>> how did an americanady end up in syria with isis? >> i don't even know where to start swering that question? >> do you really think she would go all the way to isis for thef thrill o? >> yeah, i do. we as a nation have a responsibity for our citizens regardless of where they do the >> did you provide material support for terrorism? >> no i don't believe i did. >> what's the best thing about being home? >> everything. narrator: now on frontline,is "return from" >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs

station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support is proded by the john d. and catherine t.ti macarthur foun, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. the ford foundation: working with visionaries on the frontlines of cial change worldwide. fordfoundation.org.up additionalrt is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence inna josm... the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public areness of critical issues. and by the frontline journalismu , with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. and additionalupport from chris and lisa kaneb. ♪

>> josh baker: sou bend, indiana, march 2017. i was here to investigate a lead i'd got about an american woman, her young son, and isis. i'd come to meet the w sister, lori sally.t they haden in contact for years. >> i had a feeling that she was in some sort of trouble, but i didn't know what w going on. >> baker: then, out of the blue, she received an email. >> "i really hope you can help me. moussa brought me and the kids illegally to syria. cause i don't have a lot ofh you time. almost every day, five to tenar

bombdropped around us. the shock waves are insane. it rains shrapnel, evething from rocks to metal sheets to glass shards. th could be my last time online." (crying): "i love you, i miss you, i lovyou, i miss you, i love you, i miss you." (crying) >> baker: ri had thought her sister sam was in texas, with her husband, moussa. she was wrong. they were in raqqa, the city isis claimed as its capital. attached tthe email were videos of sam's nine-year-old son matthew. >> is that your new toy? >> yes, it is, it's my new toy. 700 of these metal balls, these steel tal balls, three kilos of tnt. >> baker: one of the videos

showed matthew being forced to assemble a suicide bomb. off camera, you can hear mssa, his stepfather, pushing matthew to role-play an atta. >> what do you do if you hear a helicopter and american pigs your mother? kidnap you and what are you going to do to them >> i'm gonna, i'm gonna hide it under my shirt, i'm gonna walk out and say,come save me! co save me! my name is matthew, i'm american, come save me, come save me!" and as soon as the helicopter comes on theon the ground, i'm gonna pull my pin... they get really close, okay? >> mm-hmm, yeah, as soon as e helicopter comes down. >> okay. >> (sniffles) how could they do this to a child? matthew is the sweetest littler boy you'll eet.

♪ >> baker: the videos of matthew set me off on an investigation that was to take almost four years. emri told me she'd shared with t fbi. but they wouldn't talk to me, saying it was an ongoing investigation. i've cover many stories about isis and westerners who joined the group. but this was different. sam seemed to be saying she'd been taken there against her will. and mattw was just a child. >> (voicemail): hey, lori, um, i just want to say again, i love you and i miss you. the email, i kept filming with lori as she continued to get messes from her sister. >> (voicemail): i don't know when i'll be able to talk to you next, it may be a while. i don't-- again, i don't get to go to the internet. so, i can only send you messagei like ♪ >> baker: throughout those

months, 6,000 miles away, raqqa was under attack by a u.s.-ledoalition. (thunderous explosion) ss sam's es were sporadic. one of them included her three-year-old daughter. >> say, "how are you?" >> how are you? >> say... "can'tait to see you." >> can't wait see you. >> say... "make me food." >> make me food. >> hey, lori, i just want to say, it really does help me to hear your voice, and, you know, keep making your prayers for us. you don't understand, here... (clears throat) instead of just leaving us be, all the time we hear the jets and bombs, and it's a part of daily life here, you know? i don't kn when i'll bable to talk to you next, it may be a while. ♪

>> baker: by the middle of october 2017, raqqa had fallen.i isis wretreat. thousands had died. lori feared her sister andhe children were among them. then a news agency published a brief video clip of some women and children who'd escaped the city. >> there's sam. my sister looks... bad. ndistinct chatter in vid there's matthew. (indistinct chatter fading) >> baker: sam and the children had made it out of raqqa ave. the video showed them in the custody of a kurdish militia. >> i just wish i was there. i just want to give them all a hug.

