48 Hours - Web of Seduction

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

Lindsay Lavoie was a suburban Florida teenager who began receiving explicit love letters online from a stranger in Greece. Despite the efforts of her mother, Stephanie Lavoie, Lindsay continued her online relationship and finally disappeared from her home. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I think she just was out there just searching for someone to talk to. Do you know who's keeping your child company on the internet? 14-year-old Lindsay met a stranger online. What did she say about this guy? That she loved him and that he cared for her. When her parents discovered he was 35 and sending explicit love letters, they tried everything to stop him. And I just said, I want you to leave my daughter alone.

daughter alone. Then suddenly, Lindsay was gone. I just knew she was probably going to be dead. Susan Spencer investigates a shocking global cyber conspiracy using forged documents. She was in a motel. Having her identity changed. Correct. And underground contacts.

They all work together to get her out of the country. Luring Lindsay to the darkest corner of the internet. And she wasn't the first he had tried to seduce. That could have been me. It's scary. The astonishing story of a family torn apart and a detective determined to find Lindsay and bring her home.

I would be frantic if it was my daughter. Webb of seduction. She was born way early. Three and a half months early, I had her. She was only a pound and 10 ounces. When her daughter Lindsay was born, Stephanie LaVoy nicknamed her blonde little girl, her miracle child.

Lindsay loved life. She loved everything about it. She loved animals, I mean, everything you can imagine. Look at her, Lindsey. It's real pretty. Fifteen years later, she says the miracle is that Lindsay is still alive. What she went through, no one would want their child

to go through. No one. Today, Stephanie has brought Lindsay to a rally for missing kids. I don't believe that we need to terrify our children. I believe that we need to let them know what's out there and who's out there. well aware that her daughter was once one of them. Lindsay's experience was so painful,

she's not yet ready to talk about it on camera. I beat myself up every day for not finding some way of preventing it. The nightmare began in August of 2000, when 14-year-old Lindsay simply disappeared from the middle-class neighborhood where she lives with her mother, stepfather and brother, near Tampa. August 28th, she walked out the door. She was gone. I just wanted to die because I knew I never see her.

I just knew she was probably going to be dead. Remarkably, Lindsay was found here in the port city of Thessaloniki in northern Greece. And the story of how she got here is enough to make every family in America throw its computer right out the window. Like many 14-year-olds, Lindsay was an internet junkie, spending hours a day on the computer her mother had bought only six months before. She's very free spirit and just likes to enjoy learning new things and seeing new things. I think it's like all these people email me and I don't know who they are. I think she just was out there just searching for someone to talk to. But Stephanie couldn't believe her eyes when she saw who Lindsay was talking.

talking to and what they were saying. These are just all the emails that I have that I printed. The letters were from a man in Greece named Khan. Explicit love letters. Lindsay's new pen pal longed he wrote to be her husband, to be father to her children. She was 14 at the time. And in those letters, he stated he was 35. Even though he was in Greece, 5,000 miles away, Stephanie was worried enough

to order her daughter to cut off contact and fast. Goodbye. We sat her down, my husband and I when he came home, and we just explained to her that this was extremely upsetting and totally inappropriate. What did she say about this guy? That she loved him and that he cared for her, and that aid shouldn't have anything to do with it.

Lindsay was adamant. He just had her so wrapped by that time that it was just too late to get her to do. to change. And the emails and letters just kept on coming. Soon the man began calling Lindsay in the middle of the night. He had our cell phone number. He told me he knew where we lived. And, you know, he was thinking of purchasing a home down the street. And he was just controlling our life. Stephanie tried everything. I just went ballistic on him. I just said, you know, I don't want you calling here. I am changing the numbers. I want you to leave my daughter alone. She took the computer

her keyboard with her to work. There was no access to the computer in our home. Put Lindsay into counseling. He just convinced Lindsay that this counts, particular counselor, didn't know what she was talking about. Even sent the letters she'd found to the FBI. And they said that basically there was nothing they could do. Then came that horrible August day. Lindsay said she wasn't feeling well.

