultimate beauty victory. Nobody has any idea how old you are. With olay, you age less. So you can be ageless. Alalst 18 years had goneney since harris had seen his daughter savanna. Email that arrived in the`early Morning Hours of november 27th, 2011. A single line that said id like to speak with you with regards to your daughter. Was there that little bit of hope . Oh sure. There always is. Real . Reporter the email was from a couple living in a beachchown the Sunshine Coast of they claimed to have known lee and savanna for more than 12 years. Harris immediately wrote back. Do you have any pictures . Anything that you could send me to corroborate this . Its a horrible thing to have to admit that i have no idea what my daughter would look like at this age. Reporter but you would know whatatour exwife would look like . . I would. Reporter the photo arrived a couple of days later. And there was no doubt. That was his exwife, dorothy lee barnett. And there on the opposite side stood a tall girl, nearly a woman. Would that be savanna on the left . Hi, harris, the couple wrote. That beautiful girl on the left is indeed your daughter, savannah. Were yououust floored . Completely flooood. You know, how wonderful is it to have a picture of your grown daughter, to just see, you know, big smile, and i could recognize my smile in her smile. Reporter i would just be staring at that photo constantly. I was at a loss for a while. I had to refrain from looking at it very much, because it was just too much after all these years. Reporter the couple told harris they had met his exwife and daughter in 1999. They knew them as alex and samantha. Lee was married to a South African named Juan Geldenhuys with whom she had a son. Although lee never spoke about her past, the couple had long suspected that savanna was not juans biological daughter. What did the couple tell you about how they had discovered this secret . You know, i think it was a gradl process on their part. Reporter the couple told harris lee and her husband divorced in 2008 and that recently they themselves had had a falling out with her. They had always wanted to know more about their friends mysterious past so they decided to do some investigating of lee had once mentioned that she had a home in belize. Armed with that, savannas birth date and other tidbits of information they had picked up over the years, they searched the internet and discovered lees secret. Theyre real detectives. I think so. Reporter they figured it out. They tracked you down. And then, essentially knowing the wrath that they would face if my exwife ever found out that they did it, they went ahead anyway. They told me, we feel like you have a right to know your daughter. Reporter harris gave the couples informamaon to fbi agent ed klimas. And now that they knew lees alias, the fbi was finally able to figure out how she had left the u. S. Without being detected. She had set her abduction plan in motion by getting a fake birth certificate about two months before taking savanna. Dorothy lee barnett goes to become fictitious person named she went to texas to obtain a texas drivers license, then used the information from that to obtain a United States passport. What we learned was she had left the United States, went to malaysia, and then from malaysia went to south africa where she met geldenhuys. From there in 1999, she moved to botswana. In 2003, she moved up to new zealand. And then after a couple of years she moved to australia. Reporter an 18yearold mystery solved. In the movies, on tv, they find the person and they rush out to make the arrest. Storys over. Did that happen in this case . No. We had to get the state department involved. Department of justice involved. And we had to get a provisional arrest warrant that the australians would accept because we have to abide by their laws. Reporter harris wanted to fly to australia right away, but bureaucracy take its course. Harris had waited 18 years. He figured he could wait a bit more. I think some people, though, may say that a real father would have gotten on that plane the moment he found out about where his daughter was. If id showed up in australia without any backup and run io my ewife or my daughter, i would have had no Legal Backing at that point. They could have caused, you know, an altercation. He could have been in trouble with the local authorities. Alexandria and Samantha Geldenhuys could have fled. And then wed be back to square one. Reporter a year passed. Then almost two. That was too much even for a patient man like harris. He bought his plane tickets and told the fbi he was goinno matter what. You werent going to wait any more. I wasnt going to wait. And it just so happened that suddenly the paperwork went from the bottom of the stack to the top. Reporter harris law enforcements hand. On november 4th, 2013, two days before he landed in australia. Lee was finally arrested. She didnt appear surprised. She was very cordial. And she seemed to be very calm. So she expressed a willingness to talk to us. Reporter lee also asked if she could make a phone call to savanna. Coming up i couldnt fathom what was going on. An astonishing moment of truth for savanna. The first thing that popped into my head, does that mean that my dad nt my dad . And her father. I kept thinking ill get to see her. When dateline continues. Affordable renters insurance. With great coverage it protects my personal belongings should they get damaged, stolen or destroyed. [doorbell] uh, excuse me. Delivery. He lo mein, chopsticks, soy sauce and you got some fortune cookies. Have a good one. Ah, these small new york apartments. Protect your belongings. Let geico help you with renters insurance. That detergent was like half the price and well have to use like double maybe more im going back to the store . Yes you are. Dish issues . Get cascade e atinum. One pac cleans tough food better thanan 6 pacs of the bargain brand combined. Im lucky to get through a shift without a a saster. My bargain detergent couldnt keep up. So i switched to tide pods. Theyre super concentrated so i get a better clean. 