i just hope my sister knows how much i love her. and how much this whole thing has just killed me.sh and that she's braves brave for getting out. i don't agree with what she did, but... i just hope she knows i love her. i wish i was there. ♪ (baby coughs) ♪ >> isis has been defead in raqqa. clearance operations continue... >> over the past few days, hundreds of islamic state group fighters have surrendered in a deal negotiated tween local tribal chiefs and kurdish forces. >> thousands were alloweto

leave here, but foreigners didn't escape. >> baker: by the winter of 2017, it was safe enough for me toel tro syria. ♪ i now had a chance to find sam and hefamily. if you can confirm that you're on the other side before we cross, that wod be great, thank you. almost seven years of war had left the country devastated and divided. i was heading to an area controlled by a kurdish militia. a local journalist had told me sam and her children were being held in a detention camp run by the group. i made contact with a commander who had the authority to grant me access to them. "could we meet in the morning?" this could be really good, potentially.

the meeting went well. but the commander told me it would be some time before i got permission to interview sam. while i waited in my hotel, i got a call from lori, saying that someone with an iraqi number was trying to contact her. r (phoging out) >> hello?ne >> (on p hello? >> as-salamu alaikum. >> baker: my translator called the number. it was an iraqi woman who said she knew sam. she told us there was an eight-o ye boy who'd lived with sam in syria and was now back iin his village in northeq. >> (speaking world language) ♪ >> baker: i set out to find him and eventually tracked him down to a village near the syrian border. hello. what's your name?

>> baker: i'm josh. your english is amazing. >> baker: where did you learn your english? >> baker: american family? >> yeah. come. >> baker: i'm coming.wa ayham s now living with his uncle. they're yazidis, a religious minority persecuted by isis. i was told that when ayham was four, isis attacked his town and took him as a slave. his mother is stl missing. >> baker: so i want to show you some pictures. and i want you to tell mif you recognize them. do you recognize this lady? >> baker: ayham recognized sam from the photos i showed him. i discovered that moussa and sam had bought him as a slave from ansis fighter.

but he told me sam had treated him like a son. >> baker: you want to go next te >> yeah. you some other pictureme to show >> yeah. >> baker: ayham told me he became close with matthew, whoam he knew by another- yusef. >> baker: can you telloutis yusef-- e your friend? >> baker: what did you two doth to in raqqa? ♪ >> bakerdid living with isis scare you? >> baker: why did it scare you?

>> baker: ayham had been separated from sam and matthew soonfter they fled raqqa. i was still trying to get permission to film an interview with sam. shortly after leaving ayham's village in iraq, the kurdish commander who i'd been negotiating with contact me again. he told me to come to a military base, where i waited for hours. before finally, sam was brought in. >>clears throat)

>> baker: are you happy for meto tart? the kurdish guards insisted on monitoring the interview. so obviously, there's a long history to this, and what i would like tdo is sort ofhe start ateginning. >> okay. >> baker: how did, uh, an american lady end up in syria with isis? >> i don't even know where to start answering that qstion. um... i met my husband. uh, moussa. ♪ about a year after wmet each other, we got married. >> to have and to hold... >> we'd been seeing each other,i and we werng together, but we weren't married. which shows you he was not ast ct muslim. >> baker: at that time, matthew was almost five years old, and moussa became his stepfather. moussa was from a wealthyhe moroccan family,

elhassanis. he came to the u.s. to study and stayed on to work in the family business, a shipping company. >> are you recording >> yup. >> all right! >> for five years, we had a great fe. we worked together, we did everything together. v he wy relaxed. >> you can see my pregnant little wifey. hi, beautiful. >> baker: sam and moussa had a daughter together. >> man, what a mess. >> baker: ho videos posted online gave the impression of a happy family. >> (laughing)at >> he was really gooiving me attention, giving the kids attention. >> hi! >> he was really good at it. there was not one dollar he wouldn't spendn us. >> do you like it? >> yeah! >> it's a, it's a dinosaurbi cle. (bell rings) >> matthew, are you riding? >> yeah, i feel like it.

