20/20 - True Crime Vault: Sabrina: Lost or Stolen?

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Two women suspect they may be the five-month-old infant who disappeared from her crib over twenty years ago, and DNA testing is used to determine if one of them is the missing baby. (OAD 3/16/2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On a quiet Saturday morning, five women walked into a Lane Bryant store and never came home. The man responsible for their deaths was heard and even described by the lone survivor. But despite nearly being caught, he vanished into thin air. In the years since, new technology, new investigators, and new questions have changed what's possible. But the families are still waiting for answers. The evidence is still there. In this case, isn't cold. It's unfinished.

Listen to Counterclock Season 8 wherever you get your podcasts. Step into the 2020 True Crime Ball, where you'll hear our most gripping stories. I didn't know what to think. I'm just screaming. Tonight on 2020, a breakthrough in the story that transfixed the nation, the disappearance of baby Sabrina. A five-month-old girl who disappeared from her home in the middle of the night. This is where he heard the baby crying. Grieving parents who, some thought, didn't quite look the part. perception was that they were cold.

Seemed by some as being unemotional. Before long, police are zeroing in on them. They said, we believe you know where your daughter is. But the Eisenberg say they know nothing. They hire a lawyer and stop cooperating. They're doing a half-ass job to try to find Sabrina. After a massive search on the ground, in the air, in the water, they were looking for a body and not a baby.

The parents arrested. They busted in my front door pointing a gun at me. Charging Stephen and Marlene Eisenberg. Either one of you have anything you want to say. They had plenty to say, according to police, who had secretly bugged their house. The baby's dead because you did it. We did not. We did not.

Did you start to believe that they were being framed? Yes. But now the new story begins. Technology that can turn an infant into an adult. And a Facebook message from a 20-year-old woman who could be Sabrina. I wake up and look at my phone. My heart's racing. Tonight, closer than ever to finding the answer.

I'm Elizabeth Vargas, and this is 2020. Sabrina, come crawl to mommy. Come here. Come here, gorgeous. It's the classic family home video, a five-month-old baby girl learning to crawl. And there she is crawling. This is Sabrina's first video, and here she's crawling. Sabrina Eisenberg captured for the very first time by adoring mom Marlene in November 1997.

But this tape wouldn't become just another family memory. It would become the last precious image ever captured of Sabrina. The next day, she would vanish. I first met Steve and Marlene Eisenberg just months after their daughter disappeared. Today, 20 years later, they say they are pain. is as raw as ever. How much do you think about her? We think about her every day. Sabrina has a room in our home. So this is Sabrina's room. This is the room that, you know, when Sabrina comes home, this is her room.

Is these really her baby clothes? These are her baby clothes. And I've said from the very beginning, and I still say it, when she comes home, we're going to donate them together. We changed the room a few years ago from taking out all the beanie babies and toys because she's 20 years old now. She is 20 years old. now is 20 years old. So you feel confident that she's still alive. Oh yeah, absolutely. Because who would take a baby to hurt them? Do you play that back in your mind going in to her crib, finding her missing, running to the neighbor, calling 911? How much do you remember all of that? I don't play it back. It hurts

too much. It's painful. It was November 23, 1997, a Sunday night, the family, watching a movie. Later, Marlene and Steve tuck their three kids, eight-year-old William, four-year-old Monica, and baby Sabrina into bed for the night. The next morning, Marlene recalls waking up and getting her son out of bed first. And as I turn around, and I look and notice my laundry room door to out to my garage is opened. And then as I get closer, I'm looking now out to the street and seeing that my garage door is up. So now I'm just looking straight out to the street. And I ran into the first bedroom, which is Sabrina's room. And I look in the crib, and Sabrina's gone.

And I scream, scream. Her new baby and her favorite yellow blanket both gone without a trace. Brad, what do you mean? You made your baby? I just got up to wait my son up. My garage door was right up in my bank. My house to my door was way up and my baby is gone out of the crib. Marlene says she frantically runs to her next door neighbor's house.

And I opened the door and she said, my baby's gone, my baby's gone. And I said, what do you mean your baby's gone? And I put my arm around her shoulder and she said, somebody came in and took my baby. The Eisenberg say they'd accidentally left their garage door up all night. Was there any sign that someone had been in your house? Other than the door being opened. The door being opened, her and her blanket missing. The laundry door.