So against her better judgment, Stephanie left her home alone while she went to her job as a legal secretary. And when I brought my son home from school, about 3.30, she was gone. What was the first thing that went through your mind? It's just terror. And I knew instantly he had something to do with it. You did? Instant.

Yeah, it was just an instant gut reaction. The local police said it was too soon to declare Lindsay a missing person. I had nowhere to turn, nowhere. They thought this was a runaway. A runaway. Lindsay had a turbulent adolescence and a healthy disdain for authority. But Stephanie was convinced she would not simply run away that the mysterious man in Greece had, in effect, kidnapped her.

I felt so helpless because I just knew, and it seemed like no one wanted to listen. Not until Sergeant Klinger came on to the department. So this is just part of her file, right? Yes. Sergeant Gary Klinger of the Polk County Sheriff's Department had just taken over the missing persons unit when he opened Lindsay's file. It was two weeks since she disappeared. She'd been corresponding with a 35-year-old man from Greece.

Well, that, to me, threw up a red flag. He copied Lindsay's computer hard drive and put his team of cyber sleuths to work. But he really didn't think that a 14-year-old runaway, with no passport, could get very far. He kept telling me, don't give up faith. Klinger was absolutely determined to get Lindsay back. I would be frantic if it was my daughter. Coming up, Sergeant Klinger reaches out to Greek police to expose what he believes to be an international internet conspiracy.

They all work together to get her out of the country. And to hunt down the man who lured a child halfway around the world. He almost killed her. I walked the floors at night. I turned the computer on. in hopes that I'd hear from Lindsay saying, I'm coming home. In the weeks after her 14-year-old daughter, Lindsay, disappeared, Stephanie Levoy was desperate. Just hoping that I could see that maybe she's on the instant messenger or she's emailed me or something.

Stephanie's only real hope, Sergeant Gary Klinger. Sergeant Klinger. He has been a godsend from the day he called me and said, I'm going to. going to take a personal interest in your daughter's case. What has she gotten herself into? She can't be thinking straight. That's what he says. Her deepest fear was that Lindsay's mysterious internet pen pal,

writing from Greece, somehow had lured her away. I guess you could call it mother's instinct. You know how you just get that gut reaction and you just know. She was gone and I was determined to get her back. I guess just a normal family. Klinger analyzed Lindsay's email records. and finally identified her mystery man. He was a shady internet entrepreneur named Franz Constantine Bering,

a German national. But actually finding Kahn Bering was another matter, even though he was emailing Stephanie regularly. His pose to you is that he's in contact with her, but he doesn't know where she is. Throughout the months she was gone, I would hear from him saying, oh, well, I heard from her and she's in California. Or she's going across the states to the north.

It would just be a continual game with him. He would just taunt her like that all the time, you know? Have you heard from Lindsay lately? And she's worried sick. Yeah. Klinger still doubted a 14-year-old with no passport could have made it out of the country. But soon, the emails changed. Bering was implying now that Lindsay was with him.

I wouldn't put anything past him or anyone involved with him. And rubbing salt into the wound, Vering suggested he had rescued her from an unfit home. I know I'd done right. I just helped a friend to get out from a misery. Always stabbing that knife just a little bit deeper. As the months passed, Klinger funneled information to the Greek police, and he urged Stephanie to keep the lines of communication open. I was told to kind of play the game.

Your name here is Broken Heart Mama? Yes. to help them pinpoint exactly where he was. Then Klinger's work finally paid off. We traced back Lindsay's instant messenger's screen name to Thessaloniki, Greece. The big break in the case came when police here in Greece decided to enlist the help of the local press. Soon, pictures of Lindsay and Bering were on TV and splashed across newspapers all across the country. Just days later, someone in Thessaloniki saw Lindsay's picture on the news.

news and called authorities. Police found Lindsay walking along this street near the center of town, apparently not realizing that Bering was walking just a few yards ahead of her. They grabbed Lindsay, Bering saw it and kept on walking. You were out of here like a shot. I was out of here. Amidst the crush of cameras and cops came the moment she had prayed for for five long months. When I saw her face, I just grabbed her and hugged her and she hugged back. It was really nice. Wonderful. But soon, details of Lindsay's ordeal began to emerge.

