48 Hours - Dear Savanna

Episode Date: December 6, 2015

She eluded the FBI for two decades, but she couldn't outrun her past.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

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Whee! There she goes. Samantha? What it is? Good girl. Say mommy. How pretty! Mommy!

A few months before my mom gave birth to me, she started writing a diary. And it starts off on the first page saying, to my dear Savannah, someday I will give this journal to you so that you can hopefully understand your mother. My name is Samantha Geldenhuis. I was born in Savannah, but I didn't know that. Savannah Lee Barnett. I grew that. Savannah Leigh Barnett. I grew up on the Sunshine Coast in Australia.

It is the most magnificent place. I knew my mum as Alex my entire life. But in reality, she wasn't Alex at all. She was Lee. Come on. Lee Barnett. In April of 1994, I got a phone call that my dearest friend, Lee, had disappeared. I thought, oh no, don't let this be true. I never imagined that my good friend Lee

would be the subject of an international manhunt. Our investigation spanned the United States and the globe. We searched Belize, Central America, and South Africa. Dorothy Lee was very equipped and running from the law. She thought about this. She was planned. She was determined. I feel the FBI and every other law enforcement agency underestimated me. The FBI more than met their match when they tangled with Dorothy Lee Barnett. Welcome to Malaysia. This is our home.

Did you at all think, I'm gonna get caught? They're gonna get me. Every day. Every day. My lady! I thought this was gonna be one of those unsolved mysteries that would never be solved. Samantha, we're going to Singapore in a couple days.

Until 2011, when we had the tip that she was living in Australia. I remember getting a call when I was up at school, and my mom needed me to jump on a plane and come down because she was getting arrested. Two decades later, authorities have arrested her in Australia. When I heard that Alex wasn't Alex, I was absolutely gobsmacked and amazed. I thought, wow, what a girl. I realised it was all up.

That they'd found me. I love you more than life itself, your special mummy. And I knew that I'd have to face the consequences, what I did 20 years before. I'm Maureen Maher. Tonight on 48 Hours, Dear Savannah. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn and it harboured a deep, dark scandal.

There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars

on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases. And this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created.

She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. She's written, I've always loved the name Savannah. It reminds me of great beauty. It also reminds me of my home,

and someday it'll hopefully be yours too. The endless reeds, the shrimp, the blue herons. That pretty picture is how Leigh Barnett remembered Charleston in the secret diary she kept for her daughter during their years on the run. A very different Charleston, South Carolina than what she returned home to. Barnett was arrested in Australia. Leigh was charged with kidnapping her daughter after losing a bitter custody battle. For 20 years, Lee Barnett had been hunted by the FBI, vilified in the press, called angry and violent, and labeled mentally ill.

Now, for the first time ever, she tells her side of the story to 48 Hours, and it is a very different story than you've heard before. I need to tell the truth about what's happened. Something needs to be changed. From the start, there was always something different about Leigh Barnett, the little barefoot girl with the blue, blue eyes and a big smile, says her oldest friend, Susie Pogue. When I first met Lee when she was five and I was seven, she had a big black snake around her neck. And so I took one look at her and I said, oh, that looks like an interesting family. I want to be friends with her. Lee and her two brothers were raised by a free-spirited single mother named

Dottie after their father died. They didn't have much money. Dottie lived on her husband's Social Security. But they had plenty of adventures, says Lee's brother Cliff. We had to learn how to do things with no money and no resources and get by and do things on the fly. and do things on the fly. A kind of Swiss family Robinson traveling between South Carolina, Florida, and the jungles of Belize. They were really living an Indiana Jones lifestyle

before there was an Indiana Jones. In Belize, they were in the jungle, living with local families. Lee inherited her mother's love of adventure. At one point, traveling deep into Africa with Susie. I just knew that all of the traveling that we had done and that she had done with her family prepared her for really what was the ultimate adventure of her life. That adventure began in Charleston, when Lee, by then a flight attendant, met Harris Todd,

a stockbroker with a love of poetry, and to many, the picture of a perfect Southern gentleman. And was it love at first sight? No, not at all. It wasn't love at first sight, it was friendship. All that changed five years later. He just professed to me that I'd made him feel different than anybody else has ever made him feel,

and the one thing led to another. But Lee's dear friend, Patty Roth, did not think it was a good match. They wanted very different things out of life. She was very outgoing, and he kind of kept her to himself. To Lee, that was part of the attraction, part of the challenge. I thought I was a person that was going to help him have a more normal, fun, loving life because he was so serious. When Lee came to me and told me that they decided to get married, I did not agree with that choice. Lee wanted children. Harris was very clear to everyone that he never wanted children.

