for a storage unit, broad street and pearl. - i'm on it, thanks. - hey, you just missed the exit for the tunnel. - change of plans. - [winces] - where is he? - some guy in a suit took him. - i want everyone out looking, understand? those two die tonight. - [winces] - i can drive myself to the airport. i gotta get lost. - every time i let you go, you almost end up dead. i'm running out of time to find my friend, and i've only got one lead left, so you're gonna try very hard not to get killed while i look into it. do you understand? - then we're at a stalemate,

you know, you got a bad attitude. hey, my money! - that dog'll kill anyone that tries to get near those bonds... including you. [dog barking] [distant siren wails] - oh, man. is--is he--is he--? - yes, he's dead, leon. very dead. - who did this? - same person who took my friend. he saw her face, she had to kill him. but she would have had to have paid him up front.

- what? no way. why? - because you're good at hiding money. if this woman left a trail, well, you can find her. something i've been wondering, leon. what happened to the rest of the money you took? - i invested it. stock tanked. oh, man. i found something. all right, a transfer into this guy reynolds's account, only the money was stolen. - from who? - reynolds. it looks like she installed some type of real-time screen monitor to hack into his account. - you're saying she paid the man with his own money? - there's nothing to trace. it's a loop. - maybe i need to find someone better. - there is no one better, except maybe this hacker. she's an artist. there's nothing to track her, there's nowhere to even begin. [phone ringing]

- why am i not surprised? - corwin's case file is missing. digital records have been corrupted and the ballistics report. tech support says the system has a bug. i'll look into it, but... john, i don't think we have anything else to go on. - uh, dude. - if harold is still out there, i don't know how to find him. [gunshots] [gunshot] john? [motorcycles revving] [gunshot]

what the hell are you doing? - i'm not doing this anymore. i'm not going anywhere until you give me a way to find him. - not this again. - if i'm supposed to keep saving people like this idiot, i want something in return. otherwise, i'm done. - who are you talking to? these guys are going to kill us! - they probably are. - so what the hell is this? - a negotiation. working on my feet all day gave me pain here. in my lower back but now, i step on this machine and get my number which matches my dr. scholl's custom fit orthotic inserts. now i get immediate relief from my foot pain. my lower back pain.

for adults with an advanced lung cancer called "squamous non-small cell", previously treated with platinum-based chemotherapy, it's not every day something this big comes along. a chance to live longer with... opdivo, nivolumab. opdivo is the first and only immunotherapy fda approved based on a clinical trial demonstrating longer life... ...for these patients. in fact, opdivo significantly increased

opdivo is different. it works with your immune system. opdivo can cause your immune system to attack normal organs and tissues in your body and affect how they work. this may happen any time during or after treatment has ended, and may become serious and lead to death. see your doctor right away if you experience new or worsening cough; chest pain; shortness of breath; diarrhea; severe stomach pain or tenderness; severe nausea or vomiting; loss of appetite;... ...swollen ankles; extreme fatigue; constipation; rash; or muscle or joint pain, as this may keep these problems from becoming more serious. these are not all the possible side effects of opdivo. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions including immune system problems or if you've had an organ transplant, or lung, breathing or liver problems. a chance to live longer. ask your doctor if opdivo is right for you. bristol-myers squibb thanks the patients and physicians who participated

the holidays bring many challenges to the feet. by day they must stay warm. but by night, beautiful, smoother and ready to impress the other party animals. dr. scholl's dreamwalk express pedi. for person of interest provided by... phil! oh no... (under his breath) hey man! hey peter. (unenthusiastic) oh... ha ha ha! joanne? is that you? it's me... you don't look a day over 70. am i right? jingle jingle. if you're peter pan, you stay young forever. it's what you do. if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. you make me feel so young... it's what you do. you make me feel so spring has sprung. - i know you've got your rules, but i'm guessing they don't account

no one answering your phone calls, no one saving anyone. no contingency. - what do you want? you want me to give up the bonds? give all the money away? it's done. we just have to move, now! - do the math, and figure out a way to bend your rules, 'cause he's my friend. he saved my life. understand? and i won't do this without him. [engines revving] [phone ringing] - [various recorded voices] ayacucho, golf, papa, deterministic, hotel, sierra. camera, sierra, kilo. - thank you.

[gunshots] [phone ringing] - yeah? - you're a hard man to locate, denton. - just being cautious. - it's good to be cautious. alicia corwin was cautious. course, it didn't save her. - what can i do for you? - my operative is making the corwin investigation go away. - glad to hear it. - look out for yourself, denton. one of us is already dead. i'd hate to lose any more. - i have a personal situation. i might be out of reach for a few days. - denton, we can always reach you.

