different from the chaos of he first year as a baby back in charleston. she scoured th internet for articles writte in the u. s. about the life sh never knew. read about the custody battle. about ho harris and others described he mom as mentally ill an violent. i ve never, ever seen anything like that in my entir life. she s not got a mental illness. she s not violent. yo know, unless she did this whol 180 and changed her entire attitude, then that s not wh she is reporter: so who was th mother that savanna knew the most important thing think is her compassion and th ability to encourage anyone an everyone. everything i am is because of the support, love and nurturing that i have had. reporter: she was afraid, she said, that with th revelation her mother was fugitive, lee s australian friends would abandon her, but they did not everyone stepped up and the said, what can we do, you know i had about 20 people living a the house trying to help m
was lee s friend and savanna s baby-sitter. she went with lee to pick up savanna for a visitation weekend two weeks after the verdict and said she was horrified when harri handed over baby savanna she had black and blue mark on her forehead. she had blood on her nose. lee sat in th backseat with the baby and she was crying, and we went to the emergency room reporter: did you ever harm savanna? did you ever abuse her heavens, no. she fell whe she was with my mother at th house. that s all it was reporter: the emergency roo report supported what harris had told lee. savanna injuries were consistent with minor fall. the e. r. doctor wrote he found no signs of abuse. i mean, i would never hav let a hair on that baby s head be harmed. reporter: but lee was convinced harris was an unfi parent and refused to return savanna until harris forced he
well thought out initially, an that, you know, we d have this case resolved in a week, two weeks. reporter: did you worry tha savanna could be in danger yes. is she this woman who really caring for her child an going to take care of her child? or is this the woman who doe harm to the child? reporter: if lee had family or friends who had any information about he whereabouts, they didn t volunteer it. so agent quick put a trace on their phones. any calls from lee no. the thing that trips up most people that are running from the law is not having tha discipline to talk to ol friends or going back to place that they re familiar with. an as this case went on, we realized that dorothy lee ha that discipline. reporter: quick discovere that lee had inquired about job in australia or sout africa, and that her mom owned a home in the central american country of belize. so, he pu tabs on flights to those countries. they turned up nothing. reporter: did you assum that maybe she had
to do so by emergency cour order. the situation seemed to stabilize for a time. but then came april 24th, 1994. a dat harris would remember forever. savanna had been with lee for weekend visitation, and once again, lee failed to bring the baby back. but when harris wen to lee s home nobody was there. and the all calls were fruitless nothing turned up. reporter: was there a momen where you thought, i m getting really scared here. i thin that maybe my daughter s not coming back? no, i didn t even imagine anything that horrible coming up where had they gone? did you worry tha savanna could be in danger yes. reporter: whe dateline continues gonna fly. kyle? and while romeo over here is trying to look cool, things are about to heat up. uh-oh. darn it, kyle!
After losing a hotly contested custody battle, a woman disappears with her 11-month-old daughter; the child s father searches four continents for almost two.