Why would you marry a man who didn't want to have kids? I don't know. I just thought that I was going to do something and he would change and we'd have this wonderful family. And I just had this crazy dream that I'd make everything right. She could not have been more wrong. When she told him that she was pregnant is when all the problems started between the two of them. He kept saying over and over throughout my whole pregnancy, there is no baby. Even when I was eight months pregnant, there is no baby. There is no baby. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge?

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As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. I'll try and start from the beginning. Before Leigh Barnett fled the country,

she made a tape and sent it to friends and enemies alike. I can't tell you how painful this is. In it, she condemns her husband, Harris Todd. A very, very evil, evil man. For casting her as the villain in a sinister drama, she claims he fabricated out of vengeance, a characterization she stands by to this day. He wanted to hurt me so badly, he didn't care who took down, and that includes a little baby. Lee says it all began seven months into the marriage. I said to him, I said, I have a feeling I might be pregnant. And he said, it's okay, just have an abortion. I was heartbroken, heartbroken. But I still thought, ah, he'll come right.

Anyway, two days later, I found out I was pregnant. He was very cold and indifferent, and he remained that way. Harris claimed the problem wasn't the pregnancy. It was Lee's uncontrollable temper. One argument, two and a half months later, got so heated, she flipped over the coffee table. Lee woke up the next morning, and Harris was gone. I just felt so abandoned, and I couldn't figure out how somebody I'd loved and known for so long could be this cruel.

Harris Todd, who consistently has said he never asked Lee to get an abortion, says he left because he couldn't take her anger anymore, that he even feared for his safety. He repeatedly asked Lee to move out of his house, but she refused. I thought if I left his house, I would never ever come back. She really wanted the marriage to work. She did everything within her power to get Harris to come back. Including going to marriage counseling. Lee's mother suggested a psychiatrist named Dr. Oliver Bjorksten. Lee says, to her surprise, Harris agreed to go.

I made the appointment for both of us. Lee says what happened in those appointments would change her life. She walked in hoping to save her marriage. Instead, she walked out with a diagnosis on the bipolar spectrum. Dr. Bjorksten said Lee had something called hyperthymic temperament, a condition characterized by dwelling, blaming, and temper outbursts, a condition he wanted to treat with medication. Did you ever have any history of mental illness? I've never had any mental illness.

Lee admits she was emotional. I cried quite a lot. She was alone, having a difficult pregnancy, and just had a scare that her baby might have Down syndrome. I said, I think I've got a good reason to be upset. And he said, give you something to make you feel better. Dr. Bjorksten prescribed Navain. Lee talked to a doctor friend who said it's an anti-psychotic drug and advised her not to take it. And I took three tablets by then. Then Lee discovered something else, something that terrified her. Harris Todd and her own mother had contacted Dr. Bjorksten before she had ever even heard his name. So you're saying that Harris went to

Bjorksten first, telling Bjorksten what he said was going on. Yeah. And you were under the impression that Harris had never met him before. Never met him. We both walked in and they both introduced themselves and said, it's nice to meet you. Harris has said he was only trying to get help for his wife, but Lee believes Harris was setting her up, spinning an elaborate tale of an unstable wife with a violent temper, even convincing her mother of it. For what purpose? To save his face for walking out on his pregnant wife. I mean, the physical violence is one thing. The mental instability is another. 48 Hours has been covering this story since 1999. Harris Todd denied our recent requests for an interview, but back then, he told us Lee was a ticking time bomb. You never know whether you're going to come through the door and have a flower pot launched.

A danger not only to him, but to herself. Came down the hallway, and there she is, sitting there banging her head against the wall. Did you bash your head against the wall one night to the point that the lights were flickering on and off? I've never, ever bashed my head against the wall. Did you bash your head against the wall one night to the point that the lights were flickering on and off? I've never ever bashed my head against the wall. Harris said he was so afraid of you that he feared for his life. Yeah. Did you threaten him? Never once. Slap him? I slapped him once. Hit him? Never. Lee admits she did get angry. Angry enough to throw planters off the porch and push over that coffee table. But, she says, Harris was the threatening one, making menacing phone calls throughout the entire pregnancy.