- where are they? - they're somewhere in there. - let's go. - go on. get out of here. i'll keep 'em busy. - yeah, okay. john-- - you can thank me later. [clang] - [grunts] [engine revving] - [grunts] [dog barking] [grunts] - where's the money? - it's gone. - that's bad news for you. - hey! pick on someone your own size. or someone a little closer to it.

[winces] [grunting, struggling] [grunts] - you're an embarrassment to your race. when we rise up-- [thud] [grunts] - i've been meaning to get this back to you. - thank you. - never thought i'd see you almost lose. - yeah, i wasn't losing. i was just resting. come on. at least somebody's happy. - a little too happy.

oh, my god. my money. it ate the bearer bonds. - that's it. we'll call him "bear." - i thought you said it wouldn't let anyone near the money. - look at it this way, you're broke, but you're alive. unless, of course, you lied to those guys about losing the rest of their money. - no, i'm-- i'm pretty certain. - mm? - like 80% certain. maybe 75% cer-- your friend... i hope you find him.

- [gasps] - morning. - [laughs] you gotta be kidding me. - i got a lead on finch. - you know where our mystery woman's headed? - no, but i think i found out where she's from. pack your bags, carter. we're going to texas. - you must be starving. our friend will be here shortly,

- i have no way of accessing it, you know. i made sure of that. - everything has a flaw. you know that, harold, and like i told you, i'm awfully good at finding them. - why? what could you possibly want from it? - the same thing you did. you may have told yourself you were helping people, but the real reason you built the machine is because the world is boring. human beings have come as far as we're gonna go. i want to see what happens next. - you're right, you and i are alike... in many ways-- not that i'd care to admit it. i spent years wondering how people could be so cruel, petty, so selfish--

fix them. and that's why i've sealed up the machine. not to protect it from the people i was giving it to... to protect it from me, from people like us, from the things we'd do with it. that's why i'll never help you get control of it. - i know. you won't have to. because, you see, harold, i don't want to control your machine. - hi, honey. i got your message. is everything okay?

the flu virus. it's a really big deal. and with fever, aches, and chills, mom knows it needs a big solution: an antiviral. don't kid around with the flu, call your doctor within the first 48 hours of symptoms and ask about prescription tamiflu. attack the flu virus at its source with tamiflu, an antiviral that helps stop it from spreading in the body. tamiflu in liquid form is fda approved to treat the flu in people two weeks of age and older whose flu symptoms started within the last two days. before taking tamiflu tell your doctor if you're pregnant, nursing, have serious health conditions, or take other medicines. if you develop an allergic reaction, a severe rash, or signs of unusual behavior, stop taking tamiflu and call your doctor immediately. children and adolescents in particular may be at an increased risk of seizures, confusion,

the most common side effects are mild to moderate nausea and vomiting. anti-flu? go antiviral

it's like a bloody movie. and it is. it's just so intense and so deep. you go through all of these range of emotions that you don't know, you know? that was the first time i started to hear about my life. i could have been an entirely different person. >> it was a mind-boggling mystery for almost 20 years, and she was at the center. >> i'm john walsh. 1-year-old savanna lee barnett is missing from isle of palms, south carolina. >> a child who suddenly vanished. >> the most important thing in my life was taken from me. just instant horror of where is she? >> what had happened to baby

the answer would come decades later and astonish the world. >> it happened so fast, i couldn't fathom what was going on. >> imagine, your mother a fugitive, your father a stranger. your home, your name, your past -- was any of it real? >> the first thing i felt, just pit in my stomach. i just felt like it was my fault. >> a mother's crime. a father's pain. >> what kinds of emotions did it stir up when you would see that crib? >> it would just make me cry. >> a daughter forced to face the shattering truth. >> i was shocked and i was just terrified. >> i'm lester holt, and this is "dateline." here's andrea canning with "finding savanna." will i recall how you tucked and curled agains >> reporter: a father's love.

into words. >> in 20-some years will i recall how i often held you long after you had fallen asleep, listening to you breathe? >> reporter: tried to express what it meant to cradle his baby daughter savanna. you, what will you remember of these wondrous days as a baby girl along with your old father whose entire life you now are? >> reporter: back in 1994, harris could not imagine that these wondrous days would abruptly end. that the next 20 years would mare? of me. and sometimes i feel like i'm already dead and just haven't fallen over yet. >> reporter: it all began in charleston, south carolina, when harris, a financial advisor, met a beautiful flight attendant named dorothy lee barnett.