Was it closed when you went to bed? Yes. Was it locked? No. It wasn't locked. It's something that we never locked, because during the day when the children are playing, that's where they go in and out with their bikes and basketball out front.

But we're not talking about the middle of the day. We're talking the middle of the night. We felt that we were living in an area that was safer. We were on a cul-de-sac. There's one way in and one way out. We had a sense of security, a false sense of security. Their four-bedroom home nestled in the suburban sprawl of Valrico, Florida, a middle-class neighborhood outside Tampa,

where each house resembles the area. other. Some know Val Rika for the flooding brought by last year's Hurricane Irma and the deluge of media that descended after baby Sabrina vanished. It's heart-wrenching. It really is. I mean, just for them to have to go through what they're going through. The community was stunned. How could a baby go missing in the night without anyone hearing a thing? Even the Eisenberg's family dog Brownie didn't make a sound. But how can you explain how someone could get in here And you don't hear them and you don't find any sign that they've been in here. Well, how do people get robbed all the time and they're sleeping and somebody goes in and steals a TV or their China?

This is the same thing except they took our baby instead of China or TV. What stood out was just how bizarre this abduction was. Graham Brink, an editor at the Tampa Bay Times, has covered the story for years. The idea that someone could have walked into a suburban home in the main. middle of the night, plucked a five-month-old child out of her crib, obviously raised a lot of suspicion around the Eisenbergs. It's unusual for a true kidnapping. A lot of times they find out that it's someone the family knew or had knowledge of, and that's part of the leads we're looking at. This video from that morning showing a distraught Marlene, led from her home by lead detectives Linda Burton

and William Blake, while investigators begin sweeping it for clues. They dust the garage for prints, confiscate the family cars, and bring the Eisenbergs to the police station for questioning. They interviewed us separately, doing a polygraph for Marlene, and then one for me. Did you have any concerns, any objections to doing a polygraph test? No, we even at that time offered to give them blood and fingerprints, anything they needed. Hours later, the couple says police coached them in this televised plea. Please bring our baby back to us.

She needs her mother and her father. And we all miss her and love her very much. And we need her to come home to us, please. It backfired because the perception was that they were cold. Marlene was seen by some as being not authentic, unemotional. Law enforcement seemed to focus in on that display. It took all the strength that I had to say what

I said and then the minute I was done, I broke down in tears. Okay, hysterical. But of course the cameras were not put on me then. Yet the criticism would only grow, especially when the day after their daughter's disappearance, the couple was caught on camera appearing to laugh with detectives. He said something funny on the way to the car, so that's where they got the film of me smiling. It was like gas on a flame when they were pictured smiling. so soon after Sabrina had gone missing.

Then there were the polygraphs. Steve passes his, but Marlene's comes back inconclusive, so police bring her in for another. Once again, the same results. What did the police say to you? What did they ask you? They sat across from me and leaned forward, and they said, Marlene, statistics show

it's the parents that do these things. We believe you know where your daughter is. We believe you know what happened. And I have no idea. So here I am, my daughter's gone. And now I have the police sitting across to me who I think are going to help me. Tell me that they think I know something about my baby. When we come back with police zeroing in...

I'd like to talk to an attorney. The Eisenberg's shut down. Law enforcement look at that is, well, they must be trying to hide something. If you're innocent, why do you need a lawyer? Stay with us. Stand by to go live, Bob. I would like to say to whoever has my children, please bring them home. In 1995, just two years before baby Sabrina vanished, all eyes were on this woman, Susan Smith.

Staying intends to seek the death penalty. The tearful young South Carolina mom told police her young sons were abducted during a carjacking. We have to remember the timing of Sabrina's disappearance. They were functioning under the cloud of Susan Smith. In a gruesome turn, Smith would later confess that she drove her own children into a lake, letting them drown, hoping to win the affection of a boyfriend who said he didn't want children. They did not want to follow in those steps. They wanted to solve the case and not be upheld to public ridicule because of their investigation.

Now, here in Florida, the public and police are wondering if Marlene Eisenberg is just the latest mom-turned-mur-mur-ur-old. We love her very much and need her to come home. But like we say... When I first met the couple 20 years ago, suspicion had already engulfed their lives. Does it get any easier? No. Never. All these years later, and still no answers.