He would say to me all the time, you're sick. Look in the mirror, see your face, it's contorted, you're insane. You're insane. And he just kept saying, you're sick, you're crazy, over and over again. Patty says she was listening in when Lee got one of those calls. He totally changed, and his Southern charm turned into just sheer hatred towards Lee. When she was seven months pregnant, Lee filed for divorce. Harris countersued, claiming that Lee was so abusive he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I've never seen her violent. She's not a moody

person. We never had an argument and we were together constantly. Patty was by her side when she gave birth to Savannah. Savannah was born a beautiful, beautiful baby girl, just healthy as can be. Lee was thrilled beyond words. She was amazing. But that happiness wouldn't last for long. When Savannah was two and a half months old, her parents' divorce would take another turn. Harris sued for custody. Now the bitter battle would get even uglier, with plenty of mudslinging from both sides. Lee says Harris wanted to take her baby to punish her. Harris said he loved Savannah with all his heart. He said she was promiscuous. She said he was gay. She stalked him. He lied. The list went on and on. But in the

end, it came down to one not-so-simple question. Was it in Savannah's best interest to be with her mother or her father. Dr. Oliver Bjorksten was called as a witness for Harris Todd. How damaging was his testimony to your case? Damaging is probably not the right word. He was life-destroying. Dr. Bjorksten, who also declined to be interviewed, testified that the condition he diagnosed Lee with is associated with violence.

They had seen people with Lee's degree of dwelling do things which are quite serious. I absolutely never saw any signs of mental illness. Lee's friends took the stand, painting a very different picture. I saw distress from having somebody try and fight you and take your baby away. And so how hard is it to prove that you are not crazy? It's impossible. The more you claim you're not mentally ill, the crazier you sound because people look at you as

a mentally ill person then. And Lee says there was plenty of evidence that she was not crazy. Two respected psychiatrists testified that there was nothing wrong with her and that she certainly did not need antipsychotic drugs. But then another expert was brought in as a so-called tiebreaker to see if Lee really did have hyperthymic temperament. After evaluating Lee, he said she did have the condition. The experts said Harris was the more predictable parent, recommending that he should have custody. The child advocate for Savannah also agreed. Still, Lee and her friends were hopeful. We thought there is no way that a judge is gonna look at this and take this loving,

healthy, happy, vibrant baby away from her mother. Now the decision was up to Judge Robert Mallard and it was clear who he believed. He cited Harris as willing to share custody when Lee was not. He said that while Lee was a flight attendant, Harris was a successful stockbroker, so he believed Harris would be better able to provide a stable environment. The judge also noted what he called Lee's inability to control her impulses in court. I think I got hyper. I think I got stressed. I think I got scared. I was very scared because I knew something was really, really going wrong.

This is the court order that took place. Lee says what was most damaging and untrue was the judge's finding that she had been violent toward Harris and his conclusion that her condition might lead to homicide or suicide. It left me so scared and so cold because when you label somebody as that, that means I'm such a danger to my child. On February 18, 1994... We didn't think it could happen. Judge Mallard awarded full custody of nine and a half month old Savannah to her father, Harris Todd. I promise and swear on my life that I will continue to take care of my daughter. The little girl was her life,

and everything I witnessed, she was a fabulous mother. She really, really was. It was hard to believe that it could even happen. Lee's friends were still reeling from the judge's decision. The decision, in my view, was totally unjust. Gordon King. It was beyond my comprehension to know that they were going to remove the child from her. Harris came to get Savannah the very same day he was awarded custody. When they came and took her is when I lost it.

And I just went to the bathroom and sat in the bathtub and cried. Lee says what worried her the most was something Harris had said in court, that he would take his daughter to a psychiatrist as young as three years old if he saw any signs of her mother's illness. It sounds like what you're saying, Lee, is you were afraid Harris Todd was going to do to this baby girl what he had done to you. Yeah. I knew as a grown woman, if I couldn't prove that I wasn't mentally ill, how can a two- or three-year-old?

Lee says her only option was an appeal, but the judge didn't file the necessary paperwork in the usual 30 days. By day 45, she was desperate. At this point, had you lost all faith in the judicial system, in the court system, in the family court system? All faith, all faith. I knew nobody was there to help me.

I had started to make my plan to leave. She saw a 60 Minutes piece on a street in Los Angeles where you can easily get fake documents. Pink card, Social Security, pink card. And off she went. The guy goes, what do you want? And I said, I need two birth certificates. Here are two names. And he said, be back here at 1 o'clock tomorrow.

