'I feel the FBI and every other law enforcement agency underestimated me': Mother who kidnapped her daughter from South Carolina and went on the run for 20 years speaks out

A mother who kidnapped her own daughter in Charleston, South Carolina after a bitter custody battle and spent two decades on the run before she was finally arrested, is speaking out about her decision to flee.

In 1994 Dorothy Lee Barnett was fighting her husband Harris Todd in divorce court for custody of their daughter- then named Savanna. When the judge ultimately sided with Todd, a desperate Barnett came up with a wild plan to leave her home in the United States, and everyone she knew behind, and take her daughter with her.

'I feel the FBI and every other law enforcement agency underestimated me,' Dorothy Lee Barnett told 48 Hours.

While on the run, Barnett started a diary to Savanna who would be renamed Samantha explaining to her her beginnings.

'A few months before my mom gave birth to me, she started writing a diary. ... And -- it starts off on the first page saying, ''To my dear Savanna. Someday I'll give this journal to you so that you can hopefully understand your mother.''

'My name is Samantha Geldenhuys. I was born Savanna. But I didn't know that. Savanna Lee Barnett.

'I grew up on the Sunshine Coast ... in Australia. ...it is the most magnificent place.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6476549/Mother-kidnapped-daughter-North-Carolina-went-run-20-years-speaks-out.html

Nice beaches way up there north of Brissie...

I visited the Sunshine Coast back in 1985, went as far as Noosa..

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Had a cat called Samantha living here with me for more than a decade..

My niece named her 'Sammy' way back when, and I reminded her that as the cat was a girl, its full name should be Samantha...

Have friends in Cairns.  Why do Americans always end up in Queensland?  It's as if they are afraid of Sydney, or anything south of Brisbane, 'cause they might get Aussified.

I don't like child-napping by divorcing parents...mostly done for spite. But in this case, it's South Carolina, so the child's better off in Oz.

Hang on. If her husband didn't want children, why would he want custody of the girl? She deprived him of the right to see his own daughter.

Raggamuffin wrote:Hang on. If her husband didn't want children, why would he want custody of the girl? She deprived him of the right to see his own daughter.

She could have still asked the court for reasonable visitation. A custody award is kinda like awarding a stewardship...not sole possession.

As to why the father would want custody, perhaps after the child was born he had a change of mind. It happens.

The mother did break the law,  so she still ends up doing some jail time...

The daughter is in her 20s now, though --  so, as an adult, it will be her decision as to whether she ever meets her father or his side of the family..