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
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!