What really happened in this Tampa suburb in the middle of the night? Was it a kidnapping, as the Eisenberg say? Or do they know more than they're letting on? Now, there's a very serious story out of Florida that's made. making national headlines. The investigation into that question transfixes the national media. It created a media frenzy. In Florida, the FBI is now involved in the search for a missing baby.

Decades expanded their search for Sabrina. Today, the frantic mother cried out in grief. When they come to the home, there are a lot of suspicious circumstances. It struck fear into the hearts and the minds of families all over the country, to think that while you're asleep and your child is one room away, that they could be taken. When Marlene's polygraphs come back inconclusive, police turn up the heat.

I couldn't believe it. I just was answering everything they said. You know, they would throw, you know, oh, you're under stress, and I would, no, I'm not under stress. You know, I have three beautiful children. At that time, I said, are you charging us with anything? Did we do anything? He said no to those questions.

And then I said, then I'd like to talk to an attorney. That didn't set well. well, with the public or the police. And they don't hire just any lawyer. They take on famed Florida attorney Barry Cohen. They're doing a half-ass job of trying to find Sabrina. I first spoke to Cohen back in 1998. These are parents of a kidnapped child.

Why do they need a lawyer? They were being accused of a crime that they didn't commit. And anybody that's accused of a crime that they didn't commit sure needs a lawyer pretty badly. Today, Cohen is waging a more personal battle, fighting cancer. We're at the cul-de-sac where the Eisenbergs live. So we caught up with his old team who helped defend the Eisenbergs, lawyers Todd Foster and Steve Romine, and private investigator Kevin Calgary. Did you all make a conscious decision to cut them off from police and cooperation?

Yes, we sensed that the sheriff's office wasn't as interested in solving the case as they were. making a case against the Eisenbergs. Law enforcement look at that is that, well, they must be trying to hide something. If you're not guilty of anything, just being honest is going to help the cops find your child. In the days following Sabrina's disappearance, police mount a massive search on the ground, in the air, and in the waters surrounding the family home. Detectives say the bloodhounds were onto something. At the time, it was the largest land and water search in Florida history. And with the couple refusing to talk,

it sets up a standoff between the parents and the police. As far as the questions that we would like to ask them, they need to come in and sit down with us to have a formal interview. Lieutenant Greg Brown was the Sheriff's Office spokesperson in 1998. Can you understand their reluctance? No, I can't because as a parent, I would want my child back

and I would do whatever it takes to get my child back. If you have nothing to hide, Why not just tell the police anything and everything and let them say anything and everything? We tried. We called the police a week ago and said we would come in and talk to them as long as it could be taped and our attorney could be present and they said no. They don't want the information to find Sabrina. They want the information to close a case. They've even said to our relatives, we're not looking for a baby, we're looking for a body.

How would you feel as a parent when you heard that? Does that make you feel open to talking to the child? open to talking to them. So while police continue their massive search, the Eisenbergs attend candlelight vigils surrounded by supporters and work to get Sabrina's picture out far and wide. I smile at every baby I see to see if it smiles back. And if it does, I know it might be Sabrina. And while they aren't talking to police, they are talking to the media.

We are now joined by Marlene and Steve. appearing on Good Morning America, Oprah, and 2020. Tonight, we take you inside this explosive case. Then two months after Sabrina vanished, the Eisenbergs find themselves in danger of losing their two other children as well, this time at the hands of Florida's Child Protective Services. How frightening was it for you? The Department of Children and Family Services showed up and started looking at your other children.

It was scary as hell. You know what? We left the room and let them interview our children. And after they left, they said, these kids are great. There's nothing wrong in this household. A week later, the couple back on the hot seat, this time with federal prosecutors asking questions in front of a grand jury. Either one of you have anything you want to say.

But if authorities think they'll finally get the Eisenberg's talking again, they are wrong. Steve and Marley and Eisenberg were silent as they walked into the federal courthouse, and apparently they also had little to say before the federal grand jury. You would think that naturally parents of a child that had gone missing would spill everything they know in the hope that maybe could help the investigation. That's not what happened. The Eisenbergs took the Fifth Amendment and grand jury. Why?

