Latest / The Knife: A True Crime Podcast / The Fugitive Mother (Part 2 of 2)

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The Fugitive Mother (Part 2 of 2) · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
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Speaker 2: The claims and opinions in this podcast are those of
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Speaker 2: the speaker and do not necessarily represent The Knife or
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Speaker 2: exactly right. Media.
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Speaker 3: Nice that are there any of you guys FBI because
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Speaker 3: there was like twelve of them raiding the house. Because
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Speaker 3: there's two of them, Wait now, size and bring them
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Speaker 3: on in. So I knew then that was it.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Knife. I'm Hannah Smith, I'm Patia Eaton.
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Speaker 1: This is part two of a two episode series. If
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Speaker 1: you have not heard part one, we recommend you go
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Speaker 1: back and listen to that now. We will be back
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Speaker 1: at the end of the episode to discuss the series.
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Speaker 1: Let's get into part two. Last episode, we heard about
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Speaker 1: Lee Barnett's crumbling marriage and the vicious divorce trial and
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Speaker 1: custody battle. Lee was devastated to lose custody of her
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Speaker 1: daughter Savannah. Now, if this were a movie, the screen
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Speaker 1: would go dark here and then reopen in an entirely
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Speaker 1: different genre. So far, we've been watching a legal drama
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Speaker 1: set in Charleston, South Carolina, in nineteen ninety four. A
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Speaker 1: young mother sits at the defence table while her sanity
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Speaker 1: is dissected. She is painted as crazy and dangerous and
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Speaker 1: unfit mother. Her powerful and respected stockbroker ex husband comes
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Speaker 1: out on top, and her child is carried out of
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Speaker 1: the courtroom in someone else's arms. But then without warning,
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Speaker 1: the film changes The camera follows a thirty three year
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Speaker 1: old flight attendant, determined and plotting, studying airport monitors in
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Speaker 1: a map of Los Angeles. This is no longer a
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Speaker 1: courtroom drama. It's now an action thriller.
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Speaker 2: It is the.
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Speaker 1: Story of a woman who never imagined breaking the law
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Speaker 1: until the law became the thing standing between her and
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Speaker 1: her child. With nowhere left to turn, she does the
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Speaker 1: only thing she believes will keep her daughter safe. She
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Speaker 1: decides to kidnap her and disappear. And Lee was not
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Speaker 1: an expert by any means. She had not been trained
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Speaker 1: for this. She had just heard about a park in
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Speaker 1: Los Angeles where illegal goods could be bought, and so
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Speaker 1: she got on a plane to California and decided to
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Speaker 1: figure it out as she went.
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Speaker 3: So, I heard about MacArthur Park. I got a really
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Speaker 3: stady motel, very easy to do around the corner, rented
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Speaker 3: a car, and opened a phone book in the room,
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Speaker 3: I put my finger down the phone book picked out
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Speaker 3: our new names. I decided I was going to make
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Speaker 3: Samantha boy because she was still bald. Mine was Alexandria Maria,
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Speaker 3: and Samantha came out as Nick Mara. I wrote down
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Speaker 3: that did the same thing with birth dates. When I
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Speaker 3: got down to a car and park, everybody was going around.
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Speaker 3: They could drive constantly around the park, you know, selling stuff.
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Speaker 3: And they kept asking me like did I want all
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Speaker 3: these drugs and stuff. I'm like, no, no, I just
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Speaker 3: want birth certificates. And finally this guy goes Berth certificates
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Speaker 3: and I go yeah, and he goes, Okay, go onto
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Speaker 3: that tunnel meet me on the other side of the park.
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Speaker 3: And there was no reason, but I think he wanted
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Speaker 3: to see the shop factor and also to see if
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Speaker 3: I was being followed or to see how serious I was.
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Speaker 3: So I started down that tunnel and people were laying
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Speaker 3: with needlesticking out of their arms.
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Speaker 4: There was defecation.
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Speaker 1: I know the tunnel le he's talking about. I used
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Speaker 1: to work near MacArthur Park. It's in a high density
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Speaker 1: area of Los Angeles called Westlake, and there have been
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Speaker 1: major efforts to clean up the park Since two thousand
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Speaker 1: and two and as recently as twenty twenty four, crime
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Speaker 1: has significantly reduced in the area, but in the nineteen
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Speaker 1: eighties and nineties it was riddled with crime and gang violence.
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Speaker 1: In the year nineteen ninety Elonvee, thirty people were reportedly
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Speaker 1: murdered in the park. And then there's Lee in nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety four showing up at this park to obtain counterfeit
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Speaker 1: birth certificates, one for herself under the name Alexandria and
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Speaker 1: one for her daughter, Savannah, who now goes by Samantha.
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Speaker 1: Savannah was less than a year old at the time,
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Speaker 1: and so Lee's plan was to dress her up like
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Speaker 1: a little boy and use the name Nick. And that
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Speaker 1: is how she found herself walking through this tunnel.
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Speaker 3: I get out there and he's over there, and I'm like,
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Speaker 3: I get to the car and I guess I passed
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Speaker 3: the test. And he goes, get in the back of
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Speaker 3: the car and get in the back of his car
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Speaker 3: and he keeps driving. Wow, and he goes, what do
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Speaker 3: you want to go? I need two birth certificates, And
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Speaker 3: I said, here are the names and the birthdates. You know,
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Speaker 3: make them California birth certificates. So he says okay, and
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Speaker 3: he goes, make me back here three or four and
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Speaker 3: I said okay, and he told me where all right?
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Speaker 3: So I have all day, this is early in the morning,
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Speaker 3: time to do something. Thought that, well, I've never seen
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Speaker 3: a California birth certificate. Maybe I should go see what
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Speaker 3: it looks like. So I stood in the passport line.
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Speaker 3: Because every state's got three types of birsificates, so one
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Speaker 3: of the little feet, you know, and then there's a
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Speaker 3: small version along and I invariably always took the wrong
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Speaker 3: one in and I didn't know what a California one
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Speaker 3: looked like. So I tapped the lady in front of message,
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Speaker 3: can you just make sure I brought the right versa
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Speaker 3: to VIC? And I looked at it and has blue
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Speaker 3: trim around and yellow speckles all the way through. So
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Speaker 3: I go back down to Mark Arthur Park. He pulls up,
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Speaker 3: I get in the back of the car. He told
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Speaker 3: me it was one hundred dollars each. I opened the
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Speaker 3: envelope and there was two really crappy black and white copies.
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Speaker 3: Oh no, and I have to get back for visitation,
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Speaker 3: and I'm on this time frame like panicking, So I
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Speaker 3: go don't mess with me.
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Speaker 4: And I grab him by the back of the shirt
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Speaker 4: and I go, I've.
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Speaker 3: Got to have him blue blue around the outside of
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Speaker 3: yellow speckles, and like he was just shocked.
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Speaker 4: I was shocked.
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Speaker 3: And he goes, we'll meet me here tomorrow morning on
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Speaker 3: that bench at nine. Okay, back the next day, he
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Speaker 3: wasn't there. I saw him across the street and I
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Speaker 3: saw him put something in a newspaper he picked up
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Speaker 3: at the store, and I was like, God, is that
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Speaker 3: a gun or a knife? I mean, what the hell
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Speaker 3: did he slide in that newspaper? And then he motioned
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Speaker 3: to me twenty more minutes and about twenty five minutes
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Speaker 3: later he was behind me and he goes, don't turn
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Speaker 3: around too, mini cuffs, and he said, just keep looking straight,
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Speaker 3: and he sat on the other end of the bench
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Speaker 3: and he slid the newspaper over to me. And I
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Speaker 3: opened the newspaper and there are two really good looking
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Speaker 3: birth certificates. So I put my two hundred dollars in
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Speaker 3: and I slid it back to him. Before I could
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Speaker 3: even say thank you, he was gone. It was like crazy.
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Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god, step one down.
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Speaker 2: Wow, Yeah, that was okay. So you have these two
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Speaker 2: birth certificates. You've given yourself the alias of Alexandria Maria Canton. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: and Savannah is now Nick Mara Nick Mara Canton. Okay,
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Speaker 2: so currently you've labeled her birth tip Gad as a
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Speaker 2: boy because you're like, no one's gonna check. Yeah, okay.
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Speaker 2: And then you get on a plane to return for
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Speaker 2: your visitation just in time. Okay, So I see, So
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Speaker 2: now you're headed back to Charleston.
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Speaker 3: So I got back on the red eye. I guess
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Speaker 3: I got there just in time, and I had Samantha.
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Speaker 3: It was getting really bad.
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Speaker 4: Then by the time she.
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Speaker 3: Would come home, and I've got all my friends this
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Speaker 3: witnesses she was pulling her hair out, she would just
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Speaker 3: really not her. So everything just kept propelling me to
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Speaker 3: move forward. So when she left on Sunday night, I
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Speaker 3: called my best childhood friend and she lived in Houston,
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Speaker 3: and I said, Susie, can I come out and see
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Speaker 3: you in Houston? And she said, you can always come in.
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Speaker 3: I said, I just got to get away from Charleston.
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Speaker 3: They've taken Savannah, you know, And so.
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Speaker 4: I go out there.
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Speaker 1: Lee had visitation rights to Savannah every other weekend from
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Speaker 1: Friday evening to Sunday evening. She had hurried back to
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Speaker 1: Charleston just in time for her weekend with Savannah. But
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Speaker 1: after the weekend was over, Lee got back to planning.
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Speaker 1: With her new fake birth certificates in tow, she flew
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Speaker 1: to Houston and set in motion phase two of her
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Speaker 1: plan to start a brand new life as Alexandria Maria Kenton.
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Speaker 3: I borrowed her car, so I drove like an hour
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Speaker 3: away and I got a black wig, brown contacts, and
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Speaker 3: brown the horn room glasses. Then I went down to
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Speaker 3: the motor vehicle and I did the whole driver's license thing.
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Speaker 3: They said, okay, let's get your ID. But back then
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Speaker 3: they didn't do a picture ID. They gave you a
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Speaker 3: temporary one for two weeks. And I'm like, oh my god,
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Speaker 3: I didn't think of that. And I had to make
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Speaker 3: up a fake address real quick for them to send
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Speaker 3: the real ID too, because I didn't want to be
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Speaker 3: hooked to anybody else.
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Speaker 4: So I like crap.
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Speaker 3: So then I go to the passport office and I
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Speaker 3: got my temporary driver's license and my birth certificate arth
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Speaker 3: birth certificates, and they said, oh, I'm so sorry, you
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Speaker 3: need a picture ID.
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Speaker 4: And I went, Oh my god, so I emptied up.