Were you shocked at how she looked? Yes, I was. Just the hair color and very tired and worn. Detail's so awful, she says, that despite months of counseling, Lindsay still is too fragile to talk specifically about what happened. Going days without food, days without showers. She looks like she hasn't had a shower or washed her hair in weeks. She has dark circles, bags under her eyes, and they may even be black eyes.

Oh boy. This is where they lived? Wait, Anthony? Yes? But Lindsay was willing to talk to us off-camera about certain things. His office comes out into a balcony, and I spent most of my time out there looking down. She had slept on the floor, and she hadn't slept alone. Is there any doubt in your mind that this was a sexual relationship?

No. No doubt at all. No. Lindsay admitted that Bering had sexually abused her, sometimes even videotaping their encounters. Awful things, just he's, let me just tell you that he was extremely sadistic. It's going to take her years and years to get over it. to get over it.

Police turned up the heat in their hunt for bearing. We pursued them and discovered they had run away to Athens. And, acting on a tip, just one day after they found Lindsay, they busted Berwick in this house near Athens. They confiscated staggering amounts of pornography. We found 87 discs in his possession. 87? Wow. Thousands of pictures, some of Lindsay. And there was chilling evidence that Bering hadn't acted alone.

It's amazing how they put it together. A cyber conspiracy using bogus documents... She was in a motel. Having her identity change. Correct. And underground contacts to lure a vulnerable 14-year-old away from her family. She had no clue what she was getting ready to be involved in. Before I started working this case, you could have never convinced me that a teenage child could walk on to an airplane and fly out of the state, let alone out of the country, without some type of idea or challenge.

In the weeks after Lindsay disappeared, Sergeant Gary Klinger realized he had underestimated con bearing. Is this guy just an unbelievably good con man? He must be. Good enough to persuade total strangers to help him smuggle a teenage girl out of the country. Why would anyone pick up a child from their home, go get a plane ticket, and put him on a plane? Page 5, Martina Cabrario. But that is exactly what this woman did. I thought he was a nice guy.

I mean, he was very intelligent, very articulate. Martino Cravaro, 24, who worked at a cell phone company in Lindsay's hometown. This is Martina. He's extremely persuasive. Bering had called the cell phone company to set up a prepaid account for Lindsay. Martina happened to take his call. Talking with her on the phone and online, Bering convinced Martina that Lindsay was a victim who had to be rescued. Did Lindsay herself tell you that she was being abused?

Sexually abused? Yes. Emotionally, physically, sexually. So Martina, reached her own. Martina reached out. So I will say it was enough to compel me to want to help. Eventually doing the unthinkable, helping a troubled teenager she hardly knew run away from home. He eventually gets Martina to agree to pick Lindsay up, take her to an airport and put her on a plane.

You're waving speedy trial? Yes, Judge. What she did was illegal. She pled guilty to charges of interfering with parental custody and was sentenced to two years of high. arrest. At the time Lindsay got out of your car, walked into the airport, about to get on that plane, did you have any qualms at all about putting a 14-year-old girl on a plane to go off to whatever? No. I wanted to help her. I believed her, and I wanted to make sure she was okay because I knew she was going to friends. Lindsay claimed she was going to stay with her best friend, Dawn Arnder in Ohio.

It was all part of Bering's plan. This is Dawn Ardner. The girls actually never had met, but Dawn, 18, and her father, Robert, were the next players in Bering's elaborate plot to get Lindsay to Greece. He did it all. We just followed. Not quite.

Bering had promised the Arnders, whom he'd met online, $2,000 for their help. He was betting that Lindsay could pass for Dawn, use her passport, if only the two looked a little more alike. This is where she was brought at the very beginning. Ashley, she stayed at the Arndor residence for a day and then came to Motel 6.

