True Crime Vault: Sabrina: Lost or Stolen?

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20/20 46 min 9 speakers 7 chapters transcribed 3 months ago
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Shannon Maldonado 0:00
I founded Ornot in 2013. I think the best thing about Shopify is that we can practice business without technical skills. We can manage the company's background and front-end and sell online. If Shopify was a bicycle equipment, it would be a bicycle itself. That way things are handled and our business is handled in Shopify. Start a free trial at shopify.com website.
Elizabeth Vargas 0:30
Step into the 2020 True Crime Vault where you'll hear our most gripping stories.
Marlene Eisenberg 0:43
I didn't know what to think. I'm just screaming.
Elizabeth Vargas 0:45
Tonight on 2020, a breakthrough in the story that transfixed the nation, the disappearance of baby Sabrina.
Steve Eisenberg 0:53
A five-month-old girl who disappeared from her home in the middle of the night.
Elizabeth Vargas 0:57
This is where he heard the baby crying.
Marlene Eisenberg 0:59
Grieving parents who some thought didn't quite look the part. Perception was that they were cold.
Steve Eisenberg 1:06
Seen by some as being unemotional.
Marlene Eisenberg 1:09
Before long, police are zeroing in on them. They said, we believe you know where your daughter is.
Elizabeth Vargas 1:15
But the Eisenbergs say they know nothing. They hire a lawyer and stop cooperating. They're doing a half-assed job of trying to find Sabrina. After a massive search on the ground, in the air, in the water. They were looking for a body and not a baby. The parents arrested. They busted in my front door, pointing a gun at me.
Ian Verrender 1:37
Charging Steven and Marlene Eisenberg.
Either one of you have anything you want to say.
Elizabeth Vargas 1:42
They had plenty to say, according to police, who had secretly bugged their house. The baby's dead because you did it.
Steve Eisenberg 1:49
We did not. We did not.
Elizabeth Vargas 1:52
Did you start to believe that they were being framed?
Marlene Eisenberg 1:56
Yes.
Elizabeth Vargas 1:56
But now the new story begins. Technology that can turn an infant into an adult. And a Facebook message from a 20-year-old woman who could be Sabrina. I wake up and look at my phone. My heart's racing. Tonight, closer than ever to finding the answer. I'm Elizabeth Vargas, and this is 2020.
Marlene Eisenberg 2:19
Sabrina, come growl to Mommy. Come here.
Elizabeth Vargas 2:23
It's the classic family home video a 5 month-old baby girl learning to crawl. This is Sabrina's first video and here she's calling Sabrina Eisenberg captured for the very first time by adoring mom Marlene in November 1997, but this tape wouldn't become just another family memory it would become the last precious image ever captured of Sabrina the next day she would vanish.
Elizabeth Vargas 3:02
I first met Steve and Marlene Eisenberg just months after their daughter disappeared. Today, 20 years later, they say their pain is as raw as ever.

What happened to baby Sabrina Eisenberg?

Elizabeth Vargas 3:12
How much do you think about her? We think about her every day. Sabrina has a room in our home. So this is Sabrina's room. This is the room that, you know, when Sabrina comes home, this is her room. Are these really her baby clothes? These are her baby clothes.
Marlene Eisenberg 3:27
And I've said from the very beginning, and I still say it, when she comes home, we're going to donate them together.
Elizabeth Vargas 3:33
We changed the room a few years ago from taking out all the Beanie Babies and toys because she's 20 years old now. She is 20 years old now, is 20 years old. So you feel confident that she's still alive?
Steve Eisenberg 3:45
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because who would take a baby to hurt them?
Elizabeth Vargas 3:48
Do you play that back in your mind, going in to her crib, finding her missing, running to the neighbor, calling 911? How much do you remember all of that? I don't play it back. It hurts too much. It's painful. It was November 23, 1997, a Sunday night, the family watching a movie. Later, Marlene and Steve tuck their three kids, 8-year-old William, 4-year-old Monica, and baby Sabrina into bed for the night. The next morning, Marlene recalls waking up and getting her son out of bed first.
Marlene Eisenberg 4:20
And as I turn around and I look and notice my laundry room door out to my garage is opened. And then as I get closer, I'm looking now out to the street and seeing that my garage door is up. So now I'm just looking straight out to the street. And I ran into the first bedroom, which is Sabrina's room. And I look in the crib and Sabrina's gone. And I scream, scream.
Elizabeth Vargas 4:45
her new baby and her favorite yellow blanket both gone without a trace. 911.
Marlene Eisenberg 4:52
Hello? I need to leave. My baby's been kidnapped. All right, ma'am, you need to calm down.

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