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Speaker 3: My purse in the car. I knew I couldn't use
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Speaker 3: my driver's license, and so then I see my US
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Speaker 3: Air Slide Attendant ID.
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Speaker 1: Lee needed two things in order to get a passport
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Speaker 1: for Alexandria, Maria Canton and her son Nick. She needed
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Speaker 1: a birth certificate, which she had, and a picture ID,
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Speaker 1: which she did not have. And even though she'd gone
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Speaker 1: through the trouble of getting a driver's license in Alexandria's name,
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Speaker 1: the official license with the photo would be mailed to
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Speaker 1: a random address in California in two to three weeks,
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Speaker 1: so that wouldn't work. Instead, that evening, as her friend
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Speaker 1: in Houston went on a date, Lee headed to Kinko's
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Speaker 1: to make Alexandria a photo ID.
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Speaker 3: They had like all night services and they just started
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Speaker 3: photo copying at that time, like color copying, not photo
9:48
Speaker 3: but it just did it, like not too long before
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Speaker 3: I got a color copying, I remember, with a big deal,
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Speaker 3: and I used a number two pencil on my eyes.
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Speaker 4: I wided out.
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Speaker 3: The names, copied it, type the new names in, and
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Speaker 3: then I laminated it and cut it all up and
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Speaker 3: everything and whila, I was now Alexandra Maria Canton, the
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Speaker 3: US air flight attendant. So I go back to the
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Speaker 3: passport office the next day and it was a lady
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Speaker 3: who was helping me, and she's looking at the picture
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Speaker 3: because I couldn't change my hair, you know, and I've
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Speaker 3: got this black wig on. She looked at the pictures,
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Speaker 3: she's looking at me, She's look at the picture, looking
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Speaker 3: at me, and then finally I just leaned forward and
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Speaker 3: I go, I've been really sick, and she goes, oh,
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Speaker 3: I understand, like you know, it was a weeks of cancer,
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Speaker 3: and she put it through. The next day I went
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Speaker 3: and he said here, and I just waited every minute
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Speaker 3: to be swarmed in on by cops.
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Speaker 4: You know.
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Speaker 3: I just knew I was going to get nailed. And
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Speaker 3: there were cameras back in those days in there. And
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Speaker 3: I opened up the envelope and there were two brand new, beautiful,
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Speaker 3: real US passports.
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Speaker 1: Li says she still feels guilty about claiming to have
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Speaker 1: cancer to that woman at the passport office, but this
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Speaker 1: is what happens, what would continue to happen, because once
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Speaker 1: she started the lies, she felt like she had no
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Speaker 1: choice but to continue them, to build upon them. She
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Speaker 1: was able to pay for next day pickup in person
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Speaker 1: of the passports. Now she had everything that she would
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Speaker 1: need to flee the country. Now you have a passport
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Speaker 1: for you.
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Speaker 4: And for Nick Marrikan and my son, who.
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Speaker 1: Is actually Savannah Barnett. Yes, so now you have birth
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Speaker 1: certificates and passports.
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Speaker 4: So then I've got visitations are coming up again.
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Speaker 3: But Thursday I packed, and I was stuffing cash and
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Speaker 3: a shoe for all this year and a half of
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Speaker 3: fifteen eighteen months of hell, and so I had about
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Speaker 3: eight thousand dollars, I think. But I packed everything I
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Speaker 3: could think of, mainly everything for Samantha to make her
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Speaker 3: feel comfortable, like baby stuff and all that, and pictures
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Speaker 3: as I wanted photographs I could show her, you know,
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Speaker 3: as she got older. And I loaded everything except for
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Speaker 3: the car seat and the stroller in the car. I
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Speaker 3: drove down to Jacksonville, Florida Airport. I rented a car
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Speaker 3: at the airport, I loaded everything in it. I parked
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Speaker 3: it in LOP twenty three at the airport, and then
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Speaker 3: I headed down to the beach to my hippie brother's house.
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Speaker 3: And he was out windsurfing and he sees me and
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Speaker 3: he comes running up and he's like, Hey, what are
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Speaker 3: you doing here? I got a favor to ask you,
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Speaker 3: And I said, we have to leave, Because of course
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Speaker 3: you have to leave. You've done everything you could possibly do.
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Speaker 3: And I said, here's three hundred dollars. I said, I
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Speaker 3: need you to pick me up Saturday. I said, when
12:38
Speaker 3: you return the car, you need to tear up my
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Speaker 3: credit card receipt.
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Speaker 1: Okay, this part gets a little bit complicated, but it
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Speaker 1: also goes to show just how meticulous Lee was. A
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Speaker 1: few days before her next visitation with Savannah, she drove
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Speaker 1: nearly four hours to Jacksonville, Florida, where her brother lived,
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Speaker 1: but she had no intention of flying out of Jacksonville.
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Speaker 1: She handed a set of car keys to her brother
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Speaker 1: and gave him precise instructions. On Saturday, he was to
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Speaker 1: retrieve a rental car that she'd parked at the airport,
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Speaker 1: take that car, drive about four hours to Charleston, and
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Speaker 1: pick up Lee and Savannah, not from Lee's home, notably,
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Speaker 1: but from a nearby hotel where they'd be waiting. From Charleston,
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Speaker 1: he would then drive them another five hours to Atlanta, Georgia,
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Speaker 1: and drop them at the airport. Then he would return
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Speaker 1: to Jacksonville alone, and return the rental car. Lee paid
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Speaker 1: for everything in cash. Every detail seems intentional. She didn't
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Speaker 1: use her own vehicle in case it was recognized. She
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Speaker 1: didn't leave the rental car parked at her brother's house
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Speaker 1: where neighbors might notice it or notice her if anyone
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Speaker 1: came around asking questions. By keeping the car at the airport,
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Speaker 1: it blended in and she chose to fly out of
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Speaker 1: an airport that wouldn't tie her to family. Lee laid
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Speaker 1: out the plan to her brother.
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Speaker 3: I said, will you do it? And because of course,
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Speaker 3: I'll do it. And I said, number one, whatever you do,
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Speaker 3: do not drink. I said, promise me you won't drink.
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Speaker 3: Because he was an alcoholic. I'm thinking, I'm putting our
14:11
Speaker 3: lives in the hands of an alcoholic. But I also
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Speaker 3: knew he had so much less to lose than anybody else,
14:17
Speaker 3: and I didn't want to, you know, tell anybody that
14:19
Speaker 3: would be destroyed. So I got Savannah visitation. I pretend
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Speaker 3: that my car was broken, asked a friend for a
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Speaker 3: ride to downtown Charleston, went up to the third floor
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Speaker 3: and he showed up a little after eleven, and we
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Speaker 3: headed to Atlanta. Airport, and on the way to Atlanta,
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Speaker 3: I plan on stop at this motel and getting him
14:38
Speaker 3: to cut my hair and dye my hair, but it
14:40
Speaker 3: was full, so we ended up having to do it
14:41
Speaker 3: down on a park and we threw my hair into
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Speaker 3: this little river, and then I had to go to
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Speaker 3: a public bathroom and I changed dressed Samantha's little boy,
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Speaker 3: sorry for the Samantha Savannah, so dressed Savannah.
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Speaker 4: Then he cut my hair off. You. I dyed my
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Speaker 4: hair and put my contacts.
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Speaker 3: In and we almost missed the plane because when I
15:02
Speaker 3: came out, he drank two beers. Oh wow, and he
15:05
Speaker 3: missed the airport exit. But all because of that, they
15:08
Speaker 3: threw everything on the plane. They rushed us to the tarmac,
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Speaker 3: and I think that saved us from having anything stamped,
15:14
Speaker 3: because we had nothing stamped when we got on the planes.
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Speaker 1: Wow. And how long was your visitation supposed to be?
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Speaker 3: I got her Friday night at six and had to
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Speaker 3: give her up Sunday night at.
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Speaker 1: Six, So you're on a timeline of like, I need
15:29
Speaker 1: to get on a plane before Sunday night.
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, And as they said, I think it was
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Speaker 3: in the forty eight hours. They're like, where were you I,
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Speaker 3: So I was probably in Paris by the time they
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Speaker 3: realized I was gone.
15:39
Speaker 4: Then I wouldn't have her for two weeks.
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Speaker 3: I left on day sixty five, so I went to
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Speaker 3: MacArthur Park day forty six.
15:48
Speaker 1: When Lisa's day forty six, she means forty six days
15:52
Speaker 1: after the trial ended and she lost custody of her daughter,
15:56
Speaker 1: Lee and her legal team were waiting for the written
15:59
Speaker 1: court order divorce decree to be completed, because she couldn't
16:03
Speaker 1: file an appeal until that was done. Lisa's she was
16:07
Speaker 1: told by her attorneys that it would only take thirty days.
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Speaker 1: As soon as that thirty day marker passed, Lee started
16:13
Speaker 1: making plans. She says she made her trip to Los
16:16
Speaker 1: Angeles looking for falsified birth certificates on day forty six,
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Speaker 1: and the day that she stepped onto a plane with
16:23
Speaker 1: Savannah to flee the country, it was day sixty five.
16:28
Speaker 1: Lisa's part of why she fled is that she did
16:30
Speaker 1: not trust the court system to give her a fair
16:32
Speaker 1: chance to appeal the case and fight for custody of
16:35
Speaker 1: her daughter. She claims that the entire time she planned
16:38
Speaker 1: her exit, she still waited for that divorce degree to
16:40
Speaker 1: come through, hoping that there would be some legal channel forward.
16:45
Speaker 1: Even on the night before she fled the US, she
16:47
Speaker 1: says she checked to see if that court order had
16:49
Speaker 1: come through.
16:51
Speaker 3: My lawyer called Friday night and I just said any
16:54
Speaker 3: court order and he said no, we were out having
16:56
Speaker 3: a beer the other night and city he's going to
16:57
Speaker 3: get around to it.
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Speaker 2: So before you left, did you make anyone aware of
17:05
Speaker 2: what you were doing?
17:06
Speaker 3: Only my brother? But I told and I still he
17:10
Speaker 3: begged me to tell me my name where I.
17:12
Speaker 4: Was going, and I said, I can't do it. I
17:14
Speaker 4: cannot do it.
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Speaker 3: He begged me all the way to the plane. He's like,
17:17
Speaker 3: what if something happens, I go, then it happens, I
17:21
Speaker 3: can't tell you. And I'm so glad because I knew,
17:24
Speaker 3: you know, it's you don't have a tyrant, you don't
17:27
Speaker 3: have a narcissist dictator that does anything on their own.
17:31
Speaker 3: It's the people that support him below. So I knew
17:33
Speaker 3: this whole group was so powerful. They had me accused
17:36
Speaker 3: of being mentally ill with no evidence, and they just
17:40
Speaker 3: took a nursing baby from a good mom back in
17:42
Speaker 3: the early nineties.