>> reporter: when she's at her best, she's a very vivacious and attractive and alluring person. very lively and interested in a lot of things. >> she was very outgoing, very friendly. she lived life to its fullest. >> reporter: patty roth was a tendant and one of lee's best friends. they had traveled the world, but patty said lee ultimately wanted a conventional life. >> lee and i both wanted marriage. we wanted children. we wanted animals. we wanted the picket fence. >> reporter: harris thought that he could build that life with lee, but early in their relationship he noticed some problems. he said she was overly emotional and sometimes quick to anger. still, he thought love would conquer all. >> i suffer from the misconception that i can fix things. that i can make things better. >> reporter: they married in december 1991. but within months, harris said,

lee's behavior. >> i mean, i never knew what was going to face me when i came through the door after work. and it could be nothing, and it could be nothing but screaming and yelling and throwing pots. >> reporter: things got so bad harris told lee he wanted a divorce. he said, lee told him that she was pregnant. >> everything fell apart when she told him that she was pregnant. >> reporter: patty said what actually made the marriage go sour was harris' refusal to have children. >> he wanted her to terminate the pregnancy, and that was just not an option for lee. it broke her heart. >> reporter: lee says that you didn't want her to have the child? is that true? >> not at all true. i never said that. not once. >> reporter: either way, the marriage was over. harris left lee when she was still in her first trimester. and lee initiated divorce proceedings. when baby savanna was born in may 1993 she asked for full

>> i felt at the end of the lee day, lee would have her child. harris would have visitations. >> reporter: but to everyone's surprise, harris counter-sued. you decided you wanted full custody? >> from my point of view, i decided that before the baby was born. it was like a responsibility that i suddenly realized had, if you will, been thrust upon me. >> reporter: the fight for savanna turned into an epic battle. a family court showdown that became one of the longest and most contentious that charleston had ever seen. there will be mothers everywhere saying shame on him. how can he, you know, try to rip that baby from her arms when she's still nursing. she's built this bond. >> i wasn't trying to take her away from her mother. i just felt that i was the more stable parent. >> reporter: at the hearing, harris and others testified that lee's behavior was erratic, sometimes violent.

lee had a mood disorder. according to harris' lawyer, graham sturgis, lee's emotional outbursts were on full display in the courtroom. so much so that the judge had to take action. >> as the case wore on, it was clear that her level of anxiety and frustration rose until the judge required that a bailiff stand behind her chair with his hands on her shoulder to keep her seated. >> reporter: some people might say that she felt that her baby was slipping away from her. and that any mother might start to lose her mind a little bit in court. >> i think there's truth in that, but it's also indicative of her inability to control her behavior. >> reporter: but on lee's behalf, two other psychiatrists testified she had no mental or emotional disorders, and was a perfectly fit parent. and as for her allegedly manic behavior? patty and other friends testified they had never seen it. >> i saw lee almost every day

not see any episodes like that. she was full of life. she had a lot of energy, absolutely saw no depression. >> reporter: after 2 1/2 weeks of acrimonious testimony, it was up to the judge. harris was with the toddler when the phone rang. >> savanna and i were in the yard, and it was a warm day, and she was barefoot walking on the grass. >> reporter: what do you hear on the phone call? >> the judge awarding me full and sole custody. >> reporter: harris was too emotionally depleted from the vicious custody battle to jump for joy, but he was surprised by what he suddenly felt. >> that overwhelming sense to protect and care for a child. i didn't anticipate the depth. >> reporter: were you feeling an intense bond with savanna at this point? >> oh, tremendous. i'd never been happier in my entire life. >> reporter: but lee was reeling from the verdict that allowed her to see savanna only every other weekend.

that the psychological and emotional problems experienced by the mother, if left untreated, will create conflict and havoc in the child's life. >> she was angry. she thought it was corrupt. >> reporter: babs mccambridge 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 harris handed over baby savanna. >> she had black and blue marks on her forehead. she had blood on her nose. lee sat in the back seat with 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 when she was with my mother at the house. that's all it was.