Well, that's what we were advised to do from our attorney. Because it was a stacked deck in our view against them. But you understand that to a lot of people, it didn't look good for them to take the fifth. Plenty of people that are innocent take the fifth. If there's somebody on the other side that has an intent to try and hurt you, You can tell the truth, but they take your words, and they spin it to fit what they want. How did this ordeal affect this family?

It ran them out of town. They had to leave Tampa. It was just untenable for them to remain in this community. Nearly two years after Sabrina vanished, the family moves to Maryland, back into Steve's childhood home. One of the biggest reasons we were moving was because we couldn't raise our children

to respect the authorities there. But the eyes. Eisenbergs discover that a thousand miles cannot protect them from determined Florida authorities. They busted in my front door. Who will reveal that they have secret tapes. So you never heard the baby's dead and buried. It was found dead because you did it. Stay with us.

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That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash 20, and the code T-W-E-N-T-Y at checkout. The couple flees, Florida for the refuge of Steve's childhood home in Bethesda, Maryland. But on September 9th, 1999, a knock on the door, sends their new lives spinning. I noticed a bunch of cars coming up and a lot of men getting out of the cars. And they busted in my front door and they are pointing a gun at me.

And they're like, Marlene put down the phone and I said, put down the gun and I'll put down the phone. Steve Eisenberg is at his real estate office when police arrived for him. They said we've got a break in the case. I go, great. Did you find our daughter? It was my first question.

They said, we're here to arrest you. Arrested not for the death of their daughter, but charged with lying to law enforcement about what happened to her. There was a dramatic break in the case. Stephen and Marlene Eisenberg have been charged with lying to authorities. The indictment includes jaw-dropping quotes, implicating the Eisenberg's in the death of their infant daughter. The Eisenbergs discussed on several occasions that the baby was actually dead.

Is there anything at all that you guys had to say that people can't debate? And just how did prosecutors know what they discussed? Police had secretly been bugging their Florida home for nearly three months, recording more than 2,600 private conversations. A chilling twist in the story of a missing child in Florida. One was in the bedroom, one was in the kitchen area. Now, I had never heard before or since about putting a wiretap in a marital bedroom.

Yet prosecutors insisted they'd found a smoking gun in those private comments, leading to salacious headlines. Marlene quoted as saying to Steve, the baby's dead and buried. It was found dead because you did it. And this damning comment attributed to Steve, I wish I hadn't harmed her. It was the cocaine.

That's all they needed. Case closed. How do you feel about the icebergs? I hope they convict them. If it's true, I hope they convict them, period. We hope that the people will remember that accusations are just accusations. They are presumed innocent, and we will meet these accusations head on. Though defense lawyer Barry Cohen publicly comes out swinging, today the rest of his team admits they were privately worried.

I mean, it sounded bad. I made some kind of comment of like, we've got our work cut out for us. And I'll never forget. He looked at. me straight in the eye and he's like they didn't do this and when you learn that your house had been bugged annoyed but we couldn't believe that they bugged us our kitchen our bedroom you know we thought it was a little ridiculous that they would do that but you know they did it some of what the investigators say that you two said was pretty damning all things that were never said proclaiming their innocence and steadfast in the belief that their daughters out there somewhere

alive, the Eisenbergs and their defense team start doing the work they say police are not. You felt that the police made mistakes very early on. Absolutely. What kind of mistakes? Not following up on certain leads and targeting the Eisenbergs from the minute they got there. P.I. Kevin Calwary takes us back to the family's Valrico subdivision, where he initially interviewed dozens of neighbors. What we found is within the

recent year, there had been a number of attempted break-ins, one being just three houses away from the Eisenbergs, and there happened to be an infant living there. And further down the block, another tip from a neighbor named Pete McDonald. Pete has since died, but his wife Mary meets with Kevin in the same house. Hello. Hello. I remember you. I remember you, too.

How are you? Good. Good to see you. Back then, we had a bassetown named Murphy, and he would get to get Pete up every single night to go out. Pete let him out the back door, and as he's opening up the door, he hears a baby crying. And he said, well, that's odd,

and he didn't think anything of it. Till I call him at work the next day and tell him, baby Sabrina's missing. She says her husband called police to report what he heard. They took down the information, but she says no one bothered to follow up. This is the door that the dog went out,

and this is where he heard the baby crying. Go ahead. There's no fence in between our house and the neighbor's house. So anybody could walk back here. But Eisenbergs live in the cul-de-sac, which is down and around, and it isn't far. And you can see the car's going by how close it is. So you could walk right through there. It's possible to have left a getaway car there.