17:43
Speaker 4: That's unthinkable.
17:44
Speaker 3: So I knew that they really had a lot of
17:47
Speaker 3: power and they were not going to stop at anything.
17:50
Speaker 2: Now you recorded a video, though, when did that happen?
17:53
Speaker 4: That was a dumb thing to do too.
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Speaker 3: So in the meantime, this is before internet, before anything,
17:58
Speaker 3: before cell phones.
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Speaker 1: Really, Lee left a letter and a recorded video behind.
18:04
Speaker 1: In the video, she goes through her story. She talks
18:07
Speaker 1: about how things went wrong with Harris and how he
18:10
Speaker 1: never wanted the baby. She says that he repeatedly suggested
18:14
Speaker 1: that he wasn't the father because she was quote promiscuous,
18:18
Speaker 1: and he showed no interest in visiting or seeing Savannah
18:22
Speaker 1: at all until Lee pressed him for child support. Lee
18:26
Speaker 1: claims it was only then that he went for custody.
18:30
Speaker 1: She says Harris made significantly more money than she did,
18:33
Speaker 1: which is true. Their incomes are laid out in the
18:36
Speaker 1: court documents. Harris made almost three times what Lee made
18:40
Speaker 1: when Lee was able to work. I should note that
18:42
Speaker 1: she had taken a lot of time off after she
18:44
Speaker 1: had Savannah, and she was Savannah's primary caretaker and covering
18:49
Speaker 1: the costs herself. But the moment that Harris won full custody,
18:54
Speaker 1: Lee had to pay him child support. Lee paints a
18:57
Speaker 1: picture of a system that unfairly worked against her, of
19:00
Speaker 1: a guardian Adlatam who sided with Harris, a psychiatrist who
19:04
Speaker 1: tricked her into taking an antipsychotic drug, and multiple people
19:09
Speaker 1: she claimed lied on the stand. She explains that her
19:12
Speaker 1: daughter was taken from her because she supposedly had a
19:15
Speaker 1: mental illness hyperthymic temperament, which Lee points out is not
19:20
Speaker 1: even a psychiatric disorder listed in the DSM three. Lee
19:25
Speaker 1: says that Harris had told her that if she went
19:27
Speaker 1: on medication, she could see Savannah more often, but Lee
19:31
Speaker 1: refused to take medication that she did not need. Lee
19:35
Speaker 1: claims in the video that Harris is not just an
19:38
Speaker 1: aloof or absent father, but a dangerous one. Remember how
19:42
Speaker 1: at Lee's first visitation writes with Savannah, she found her
19:46
Speaker 1: daughter to have bruising on her body. Harris later claimed
19:50
Speaker 1: that that happened while his mother was watching Savannah and
19:53
Speaker 1: that it was an accident. But Lee claims that it's
19:57
Speaker 1: more sinister than that, that her daughter is not safe,
20:00
Speaker 1: and she says that it all comes back to revenge
20:03
Speaker 1: toward her. She says about Harris quote, he will stop
20:07
Speaker 1: at nothing to destroy me for someone who did not
20:11
Speaker 1: feel listened to in court. It makes sense that Lee
20:14
Speaker 1: would lay everything out from her perspective in this video.
20:19
Speaker 1: She wanted to explain why she was about to do
20:22
Speaker 1: something extreme, why she was about to commit the crime
20:26
Speaker 1: of parental kidnapping.
20:28
Speaker 2: She says this Bananna and I belong together, and nobody
20:35
Speaker 2: besides God has the right to destroy them.
20:41
Speaker 3: I wanted to leave proof, and I left an eighty
20:43
Speaker 3: six minute video and I named everything and everyone. And
20:47
Speaker 3: if I didn't do that, they would have thought I
20:49
Speaker 3: was dead or something. But now they knew I left
20:51
Speaker 3: on my own Verisi, and so probably big mistake, but
20:55
Speaker 3: I felt I was doing the right things. I knew
20:57
Speaker 3: the hell that we'd been through for eighteen months, and
21:00
Speaker 3: I knew that other people were living that hell every day.
21:04
Speaker 2: And so you are in Paris by the time they
21:08
Speaker 2: realize you're gone, you and your daughter. Yeah, and you're
21:11
Speaker 2: living under aliases or you've traveled there under aliases. No.
21:16
Speaker 4: We first flew to Germany.
21:18
Speaker 2: Okay.
21:18
Speaker 3: When we landed in Germany, the announcement came on and
21:22
Speaker 3: it said, can miss Canton and baby stay on board
21:28
Speaker 3: and this is Delta flight.
21:30
Speaker 4: And I just thought, oh, dear God.
21:33
Speaker 3: I literally was shaking so bad that when everybody deep playing,
21:37
Speaker 3: they're all staring at us, and I'm trying to smile,
21:39
Speaker 3: looking normal, you know, and trying to make this stuff.
21:42
Speaker 3: After a whole long flight to Germany, and Sammy's ready
21:45
Speaker 3: to go, and I'm just I'm ready to just die.
21:49
Speaker 3: I stand up, the baby bag falls open, my wipe
21:53
Speaker 3: pies roll out underneath the seats, and you think that's
21:55
Speaker 3: not a big deal, but I hit the eight thousand
21:58
Speaker 3: dollars in those wipe pies.
22:00
Speaker 4: So I'm crawling on the floor.
22:01
Speaker 3: Trying to get them, and I'm shaking so bad, and
22:04
Speaker 3: everybody's off the plane. I'm like, I can't go backwards.
22:06
Speaker 3: I can't get out of here. I'm in the prison.
22:10
Speaker 3: So I finally go out, go out. I'm at the cockpit.
22:13
Speaker 3: I turned left and there's four agents standing there, Delta agents.
22:17
Speaker 4: And I looked at him and I'm like, yeah, they go,
22:19
Speaker 4: you miss panting. I go, yeah.
22:21
Speaker 3: They said that we've heard that you are traveling with
22:23
Speaker 3: a baby and a whole lot of luggage, and we
22:25
Speaker 3: came to help you.
22:27
Speaker 4: And I'm going, oh, bullshit.
22:29
Speaker 3: Oh bullshit, you just can't arrest me on the plane.
22:32
Speaker 3: And then they were in the jetway. I'm like, they
22:34
Speaker 3: can't rest me here. So when we get to the
22:35
Speaker 3: airport part they're going to arrest me. We get down,
22:38
Speaker 3: they load all the luggage on. There's two big giant carts,
22:41
Speaker 3: and they take us up to immigration and there's a
22:43
Speaker 3: super long line and immigration. And don't forget, I was
22:46
Speaker 3: a flight attendant. Even at that moment, they didn't know it.
22:49
Speaker 3: And they go, oh, look at the line. Well, let's
22:52
Speaker 3: just take them through the crew line. They waltz Savannah
22:56
Speaker 3: and I through the crew line with all of our luggage.
22:58
Speaker 3: Nobody checked our past, nobody stamped anything, nobody did anything.
23:04
Speaker 3: Then they took us all the way to the train
23:05
Speaker 3: because I've never taken a train, and loaded everything on
23:09
Speaker 3: for us, and off we went to Paris, so there
23:12
Speaker 3: was no record of us anywhere. There was a little
23:14
Speaker 3: Guardian angel on my left shoulder.
23:23
Speaker 2: And when your money rolled under the seats in that
23:26
Speaker 2: wipes package, did someone just hand it back to you?
23:29
Speaker 4: I was digging out it. I was like, but I
23:31
Speaker 4: was shaking so bad.
23:32
Speaker 3: I mean, I if anybody could look guilty, that would
23:35
Speaker 3: have been me. You know, as I thought they're going
23:36
Speaker 3: to put me in a mental hospital. There's no one
23:38
Speaker 3: that's going to be able to protect this child. You know,
23:41
Speaker 3: I didn't even make it one leg of my journey.
23:43
Speaker 3: I'm like, how useless am I?
23:45
Speaker 2: But for all of these, you know, maybe coincidences that
23:49
Speaker 2: happen and you're whisked through security, you're going to at
23:53
Speaker 2: least sounds like more confident that you're going to be
23:55
Speaker 2: able to get away with this.
23:58
Speaker 4: No.
23:58
Speaker 2: I never I never had, you know, I found like that, okay.
24:02
Speaker 4: Never.
24:04
Speaker 1: Li says that she was always looking over her shoulder,
24:07
Speaker 1: always thinking that she was just about to be caught,
24:09
Speaker 1: but she wasn't. She made it out of the airport
24:12
Speaker 1: in Germany, and then she was on a train to Paris,
24:15
Speaker 1: but she wouldn't stop there. She would keep moving.
24:19
Speaker 3: I'd made my mind up that I would go to
24:21
Speaker 3: Malaysia because nobody would think of Malaysia. I've never been there,
24:26
Speaker 3: and they spoke English. I knew the weather was warm,
24:30
Speaker 3: and I knew that the water was warm, and I
24:34
Speaker 3: was like, okay, so nobody knew anything Like I wouldn't
24:37
Speaker 3: tell my brother I was going. So I went to
24:39
Speaker 3: get a ticket, one way ticket for back then babies
24:42
Speaker 3: get sit on your lap for free. Two thousand dollars
24:45
Speaker 3: one way ticket from Paris. I remember I only had
24:47
Speaker 3: eight thousand with me to survive.
24:49
Speaker 4: I almost died. I was like, went back to the hotels.
24:52
Speaker 3: But another night I did get any cheaper, and I thought,
24:54
Speaker 3: you know, hotels are in Paris cost so I thought, okay,
24:56
Speaker 3: I got to bite the bullet.
24:58
Speaker 4: And then we left Malaysia.
25:00
Speaker 2: You get to Malaysia with Samantha who is currently she's
25:06
Speaker 2: nick a little boy that you're disguising her as you're
25:09
Speaker 2: there with your fake passports, where do you go from there?
25:13
Speaker 4: I bought and I.
25:14
Speaker 3: Ripped the covers off of but I bought a rough
25:17
Speaker 3: guide to Malaysia book and I was in Houston and
25:22
Speaker 3: the covers off in case anybody might have seen it.
25:24
Speaker 3: So I'm looking to all I'm on the plane to Malaysia,
25:26
Speaker 3: and I thought, oh, there's a hotel.
25:28
Speaker 4: So we went to this hotel. I don't think it
25:31
Speaker 4: was probably that.
25:33
Speaker 3: It probably might have been a little bit of a brothel,
25:36
Speaker 3: I found out later, but it was very nice people.
25:39
Speaker 3: They were all just very humble, and it was downtown
25:41
Speaker 3: kl Kaula Lumpa, and we went through immigration.