(motorcycle revs) it up! thank you, moussa, thank you so much. after a while, he, he becamed, bo think, with his life. >> (mocking): and i want a drk, and i want this and i want that. ree days.me, he took off for i found out from people in the neighborhood he was on ain cobinge. >> (mocking): and you, be quiet, be quiet, be quiet! >> so my husband was doing a lot of the talking... >> baker: sam then started toco give me her t of how she and her family ended up with isis. she claimed she was tricked by her husband. according to sam, moussa persuaded her to start a new life with him in morocco.o, >>y husband was, like, "okay, we're going to get the money together for this," and we get busy. he's selling-- he's got expensive watches, he's selling his expeive watches, he sold his porsche, i sold the bmw. >> this car is a good buy,

uh, definitely, for, for how much it's selling for. all right? bye. >> baker: sam told me the family packed up their home and sol it was march 2015. they had tens of thousands of dollars in cash and gold. ♪ she said they then met up with moussa's brother, abdel hadi,at and took a vn in turkey. after two weeks, they headed to the border with syria. >> i didn't know what wasen hag. i assumed that i was being lied to. in my bag, i had all of our cash, all of mjewelry, baker: she said that moussa then took the bag and her daughter. >> and he just goes.

he knows, he knows i'm gon follow him. what am i going to do? fence.my husband cross through and this time... fast, i know, i know, i know what's happening now, and i'm thinking, "okay, i'll just maket it to thr side, take my bag and my kid, and walk back across again, you know, it's just that simple." but it wasn't that simple. we made it across. i followed him. >> baker: there were holes in her story that i wanted press her on, but i didn't feel free to push her too hard. i was worried that she would say something that would get her ani he in trouble with the kurdish authorities who were holding them. did you know you were in syria at this point? >> yeah, yeah, i knew i was in syria. >> baker: and did you know who you were with? >> yeah. >> bak: how did you first come to know that you were with isis? u >> well, when you waand you see a bunch of guys with beards and guns, what do you...h

else do you think? ♪ (crowd sounds) >> baker: by may 2015, the family was iraqqa. sam said she tried to give the children some sense of normalfe family photographs show themg play local parks and swimming in a river. soon after they arrived, sam said moussa was sent for military tining. >> (speaking world language): >> it wasn't too long afterk he made it bom training camp he had to go fight. (rapid gunfire) usually when he would go, he would go about month at a time. (rapid gunfire) >> baker: moussa was one of around 40,000 foreigners from s approximately 120 countrat joined isis. (car horns honking)

that included roughly 5,000 europeans and more than 250 amicans. it was after his military training that moussa began m forcing matthew e the videos. >> without a single mistake, and take apart this loaded a.k. >> baker: sam told me that moussa planned to use the videos to get money out of her sister lori. >> he was trying to sell me back to my family, and he did a video with matthew, with weapons and this explosive belt and things like this. for three days, matthew had to practice, matthew had to practice, matthew had topr tice, because matthe thought we were going home. >> (speaking world language) it's ready to shoot. >> baker: there will be peopleri who feel you're an an

who was with arguably thed' wos worst terrorist organization, you should go to prison. what would you say to that? >> um... if they could live a day in my shoes, they, they would understand... why i don't care if i go to prison or not. if they want to put me in prison, they can put me in a prison for a year, 50 years, it doesn't matter to me.as ong as i get to see my kids and i know my kids are good. >> baker: the interview ca to an end and sam was taken back tt the deteion camp. ♪ i still had so many questions about her story-- and i wasn't the only one. she told me that a few weeks earlier, the fbi had been here and questioned her about her links to isis. ♪

the fbi still wasn't talking to me, but back in the u.s., i continued trying to find out more about sam. she grew up in rural arkansas. her father, rick, was a truck driver. >> well, josh, this is our family home. l our mansion, as we'd cal. over here is the swing setsa where mantha and lori, we built for them back in '92. (door opens) come on in the house. >> hey!e's my wife, lisa. >> doing the morning dishes. here's a pictu of lisa and i, samantha and lori, when they were little bitty. heot's a pictu when they g a little older. that's samantha, that's lori. sam has always been one to be in trouble. in her younger days, she used to sneak out of the house at night.

and... it just-- we always had trouble. >> baker: sam and lori were brought up as jehovah's witnesses. >> my wife and iook the way we were raised, and tried to incorporate it in with them. very strict parents. and they were brought up to be very clo to each other. then when they got older, they, especially samantha, kind of went off the deep end. her whole demeanor changed, who could ever give her the most. b so she wouwith this guy for a while, and she'd meet somebody that can offer her ali le more money. she'd go with that guy, she'd break it offith this guy and go with this guy. half the time, you can't tell what the truth is and what noth. the tr so, you have to read between the lines. >> baker: i told rick what sam had said to me-- that mosa had

tricked her into going to syria. >> i believe that she knewer she was going. >> baker: you don't think she was tricked?on >> no, no, i. >> baker: at all? >> i don't think she was tricked.i el she went over there her children are invold. i feel sorry for the children. ♪ >> baker: i moved on to idaho to meet matthew's biological father, juan. itas elk-hunting season, a he invited me to join him and his brother. juan had served in the navy. >> there's a herd over there. look through the trees, you'll see (inaudible). ♪ when i first met sam, she was she, uh, fast cars,utgoing. motorcycles...