It's possible to have come in there. Anything's possible. The Eisenbergs insist police weren't interested in other leads because they were too focused on this. them, feeding years of whispers and wild stories. There were a lot of theories circulating over the years. Theories that maybe you had had an affair and that you weren't the father of the baby. Theories that maybe you had abused the baby. What did you make of all of these theories?

We think they're ridiculous, so we kind of ignore them because we know they're not true. I didn't have an affair, ever. But what about those damning statements prosecutors insist they recorded? we come back after the sensational headlines, the public finally hears those secret tapes. When I first heard the tapes, my position was they're screwing with us. Did you start to believe that they were being framed? Yes. Plus, the first glimmer of hope that baby Sabrina is alive. A gorgeous little baby pops up from Illinois, baby Paloma. Next. This episode is supported by the podcast, Dr. Death. There are people you're told to

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to their five-month-old baby Sabrina. They're smoking gun. The only problem, there is no smoke. You know, when you look at that indictment and you read all the damning quotes, even one should have sealed their fate until you actually hear the audio. I remember sitting in the gallery of the courtroom with other reporters, and when they were played, looking at each other and wondering,

I can't hear anything. Can you hear anything? It sounded like chicken squawking in a hurricane. At first, even the Eisenberg's own attorneys can't believe what they're hearing. My position was they're screwing with us. They're giving us bad tapes. Because when you began listening to the tapes.

Because there's no way they could be hearing what they're saying. So we'd cue it up and play it, and it's, shah, shah, these noises, nothing. So you never heard anything. It resembled the babies dead and buried. It was found dead because you did it. You never heard anything like that. So this came from somebody's head listening to static.

You take a listen. This is that supposedly incriminating statement made by Marlene. And now here's what the indictment alleges she's saying. Every time there would be a damning statement, you couldn't make it out. I've never in my life. And all the wiretaps and all the bugging cases that I have handled, heard anything as bad as this bugging attempt. You have to be crystal clear that what a person, what you're alleging in an indictment,

is actually you have it on tape. You can either hear it or you can't hear it. Did you hear those tapes? We listened to those tapes. We tried to. There was nothing on them. When Hillsborough County lead detectives Linda Burton and William Blake take the stand in court, the Eisenberg's attorneys pounce. The hardest part about dealing with them was marshalling all of the errors, inconsistencies, things they didn't follow up on, lies. There was so much to go after

her with that, I mean, truly, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Eventually, the court rules that four of the 12 tapes it reviewed are unintelligible, and the rest contained statements where detectives distorted the context. No bombshell at all. One of the prosecutors said, I understand there's nothing worse than somebody losing a child. than the judge says, I can think of something worse. And the something worse is being falsely accused of being responsible. A judge recommends those tapes be thrown out and blast the lead detectives for their investigation,

saying they acted at times with a reckless disregard for the truth. The charges quickly dropped. Those wiretaps were a total self-inflicted wound. The state performed on its own case. It really obscured the rest of the investigation. It overshadowed the question as to whether Steve and Marlene Eisenberg had anything to do with her daughter's disappearance. Come on, oh, she's getting up. Here she goes. I would say, you know, all the truth is going to come out.

And then finally, it did. You know, the judge threw everything out, all the tapes, everything was lies. And the government paid a lot of money. To your legal team. To our legal team. It's another extraordinary twist. Outraged, their legal team goes after the government for millions of dollars for prosecution undertaken in bad faith.

For the first time in our government's history since or before that the government conceded that a federal prosecution was done vexatiously and in bad faith. It was empowering because they said we did things that we never have done. But there was still some suspicion. If you believe what the Eisenberg said happened, you have to believe that someone walked into the house in the middle of the night, picked the baby up out of a crib, and no one ever saw her ever again. That's difficult for a lot of people to believe. But Marlene and Steve Eisenberg once again brush aside suspicion and try to regain a normal life. You know, people said that us in

the beginning, how could you not have a nervous breakdown? How could you not? And I'm like, well, I have a four-year-old and an eight-year-old. How were you able to shield them from the ordeal? When things would come out and people would be staring and talking, we just marched on. And We just lived life with the kids. Then in 2003, a possible prayer answered when an abandoned child surfaces in Illinois. A woman in Illinois is looking through a missing child database, and she sees a child who looks a little like Sabrina. No one could pinpoint where she came from. She didn't come from an adoption agency.