By the next afternoon, Lee Barnett had been reborn as Alexandria Maria Canton. And Savannah was now her son, Nick. A boy. Boy. She had no hair yet. So I thought, eh, it is a boy. Next stop, Houston, Texas. She put on a black wig, walked into the DMV, and got a Texas driver's license. After that, the passports were easy.

It was something that was just propelling me forward, knowing that I had to get her safe. I can't tell you how painful this is, but Anna and I belong together. And nobody besides God has the right to destroy that. 64 days after losing custody and during one of her regularly scheduled visitations, Lisa, she takes her last $10,000 and the baby. The two then get into a rental car here in Charleston with her oldest brother. Stop at a gas station, she cuts her hair, dyes it brown, and drives to the Atlanta airport.

And then she disappears. What time on Sunday were you supposed to return Savannah? It was 6 o'clock at night. And where were you at six o'clock that night? Oh, I would probably be in France by then, in Paris. And did that make you nervous or did you get a little smile? Oh, I don't think I ever smiled. I never wanted to take it for granted. Every second I had of freedom was never taken for granted. But did you feel free? I mean, you were on the run. Were you free? I was free from them. She was free from them. Soon after, Lee's younger brother, Cliff Barnett, got a call from Harris. He goes, where's your sister? I said, I have no idea. And he goes,

your sister's not a fit mother. She can't take care of a child by herself. She doesn't have a sense for it. And I finally just eventually said, well, apparently she has the sense to disappear from you. I'm John Walsh. One-year-old Savannah Lee Barnett is missing from Isle of Palm, South Carolina. The FBI launched a massive manhunt. I believe Lee Barnett could possibly harm her child. Initially, agent Chris Quick thought they'd find her in some motel within a week. Most fugitives mess up, make mistakes,

because they can't leave a life that they came from. This didn't occur in this case. She's totally cut all ties from everyone. I had no idea where she went, who she was with, what she was doing. Lee and Savannah ceased to exist. From then on, it was Alex and the baby she renamed Samantha. How do you leave your family, your friends, your country,

never pick up the phone, never be in touch, just walk away from it? It broke my heart. It killed me. We thought about her all the time. She was never, never far from our thoughts. We always tried to keep pictures of Savannah around the house, and this was one of our favorites. In my mind, I knew she was fine.

I'm talking about somebody that can adapt and survive. Alex's first stop, Malaysia. She wrote to Sam in her diary that the hardest part was the loneliness. I wrote, I hope one day that I meet a man that loves you like I love you, and that's all I ever ask. Seven months later, she did, in South Africa, her next stop on the run. There, she met an engineering geologist named Joawan Geldenhuis. She told

him everything. And they married a few months later. I got married to him because he was madly in love with my daughter. Soon Samantha had a baby brother named Reese, and the family moved to Botswana. We had giraffes walking outside our house and on the streets and buffalo and all that sort of stuff around everywhere. It was just really, it was fun all the time. While Alex Geldenheiss was growing her family in Africa, back in Charleston, Harris Todd was grieving the daughter

taken from him by Lee Barnett. It was done to hurt me. It was not done to save Savannah. It was done to hurt me. He says he had wanted a family, and he wanted his daughter. I can't believe it. How could something like this possibly happen? How could it possibly happen? How could she be here and then be gone? What bothers me the most is the not knowing and the fact that this is like constantly grieving for someone who's died. Five years after Lee Barnett vanished with his daughter,

Harris Todd decided to take matters into his own hands. Nothing else has worked. I'm going to go look for myself. 48 hours followed him to Costa Rica. I don't have any specific knowledge of her whereabouts, but there's a high probability that she could be here. I've been to the stores. Blondes stand out in Costa Rica. Been to the farmer's market. I want to go up and look at a school. I think it's worthwhile going up there to have a look. If I spend the rest of my life doing this, so be it. That would put the child in a great deal of danger. Harris also went on national TV shows,

determined to keep his daughter in the news, as well as her mother, who, according to Kim, was a very ill... A bipolar affective disorder, also known as manic depressive illness. ...very violent... She would hit me in the side of the head with her fist. ...and in this recreation, a very dangerous woman. I hate you!