sam was real big on to, like, stunts, trying to pop wheelie on her motorcycle, or racing cars. she was justery adventurous. >> baker: sam was coming out of a failed marriage when she got together with juan. in 2007, matthew was born. nting withatthew? er go >> matthew went with me aboutt two times and sle whole time in the blind. he didn't come out into woods like these, i took him to a deer blind, and he just slept. >> baker: was it fun? >> always fun. he loves it.'s rreplaceable time. s>> baker: juan said he a split up when matthew was threeh doesn't practice islam, she doesn't seem to be an extremist. why would she go to isis? >> for the thrill,ust to go and to be around the environment, and because it probably just to her seemed like

something fun to do. >> bakerdo, do you really think she would go all the waye to isis for rill of it? >> yeah, i do. >> they are the people no country wants. >> this camp has become a center where so-called isis families are now being gathered. the women and children of amis fighters who either ce from outside ts country to eve under isis rule, or w born in isis territory. >> baker: by july 2018, sam had been ithe kurdish detention camp for almost eight months.e d four children with her. two had been born in raqqa. and she was still sending messages to her sister. >> (voicemail): i'm sending this voice message-- sorry, i'vlost my voice, but... i just want you to know that things are gting really tough

here, and, um, i don't have any ,y to provide for my kidd and things are, things are hard. i just need to get out of here, we need to get out of here, we need to get out of here quick. >> baker: what sam didn't know is that e fbwas preparing to bring her home for prosecution. john demers is the assistantey attoeneral for national security. >> we have made it a principle that any american who left here to go to fight for isishould be brought back to face justice in the united states, to be held accountable here in the united states. >> baker: when did you startai building a case t, uh, u to do that?ssani, and what led >> the fbi began its investigation into elhassani after she traveled to syria with her family. i can't go into what leads caused the fbi to begin the

investigation,ut they were ones that they learned of after think we as a nation have a responsibility for our citizens, regardless of where they do the wrong that they do. so that's why 're bringing individuals like samantha home, her americans home, to facee justice, as well. the cases are not easy. oftentimes, the evidence is in l a war zoe syria, or it's classified evidence and it needs to be declassified, but it's worth the work. >> baker: in july 2018, sam and her children were suddenly put on a military flight, and taken back to the united states. matthew and his siblings were placed in the care of indianach d protective services. sam was put in the porter county jail. >> your video visit is about to begin. this video call may be monitored

and recorded. >> baker: as the justice her, sam agreed to spemeagainst again. so you, you obviously told me that you were tricked, and you thought you were moving to morocco, right? i >> righti don't, i don't think i can talk about, out this. >> baker: did you know you were going to join isis? >> no. >> baker: does matthew really h understand whes been, and what's happened to him? what's been the effect on him? >> um... it'sard to say if he understands or notbecause the last couple of years, things have become normal for us that should not be normal for anybody. he is, he is a child, he is, he' is a child, and, um,a very strong child. nutes with him would know thatwo there is absolutely not a violent bone in his body.te

abso not. ♪ >> baker: after returning to the u.s., matthew receiv counseling and support to help him with what he'd bn through. he eventually moved in with his father. for months, i'd been talkingo them about doing an on-camera interview. you only have to talk about what yowant to talk about, matt you're in charge. >> yeah, it's okay, i'm good. da>> baker: matthew and hi decided it was important for him to tell his own story. >> when we first arrived in raqqa, we were in the city. it was pretty noisy. gunshot, gunshots, normally, and once in a while, a random explosion, like, far away, though. so, we didn't have much to worry about. >> baker: what's it like seeing isis around you? w

>> normalln you're talking to someone, you don't necessarily have to rely think about what you're saying, but it's, like, thinking of someone that basically has your life in. their gr (horns honking) say one wrong thing, and they could easily just kill you. >> baker: i asked matthew about the videos his stepfather made him record. if you said no to moussa, "i i don't want to do this," what would have happened? >> i don't really know. likei don't know. because i was generally pretty obedient, as far as that goes. like, at that point, i could already tell that he was starting to lose it, like, he was mentally unstable-- very, very mentally unstable. >> baker: was he ever angry (blows raspberry) more than enough. comfortable telling me what he would do, or would you rather not? >> i'd rather not. >> baker: that's okay. >> it was pretty bad.