25:44
Speaker 4: She was in the pram. They were stamping everything.
25:47
Speaker 3: From there, I just looked up adverts for places to stay,
25:52
Speaker 3: and an Indian man came and he goes, I'm a
25:55
Speaker 3: landlord for the place that's next door to me and
25:57
Speaker 3: my wife. And I didn't want to live where they
25:59
Speaker 3: were expat people. I wanted to live with Malays and
26:02
Speaker 3: Indians and Chinese, so it.
26:04
Speaker 4: Was very nice.
26:04
Speaker 3: It was three stories, three bedroom place I rented. Not
26:08
Speaker 3: long after that, I went really soon. I got a
26:10
Speaker 3: job with a Chinese media company where I represented international
26:14
Speaker 3: herald of a newsweek. So it was all going really
26:20
Speaker 3: well until my boss came up and said, we're applying
26:23
Speaker 3: for your work permit. We need your university degree, and
26:27
Speaker 3: I went, oh my lord. I was like, oh, I
26:30
Speaker 3: didn't think about that. So I called Auburn University where
26:33
Speaker 3: my brother is a VET and he finished at school
26:35
Speaker 3: and I didn't, and I said I was a secretariat
26:38
Speaker 3: that doctor Barnett was in Malaysia doing symposium and could
26:42
Speaker 3: they please FedEx me his undergraduate degree. And she's like, well,
26:46
Speaker 3: why don't you want his doctor? It's not that well,
26:47
Speaker 3: I'm not going to go that far. So I was like, no,
26:49
Speaker 3: undergraduate is what they need for this oposium, and sure
26:52
Speaker 3: is Bob. A week or two later, I got it
26:55
Speaker 3: and it just didn't look all that good. So third
26:58
Speaker 3: world countries love stamps of all sorts. So I actually
27:01
Speaker 3: went into the US embassy with this paper and asked
27:05
Speaker 3: them if they would please stamp it to make it.
27:08
Speaker 3: I told him it was for my work from it.
27:10
Speaker 3: And meantime I'm in there and there's most wanted Kidnapped
27:14
Speaker 3: posters pictures all over the whole place, and I was
27:18
Speaker 3: so scared, and the guy was so nice, and he's
27:21
Speaker 3: stamping away and he goes, hey, would you like a
27:23
Speaker 3: gold seal with that? I go, yeah, a gold seal
27:27
Speaker 3: sounds really good. So he put a gold seal on it.
27:29
Speaker 1: But this has your brother's name on it.
27:31
Speaker 4: Oh, I forged it all. I became really good at that.
27:34
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Lee and Savannah stayed in Malaysia for seven months.
27:39
Speaker 1: Savannah was a year and a half old when they
27:42
Speaker 1: picked up again and moved to South Africa.
27:45
Speaker 3: Well, this is getting problematic. She was still Nick Marcanton,
27:48
Speaker 3: and I was like, what am I going to do?
27:50
Speaker 3: So I met my husband, my future husband. We got
27:53
Speaker 3: married very quickly, and we went through the whole adoption
27:57
Speaker 3: thing because he was South African. And then I went,
28:00
Speaker 3: why did we do that? Why don't I just make
28:02
Speaker 3: a new birth certificate, make her a girl, make him
28:06
Speaker 3: the father on the birth certificate. So we did that
28:10
Speaker 3: and it looked really good, and then sent that in
28:13
Speaker 3: and yeah, she got a I guess South African citizenship
28:17
Speaker 3: and then later South African passport.
28:19
Speaker 4: So now she's a girl.
28:21
Speaker 2: I want to ask about this because you know that
28:25
Speaker 2: would require a conversation. Hey, I want to just put
28:30
Speaker 2: you on the birth certificate.
28:32
Speaker 4: Oh no, where everything was talked about.
28:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I want to I want to know more
28:36
Speaker 2: about that decision and how he received this information.
28:39
Speaker 4: Oh he was. We'd been dating not long, but we
28:43
Speaker 4: got married really quickly.
28:44
Speaker 3: But we were dating, and I gave him my diary
28:47
Speaker 3: because I've been keeping a diary for Savannah.
28:50
Speaker 4: He said, let's get married.
28:51
Speaker 3: So I said, first of all, he'd known, but he
28:54
Speaker 3: didn't know the whole detail. So I said, first of all,
28:56
Speaker 3: take the diary out by the pool and sit there,
28:59
Speaker 3: and you come back and tell me if you really want.
29:02
Speaker 4: To do this. This is a lifetime of looking over
29:05
Speaker 4: your shoulder.
29:06
Speaker 3: And he came back and he's in tears of flowing
29:08
Speaker 3: down his face because I love you even more.
29:10
Speaker 4: I'm so proud of you.
29:11
Speaker 3: And he fell in love with everybody fell in love
29:14
Speaker 3: with Savannah the second they met her. Now she's Samantha,
29:17
Speaker 3: and he desperately, you know, wanted to do that. So
29:21
Speaker 3: we literally got married right away and then had Reese,
29:24
Speaker 3: my son, ten eleven months later.
29:26
Speaker 2: It sounds like Savannah was then raised believing that your
29:29
Speaker 2: second husband was her biological dad.
29:32
Speaker 4: That was her daddy. Yeah, and she was Daddy's girl. Yess,
29:35
Speaker 4: that was her. She thought that was her biological dad.
29:39
Speaker 1: Lee married Juan Geldon Hughes, and now she was Alexandria
29:43
Speaker 1: or Alex Gelden Hughes, and her daughter became Samantha Gelden Hughes,
29:47
Speaker 1: which is still her name. Lee had a fabricated, entirely
29:51
Speaker 1: new identities for herself and her daughter, and now she
29:55
Speaker 1: created a brand new family for them. While Lee still
29:59
Speaker 1: worried that she'd be and that her daughter would be
30:01
Speaker 1: taken away from her for years, it just didn't happen. Instead,
30:07
Speaker 1: they lived their lives. Samantha grew up with her mother,
30:10
Speaker 1: who she thought was named Alex, with Juan, who she
30:13
Speaker 1: believed was her biological father, and pretty soon she had
30:16
Speaker 1: a younger brother, Reees. On the outside, they were just
30:19
Speaker 1: a normal family. Only Lee and her husband knew the truth.
30:24
Speaker 3: I tried to minimize every lie as much as I could,
30:28
Speaker 3: because I knew i'd get caught one day and I
30:30
Speaker 3: needed my children to believe in me as the person
30:34
Speaker 3: that they've known. So things like Jean is my second husband.
30:38
Speaker 3: He'd say, oh, the day you were born. I'd look
30:40
Speaker 3: at him and go, don't make that up. I told
30:43
Speaker 3: her because Mendela was getting out of prison, you know
30:45
Speaker 3: what was going to happen, I said, She and I
30:47
Speaker 3: went back to La and I haave birth there in
30:50
Speaker 3: case it was some kind of you know, uproar or
30:53
Speaker 3: whatever from that. So that's why I claim we were there,
30:56
Speaker 3: that's where she was born. And I've tried to make
30:59
Speaker 3: it not as fictitional as it was. And he just
31:04
Speaker 3: kept jumping angus because he won. I think he honestly
31:08
Speaker 3: believes Amy was is because he just loved her so much.
31:10
Speaker 2: So, I mean, telling someone is a huge risk if
31:14
Speaker 2: you're a fugitive. At any point, were you concerned that
31:18
Speaker 2: he might tell someone?
31:21
Speaker 3: You know, it was funny I took such a risk,
31:23
Speaker 3: especially as quickly as we got married. I think I
31:26
Speaker 3: landed with the perfect person that kind of wanted us
31:30
Speaker 3: and needed us as much as we needed him. And
31:34
Speaker 3: I could tell right away that his love for Savannah
31:37
Speaker 3: would Samantha would be would override anything. And it's weird
31:42
Speaker 3: because you can kind of tell when you're on the run.
31:45
Speaker 3: And now I've got a lot of experience of not
31:48
Speaker 3: trusting people behind me, and I'm a super trusting person.
31:52
Speaker 3: I'll talk to anybody and everything, so I have learned
31:55
Speaker 3: kind of just to filter out who I can and
31:57
Speaker 3: who I can't trust. He was wonderful and pry it
32:01
Speaker 3: out of him to anybody.
32:03
Speaker 1: Ever since leaving Charleston, South Carolina, Lee had been on
32:06
Speaker 1: the move, never settling in one place for too long.
32:10
Speaker 1: She'd spent time in Germany and France, Malaysia, Singapore, and
32:14
Speaker 1: South Africa, and as her children grew up, they only
32:17
Speaker 1: knew her by the name Alex. It was Juwan and
32:20
Speaker 1: Alex and their kids Samantha Henries. Juwan's job required the
32:24
Speaker 1: family to relocate occasionally, which was fine by Lee. She
32:28
Speaker 1: never wanted to stay in the same place for too long.
32:31
Speaker 1: She was a fugitive after all.
32:34
Speaker 3: From South Africa. We moved to Botswana, colonial lifestyle there.
32:38
Speaker 3: When Jean's contract finished in botswanas we moved to New
32:41
Speaker 3: Zealand because we couldn't get into Australia age wise. But
32:45
Speaker 3: you can go from New Zealand to Australia to live
32:47
Speaker 3: without a problem and work. So we lived in New
32:51
Speaker 3: Zealand for five years, got our citizenships there and then
32:55
Speaker 3: immigrated to Australia. Yeah, and John and I got divorced
32:59
Speaker 3: not long after we meet to Australia. He'd gone over
33:02
Speaker 3: earlier and met somebody, and you know, but it was
33:04
Speaker 3: very amicable. It was actually really amicable. Jean moved back
33:09
Speaker 3: to South Africa. I was working and publishing for a
33:13
Speaker 3: long time. I worked in publishing in New Zealand and
33:15
Speaker 3: in Australia. Samantha is up at university.
33:18
Speaker 1: You know, you say, Samantha's at university. So at this point,
33:21
Speaker 1: you know, you're living in Australia. How many years has
33:24
Speaker 1: it been that you've been, you know, on the run,
33:27
Speaker 1: nearly twenty nearly twenty At that point did you start
33:31
Speaker 1: to feel comfortable with this new life? Did you expect
33:35
Speaker 1: that you would just live the rest of your life
33:37
Speaker 1: with this alias, and that's what it would be.
33:40
Speaker 3: I remember running a few days, well maybe it's a
33:43
Speaker 3: month or so before, and I was out running with
33:45
Speaker 3: my dog and I was like, this is the happiest
33:48
Speaker 3: I've ever been. The only bad thing was my husband
33:51
Speaker 3: ex husband at the time. He's back in South Africa.