I've got the pleadings ready for filing in your tort action. Harris and his lawyer, Graham Sturgis, also went after Lee's family and friends. We'll be ready to get the papers served starting tomorrow on the various defendants. Right here at the entrance. Filing suit against those Harris believed had helped her. friends. We'll be ready to get the paper, sir, starting tomorrow on the various defendants. Filing suit against those Harris believed had helped her. How you doing today? Including Lee's mother, her brother Cliff, and Susie Pogue. Bye-bye. Thank you. He accused me of conspiracy to kidnap Samantha. Of course, none of that was ever proven,

but it was financially devastating for me. But she says the worst part was the private investigators who tracked her every move. They threatened me by saying that they were going to destroy my life, my family, they were going to take me down. All the while, Lee and Samantha stayed under the radar, traveling from the U.S. to Germany, France, Malaysia, South Africa, Botswana, and New Zealand. After 13 years on the run and four continents, Leigh finally landed here, along the shores of Australia's Sunshine Coast, a safe harbour about as far away from Charleston

as she could get. The Sunshine Coast is known for its beaches. And it's a very wonderful and family-like environment to grow up in. But Sam's own family was having a tough time. The man she adored and believed was her father had fallen in love with another woman, ending her parents' marriage. How did it impact your mother? She stayed strong, she stayed resilient, and she was a great single mother. The doors were always open, everyone was always welcome. There was one door that remained

closed, the door to her mother's past. When she talked about America, she loved it, but at the end of the day, you can see in her eyes, and if you know and you love someone well enough, you can see when they're hurting. And it's not for me to sit there and go, well, get sadder and tell me more and tell me why, and I deserve to know, because I didn't. You know, I trusted that when she wanted to tell me, she'd let me know. That day finally came. Samantha, how old are you?

I'm four. Four. Eight. Eight. Eight. Nineteen years after they boarded that plane into the unknown. I was on the telephone at 7.30 in the morning, and there was a big pounding on my door, and I was still in my pajamas. And I opened the door, and this man was standing there with guns, and he said, I'm here with a warrant for your arrest. Alex Gildenheiss had finally made a mistake.

She confided in the wrong friend. That friend contacted Harris Todd. With the one missing piece of the puzzle, says Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Williams. Her name. All we really needed was a way to identify Miss Barnett under her alias. And once we had that information, it was very easy for us to then find the paper trail. But it took two years to work a deal between the two countries. A deal that eventually led federal agents to this little house in Malulaba.

One of the agents said to me, you must be really relieved, but I wasn't relieved. I knew that my life would change, my children's lives would change. It could not have been a worse time. One week earlier, their dad had died from bone cancer. I'm very lucky to be able to say the last thing I said was I love you. Because people don't get that.

Now she and Reese faced losing their mother to prison. My mom was sitting on the couch with two FBI agents next to her. I said, Mom, what's going on? And she took me to another room and just told me everything that happened and told me I've got to trust her, and of course I did. Next, she called Sam, away at university studying to be a nurse. I said, Sam, you know how we never had communication with the family and friends in the U.S.? He said, yeah. I said, well, I was married before, and I'm going to jail now

because I'm an accused of kidnapping. I said, I had to keep you safe all those years ago. I had to call her back and say, wait, does that mean that dad wasn't my dad? And then she started crying, and I started crying. Alex Geldenheiss, aka Lee Barnett, was taken to a jail in Brisbane. The next day, FBI agents sat Samantha down and began to tell her the story of the beginning of her life. And that's when I learned where I was born. I learned Savannah. I didn't, you know, didn't know anything before that. She learned about Harris Todd and her mother's bitter backstory.

Every characteristic they said that my mother had was wrong and incorrect. Every single thing, I mean, they told me. Like what? What kind of things? Like, she had bipolar. I mean, that was the most incredibly confronting thing, and I felt very rude because I just laughed in their faces. That was the first time you ever heard that accusation? Yeah, I just, I had to laugh, and I said, whoa, you're wrong.

Perhaps most disturbing, agents told her they had feared her mother would hurt her. Did your mother ever hurt you? No. Did she ever hit you? No. Was she abusive to you? No. A friend in Malulaba, Bruce Michelle, was equally perplexed by the version of his friend he read about in the court order. And I thought, wow, this is not the person we knew. Bruce and Sam set out to read every document, every transcript relating to the case. It's like a novel that is so sickening that you can't put down.

It's been a terrible, terrible injustice and somebody should go to jail. And he says it shouldn't be Lee. The time had come for Lee to tell Samantha about the diary she'd kept hidden all these years. Sam opened the book of secrets and began to read. I'm having difficulty writing because I'm very scared. I can only wait, though, and pray. It's not our time to be found. With each page, a new understanding of her mother. If you think about every single little thing that she has gone through. I've lived this wonderful life and she did everything she could and more to just keep me safe.