>> baker: yeah? >> yeah. ♪ (horns honking) >> baker: after a few months of living in raqqa, matthew said his mum was arrested by is. >> they came to the house, kicked down the door, stuff like blindfolded us, and, yh, i don't remember much from there. ♪ >> baker: in her interview withs me, sam said sheaken to an isis prison as a suspectedur american spy, and to.u how long were prison? >> two-and-a-half months. it just doesn't feel real, you know what i mean? it doesn't feel... i remember it, and i can almost feel the pain today. and i look at the scars on my but...and i know it happened,

i don't know. >> baker: i wasn't sure what to believe. i headed back to syria to check sam's account-- this time, to the ruins of raqqa.fo d the prison where she said she was tortured, a converted football stadium. the layout matched the description she gave me. s i'd aln a document thought to be an isis communicationto which supports her. it mentions the brutal interrogation of an ameran woman, um yusef al amrikiya--am the same arabic nameas known by in syria. i later spokto a woman who s admi used to be a member of isis. she told me she'd been held in a cell next to sam. she's asked us to conceal her identity because she's still afraid of the group.

>> (trslated): when she was in the prison, they really tortured her so badly, and we always heard her screaming. we heard them beating her so badly, she's screaming, "i'm pregnant." they are beating her. they are tugging her by hehair and trying to move her from one room to another. ♪ >> baker: after sam was released, her story took an even darker tur she and moussa started buying slaves. >> my husband-- okay, this is gonna sound really bad, okay? but i'm gonna be honest with you as far as the... >> baker: sam tried toortray it to me as a rescue mission. >> she was wearing a red dress that was like, um, like a velvet texture that was too big

for he and made her look incredibly skinny, and, god, i ju fell in love with her. she had short hair, and she looked so scared, and i want to do anything i could that she wouldn't look scared anymore, and it just broke my heart. absolutely broke my heart. ♪ >> baker: sam told me that this girl had eventuay escaped raqqa and returned to what was left of her family in iraq. so, i headed there, and found her in a small vilge in the north of the country. her na is soad. she's a yazidi, and was 15 years old when she was first sold into slavery. she told me how she met sam. >> (speaking world language):

>> baker: but sam told me she knew all along that moussa had other plans. he wanted a sex slave. >> (speaking world language):

>> baker: moussa then bought a second yazidi girl-- who was just 14 yes old. >> soad: >> baker: how do you feel about the fact that you played a part in bringinsoad to the house? >> i feel extremely guilty about it, because i thought, when i was meeting her, i thought i was going to be able to protect her. i felt extremely guilty for everything that she was going throug because it was the same rape and the same abuse that she had been throu in every other house, and i wasn't able to

protect her. >> baker: sam also claimed she had little control over what was happening to matthew. in the summer of 2017, he wasta being forced t part in isis's notious propaganda. >> my message to trump, the puppet of the jews. allah has promised us victory, and he's promised you defeat. thd battle is not going to in raqqa or mosul. it's gonna end in your lands. by the will of allah, we'll have victory. so get ready, for the fighting has just begun. >> bakerthe video made headlines around the world. r isis before, but never aeaking child. >> the boy mentions the president by name.li >> this ttle boy is an american. me>> baker: so how did it out with moussa? >> no.u want tdo it? i just wanted to go on with my life. (laughs)

just wanted to get back home, do my thing. >> baker: sounds like you work out that you had to do this to, to keep going. >> yeah. >> baker: some people will have seen the isipropaganda video of you. what was it you would want people to understand? >> that not all kids actually want to do that. that a lot of times, they're forced. >> baker: there was someone else in the video-- ayham, the yazidi boy who sam and moussa had bought as a slave. >> (speaking world language): >> baker: when i met him, he showed me the video. is that you? >> baker: so isis ught you to shoot guns. (staering)

♪ (explosions) >> baker: shortly after ma hewhad been forced to take partn the isis video, his stepfather moussa was dead. one of the neighbors broke the he told us that he had died, and that all he had found was a little bit of his beard and his boots. and i was happy, because i didn't like him, obviously. (laughs) like, i don't think i have been, because a person died, but i was. we were all crying out of joy.