report supported what harris had told lee. savanna's injuries were consistent with a minor fall. the e.r. doctor wrote he found no signs of abuse. >> i mean, i would never have let a hair on that baby's head be harmed. >> reporter: but lee was convinced harris was an unfit parent and refused to return savanna until harris forced her to do so by emergency court order. the situation seemed to stabilize for a time. but then came april 24th, 1994. a date harris would remember forever. savanna had been with lee for a weekend visitation, and once again, lee failed to bring the baby back. but when harris went to lee's home -- >> nobody was there. and then all calls were fruitless. nothing turned up. >> reporter: was there a moment where you thought, i'm getting really scared here. i think that maybe my daughter's not coming back? >> no, i didn't even imagine anything that horrible. >> where had they gone? when we come back --

horror of where is she? >> a father's misery would soon become a worldwide mystery. >> i'm john walsh. 1-year-old savanna lee barnett is missing. >> did you worry that savanna

>> yeah. lilly. she pretty much lives in her favorite princess dress. but once a week i let her play sheriff so i can wash it. i use tide to get out those week old stains and downy to get it fresh and soft. you are free to go. tide and downy

red 97! set! red 97! did you say 97? yes. you know, that reminds me of geico's 97% customer satisfaction rating. 97%? helped by geico's fast and friendly claims service. huh... oh yeah, baby. geico's as fast and friendly as it gets. woo! geico. expect great savings and a whole lot more. recently we've noticed some ads created by these two birds, inviting you to stay away from the streak free shine of windex. well dear windex users these ads are false. sfx: squeaks from window cleaning clean glass is better than dirty glass. don't stand for dirty.

start the interview with a firm handshake. ay,no! don't do that! try head & shoulders instant relief. it cools on contact, and also keeps you 100% flake free. try head & shoulders instant relief. for cooling relief in a snap. there are times when words can't capture a moment. so you stand back. take it all in. listen. you let the story speak for itself. in paris, so many tributes, so many messages. but they all say the same thing.

harris todd's ex-wife lee had failed to return their baby daughter savanna after a weekend visitation. so he went to her house to get the baby back. but the house was not only empty, it was completely cleaned out. >> you have that just instant horror of where is she? >> reporter: harris immediately notified all missing children's agencies. since parental abduction of a child is a federal crime, fbi agent chris quick was assigned to the case. >> i wasn't thinking this was well thought out initially and that, you know, we'd have this case resolved in a week, two weeks. >> reporter: did you worry that savanna could be in danger? >> yes. is she this woman who's really caring for her child and going to take care of her child? or is this the woman who does harm to the child? >> reporter: if lee had family or friends who had any information about her whereabouts, they didn't volunteer it. so agent quick put a trace on their phones. any calls from lee?

the thing that trips up most people that are running from the law is not having that discipline to talk to old friends or going back to places that they're familiar with. and as this case went on we realized that dorothy lee had that discipline. >> reporter: quick discovered that lee had inquired about a job in australia or south africa and that her mom owned a home in the central american country of belize. so he put tabs on flights to those countries. >> they turned up nothing. >> reporter: did you assume that maybe she had changed her identity? >> yes. like a new license, maybe a new passport. >> reporter: lee seemed to have vanished without a trace. but out of the blue, a message appeared. >> savanna and i belong together. and nobody besides god has the right to destroy that. >> we had found out five days or so after the kidnapping, #>-asciates

videotape from dorothy lee. and it states, "to whom it may concern, i recently lost custody to my beautiful 9 1/2-month-old nursing baby. this happened because of a truly evil person, b. harris todd, and a totally corrupt family court system." >> reporter: now agent quick knew this child abduction was not a spur of the moment decision. lee had a well thought-out plan. >> i promise and swear on my life that i will continue to take care of my daughter. i will keep her safe. i will never allow anybody to harm her again. >> i mean, that was an attempt to embarrass and destroy me. but it's not surprising. you know, she is building a case for whatever else, to justify what she did. i just hope you know that i love you. >> reporter: though he had nowhere to send it, harris made his own home video, a message to

>> i just hope you're safe and clean and healthy out there wherever you are. >> reporter: it took a lot out of harris to shoot that video in savanna's room. >> every morning i would come in and wake her up, feed her, dress her, and we'd head off. and you know, i couldn't bear to see the crib empty. >> reporter: what kind of emotions did it stir up when you would see that crib? >> mostly tears. and it would just make me cry. so i left the -- i'd keep the door closed. when i walked down the hall, i'd just touch the door. that was about all i could do. >> reporter: but harris also began to take action. he wrote to john walsh of "america's most wanted" who recorded a public service announcement for him. >> i'm john walsh. 1-year-old savanna lee barnett is missing from isle of palms, south carolina. >> reporter: and he appeared on "unsolved mysteries" which dedicated an entire segment to