It was here that Arnder helped Lindsay cut her hair and dye it from blonde to dark brown. He gave her colored contact lenses and a pair of glasses belonging to his daughter. Lindsay was here for 17 days, under the strictest instructions never to leave the wrong room and never to open the door for anyone. The Arnders put the new Lindsay on a bus to New York and handed her a plane ticket to Greece,

paid for by Khan Bering. They did a pretty good job. Went into her house through the computer lines. Klinger's investigators, meanwhile, had found emails from Dawn Arnder on Lindsay's computer. They called Ohio police officer Todd Beeman, and they discovered the Ohio cops already knew the Arnders. Did they ever? They'd been out to his house on calls, disturbance calls, and various types of calls

23 times that year. Beeman went online to investigate Lindsay's disappearance. I assumed an identity as a male juvenile. To his surprise, Don Arndor sent him suggestive pictures and bragged that she and her father

had helped Lindsay get out of the country. We went to Ohio to serve the search warrant. Lindsay was long gone by then, but police arrested Robert Arndor after they found scores of homemade sex videos at his house. Many featured children. They also found more child pornography from Khan Bering on his computer. Is there material specifically relating to Lindsay? Yes, yes, there is.

Robert Arndor later would be sent to prison for 85 years for child rape in another case. His daughter, Dawn, it was found, had been a victim of abuse and was placed in protecting. custody. But Khan Bering, mastermind of Lindsay's escape, was still one step ahead of the police. Having used Martina and the Arnders to get her to New York, he now used his own powers of persuasion to get her on that plane, giving her specific instructions on her cell phone every step of the way. This is the most amazing story I've ever heard. It is. It's just astonishing. It's amazing how they put it together. and how it all worked out.

Everything went so well that everyone involved in this investigation strongly suspects one thing. I don't think she was the first. Bering had tried this before. Carrie Voss was 15. It wasn't too long into after I had met him, and he asked me to Greece. Even as he was led off to prison,

Khan Bering insisted Lindsay was the only girl in the world for him. Lindsay, I love you so much. I know that you love me, and one day we will get married. All of his internet activities were innocent, he claims, simply the writings of a man infatuated with his one true love. We came here to this internet cafe where Bering once worked to see how much of his story really checked out.

And who better to ask than the people he corresponded with on the internet. One of them gave us Bering's address book, and we're emailing every name on it. list reveals a trail of cyber seduction, or at least attempted seductions, from Eastern Europe to the Mideast to Tiny Bigelow, Minnesota. That could have been me. That's scary. When Carrie Voss was just 15, she went into a chat room to meet other teens. The exact room that I was in, but I know that it was a teen one. Instead, she met a 35-year-old smooth talker from Greece.

He whispered me like that in a chat room. He seemed like a nice guy, but there was, I don't even know what it was. There was just something that just made me a little wary of him. She says Bering asked her for a picture. And there were other questions that gave her the creeps. He asked me if I was in a relationship, and it wasn't too long into after I had met him. met him that he asked me to grease. That made Carrie so uncomfortable that she blocked bearing from her list of chat buddies.

I just had like this gut feeling that he just wasn't, wasn't a good person. It could have been devastating. When they bought the computer for Carrie, her parents Les and Irma had had a heart to heart with her about safe surfing. Actually it gave me goosebumps. It was shocking to think that that this type of thing hit so close to home. If it could happen to carry, it could happen to any person. Every time when he saw me online, he started to talk to me. It also happened to this young woman in Eastern Europe,

who began chatting online with the same charming stranger, with the same M.O. He started to ask me to send him a picture of me. And the same request. Why don't you come? It's so close, so near to where you live. When she refused, Bering actually went to visit her and scared her so much that even now she is afraid to show her face

or even to reveal her native country. He was looking at me no stop in a strange way. I guess I was feeling very uncomfortable. He mentioned something he would like me to be his girlfriend. Which is the same basic story he told a 23-year-old woman in Kuwait, whom he also courted online for almost two years. She, like Lindsay, thought she was in love with Khan Bering. She only agreed to speak with us by phone.

So you had a definite plan. You were going to get married. That's right. Berrig even had proposed to her. Yes. So I talked to my parents. You thought this whole time that you were the only person that he was talking to, that you were the love of his life, right?

Yeah. But little did she know, he already was married and even had a child. Bering kept that tidbit to himself. Lindsay didn't know either. In fact, none of the women had a clue about the others. He certainly has a reputation for being a smooth talker. But investigators agree Bering's intention went far beyond simple seduction.