♪ >> baker: after the eventual fall of raqqa, sam and her kids were taken by isis to another region of syria, deir ez-zor. matthew said his mum then found a people smuggler to help themis escape from . >> we made a deal with this guy we still had somld bars-- they weren't that big, but they were worth a couple of thousand-- said, "we'll give you this." and then he was, like, "okay, my buddy here will help you, but you have to be quiet." so then we got in our positions. (engine idling, man shouting) >> baker: matthew said the w family driven out of isis territory in the back of a truck, and he hid inside a rrel. >> we hit a couple of checkpoints. it was pretty scary, because then i got nervous, and i had to

just not move or even make a sound. i had to slow my heartbeat down because of how i was sitting. 'cause if i even moved around just a little bit, i would just fall. 'cause i was right on the edge. >> baker: what would have happened if isis had found you? >> oh, we would just all get killed. it was just that simple. >> baker: the journey to safety across the syrian desert took veral hours. it was then that sam and the children were taken into custodf by kurdices. and later, sam was questioned the fbi about her time with isis. >> i opened up and talked to them because i didt feel like they were out to get me, i guess?wo it's a poor choice os, but i was under thimpression they were trying to help me.un it wasn'l later that i understood that they, they weren't trying to help me. baker: in august 2018,

month after being brought back to the u.s., sam was charged with two counts of conspiringto rovide material support for terrorism. the fbi accused her of smugglins cash and golart of a conspiracy to help her husband and his brother join isis. they also said she bought military-style binoculars and a rifle scope, a very different story from thene she'd been telling me. >> your video visit is about to begin. b er: did you provide material support for terrorism? >> no, ion't believe i did. >> baker: did you provide funding for rrorism? >> absolutely not.u >> baker: did ovide tactical gear? >>o. absolutely not. >> baker: did you support mousso and abdel hadi t isis? >> not to support them, no. >> baker: what do you mean by that?

>> not to-- i mean, i didn't support them to join them, no. did i support myusband in his stupid ventures? yes. but had i known what he was doing, iould not have supported it. >> baker: with her story unraveling, i began to find out more about sam and her family. sam's sister lori had been married to one of moussa's brothers, jason elhassani. she put me in touch with h. he said he'd witnessed moussa's growing interest in isis. what do you think drew moussa and abdel di to islamic state? >> to be honest, i don't knowov what really them to go there. to this day, we all in our family ask why, why they left. out of the blue, my brother moussa start talking aut isis. so he wakind of, like, um, kind of, like, obsessed with them. >> baker: did sam nt to gothere? >> i, to be honest, i dot >> baker: according to jason, his brothers weren't just talking about isis, they werend

watching propafilms, too-- in sam's house. you would go and watch those with them? >> sometimes i, when i visit,ti sos they show me some videos, yes. >> baker: were these videos ever depicting executions? >> yes, they were.ol >> baker: we've beenquite clearly that moussa, abdel hadi, and jason were watching isis videos in your house. did you know that was happening? >> no, but it's possible. i mean... when they did their thing, most you know, if i was seraround. dinner or something, then i would have been there, but if they were all there the house, i probably would have shopping or something. have gone >> baker: then iot a tip about something even more damning. in the months beforehe family left the u.s., sam made three trips to hong kong.

each time, she put cash and gold in safety deposit boxes-- in total, morthan $30,000 worth. when i spoke to her again, she claimed it was money for their new life in morocco, and that it was stashed in hong kong because moussa wanted to avoid paying tax. did it not seem odd to you, though, to just... i mean, you can take the cashst ight to morocco, you can bank-transfer it, you can maybe send it to one of thfamily right., like moussa's father. um, this is the part i can't really get into, but i understand what you're saying. the simple fact is, is that hery was aranoid, and if you ok at anything that he ever did in his past, you would always find strange,ir gular, irregularities that he would go through because of so this was something i was completely accustomed to, it was something i tried to talk him, out t he was insisnt. >> baker: sam was still trying

to explain everything away. but onne of my trips to indiana, i met a friend of hers, jennifer, who remembered a conversation they'd had in the winter of 2014-- six months before sam left the u.s. audio interview.t me record an >> there was a conversation that we had. sam was telling us that, yeah, that moussa had felt that he was being called, um, to join... i remember she said, "join the holy war," or something like that. >> baker: and did she seem like she was up for that? or was she against it? >> i think it just, it just was, like, a crazy idea that he had said or something. like, she was just, like, "he's so crazy," like... >> bakerhe wants to do this. >> yeah. >> baker: when did you first become aware that either moussa or abdel hadi might want to join isis?