>> i wake up now every morning with a broken heart. >> reporter: harris' tv appearances generated hundreds of leads. >> those leads came from everywhere, anywhere from california, georgia, alabama. we would follow those up and try to determine if that was dorothy lee or the child. nothing. nothing panned out. >> april 24th, 1996. you're gone two years now, which is unimaginable. i don't know how old you'll be when you see this, if you ever see this. i'll be here for you whenever you do come back. >> reporter: then finally, four years into his search, harris thought that moment had arrived. someone had seen a little blond-haired girl about 5 years old, walk into a grocery store in mexico. >> the woman who called in was

mother came to the door and said, "savanna, come on." you need to come home. >> reporter: coming up -- mexico? private detectives are on the case. >> the lady said that, yes, the little girl comes in here by herself because her mother has bad headaches and doesn't come out sometimes for days. >> reporter: did that sound like lee to you? >> it did, yes. >> had mother and daughter been

so this is where i keep all the files and notebooks that i've amassed over the years. i have got everything in here from maps and letters and copies of everything. >> reporter: are there a lot of dead ends here, too? >> oh, there are plenty of dead ends. >> reporter: but after four years of searching, harris todd thought he'd found his daughter in a small town in mexico. especially after a source gave a description of the girl's mother. >> the lady said that, yes, the little girl comes in here by herself all the time to play games or whatever because her

doesn't come out sometimes for days. >> reporter: did that sound like lee to you? >> it did, yes. mm-hmm. >> reporter: harris hired private detectives to check out the lead. what was the report you got from the detectives? >> they found absolutely nothing. you know, they checked everything out. they went everywhere, and they never found the little girl, for that matter. >> reporter: perhaps lee and savanna had been there and left. or maybe it wasn't them at all. either way, it was another dead end. >> you run through the cycle of excitement and disappointment enough times and you just say, well, look, do you really want to put yourself through that again? because there's a wealth of pain associated with this, and i can only dip into it so often and survive. >> reporter: how much do you think you've spent on your search? >> i spent everything i had and

graham sturgiss, my attorney, told me that i better quit spending enough money or there wouldn't be anything for her to come back to. >> reporter: fbi agent chris quick knew the chance savanna would come back was getting smaller and smaller. you were kind of grasping for straws. >> to some extent, you're right. >> reporter: must have felt cold? >> oh yeah, definitely. definitely. after the three or four years, it's considered a cold case. >> reporter: harris tried to move on. tried to fill that gaping hole in his life. one thing that helped, he said, was his niece, who was just three years younger than savanna. >> i spent an awful lot of time with her. i mean, from a very early age. i did homework with her every day. would walk her to school, pick her up from school. >> reporter: did you think to yourself i should have been doing this with my daughter? >> yeah, i thought about it. you know, when you go see your child in the thanksgiving play, you see them singing the christmas pageant.

instead of my daughter. but i was thinking about my daughter at that time. >> reporter: time marched on. harris continued working as a financial adviser at merrill lynch. he had a few relationships, but he never remarried. after ten years the fbi assigned a new agent, ed klimas, to the case, but nothing new turned up. >> i believe that the chances of success for this case were probably very slim at that point. that they had disappeared to a foreign country that we would never be able to locate them. >> reporter: about the only thing that changed were the images on the missing persons posters. from the baby harris had loved to a computer simulated image of a teen he barely recognized. >> if i die before i wake from this nightmare -- >> reporter: he'd stopped filming his messages to savanna long ago, but he wrote one last poem. >> and please do keep an eye out across the fields.

driveway. someday my daughter will be there asking for me. >> reporter: had you given up? >> no, but one has to face reality. i mean you just say, well, look, here it is. she's 16. she's 17. she's 18. and you don't know where she is. so -- >> reporter: perhaps the only sign that harris had not abandoned all hope was savanna's room. it stood just as she had left it almost 18 years before. then you get an e-mail totally out of the blue. >> i did. >> reporter: what did it say? >> it said essentially, i have information about your daughter. but again i learned to temper my expectations over the years. because the well had long since gone dry. so all of a sudden the bucket goes down again and this time it comes up and there's water in it.