33:53
Speaker 3: He was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
33:57
Speaker 4: And I kept thinking this could all be gone.
34:00
Speaker 3: Beautiful home, a brilliant job, My children were just insanely excelling,
34:05
Speaker 3: and I, God, this could all be gone. And it's
34:08
Speaker 3: the first time I thought about it in a long time.
34:10
Speaker 4: Because I was Alex I wasn't you know. It's not
34:14
Speaker 4: like I was living in persona I am that person
34:16
Speaker 4: after that many years.
34:18
Speaker 1: I have to wonder if Lee had kept moving countries
34:21
Speaker 1: or continents, if she'd ever been caught. But she settled
34:24
Speaker 1: in Queensland, Australia, and raised her children there. Samantha was
34:28
Speaker 1: now a legal adult and Reese was in high school,
34:31
Speaker 1: and in interviews, both Samantha and Reeves have spoken positively
34:35
Speaker 1: about their upbringing and their mother painting the picture of
34:38
Speaker 1: a happy life. It makes me think back to the
34:40
Speaker 1: divorce trial in Charleston in nineteen ninety four, in which
34:44
Speaker 1: the case was built that Lee was mentally unwell and
34:47
Speaker 1: should be put on anti psychotic medication. There was that
34:50
Speaker 1: ominous prediction, a warning really included in the divorce decree
34:55
Speaker 1: that if Lee remained unmedicated, she could become homicidal or suicidal. Instead,
35:01
Speaker 1: what she'd done was create a good life for herself
35:04
Speaker 1: and her children, but the FBI never stopped looking for her.
35:08
Speaker 1: What we now know is that they had conducted multiple
35:11
Speaker 1: international searches for her. They had looked in Belize, different
35:16
Speaker 1: parts of South America and South Africa, and Lee's first husband, Harris,
35:21
Speaker 1: had also been looking for her. Back in nineteen ninety nine,
35:25
Speaker 1: he went to Costa Rica looking for Lee and his
35:28
Speaker 1: daughter Savannah. A producer from the show Forty eight Hours
35:31
Speaker 1: accompanied him and they aired a segment on the search.
35:35
Speaker 1: In the segment, Harris says that he is unhappy that
35:38
Speaker 1: he does not know his daughter and that he will
35:40
Speaker 1: continue to search for her. Lee had provided her daughter
35:44
Speaker 1: with a good life, but it was still a life
35:46
Speaker 1: without the ability to know her biological father. And even
35:50
Speaker 1: through all the good times, in the back of Lee's mind,
35:53
Speaker 1: she always knew she could be caught.
35:56
Speaker 2: You told your now ex husband, you know, the truth
36:00
Speaker 2: about your identity, and Savannah, who else did you tell?
36:05
Speaker 3: Every country we went to, we would have our closest
36:09
Speaker 3: couple friends, you know, like husband and wife that we trusted,
36:15
Speaker 3: because we thought, what if we got killed in an
36:17
Speaker 3: accident or something, you know, and the children were left orphans,
36:20
Speaker 3: you know, because you just don't know. So we always
36:23
Speaker 3: had somebody that we trusted, and we had a key
36:26
Speaker 3: to the safe where we had all the documents. We
36:29
Speaker 3: always made sure somebody knew, and we had friends that
36:33
Speaker 3: we all. They were just so supportive, so wonderful. I
36:36
Speaker 3: found out though if they were not American citizens, they
36:40
Speaker 3: couldn't get in trouble. If they are American citizens, and
36:44
Speaker 3: I told them they could face five years in prison.
36:47
Speaker 3: So I had a couple in New Zealand that were
36:49
Speaker 3: very good friends of mine, but I never told them.
36:52
Speaker 3: Explain to them afterwards why I didn't tell them, because
36:54
Speaker 3: they could have, you know, taken the brunt of it.
36:58
Speaker 1: Lee had only told very close, very trusted friends about
37:02
Speaker 1: her true identity, and that worked for many years, but
37:06
Speaker 1: eventually word leaked to some people who she didn't trust.
37:11
Speaker 1: She said it was a husband and wife that she'd
37:13
Speaker 1: met in Botswana and then years later they'd gotten in
37:17
Speaker 1: contact with her because they planned to move to Australia.
37:20
Speaker 1: She says she helped them arrange their move, find a house,
37:23
Speaker 1: get them all set up, but after they arrived she
37:26
Speaker 1: wished they'd never come.
37:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I moved them over and they're the ones
37:31
Speaker 3: who I was painting my house and they were all
37:33
Speaker 3: having wine while I'm doing that, and they said, what
37:37
Speaker 3: name are you using now? And I literally didn't know
37:39
Speaker 3: what they were talking about, and then they start giggling,
37:43
Speaker 3: so I was I knew I was up the creek,
37:46
Speaker 3: and with the internet now, so you know, back then
37:49
Speaker 3: we didn't have all those.
37:50
Speaker 4: Things, so the Internet now, they could have kept looking
37:52
Speaker 4: and looking.
37:53
Speaker 3: So I took the husband out in the boat and
37:55
Speaker 3: I told him the truth because he was in, you know,
37:57
Speaker 3: the better of the two, and I said, please don't
37:59
Speaker 3: tell you, And I told him Samantha's original name was Savannah.
38:03
Speaker 3: He was the only other person besides my husband that
38:06
Speaker 3: knew that. So when they used that name later on,
38:09
Speaker 3: I knew it.
38:10
Speaker 2: Was Well, you were missing before the arrest, had you
38:14
Speaker 2: ever googled?
38:16
Speaker 4: You never googled me.
38:18
Speaker 3: The only time I did was we'd go back to
38:21
Speaker 3: South Africa. We'd go through Dubai and stuff. I did
38:23
Speaker 3: google one time there. All the children were running around
38:27
Speaker 3: someplace and I put my name and it came up
38:31
Speaker 3: with a death certificate. I said, Thomas Edwin Barnett, which
38:35
Speaker 3: was my dad and my brother, and then the children
38:39
Speaker 3: came running back and I closed it down.
38:40
Speaker 4: So I did never see me.
38:41
Speaker 3: I didn't know I was most wanted and all that stuff,
38:44
Speaker 3: but I put it in the back of my mind
38:46
Speaker 3: that it would have been my dad's death certificate, which
38:49
Speaker 3: would never have been because he died, you know, nineteen sixty.
38:52
Speaker 4: I knew my brother was dead, but I didn't look
38:54
Speaker 4: at it long enough and I saw that. So that's
38:56
Speaker 4: the only thing I ever saw.
38:58
Speaker 1: And Samantha, did she know the truth at this point?
39:03
Speaker 4: You never knew anything until I got arrested.
39:04
Speaker 3: Okay. Every time I was going to tell her, she
39:06
Speaker 3: went through some you know, went through a wabbly stage
39:10
Speaker 3: when we got divorced and her dad moved back to
39:12
Speaker 3: South Africa and that wasn't the right time. And then Joan,
39:15
Speaker 3: when he was dying, he said, please don't tell her
39:18
Speaker 3: until I die, so Jean, she'll love you even more.
39:21
Speaker 3: So I waited, and he died a week before, eight
39:23
Speaker 3: days before I got arrested, so he was coming down
39:26
Speaker 3: for Christmas, and I was going to tell her and
39:30
Speaker 3: actually your boyfriend too.
39:32
Speaker 1: And this might seem like a crazy question to ask,
39:34
Speaker 1: but I'm just curious if there was ever a moment
39:38
Speaker 1: during those almost twenty years that you questioned your choice
39:42
Speaker 1: to leave and you wondered if maybe Harris would have
39:46
Speaker 1: ended up being a good dad, or was there ever
39:49
Speaker 1: a question of that or no.
39:50
Speaker 3: No, there was never a question of it if he
39:54
Speaker 3: hadn't done what he did to me and in turn
39:57
Speaker 3: due to her, you know, because all of the trauma
40:01
Speaker 3: that baby went through, the whole pregnancy, when he was
40:03
Speaker 3: telling me, I'm sick and I'm insane. When they finally
40:06
Speaker 3: did the court order, after I was gone for three weeks,
40:08
Speaker 3: they finally wrote the court order, and it said I
40:11
Speaker 3: was so mentally ill, it was escalating so fast that
40:14
Speaker 3: I was going to go into homicidal suicidal rage. And
40:18
Speaker 3: there I have been, never had a problem, never been
40:20
Speaker 3: on I don't men take aspirin. I worked corporate forever.
40:23
Speaker 3: You know, there was like, so they looked they went
40:26
Speaker 3: too far to the extreme, So I knew how diabolically
40:30
Speaker 3: was Yeah.
40:31
Speaker 1: And did you ever have any other issues with you know,
40:35
Speaker 1: mental health or people accusing you of having mental health
40:38
Speaker 1: issues after you left?
40:39
Speaker 3: Oh?
40:39
Speaker 4: No, never.
40:47
Speaker 1: Lee recalls the day that her life on the run
40:50
Speaker 1: finally came to an end.
40:53
Speaker 4: So Jeana just died.
40:56
Speaker 3: Semi had written the eulogy, and she was up at
40:58
Speaker 3: school fifteen hours away. Reese was doing his final exam
41:01
Speaker 3: at the high school across the street. And it was
41:04
Speaker 3: seven thirty in the morning, and let's get ready to
41:06
Speaker 3: go to work.
41:07
Speaker 4: I was my Tasmanian boxer shorts.
41:09
Speaker 3: I always say, you envisioned this arrest your whole twenty years.
41:12
Speaker 3: You don't envision being in Tasmanian boxer shorts and a
41:15
Speaker 3: scrub shirt.
41:16
Speaker 4: So they'd pounding on my office.
41:18
Speaker 3: Door and I was like yeah, and they said we've
41:20
Speaker 3: got a warrant to search your house. And I always
41:23
Speaker 3: knew don't jump up and give them too much because
41:25
Speaker 3: I talked too much anyway, because I was like okay,
41:28
Speaker 3: I said all right, I said, you want to come
41:29
Speaker 3: in the front door of this door. And before I
41:31
Speaker 3: could even say that there was a man behind me
41:34
Speaker 3: in my house. He must have hopped the hedge, run
41:36
Speaker 3: around the pool, around around the back of the house
41:39
Speaker 3: and he's standing.
41:40
Speaker 4: Then he goes, I don't see knives. I don't see guns.
41:42
Speaker 4: And I'm like, what I said, I don't own any guns.
41:45
Speaker 4: And I said, I got knives in the kitchen. You're
41:47
Speaker 4: welcome to go in there if you put a knife.
41:49
Speaker 3: So I invited them in and I said, you want coffee,
41:52
Speaker 3: you want tea?
41:52
Speaker 4: And I sat them down and I told.
