but for desiree carpenter, the love she shares with little oakley is an opportunity to give her babyver grew up with a mother, so i didn't have that to go off of. so i try my best to overcompensate for her so that she knows, like, i'm here for her, i care for her. you know, i try to give her that relationship with her mom that i will never have with mine. >> reporter: on a warm windy evening in september, 23 years ago, desiree's mother, 19-year-old samantha hopper, dropped off then 4-year-old desiree at her grandmother debbie's house before driving off with her 2-year-old daughter, kourtney. >> she always said she loved me. and so she left. she never came back. and they just went on and on and on. i sat on my front porch watching the road. she never come back. >> reporter: samantha disappeared without a trace. despite a lengthy police investigation that went on for two decades there were no signs of her or her young daughter, kourtney. vanished and missing for more than 23 years. >> i feel that so many missing person reports, that every time you do that, you have to give them a pictu