>> were you just floored? >> completely floored. >> that mysterious e-mail. turns out someone else had been doing some detective work, too. >> they tracked you down. >> they told me, we feel like you have a right to know your

(politely) wait, wait, wait! you can't put it in like that, you have to rinse it first. that's baked-on alfredo. baked-on? it's never gonna work. dish issues? trust your dishwasher with cascade platinum. it powers... through... your toughest stuck-on food. better than finish. cascade. phil! oh no... (under his breath) hey man! hey peter. (unenthusiastic) oh... ha ha ha! joanne? is that you? it's me... you don't look a day over 70. am i right? jingle jingle. if you're peter pan, you stay young forever. it's what you do. if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. you make me feel so young... it's what you do.

so spring has sprung. are you tired of hazardous glass made so clear by sfx: slide show windex that you don't even know it's there? sfx: slide show smudge it! with the new smudge stick even clear glass gets visibly smudged in a snap. sfx: smudge sounds against glass get it now and say no to spotless clear windex glass. we are in the age of ageless. age neutral. age defiant. age agnostic. olay is a purveyor of ageless. only the best 1% of ingredients make it into our products. for transformed skin without expensive brands or procedures. it's the ultimate beauty victory. nobody has any idea how old you are. with olay, you age less. so you can be ageless.

almost 18 years had gone by since harris had seen his daughter savanna. so it was hard to comprehend the e-mail that arrived in the early morning hours of november 27th, 2011. a single line that said "i'd like to speak with you with regards to your daughter." was there that little bit of hope? >> oh sure. there always is. >> reporter: that maybe this is real? >> yes, yeah. >> reporter: the e-mail was from a couple living in a beach town on the sunshine coast of

they claimed to have known lee and savanna for more than 12 years. harris immediately wrote back. >> do you have any pictures? anything that you could send me to corroborate this? it's a horrible thing to have to admit that i have no idea what my daughter would look like at this age. >> reporter: but you would know 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 the opposite side stood a tall girl, nearly a woman. would that be savanna on the left? hi, harris, the couple wrote. that beautiful girl on the left is indeed your daughter, savannah. 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

>> 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 was married to a south african named juan geldenhuys with whom she had a son. although lee never spoke about her past, the couple had long suspected that savanna was not juan's biological daughter. what did the couple tell you about how they had discovered this secret? >> you know, i think it was a gradual process on their part. >> reporter: the couple told harris lee and her husband divorced in 2008 and that recently they themselves had had a falling out with her. they had always wanted to know more about their friend's mysterious past so they decided to do some investigating of their own. lee had once mentioned that she

armed with that, savanna's birth date and other tidbits of information they had picked up over the years, 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 they would face if my ex-wife ever 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 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 fictitious person named alexandria maria canton. she went to texas to obtain a texas driver's license, then

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 up to new zealand. and then after a couple of years she moved to australia. >> reporter: an 18-year-old mystery solved. in the movies, on tv, they find the person and they rush out to make the arrest. story's over. did that happen in this case? >> no. we had to get the state department involved. department of justice involved. and we had to get a provisional arrest warrant that the australians would accept because we have to abide by their laws. >> reporter: harris wanted to fly to australia right away, but the fbi asked him to let bureaucracy take its course.

he figured he could wait a bit more. i think some people, though, may say that a real father would have gotten on that plane the moment he found out about where his daughter was. >> if i'd showed up in australia without any backup and run into my ex-wife or my daughter, i would have had no legal backing at that point. >> they could have caused, you know, an altercation. he could have been in trouble with the local authorities. alexandria and samantha geldenhuys could have fled. and then we'd be back to square one. >> reporter: a year passed. then almost two. that was too much even for a patient man like harris. he bought his plane tickets and told the fbi he was going no matter what. you weren't going to wait any more. >> i wasn't going to wait. and it just so happened that suddenly the paperwork went from the bottom of the stack to the top. >> reporter: harris' determination may have forced

on november 4th, 2013, two days before he landed in australia. lee was finally arrested. >> she didn't appear surprised. she was very cordial. and she seemed to be very calm. so she expressed a willingness to talk to us. >> reporter: lee also asked if she could make a phone call to savanna. coming up -- >> i couldn't fathom what was going on. >> an astonishing moment of truth for savanna. >> the first thing that popped into my head, does that mean that my dad isn't my dad? >> and her father. >> i kept thinking i'll get to see her. >> when "dateline" continues. affordable renters insurance. with great coverage it protects my personal belongings should they get damaged, stolen or destroyed. [doorbell] uh, excuse me. delivery. hey. lo mein, szechwan chicken, chopsticks,

and you got some fortune cookies. have a good one. ah, these small new york apartments... protect your belongings. let geico help you with renters insurance. that detergent was like half the price! and we'll have to use like double! maybe more! i'm going back to the store? yes you are. dish issues? get cascade platinum. one pac cleans tough food better than 6 pacs of the bargain brand combined.