There wasn't a young mom who gave her up. She just seemingly appeared and she looked amazingly like baby Sabrina, the fuzzy dark hair, the big brown eyes, the same skin tone. We were shown a picture. We were said that there was a lead that was called in. How much did your hopes? Oh, quite a bit. I mean, it's an emotional roller coaster for us. But the mystery baby's identity would ultimately remain a mystery. They said they did the DNA and it wasn't her.

Their hopes are dashed. Meanwhile, Florida police won't give up on their deep suspicions about the Eisenbergs. And in 2008, they think they've got another shot at arresting them. This time, police record inmates Scott Overbeck at this Tampa jail, talking about his supposed involvement in baby Sabrina's disappearance. And once again, it implicates the Eisenbergs. Overbeck is said to have been asked to dispose of the infant's body, which he says was inside a boat he had retrieved from the Eisenberg. home. They're desperate. We love to solve these cold cases. But when you have the answer being

from some guy who's been sitting in jail, I mean, why didn't he come forward before? Exactly. That's always the big question. Eventually, Barry Cohen and his other attorneys went and got statements. What did you find out from him? He was all over the place. I mean, it was just a junkie, and we knew he was lying. I mean, all you have to do is check public records for boat ownership and see that we never owned a boat. So, I mean, the whole story was another one of the fabricated stories to try and disparage Marlene and myself. Did you know Overbeck or did you know? Never heard the name. And like so many jailhouse confessions, this one turns out to be bogus.

The sheriff's office admits it's a dead end. Overbeck recants his story. It was very surprising the Hillsborough law enforcement would put any credence in a jailhouse snitch. But you know the old saying, sometimes you got to go to hell to get your witnesses to put the devil in jail. And that's just what they did. Still, the Eisenbergs can't seem to shake suspicion. I know there are always going to be people that think Marlene and I had something to do with it, who was Sabrina's disappearance? We did not.

We did not. When we come back, a Facebook message from a 20-year-old woman who says she thinks she's Sabrina. She has no pictures, no baby pictures. And she had to check her social security number, and she found out another woman in California. Has her social security number. Stay with us. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025.

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when she was born, her stool, her piggy bank. You've got pictures in here of Sabrina. We do. William, Monica and Sabrina. So you store your memories of your daughter here? Yeah, until she comes home. 20 years after she last saw her youngest child, Marlene Eisenberg is still. still waiting, hoping Sabrina will soon join her siblings William and Monica.

This is why he was so worried. Adults now who still come home for family game night. You got it. Oh my God. Back in Florida, a lot has changed, too. The original detectives on the case have since retired. Sergeant Samuel Bailey now heads up the investigation. He declined to discuss those early days, but says the sheriff's office remains committed to the case.

committed to the case. All the speculation about what occurred in the early part of the investigation is just speculation. Today we're still currently focused on trying to find Sabrina Eisenberg and bring this case to a resolution. The Sheriff's Department doesn't have any reason to come out and say, yeah, we colossally screwed up here and we're sorry for doing it because the screw up is so bad. You have two parents that lost their child and then on top of it, somebody goes, you did it. And they didn't.

Have you been formally cleared as suspects, or do you think you're still under suspicion? We don't know. We don't really talk to the authorities. We talk to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. We have a full-time case manager that is working with the Eisenbergs. Robert Lowry, a vice president at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, offers this startling fact the Eisenberg's cling to. Out of the 325 infant abductions they've studied dating back more than 50 years,

most remain alive and well cared for, and only 12 are still missing today. An infant abduction is typically going to be by a woman of childbearing age who either had lost a child or was unable to get pregnant, and the motivation is really to take the child and raise the child as their own. Like the case of Kamaya Mowgli, who was snatched from a Florida hospital just eight months after Sabrina disappeared. In South Carolina, we found an 18-year-old young woman. Some further investigation revealed that fraudulent documents had been used to establish that young woman's identity. She was taken by a woman who wanted a baby of her own, who has now been prosecuted for kidnapping. That gives us a glimmer of hope, and it proves that miracles do happen.

