they searched the internet and discovered lee s secret. they re real detectives. i think so. reporter: they figured it out. they tracked you down and then, essentially knowing the wrath that the would face if my ex-wife eve found out that they did it they went ahead anyway. they told me, we feel like you have a right to know your daughter. reporter: harris gave the couple s information to fb agent ed klimas. and now tha they knew lee s alias, the fbi was finally able to figure out how she had left the u. s. without being detected. she ha set her abduction plan i motion by getting a fake birth certificate about two months before taking savanna. dorothy lee barnett goes to become a fictitious person named alexandria maria canton. she went to texas to obtain texas driver s license, then used the information from that to obtain a united state passport. what we learned wa
reporter: that maybe this i real yes, yeah reporter: the e-mail wa from a couple living in a beac town on the sunshine coast o australia. they claimed to hav known lee and savanna for more than 12 years. harri immediately wrote back do you have any pictures? anything that you could send m to corroborate this? it s horrible thing to have to admi that i have no idea what m daughter would look like a this age reporter: but you would kno what your ex-wife would look like i would reporter: the photo arrived a couple of days later and there was no doubt. that was his ex-wife, dorothy lee barnett. and there on th opposite side stood a tall girl, nearly a woman. would that be savanna on the left? , harris asked. hi, harris, the couple wrote, that beautiful girl on th left is indeed your daughter savanna. were you just floored? completely floored. you know, how wonderful is it to have picture of your grown daughter to just see, you know, how pretty she is and she had a b
they went ahead anyway. they told me, we feel like you have a right to know your daughter. reporter: harris gave the couple s information to fbi agent ed klimas. and now that they knew lee s alias, the fbi was finally able to figure out how she had left the u. s. without being detected. she had set her abduction plan in motion by getting a fake birth certificate about two months before taking savanna. dorothy lee barnett goes to become a fictitious person named alexandria maria canton. she went to texas to obtain a texas driver s license, then used the information from that to obtain a united states passport. what we learned was she had left the united states, went to malaysia, and then from malaysia went to south africa where she met geldenhuys. from there, in 1999, she moved to botswana. in 2003, she moved out to new zealand. and then after a couple of years, she
reporter: the photo arrived a couple of days later and there was no doubt. that was his ex-wife, dorothy lee barnett. and there on the opposite side stood a tall girl, nearly a woman. would that be savanna on the left? , harris asked. hi, harris, the couple wrote, that beautiful girl on the left is indeed your daughter savanna. were you just floored? completely floored. you know, how wonderful is it to have a picture of your grown daughter. to just see, you know, how pretty she is and she had a big smile, and i could recognize my smile in her smile. reporter: i would just be staring at that photo constantly. i was at a loss for a while. i had to refrain from looking at it very much, because it was just too much after all these years. reporter: the couple told harris they had met his ex-wife and daughter in 1999. they knew them as alex and samantha. lee
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July 22, 2021, 8:00 PM ET Father Searches For Daughter For Nearly 2 Decades After She s Kidnapped By His Ex-Wife
Dorothy Lee Barnett evaded the FBI for nearly 20 years after fleeing the country with her daughter, Savanna, during a weekend visitation. Savanna Geldenhuys, aka Samantha Barnett, leaves the Maroochydore Courthouse on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland after attending a bail hearing for her mother Dorothy Lee Barnett who is in custody for the alleged abduction of her daughter from the United States in 1994. Photo: Getty Images
Not long after Harris Todd was granted full custody of his baby daughter, she was gone.