Now it was Sam's turn to protect her mother. She is the most important thing, and she was and she has been and she still is. Sam and Bruce collected affidavits from supporters across four continents. Friend Kerry Gazzard. Everybody's heart went out to her. Everybody was behind her, 100%. There was not a doubt at all, anywhere. For ten months, Alex and her supporters

desperately fought extradition. But in fall of 2014, she was forced to leave her Australian paradise behind and return to the place where it all began, here in Charleston. But this time, she would be at the federal courthouse, charged with international parental kidnapping and two counts of passport fraud, crimes that could put Lee behind bars for 23 years. Lee was denied bail while awaiting trial. Prosecutor Nathan Williams.

It's not complicated. You can't take the law into your own hands and flee the country with a child because you don't like the result from a divorce hearing. Lee acknowledges she broke the law by getting those fake passports, but says she is not guilty of kidnapping. You do not think that you broke the law by taking her out of the country? The law was broken when a corrupt court system took that baby from me and took her mother away from her. In your mind, you did not kidnap her? She's my daughter.

You did not have the legal right to take her out of the country? No legal right be damned. But after five months in jail, to take her out of the country. A legal right be damned. But after five months in jail, Lee realized she didn't have the money or the firepower to fight the U.S. government. She pled guilty to all three charges, including kidnapping. Lee was sentenced to 21 months in prison with credit for time served.

For the man who had searched for her, it was a disappointing sentence. What about Harris' side, the father's side? She took the law in her own hands and denied the father of 20 years I've ever seen his daughter. Have you ever for one moment thought, maybe I should have let her know Harris taught? No. No remorse about cheating him out of 20 years with his daughter? None. Lee says time has proven she was not who Harris said she was.

There's nothing wrong with me. I've never done anything violent. I've raised two amazingly healthy, intelligent children who are happy. So who's telling the truth and who's lying? Sam had some questions of her own. She wrote an eight-page letter to Harris. Just telling him that I can have the most amazing relationship with him as long as I am 100% sure there's no revenge, there's no spite, there's no nothing.

Sam says all she wanted was the truth. Why Harris said her mother was violent. There was no response to that. Instead, Harris wrote that he was pleased to hear she had done well on her exams. Has there ever been any response? A year would pass. Sam was finally ready to meet Harris. Her relationship was... A year would pass. Sam was finally ready to meet Harris. A meeting Harris had imagined when we spoke with him back in 1999.

I'd tell her who I am and hug her. It didn't quite turn out like that. They met at Harris' home. He held out his hand to shake my hand, and I thought, well, I'm not quite comfortable with that. to shake my hand, and I thought, well, I'm not quite comfortable with that. I'd rather give a hug. And it was just a surreal experience almost. Sam says Harris took her on a two-and-a-half-hour tour of his house, showing off his prized possessions. Lee's friend, retired judge Myron Johnson, accompanied Sam.

I really was very shocked that the conversation was not about he and Samantha and the years that they have missed and how they could go from here. I think we're both a little awkward. They have not seen each other since, but Sam says she remains open to a relationship, as long as Harris understands one thing. There is no way I'm letting go of my mom. I've been very lenient with him and all the stuff that he's said. I want to know if he'll be the same with me when this comes out.

Last May, Leigh Barnett was released from jail on two years probation. Back into the lives of family and friends she had left all those years ago. And then this is where we did that. It's an amazing experience to have your best friend disappear for 20 years and come back. She is just overwhelmed with friendship. All of our childhood memories are all coming back. She's not going to go anywhere as far as I'm concerned. At this point, Lee is not allowed to leave the United States. So with the help of 48 Hours, her kids came to her.

Reese was a total surprise. The first time I got to hug her after she got out of prison, she never let go of me. I think she cried. And Sam hadn't seen her mother in nine months. Thank you. I love you so much. My mother and I have this incredible thing to know that we love each other. And a continent, you know, or an ocean isn't going to separate us.

Over two decades ago, Leigh Barnett married Harris Todd, hoping to have a happy life together. Instead, it became a marriage measured in loss. A father lost 20 years with his daughter. A mother lost her home, her friends, and her family. A story of hurt, anger, and despair, but also a story of love. Dear Savannah, I just want to let you know how loved you are. You and I will be fine, more than fine really. We'll be great and we'll get through this. Please always know that having you is the most important thing in my entire life.

You'll always be my little girl. We've made it. Sweet dreams. Love, Mommy. Samantha graduates college in Australia next year. Reese is attending Auburn University in Alabama. Lee is living with friends in Charleston. If you were Lee, would you have broken the law and run? Chat now with correspondent Maureen Maher on Twitter.