15 cleaning ingredients or 90 . Dont pay for water, pay for clean. Thats my tide. Its the final countdown if youre the band europe, you love a final countdown. Its what you do. If you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. Its what you do. When Australian Police and the fbi showed up at lees doorstep she didnt seem surprised. But her 20yearold daughter was about to receive the shock of her life. I couldnt fathom what was going on. It happened so fast that, you know, it keeps replaying in my mind. Reporter savanna, or samantha, as she knew herself, was away at college en her boyfriend brad handed r the phone and said her mom was on the line. She talked about that moment of network. And brad said, shes crying. And its not like mom to cry. Shes a very strong woman. So she said, look, im being arrested. And of course, i went, oh my goodness, you know . Id never expect out of anyone in the world my mom would have done anything. It was a brief conversation about how she was married d previously in america and she conceived me with him, and then somethg became unsafe, and she just took me and ran. So the first thing that popped into my head, i said, does that mean dad isnt my dad . Reporter as far back as savanna could remember, Juan Geldenhuys had always been by her side. She believed he was her biological dad, something lee kept reinforcing. Mom would relay things, you know . Like, you sleep like your dad. Or youounow, you look like your so ive always grown u uwith thth. Reporter but tragedy struck divorced from lee, fell sick with cancer. The man savanna thought was her dad died just a week before lee was arrested. Hard, but it was inevitable. But im happy because the last words i said to him was i love you and the same with him. Reporter savanna said she had barely begun to mourn her fathers death when the news came that she was someone elses daughter. Ive never heard harris todd. Ive never heard savanna. I found out that i was biologically related to him, and hed been helping the authorities to find my mom and i. Reporter imagine finding out that your mom was an International Fugitive wanted by the fbi. Imagine realizing that you were living a life you were not meant to live. And savanna said it was a good life. I gw up in mainly cape town, south africa. And that was just great. We used to go down to a beach in cape town and just spend family. Moms very into going to the beach and having fun there. Reporter she remembered going to game reserves in botswana and competing in swim races in new zealala. I hadad lot of friends. I was educated. I had dancing. Did piano. I had a mom. I had a dad. I had a brother. I had a house. And i was given everything they possibly could afford. It was just it was normal. It was so normal. Reporter so normal. And, as savanna now discovered, so different from the chaos of her first year as a baby back in charleston. She scoured the internet for articles written in the u. S. About the life she never knew. Read about the custody battle. About how harris and others described her mom as mentally ill and violent. Ive never, ever seen anything like that in my entire life. Shes not got a mental illness. Shes not violent. You know, unless she did this whole 180 and changed her entire attitude, then thats not who she is. Repororr so who was the mother that t vanna knew . The most important thing i think is her compassion and the everyone. Everything i am is because of the support, love and nurturing that i have had. Reporter she was afraid, she said, that with the revelation her mother was a fugitive, lees australian friends would abandon her, but they did not. Everyone stepped up and they said, what can we do, you know . I had about 20 People Living at the house trying to help me with everything. And you know . So it really, really shows that everything that shes given to them, theyre giving back to he reporter word of lees capture had reached charleston. Savanna was flooded with supportive emails and phone calls from lees former friends and from family. She had often wondered about her relatives in the United States, like her grandmother and her uncle. Now suddenly she was meeting them for what seemed like the very first time. Beautiful house and my beautiful granddaughter. Hello. Oh my goodness. Looks like her mommy did. Reporter now, the biggest reunion of all seemed like it lee was in an australian jail fighting extradition back to the u. S. , and the man she wanted to keep away from savanna all those years was just a few miles away asking to meet his longlost dadahter. The fbi interviewed my daughter, and they informed her of me. I was told that she was looking forward to meeting me. Reporter but savannas priority was to get her mom out of jail, not meet the man who helped put h