41:54
Speaker 3: Him where the passports were, where the birth certificates were,
41:57
Speaker 3: and then pedro the arresting officer. He said, okay, what's
42:01
Speaker 3: your name. I said, it's alex Skeldenhuse. He said, what
42:04
Speaker 3: are the names are you known by? And I said, well,
42:06
Speaker 3: Alexander and Maria Canton was my maiden name. I said,
42:09
Speaker 3: but my married name is Alexander Maria guilden Hus. He goes,
42:13
Speaker 3: what other names? I go, I don't know what you're
42:15
Speaker 3: talking about, and I go alex And then I looked
42:18
Speaker 3: at him and he looked at me, and I said,
42:19
Speaker 3: are there any of you guys FBI? Because there was
42:22
Speaker 3: like twelve of them raid in the house. Because there's
42:24
Speaker 3: two of them waiting now side, I said, bring them
42:25
Speaker 3: on in.
42:26
Speaker 4: So I knew then that was it.
42:29
Speaker 1: After almost twenty years, the FBI had located Lee, and
42:34
Speaker 1: now she had to tell her children the truth.
42:37
Speaker 3: So I called one of my girlfriends and she comes
42:39
Speaker 3: in and they're raid in the house. And then my
42:41
Speaker 3: son walks over from his final exam and he's like, mom,
42:44
Speaker 3: what's going on? And they let me go into the
42:48
Speaker 3: bedroom with him and try and fast forward twenty years
42:51
Speaker 3: and you could see how convoluted the story is. Then
42:54
Speaker 3: we had to call Samantha, which was terrible.
42:57
Speaker 1: And how was that telling Samantha the truth.
43:00
Speaker 3: I'm sitting on the couch. Reesa's got his arm around me.
43:03
Speaker 3: My girlfriend carry has got her arm around Reese. And
43:05
Speaker 3: we put the phone in the middle and the coffee table,
43:08
Speaker 3: and I said, well, we've got to call her boyfriend,
43:10
Speaker 3: her long term boyfriend, make sure he's there for her.
43:13
Speaker 4: So we call his number and he's like, Alex, are
43:15
Speaker 4: you okay?
43:16
Speaker 3: And I go no, Brad, I said, you told me
43:19
Speaker 3: at one time you had big shoulders when you started
43:21
Speaker 3: dating my daughter. I said, I need those big shoulders
43:24
Speaker 3: pulled back straight. And you just stay by her side,
43:27
Speaker 3: and hecause I will. And she gets on the phone
43:29
Speaker 3: and she's like, Mom, what is it? And I said, honey,
43:31
Speaker 3: I was married twenty years ago and I had to
43:34
Speaker 3: take you when you were eleven months old to keep
43:36
Speaker 3: you safe. And I said, you just got to trust me,
43:39
Speaker 3: and she said, Mom might trust you.
43:41
Speaker 4: Of course I do.
43:42
Speaker 3: And I said, I'm going to take me to jail now,
43:44
Speaker 3: and I need you to hop on a plane, bring
43:46
Speaker 3: your passport and your brother, and a FBI agent named
43:50
Speaker 3: Tom will meet you down at the Brisbane airport. She's like, Mom,
43:53
Speaker 3: to take you to jail. I said, I'll be fine.
43:55
Speaker 3: Everybody's being really nice. I said, don't worry, just come
43:58
Speaker 3: on down, take care of your brother. And then we
44:02
Speaker 3: said how much we loved each other and all that,
44:04
Speaker 3: and we hung up the phone and literally thirty seconds
44:08
Speaker 3: goes by and the phone rings and it's Sammy. You
44:11
Speaker 3: remember she just buried her dad and she just said Mom,
44:15
Speaker 3: And I said what she said? Does that mean my
44:18
Speaker 3: daddy wasn't my daddy? And I just said, sweetheart, your
44:22
Speaker 3: daddy will always be your daddy. And she said, okay, Mom,
44:25
Speaker 3: I'm coming. And I said all right, and that was it,
44:29
Speaker 3: poor kid.
44:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, that it is hard to imagine that phone call
44:35
Speaker 2: and being on either end of it. Really, So you're
44:38
Speaker 2: arrested and extradited to the United.
44:43
Speaker 4: States, Well, I thought extradition.
44:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.
44:45
Speaker 3: They stayed in Australia as long as I could, knowing
44:48
Speaker 3: that the conditions, even though it was maxim security, would
44:51
Speaker 3: be a lot better. Also, every one of my friends
44:54
Speaker 3: saved every piece of evidence for twenty years, so they
44:59
Speaker 3: made all copies of them, shipped them up to Australia.
45:02
Speaker 3: Samantha and my friend Bruce and another friend and his
45:06
Speaker 3: wife all jumped in. They photo copied everything, got it
45:10
Speaker 3: to me in prison, so I can actually remember what
45:12
Speaker 3: had happened, you know, get myself ready. We had to
45:16
Speaker 3: get me an attorney because we didn't have anything. One
45:19
Speaker 3: of my closest friends here, and we found an attorney,
45:22
Speaker 3: and then I finally succeeded extradition after I'd studied all
45:25
Speaker 3: the evidence for ten months.
45:28
Speaker 2: And tell us about your trial or plea deal in sentencing.
45:34
Speaker 3: So the first heroin we went to was just whether
45:37
Speaker 3: you plead guilty or not guilty.
45:39
Speaker 4: And I'm like.
45:40
Speaker 3: Ninety five pounds, these chains all around my ankles, and
45:43
Speaker 3: my waist and everything, and I'm walking in and I
45:46
Speaker 3: start singeing all my people I hadn't seen, you know,
45:49
Speaker 3: family and everybody, and that they're all like crying and waving,
45:52
Speaker 3: and I'm waving with my shackles, and my lawyers like
45:54
Speaker 3: stop that, and I'm like, but I haven't seen these
45:57
Speaker 3: people for so long. Hearing Samantha was there, and the
46:02
Speaker 3: whole courtrooms filled again with all my friends and everybody.
46:05
Speaker 3: And then that's the first time I look to my left,
46:09
Speaker 3: right where I walked in purposely, and there's my ex
46:12
Speaker 3: husband and I was close to him as like a
46:16
Speaker 3: foot so he wouldn't come to the other hearings. So
46:20
Speaker 3: the prosecutor, who was actually a really good guy, he
46:23
Speaker 3: got up and he laid out his case about me.
46:26
Speaker 4: That's what they do, that's the order it goes in.
46:28
Speaker 4: Then the judge asked me, because it's all going to
46:31
Speaker 4: go on record, He goes, is there anything that you'd
46:33
Speaker 4: disagree with?
46:35
Speaker 3: And I wasn't supposed to say anything, and I go, yes,
46:37
Speaker 3: your honor, and Russell stomps on my foot and he said,
46:41
Speaker 3: what is it? And I said, the prosecutor just said that.
46:44
Speaker 3: Shortly after the birth of my daughter. Harris left me.
46:49
Speaker 3: I said, Harris left me at two and a half
46:51
Speaker 3: months when I wouldn't I don't think, I said, when
46:53
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have an abortion.
46:54
Speaker 4: And he said okay, and he said, is that all?
46:57
Speaker 4: I said, yes, sir, that's all.
46:58
Speaker 3: There's a lot of inaccuracies in there because it's such
47:00
Speaker 3: a convoluted story, but it wasn't as severe as that.
47:03
Speaker 3: I would be damned if looked like he stayed there
47:06
Speaker 3: for the pregnancy and all of that. And then my
47:09
Speaker 3: daughter stood up and gave the most beautiful diplomatic talk.
47:15
Speaker 3: And then Harris's attorney got up and started reading some
47:19
Speaker 3: of When the judge wouldn't let him talk about the
47:21
Speaker 3: family court case, he said that was twenty years ago.
47:23
Speaker 3: We're not re litigating this in a federal courtroom. Then
47:26
Speaker 3: he promptly got some of Harris's poems out and started
47:29
Speaker 3: reading poetry to the judge. And then he sentenced me
47:33
Speaker 3: to the maximum of my sentencing guidelines, which gave me
47:36
Speaker 3: another three and a half months. But he said, I'm
47:40
Speaker 3: sure you'd be put in a camp someplace that family
47:43
Speaker 3: can come visit you, which was not the case.
47:47
Speaker 1: In February of twenty fifteen, Lee was sentenced to twenty
47:50
Speaker 1: one months in federal prison for international parental kidnapping and
47:55
Speaker 1: two counts of falsifying US passport applications. Because of all
48:00
Speaker 1: the documents that Lee forged over the years, she could
48:03
Speaker 1: have been facing a much longer sentence.
48:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, but relative to a ten year sentence.
48:10
Speaker 4: Twenty three years is what I was looking at.
48:12
Speaker 2: Okay, a twenty three year sentence pretty good. And at
48:15
Speaker 2: least one FBI agent has commented publicly that he didn't
48:19
Speaker 2: agree with your sentencing. And you know, Hannah, and are
48:23
Speaker 2: speaking to you today hearing your side of this story
48:26
Speaker 2: and not Harris's side. And this certainly isn't meant to
48:32
Speaker 2: be a celebration of parental abduction or on custodial abduction.
48:37
Speaker 2: I want to hear from you. I guess about any
48:40
Speaker 2: conflicting feelings that you have about your decision to do this.
48:45
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, I want to say, this is
48:46
Speaker 3: how the breakdown of the twenty three years is. It's
48:49
Speaker 3: ten years for each falsification statement on a passport, and
48:54
Speaker 3: it wasn't the two passports. It's when I got more
48:56
Speaker 3: pages and I changed my name when I got married,
48:59
Speaker 3: those two passport cases. That actually is a misdemeanor. There's
49:04
Speaker 3: actually no court.
49:05
Speaker 4: Time for that.
49:06
Speaker 1: Well, and I'm sorry to cut you off, but like
49:08
Speaker 1: we do a lot of cases, and we understand that
49:11
Speaker 1: there are a lot of charges. When someone's charged, there's
49:15
Speaker 1: a lot of different things. There's mil fraud, there's every
49:17
Speaker 1: time you forge a document. I'm sure there was a
49:19
Speaker 1: potential charge and a potential sentence.
49:21
Speaker 4: With that could be could have been easily you ended.
49:24
Speaker 1: Up getting twenty one months. But I think what's more
49:27
Speaker 1: interesting is to hear a reflection about you know, because
49:32
Speaker 1: I in some sense, like I very much get why
49:34
Speaker 1: you did what you did. Like, I think that it
49:37
Speaker 1: was very clear that you felt an incredible threat against
49:41
Speaker 1: not just yourself but your daughter. And you know, it's
49:45
Speaker 1: my understanding that you did what you did because you
49:47
Speaker 1: were out of options and because you wanted to protect her.
49:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly the only reason why I was saying
49:53
Speaker 3: that is that three years is for parental kidnapping, and
49:57
Speaker 3: that's what I got it for. So that turned into
49:59
Speaker 3: a that is that's what the twenty one months came
50:02
Speaker 3: out to, which is that So that's why especially federal
50:05
Speaker 3: as you know, they hype up the numbers so much
50:08
Speaker 3: that it looks kind of crazy.
50:10
Speaker 1: Right, But at the same time, you know, you did
50:12
Speaker 1: abduct my child. Yeah, this child, And even though one
50:17
Speaker 1: could argue that her biological father would not have been
50:20
Speaker 1: a good father, you know, I think he probably still
50:23
Speaker 1: has an argument that he never had the chance to
50:25
Speaker 1: have that if that were something he wanted. And you know,
50:28
Speaker 1: do you have any kind of conflicting feelings about any
50:31
Speaker 1: of that?
50:33
Speaker 4: No, I wish I did.
50:36
Speaker 3: I cannot tell you how scary it is to be
50:40
Speaker 3: deemed mentally ill when you've had nothing wrong with you.
50:43
Speaker 3: I can't tell you how scary it is to either
50:45
Speaker 3: be forced on lithium or lose your baby and you
50:48
Speaker 3: have no control over that. So when he said in
50:52
Speaker 3: the court that he would do the same thing with
50:55
Speaker 3: his baby girl because she's the fourth generation and he'd
50:58
Speaker 3: put her on medication to Jenga's three years old, I
51:00
Speaker 3: could never take that out of my mind. Now, when
51:02
Speaker 3: I got caught, I was hoping there might be some
51:06
Speaker 3: epiphany from him or anybody to say, hey, we were wrong.
51:11
Speaker 3: Look at how she's lived her life, she's raised basically,
51:15
Speaker 3: you know, my husband was there for part of it
51:17
Speaker 3: my second husband, and they would say, oh, you know,
51:20
Speaker 3: let's just say there was a big mistake done, blah
51:22
Speaker 3: blah blah. But instead of that, they demanded I get
51:25
Speaker 3: like thirty years in prison. They demanded this and that
51:28
Speaker 3: and the other. And as both of my children said,
51:31
Speaker 3: if he just walked up and knocked on the door,
51:33
Speaker 3: I'd have been like, hi, come on in. But it
51:36
Speaker 3: wasn't about finding my daughter. It was to punish me.
51:39
Speaker 3: The whole thing was to prove that I was this
51:43
Speaker 3: crazy person. But they couldn't do that because a crazy
51:46
Speaker 3: person couldn't have done all the things they did, you know,
51:48
Speaker 3: and maintained such a normal life with normal, well rounded children.
51:53
Speaker 1: At least. Sentencing hearing, her daughter, Samantha spoke out advocating
51:57
Speaker 1: for her mother. She asked the judge to get her
52:00
Speaker 1: mother a sentence that did not include prison time, because.
52:03
Speaker 3: Now I'm in a situation going, oh my god, I've
52:06
Speaker 3: got two children.
52:08
Speaker 4: My husband's said, no money, I'm going to prison. How
52:11
Speaker 4: do I put them through university?
52:12
Speaker 3: So I thought maybe he'd step up and you know,
52:15
Speaker 3: say okay. And it also proves I didn't know any
52:18
Speaker 3: of this. But this is how vengeful he sued my mother,
52:22
Speaker 3: my brother, he sued my best friend Susan, And I
52:25
Speaker 3: didn't know all that when I left, of course, because
52:28
Speaker 3: I didn't have any connection. So every single thing that
52:31
Speaker 3: I knew was cooperated after I found out.
52:34
Speaker 1: If that makes any sense, Yeah, that totally makes sense.
52:37
Speaker 4: Yeah.
52:37
Speaker 3: I mean, if there wasn't been something that was kind
52:41
Speaker 3: of understanding, loving towards Samantha or you know, anything, but
52:47
Speaker 3: it wasn't that way. I didn't want to be right,
52:50
Speaker 3: you know. I didn't want to be right, I really didn't.
52:51
Speaker 3: I was hoping there'd be some warmth and something there
52:55
Speaker 3: for me, but for the fallout of everything else. Yeah.
53:00
Speaker 1: And does Samantha, you know, has she reconnected with Harris?
53:04
Speaker 1: Do they have any kind of relationship?
53:07
Speaker 4: Yeah?
53:07
Speaker 3: They do talk now they didn't, you know, she went
53:10
Speaker 3: on you know, publicities, I mean, see everywhere. But she
53:13
Speaker 3: did meet him when I was looking at twenty three
53:16
Speaker 3: years and he tried to shake her hand. And she's
53:19
Speaker 3: the most diplomatic grown up kid in the whole world,
53:21
Speaker 3: and she said, now, let's give it a hug.
53:23
Speaker 4: And they have communication. Yeah somewhat. It's not my business.
53:28
Speaker 4: She's an adult. Yeah, and that's her story, as she says,
53:32
Speaker 4: you know.
53:33
Speaker 3: I'm her priority, and yeah, just thank god, I've got
53:39
Speaker 3: such great kids, really amazing.
53:42
Speaker 1: How is your relationship with your kids now that you're
53:45
Speaker 1: out and you know, living your life.
53:48
Speaker 3: It's brilliant. I mean, Sammy and I just spent almost
53:51
Speaker 3: six weeks together. We went to Belize and we just
53:54
Speaker 3: did all the jungle stuff. So if I did when
53:56
Speaker 3: as a child that she'd heard about, I mean, we've
53:58
Speaker 3: been before, but this time we really just stayed in
54:00
Speaker 3: cool places. Yeah.
54:02
Speaker 2: Does she still go by Sammy? So to recaps, she
54:06
Speaker 2: was born Savannah, Yeah, then became Nick and now she's Samantha.
54:11
Speaker 4: That was a very short purred till Nick.
54:13
Speaker 2: Okay, but she goes by Samantha. Got it?
54:16
Speaker 3: Yeah?
54:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I appreciate you fielding all of our questions.
54:22
Speaker 2: You know, it's our responsibility, I think, to our audience
54:25
Speaker 2: when we do stories that you know, have elements of
54:29
Speaker 2: being problematic, that we you know, ask those questions, and
54:34
Speaker 2: I really appreciate it.
54:35
Speaker 3: You can't imagine how many hundreds and hundreds of people,
54:38
Speaker 3: men and women that have reached out to me and said,
54:41
Speaker 3: please help me. We've got to do the same thing.
54:43
Speaker 3: I can't live through this. If anything, I have the
54:45
Speaker 3: worst survivor's guilt because Samantha and I had an ad
54:48
Speaker 3: Reese we had and my husband, we had a normal,
54:51
Speaker 3: leave it to beaver life. It didn't seem like it
54:53
Speaker 3: inside I was being eaten alive, but on the outside
54:56
Speaker 3: we did. There's not a single person that I would
54:59
Speaker 3: ever say yet, go on the run, because you'll get
55:03
Speaker 3: caught and you'll never be able to protect your child.
55:05
Speaker 3: So even if you only have visitations as little as
55:07
Speaker 3: I had, if I had any outlet like legally, which
55:11
Speaker 3: I covered every base, I would have never gone. There's
55:15
Speaker 3: a lot that was very illegally.
55:17
Speaker 4: Done to me and to her.
55:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's definitely a lot of conversations
55:22
Speaker 2: around abuse of the family court system and when there's
55:25
Speaker 2: a wealth disparity between the parents who are fighting it
55:29
Speaker 2: out for custody especially, and it's imperfect to say the least.
55:34
Speaker 2: I mean, that's one of the reasons it's actually hard
55:35
Speaker 2: to report on is it's hard to prove when the
55:38
Speaker 2: stories are so different.
55:40
Speaker 3: It is, and it's got to remember even more so,
55:44
Speaker 3: back then, women weren't allowed to cry, we weren't allowed
55:47
Speaker 3: to be emotional. We could watch our food and being taken,
55:50
Speaker 3: but that moment were mentally ill. Women were so easily
55:54
Speaker 3: told that they were mentally ill because it was easier
55:56
Speaker 3: just to accept it. I didn't or I probably would
55:59
Speaker 3: have caved if it wasn't for protecting her. You know,
56:02
Speaker 3: if it hadn't been, I probably would have never done
56:04
Speaker 3: anything for me. It was that I knew what was
56:06
Speaker 3: going to happen to.
56:07
Speaker 4: Her down the road.
56:12
Speaker 1: Okay, Patia, you connected with Lee, which I mean, what
56:15
Speaker 1: a wild story. How did you make that connection happen?
56:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I reached out to who I thought was
56:22
Speaker 2: Lee from what I could find online with you know,
56:24
Speaker 2: contact information. Didn't hear back, and I just started thinking, Okay,
56:30
Speaker 2: this is still such an incredible story and highlights so
56:34
Speaker 2: many things that I think resonate with a lot of
56:36
Speaker 2: people about the family court system and how volatile things
56:39
Speaker 2: can be and the imbalances there. And anyway, I really
56:42
Speaker 2: wanted to do the story, so I thought, well, this
56:44
Speaker 2: would be a great off record. I'll just research the
56:46
Speaker 2: story and then I'll tell you the story. And then
56:49
Speaker 2: it was a weekend and I got a call from Lee.
56:53
Speaker 2: I just had a call back, a callback Yeah, she
56:56
Speaker 2: called my cell phone or maybe she texted I don't remember,
56:59
Speaker 2: but I immediately got on the phone with her. We
57:02
Speaker 2: talked for like twenty five minutes, and I was like,
57:04
Speaker 2: we have to do the interview with Lee, but you know,
57:07
Speaker 2: we're on a production schedule. Yeah, and so yeah, I
57:11
Speaker 2: loved you probably like a really long voice note about
57:15
Speaker 2: how you needed to cancel whatever plans you had on
57:17
Speaker 2: this lovely holiday weekend and do this interview. And of
57:21
Speaker 2: course you weren't game, and it was worth it. It
57:24
Speaker 2: was so worth it, and Lee was happy to do it,
57:27
Speaker 2: and yeah, what a story.
57:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously her story has been told before. We mentioned
57:34
Speaker 1: the forty eight hours episode in our series. She's also
57:38
Speaker 1: written a book, but you know, I hadn't heard like
57:42
Speaker 1: a longer format podcast about her side of the story,
57:47
Speaker 1: and so we felt like, yeah, there's enough interesting stuff
57:50
Speaker 1: here for us to really take the time and let
57:53
Speaker 1: her walk us through what was going through her head
57:56
Speaker 1: when she made this wild, like truly wild decision.