I strongly believe that he belongs to an international child pornography ring. The diaconiniscences pornographic elic. From 48 hours from CBS, talking to Barron. We managed to get inside a Greek prison. Hello. To confront Barring on that. We've waited a long time to talk to you. And on a few other things as well.

I still don't understand what you plan to do with this 14th century. with this 14-year-old girl. Yeah, by you Americans, stuck so much on age. What of everything you learned in history class was only half the story? I'm Dr. Hrini-Bot, host of Hidden History. Every Monday, I go where history gets mysterious. Vanished civilizations, doomsday prophecies, paranormal phenomena, and events that science still can't fully explain.

On Hidden History, I treat these moments like open case files, not miss, not superstition, just incomplete explanations waiting for close. or look. Listen to and follow Hidden History, available now wherever you get your podcasts. What if he walked in here now? And you better hope I don't have a knife because I seriously want to hurt him. Really? Severely. Stephanie LaVoy thinks Khan Bering has a lot to answer for. And, after hearing about Lindsay and the other young women, we had a few questions of our own.

Here for Mr. Bering. Yes. The Greek Justice Ministry has a strict policy, no TV interviews in prison, period. But this case is so controversial and so important to the image of justice here that the minister himself intervened on our behalf, giving 48 hours an exclusive opportunity to speak directly with Khan Bearing. I don't believe that I'm a monster. Bearing insists he is anything but a monster, that in fact from the moment he met Lindsay in an online chat room,

First thing what you're talking about is music. He was a friend to a troubled girl who claimed she was being abused. As far as we can tell, she's never an abused child. He's just a sadistic pedophile. But Bering portrays himself as always the perfect gentleman, insisting his intentions were honorable. Did you ever have sex with her? No.

But you slept together? Yes, sometimes. And you never took any pictures of her yourself, naked? For myself? Uh-huh. Never. Never. Never.

Never. Never. He says helping abused children is his passion. And any suggestion that he traded in child pornography is flat out obscene. I hate pornography. You hate pornography. Lindsay says that the two of you watched it. To show her what is right and what is not right.

So first you bring her here to save her and then you show her pornography to protect her. No, you... You're a regular white knight. You try to... put me something in my mouth, no, it's not true. Well, they found something, you know, like 37 CDs in one of your offices of kiddie porn. No, they didn't. Well, they did.

No, they didn't. Well, we've seen it. No, they didn't. Mr. Bering, it's part of the evidence in this case. I have, I have. I have. These are pictures taken by Bering himself. Chief Investigator Jorgos Coquinas believes Bering eventually plan to use Lindsay as a prostitute

and even force her to appear in pornographic film. We believe he planned to sell the pictures of Lindsay. Police still are investigating the source of his porno pictures, many of which depict children as young as four. There was a lot of indications that some of these pictures have gone out all over the states. We kept a pretty detailed log of... Ohio police officer Todd Beeman says Bering and Robert Arnder traded hundreds of pictures,

considered themselves big-time porno kings. In fact, Bering's evening. email inbox is full of porno sites. But incredibly, he claims his only interest in porn was in trying to stop it. In the internet, you will find about 170 organizations against child porn. In all world, I'm a member in about 68. He sent us a partial list of those organizations, and we checked as many as we could find. None ever had heard of Khan Bering. I feel like I have an obligation to tell you that no one on the earth is going to believe that explanation for why there was all this pornography.

Go, go, go in the internet. I know you don't care. I have explained that before. He first claimed cops planted the porn to frame him. How many people can put in my hard drive whatever they want? Then admitted he did have a collection, but also a noble cause. I still don't understand what you plan to do with this 14-year-old girl. When she got here...

You stuck too much on 14-year-old. I am. Why you Americans stuck so much on age? Because she's still a child. Yes, for you. For you is a child. For me, she was not a child. Oh, you don't victimize somebody like that.

This is your opinion victimized. I don't call this victimizing. I call this safeing. But Bering admitted that as time went on, his feelings for Lindsay did begin to change. You and Lindsay were going to get married? Making life. Together.

Yes? She's 14. Now she's 15 and a half. Now she's 15 and a half. She was 14 when she came here. Okay, she was 14 and 3 quarters. Do you realize what parents sitting at home listening to this will think?