>> i can't answer that. ♪ >> baker: in november 2019, saml cut a deal with fede prosecutors. >> samantha elhassani pled guilty basically to a terrorism financing arge, and more specifically, to, uh, taking money from the, her bank accounts in the u.s., turning them into gold, turning that a gold into necklace then smuggling that gold and some other funds to hong ko, all the while knowing that thatg money was go be used to support isis. she wasn't the instigator in the e that the idea was not hers, but she was a willing participant, as her plea shows. >> baker: you've spent years saying that you are innocent ofe

rything. >> yeah. right.: >> bakd by doing this, u've admitted that you are, you're guilty of terrorism, right? >> well, um... okay, it states that i'm guilty of, um... supporting my husband. um, it states specifically that mhusband and his brother were isis members or wanted to be isis members. >> baker: despite signing the plea deal, sam was still struggling to admit her guilt. and that means you knowingly provided support for isis, who, you know, have committed some of the wot atrocities we've seen in, in decades, and you've supported that. >> (smacks lips) you're puttinge in a really difficult spot here. (laughs) um... w i mean, i, i don't know answer your question.

um, as far as my plea agreement goes, yes, i did. if i don't admit to exactly what they're saying in that plea agreement, they will take the plea agreement back, away fromay me, so, yes, i, i knew, i knew it. i knew exactly that he w going to fight for isis and that he was a terrorist. >> baker: so you have supported terrorism, then? >> yep. ♪ >> baker: there was one final revelation in the case against her. sam had told me it'd been moussa's idea to film matthewui assembling ade belt. now it turns out, she'd been much more involved-- it was her holding the camera. >> 700 of these metal balls, these steel metal balls... >> baker: do you accept that the choices you made put your children through some of the worst experiences you could

imagine for a child to have for years? >> i accept, i accept that i, i was able to make the decisio to protect them better. ma >> baker: sam was ully sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison. her three younger children are now living with her parents. ♪ as for matthew, it's been more than two years since he came home. he's 13, and settling into life with his father. >> the first day i saw my dad, um, i was happy, very happy. >> baker: did you ever imagine, after all that time, you'd be back here? >> no. (laughs) i'll be honest, never did. >> baker: you never thought you'd come home? >> no. th alws said, "one day,

you'll bback home, one day, you'll be back home," but it never happened. so i was, like, "yea i'm just never coming home." w i feel sad that theyld do that to a child. that's how i feel. >> baker: what's the best thing? about being ho >> everything. just everything. like, there isn't a best part. (chuckles)n' yeah, there it's just being here.'s ice. ♪ >> baker: and what would you wa people to know or understand about what you lived through? >> that... that you can pull through. that's really it. like, no matter how bad the situation is, you'll always get

through it. it all happened and it's done. it's all behind me now. ♪ >> go to pbs.org/frontline for more of our coverage of this story. and for a deeper dive listen to our podcast series, r"i'm not a monster" frontline and bbc sounds. >> i don't feel like i need to explain myself really, um, to anybody. . i'm not a bad persm not a monster. >> connect with frontline on facebook, instagram, and twitter and stream anytime on the pbsp ap pbs.org/frontline. >> narrator: a deeply divided election in a nation on edge. over this past year a team of filmmakers have been documenting the hopes and fears of people

across a country at odds on everything.>> freedom! >> narrator: from the pandic, to race, to politics.ec a frontline spl presentation. >>byrontline is made possibl contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to buildg a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. the ford foundation: working with visionaries on the frontlines of cial change worldwide. at fordfoundation.org.up additionalrt is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence inna josm... the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public areness of critical issues.

and by the frontline journalism fund, with major support fromjo jon annn hagler. and additional support from chris and lisa kaneb. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wh.org >> for more on this and other "frontline" programs, visit our website at pbs.org/frontline. ♪ frontline's, "return from isis" is available on amazon prime video.

♪ ♪ you're watching pbs. ♪ ♪

[ so, dramatic music plays ] ns[ indistinct conversatio ] [ camera shutter clicks ] [ indistinct conversations ] >> i bet they're all loose. i bet they're not really attached to eacother. >> i bet they're not. >> is this interesting to you? ay. [ indistinct conversations ]