instant horror of where is she what had happened to baby savanna? the answer would come decades later and astonish the world. it happened so fast, couldn t fathom what was going on imagine, your mother fugitive. your father stranger. your home, your name your past was any of it real? the first thing i felt, jus a pit in my stomach. i jus felt like it was my fault. a mother s crime. a father pain what kinds of emotions di it stir up when you would se that crib? it would just make me cry a daughter forced to face the shattering truth i was shocked and i was jus terrified. hello and welcome t dateline a father left childless and daughter left questioning he very identity. it was a case that started as custody battle, but turned int an international mystery tha spanned two decades and took investigators nearly 10,00 miles around the world all driven by a determined dad searching for answers and hi daughter here s andrea canning with finding savanna. in
me and ran. so, the first thin that popped into my head, said, does that mean dad isn my dad? reporter: as far back a savanna could remember, juan geldenhuys had always been b her side. she believed he wa her biological dad, somethin lee kept reinforcing mom would relay things, you know? like, you sleep like you dad. or you know, you look lik your dad. so, i ve always grow up with that reporter: but tragedy struc in 2011, when juan, by the divorced from lee, fell sick with cancer. the man savanna thought was her dad died just week before lee was arrested he fought very long and ver hard, but it was inevitable. but i m happy because the last words i said to him was, love you , and the same with him. reporter: savanna said sh had barely begun to mourn he father s death when the news came that she was someon else s daughter. i ve never heard harris todd. i ve never heard savanna i found out that i was
harris told lee he wanted divorce. he said, lee told him she was pregnant everything fell apart whe she told him that she wa pregnant reporter: patty said what actually made the marriage g sour was harris refusal to hav children he wanted her to terminat the pregnancy, and that wa just not an option for lee. it broke her heart. reporter: lee says that you didn t want her to have th child? not at all true. i neve said that. not once. reporter: either way, the marriage was over. harris left lee when she was still in he first trimester and le initiated divorce proceedings. when baby savanna was born i may 1993, she asked for full custody. i felt at the end of the day, lee would have her child harris would have visitations. reporter: but to everyone s surprise, harris counter-sued. you decided you wanted ful custody? from my point of view, decided that before the baby
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
judge required that a bailif stand behind her chair with hi hands on her shoulder to kee her seated reporter: some people might say that she felt maybe that her baby was slipping away fro her. and that any mother might start to lose their mind a little bit in court. i think there s truth i that, but it s also indicative of her inability to control he behavior reporter: but on lee behalf, two other psychiatrist testified she had no mental or emotional disorders, and was a perfectly fit parent. and as for her allegedly mani behavior? patty and othe friends testified they had never seen it. i saw lee almost every da for a couple years, and i di not see any episodes like that she was full of life. she had lot of energy. absolutely sa no depression. reporter: after 2 1/2 weeks of acrimonious testimony, it was up to the judge. harris wa with the toddler when the phon rang