This would absolutely terrify them to think that some guy in Greece can coordinate a smuggling job that well. No, I don't agree. They should be very thankful. I hope that Lindsay will be well. I love her very much. In April of 2002, Constantine Bering went on trial on charges of pornography and having sex with a minor.

Never had any sexual contact. And Stephanie Levoy returned to Greece, alone, to testify against him. I told him on the phone one day that he's taken the wrong mother's child, and I'm going to stick to it and make sure he gets put away. But that hope quickly vanished. I hope that Stephanie will know what's mean justice. Without Lindsay, the court ruled there could be no trial. Stephanie simply collapsed, crushed by the decision.

The judge demanded that the 16-year-old Lindsay appear in person, fragile or not, to tell her own story. She just might kill her stomach, but he has to come here. Lindsay's remarkable journey to the Greek court, and her even more remarkable journey to find herself. July 2002, Lindsay returned to Greece with her mother, Stephanie, to confront the man charged with abusing her. This despite fears that the 16-year-old Lindsay, who's on medication, was far from ready for this. I know that Lindsay is already here. It could prove to be very dangerous for Lindsay,

emotionally and mentally because of the psychological control he has. When the moment arrives, the judge clears the courtroom, and Lindsay takes the stand. My biggest fear is it's going to trigger a lot of the pain that she's held in for so long. She explains in detail how Bering sexually abused her and asked that he go to jail for what he did. But then, astonishingly, she tells the court she loves him, nonetheless. She said that she still love me. She said that. Twice. Stephanie says Lindsay's been brainwashed. If they punish me, if they don't punish me, I don't care. I don't care. I care what's happened with her. It's only what I'm

interesting for. Nothing else. The court deliberates for just two hours before declaring bearing guilty. But the sentence is light. Eight years. I will not forget you, Lindsay. I want him gone for a long time. What would he get in the States? 20s, 30. Khan Bering seems almost pleased.

She loves me, and now when I came out from the court room, she said that she loves me and she will wait of me. And you have eight years to think about that? I don't have eight years. Don't believe that. Thank you. He was almost right. Two and a half years after our first report, Stephanie and a dream Stephanie and a dramatically different, Lindsay, returned to Greece yet again.

What's the like to be back here? Painful, but necessary. Conbearing had appealed his conviction. The court could set him free in a matter of days. No, I don't have anything to say. If I have something to say, I say it only through the Greek press. Thank you. Lindsay and I have just decided we're going to take care of what we have to do here, and that

is to keep him here in jail as long as we can. Lindsay is now 18 and doing better. I'm going to do interior design and psychology and a degree in philosophy. And this time she agrees to speak to us on camera. I wasn't very confused through the whole relationship, so I can't really, you know, say how I think he changed me. Although it's still painful to talk about the details of that relationship. He had the power of everything. I didn't have basically no saying anything.

basically no say anything. It's getting a little bit easier. Yeah, it is, slowly. But there's really no control over it. You know, it'll go away for a little bit, and then it'll come back, you know, go away and come back. Lindsay suffers from flashbacks. She sees a therapist twice a week and is still on medication.

But time has given her a better perspective on why things happened the way they did. You know, I didn't know anything about the internet or about older men. I thought he was like the smartest, most, greatest person in the world. Some term that some people use is crazy love or sick love because you're just so caught up in it. She said that she still love me.

She's come a long way from the girl who told the court two years ago she still loved Khan Bering. Does she now? No. No. He's a very sadistic, manipulative, you know, pedophile. The hearing, off limits to cameras, doesn't take long. half an hour about we're going to have the decision.

That decision, Bering's appeal, is denied. It's back to prison for at least six more years. Try to find me. The ruling gets the by now predictable reaction from Bering. Only take care of Lindsay. Everything else I have to say on the telephone. And a sigh of relief from Stephanie. We finally have a little bit more time to get well.

to try to move on. But someday, Khan Bering will be out. And both mother and daughter wonder if the nightmare that started so innocently on the internet ever really will end. He's not going to let her go. He's not going to let her alone, and Lindsay knows it.