Which is why the Eisenbergs have worked with the center for years, releasing eight age progression photos of what Sabrina might look like. When doing an age progression, we use the family members as reference points for what we think the missing child would look like. For the latest image, the couple provided the center with teenage photos of their children, Monica and William. When I line them upside by side, start to see things like the shape of their eyes, very unique to this family and the length. shape of the nose and the angle of their mouth when they smile and just the overall shape of the face. A lot of similarities there. I'm going to just do an overall trace of the face.

I'm going to line up the facial features and then I'm going to start to add in those features that I'm actually going to be borrowing from the siblings' faces. Sabrina and Monica's baby pictures were identical. They were so hard to tell apart that we really believe that the three of our kids are going to look so much alike. A young girl sitting at home watching TV is going to see William and Monica and go, I look like those kids.

But Miracle Homecomings aren't always perfect. Listen to Kamaya Mobley talk about the woman who stole her. I still do call her mom. She will always be mom. She wasn't sure that she wanted to know her parents. I could never imagine that. To me, it's like when Sabrina's found she's going to want to come home.

And all of a sudden, I'm listening to the news say that this young woman might not want to meet her parents. Even if that happens to her, Marlene says she's ready for a miracle. And is it about to happen? Just months ago, a startling Facebook message from a woman 3,000 miles away, sparks new hope. I wake up and look at my phone. There was a note from a young lady who believes, that she may be Sabrina.

My heart's racing. She basically was like, I don't want to give false hope, but she hasn't felt like she belonged where she was. Why does she think she could be Sabrina? She's about the same age, 20 years old. She has no pictures, no baby pictures from the time she was five months. Her picture starred after that.

Her grandparents tried to adopt her, and the adoption took about four years. And she doesn't necessarily believe that. And then she had to, um, check her social security number and she found out another woman in California. Has her social security number? So she has reason to believe that something is a miss. Correct.

She even sent along pictures of herself, which Marlene declines to share to protect the young woman's privacy. So I ran around the house and grabbed pictures that, you know, of Monica, of Sabrina, of Will, and started looking at their, you know, ones that were matching, what she sent me. I think there's some resemblances that you could see. but it's so hard to know. And it's not just her. Another 20-year-old woman has now surfaced saying she too could be Sabrina. How much do you allow yourself to hope?

Well, we hope every day. I mean, hope is what keeps us going and moving forward. When we come back, after all that hope, will a DNA test solve this mystery? After two decades of heartache and suspicion, still no answers about what happened to baby Sabrina. But parents, Steve and Marlene Eisenberg, are holding out for a happy ending. There's always that suspicion that maybe she's still alive, maybe she's still out there.

I think it's still just as much a mystery today as it was back in 1997. Do you have regrets when you look back? What would you have done differently? I wouldn't have done anything differently because we didn't do anything wrong. I mean, leaving our garage door open was not done on purpose. Are you angry? What do you feel when you look back over what you've gone through? Probably more frustration over anything that, you know,

a lot of time was wasted when they could have been looking for our daughter. All it takes is one phone call or one piece of information to solve this case. Tonight, they anxiously await that phone call. And though they haven't gone public, both young women who reached out suspecting they could be Sabrina, Sabrina have had their DNA collected for testing. The results may take an excruciatingly long three to six months. I don't understand. But it's just waiting, more waiting.

And here we're so hopeful. We just want to know. The fact is that while we want to believe DNA, it can be done in minutes. In fact, it's just not the way that DNA works. It takes a lot longer than that. But either it's going to be their child or not. I hope it's one of these two girls. But if it's not, our hope is that other people that are thinking that they're not in the right space and not in the right place will reach out to us so that we can get DNA for them taken because it's time.

What do you most want people to know about Marlene and Steve Eisenberg? That we love our family and that we... And we love each other. And love each other and we want our daughter to come home to make our family whole again. And if you think you've seen Sabrina, you can call it. the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800 The Lost. You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Friday nights at 9 on ABC, you can also find all new broadcast episodes of 2020.

Thanks for listening. I'm Harvey Guyanne, and this is Killer Stories. Every Monday, I'm cutting the lights. A type story. Except these stories are all real. We're talking brazen heist, devastating cons, serial murders, and cases that defy tidy categories. So join me for new episodes of Killer Stories with Harvey Guillen every Monday.