58:01
Speaker 2: Totally, and I think that she's a perfect example of
58:05
Speaker 2: what we were envisioning when we started this show, which
58:08
Speaker 2: was stories from all perspectives. And yeah, Lee was on
58:14
Speaker 2: the wrong side of the law. But her reasons I
58:18
Speaker 2: think are really relatable. You know, a lot of times
58:21
Speaker 2: life is not black and white, and she was doing
58:25
Speaker 2: what she felt was best for her daughter. And that's
58:28
Speaker 2: not to say that there aren't problematic areas in her story.
58:32
Speaker 2: And I would never tell someone else how to feel
58:34
Speaker 2: about it, but I thought it was just such a
58:37
Speaker 2: unique perspective and that she was so open and vulnerable
58:41
Speaker 2: in sharing it with us.
58:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we talk with victims on the show, right,
58:46
Speaker 1: and technically Lee was convicted of a crime in this story,
58:51
Speaker 1: and so who is the victim in this story is debatable. Really,
58:56
Speaker 1: it was important to us not to downplay the fact
59:00
Speaker 1: that Savannah Samantha's father really didn't have a choice on
59:05
Speaker 1: whether or not he was present in his daughter's life.
59:07
Speaker 1: No matter what kind of person he is, like, that's
59:09
Speaker 1: still something that was taken away from him illegally. But
59:14
Speaker 1: at the same time, once we started to dig into
59:16
Speaker 1: the court documents, this whole other story came to light
59:20
Speaker 1: about how she was portrayed, and I found the mental
59:25
Speaker 1: health aspect of this court case to be really intriguing,
59:30
Speaker 1: you know. And obviously it was in nineteen ninety four,
59:32
Speaker 1: and we talk about this in the series, that the
59:35
Speaker 1: understanding of different diagnoses and mental health disorders changes and
59:39
Speaker 1: updates throughout time, right, but the evidence that they used
59:43
Speaker 1: against her in this court case is now current like
59:46
Speaker 1: modern day understanding, completely ridiculous, right, Like absolutely unfounded, not
59:51
Speaker 1: true at all, And she was portrayed as this mentally
59:56
Speaker 1: unfit woman, this unfit mother, which she clearly is not.
1:00:01
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:00:02
Speaker 2: One thing that happens when we produce these episodes is
1:00:04
Speaker 2: we often have follow up questions after an interview. And
1:00:08
Speaker 2: because I was, you know, the first point of contact
1:00:10
Speaker 2: with Lee, you know, and we've both been in touch
1:00:12
Speaker 2: with her outside of the interview, you know, you end
1:00:16
Speaker 2: up talking to them about things that are going on
1:00:18
Speaker 2: in their life right now. And you know, Lee's mentioning
1:00:21
Speaker 2: a trip that she's going to be with both of
1:00:23
Speaker 2: her kids. And she had a marriage that was a
1:00:26
Speaker 2: long and happy marriage. It ended eventually, but like it
1:00:30
Speaker 2: was a long and happy relationship that she spoke really
1:00:33
Speaker 2: highly of a great relationship with her kids today. All
1:00:36
Speaker 2: of those things, for me are what really informed my
1:00:41
Speaker 2: sort of perspective on on Lee. Yeah, I also think
1:00:45
Speaker 2: that she didn't shy away from really difficult questions. Yes,
1:00:50
Speaker 2: she was very honest. She was really honest, and yeah,
1:00:53
Speaker 2: you know, we pressed on the hard stuff and she
1:00:55
Speaker 2: accepted that. And yeah, I really was enthralled by this. Yeah,
1:01:00
Speaker 2: we didn't speak with her daughter, but her daughter has
1:01:03
Speaker 2: done interviews and has been very positive about her mother
1:01:08
Speaker 2: and says that she had a great childhood, a great upbringing,
1:01:11
Speaker 2: and you know, has said things like I understand why
1:01:14
Speaker 2: she did it. So I also think that says a lot. Yeah,
1:01:17
Speaker 2: her son has said the same in his interviews, and
1:01:19
Speaker 2: so to me, that speaks volumes.
1:01:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay. One thing that I feel like we just
1:01:25
Speaker 1: have to revisit, even though we talked about it so
1:01:27
Speaker 1: much in the series, is the idea that just like
1:01:30
Speaker 1: a quote unquote regular person who doesn't have any kind
1:01:35
Speaker 1: of like FBI, CIA, like even like you know, army training, anything,
1:01:40
Speaker 1: can figure out how to go on the run, how
1:01:43
Speaker 1: to forge documents. Like when she was telling us that,
1:01:46
Speaker 1: it was like, what are you talking about?
1:01:48
Speaker 2: Honah, was an amazing part of the interview. Let it
1:01:52
Speaker 2: be a lesson to us all. Do not let imposter
1:01:55
Speaker 2: syndrome dictate your decision making.
1:01:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, do it, you can do it.
1:02:01
Speaker 2: And it reminded me of that movie American Animals a
1:02:04
Speaker 2: little bit, that scene with her and MacArthur Park and
1:02:07
Speaker 2: like remembering the guy telling her to walk through the
1:02:11
Speaker 2: tunnel and then that being kind of a test.
1:02:13
Speaker 1: In American Animals. That was a movie I've watched.
1:02:16
Speaker 2: It remind me of it. Okay, Sneaky Recommendation here came
1:02:20
Speaker 2: out in twenty eighteen, directed by Bart Layton, and it's
1:02:24
Speaker 2: based on a true story and it's sort of this
1:02:26
Speaker 2: like hybrid scripted film with talking heads from the real people,
1:02:32
Speaker 2: so almost like a domembermentary mixed with film.
1:02:35
Speaker 1: It's like there's part of it that's it's a movie
1:02:38
Speaker 1: where you're seeing actors. Yeah, this out, but then it
1:02:41
Speaker 1: cuts to the real people. Yeah, I remember that. It's
1:02:45
Speaker 1: really like unique, it's so unique. It is an amazing movie.
1:02:51
Speaker 1: Like I have watched this movie so many times. I
1:02:53
Speaker 1: have like the movie poster art right outside my daughter's and.
1:02:59
Speaker 2: It's big fat.
1:03:00
Speaker 4: I love it.
1:03:00
Speaker 1: But anyway, so what reminds you, Yeah, of that?
1:03:03
Speaker 2: So it reminded me of that movie because I believe
1:03:09
Speaker 2: that Lee was telling us the truth. But I know
1:03:13
Speaker 2: from just being a human and also speaking to so
1:03:16
Speaker 2: many people about stories that have happened many years before
1:03:20
Speaker 2: in their life. Memories change, you know, they're kind of elastic,
1:03:24
Speaker 2: and they're different for different people.
1:03:26
Speaker 1: And we're kind of constantly editing our own story in our.
1:03:30
Speaker 2: Pass And so that's not to say I don't think
1:03:33
Speaker 2: it happened like that. I totally believe her that it did.
1:03:36
Speaker 2: But it was just such a vivid memory that it
1:03:40
Speaker 2: really took me to like, maybe I just think it
1:03:43
Speaker 2: should be a movie.
1:03:44
Speaker 1: Probably should be. Yeah, but I remember in that film,
1:03:46
Speaker 1: it's like similar that it's these sort of regular guys,
1:03:51
Speaker 1: college students that decide to plan, yes, a heist or something.
1:03:55
Speaker 1: So you have that like real person trying to do
1:03:58
Speaker 1: this thing that feels like someone in an action movie
1:04:00
Speaker 1: would do. Exactly you just brought this all together. Why
1:04:04
Speaker 1: made me think of that movie?
1:04:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, it's this person who you would never
1:04:09
Speaker 2: think would be in that situation then getting to that
1:04:13
Speaker 2: point and actually following through. Yeah, and I think maybe
1:04:17
Speaker 2: like the kids in American Animals that pulled off this
1:04:21
Speaker 2: heist until they didn't. Of course, the whole time, you're
1:04:24
Speaker 2: wondering is it really going to happen? Am I really
1:04:27
Speaker 2: gonna do this? For how far?
1:04:29
Speaker 1: Am I gonna go?
1:04:30
Speaker 2: How far am I going to go? Like Lee thought
1:04:32
Speaker 2: it was gonna end after the first flight, Yeah, the
1:04:35
Speaker 2: agents helping her off of the flight and through customs,
1:04:39
Speaker 2: like at every turn, she was sort of wondering, is
1:04:43
Speaker 2: this really happening? Am I really doing this?
1:04:45
Speaker 1: And you have to imagine, like how far ahead was
1:04:47
Speaker 1: she really planning? She obviously had huge incentive to do this,
1:04:51
Speaker 1: like this is not something that you would do just
1:04:54
Speaker 1: you know, change your identity and flee the country and
1:04:57
Speaker 1: create a whole different life, never speak to your family again.
1:05:01
Speaker 1: That is huge for anyone that you know, and unless
1:05:04
Speaker 1: you have like a real reason to do that, right,
1:05:07
Speaker 1: But was part of her just like Okay, I have
1:05:09
Speaker 1: to flee and run, but yeah, I'll probably get caught soon.
1:05:13
Speaker 1: And then she does it, and then it's like the
1:05:15
Speaker 1: years tick by and she just creates this totally different life.
1:05:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I imagine like seeing her daughter thriving, and
1:05:24
Speaker 2: you know, she spoke to us so much about how
1:05:26
Speaker 2: proud she is of her children and how well they're doing,
1:05:28
Speaker 2: and that would be I think, very reaffirming. Yeah, Okay,
1:05:34
Speaker 2: this was the right decision. I should keep doing this, right,
1:05:37
Speaker 2: And she had good friends in Charleston and in her
1:05:39
Speaker 2: life in the US that you know she never had
1:05:42
Speaker 2: problems with and she left them behind too. It was
1:05:45
Speaker 2: not not an easy situation.
1:05:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow, I'm so glad she called you back and
1:05:50
Speaker 1: that we were able to do this series.
1:05:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. Thanks so much to Lee for taking
1:05:55
Speaker 2: the time. Yeah.
1:05:56
Speaker 1: Well, that is our episode for today.
1:05:58
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
1:05:59
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week.
1:06:02
Speaker 2: If you have a story for us, we would love
1:06:04
Speaker 2: to hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactlyrightmedia
1:06:07
Speaker 2: dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram at
1:06:09
Speaker 2: the Knife Podcast or a Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
1:06:12
Speaker 1: This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
1:06:15
Speaker 1: by me Hannah Smith and me paysha Eden.
1:06:18
Speaker 2: Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi.
1:06:21
Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel.
1:06:24
Speaker 2: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
1:06:26
Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
1:06:29
Speaker 2: Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
1:06:30
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.