Chapter 1: What led to Lindsay Lavoie's online relationship with a stranger?
I think she just was out there just searching for someone to talk to.
Do you know who's keeping your child company on the Internet? 14-year-old Lindsay met a stranger online.
What did she say about this guy? That she loved him and that he cared for her.
When her parents discovered he was 35 and sending explicit love letters, they tried everything to stop him.
I just said, I want you to leave my daughter alone.
Then suddenly, Lindsay was gone.
I just knew she was probably going to be dead.
Susan Spencer investigates a shocking global cyber conspiracy using forged documents. She was in a motel.
Having her identity changed.
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Chapter 2: How did Lindsay's parents react to her online communications?
She was born way early. Three and a half months early, I had her. She was only a pound and 10 ounces. When her daughter Lindsay was born, Stephanie Lavoie nicknamed her blonde little girl her miracle child. Lindsay loved life. She loved everything about it. She loved animals. I mean, everything you can imagine. Look here, Lindsay. It's real pretty.
Chapter 3: What happened when Lindsay disappeared from her home?
15 years later, she says the miracle is that Lindsay is still alive. What she went through, no one would want their child to go through. No one. Today, Stephanie has brought Lindsay to a rally for missing kids.
I don't believe that we need to terrify our children.
Chapter 4: What investigation efforts were made to find Lindsay?
I believe that we need to let them know what's out there and who's out there.
Well aware that her daughter was once one of them. Lindsay's experience was so painful, she's not yet ready to talk about it on camera. I beat myself up every day for not finding some way of preventing it. The nightmare began in August of 2000 when 14-year-old Lindsay simply disappeared from the middle-class neighborhood where she lives with her mother, stepfather, and brother near Tampa.
August 28th, she walked out the door. She was gone. I just wanted to die because I knew I'd never see her. I just knew she was probably going to be dead. Remarkably, Lindsay was found here in the port city of Thessaloniki in northern Greece. And the story of how she got here is enough to make every family in America throw its computer right out the window.
Like many 14-year-olds, Lindsay was an internet junkie, spending hours a day on the computer her mother had bought only six months before. She's very free spirit and just likes to enjoy learning new things and seeing new things. It's like all these people email me and I don't know who they are. I think she just was out there just searching for someone to talk to.
But Stephanie couldn't believe her eyes when she saw who Lindsay was talking to and what they were saying. These are just all the emails that I have that I printed. The letters were from a man in Greece named Khan. Explicit love letters. Lindsay's new pen pal longed, he wrote, to be her husband, to be father to her children. She was 14 at the time. And in those letters, he stated he was 35.
Even though he was in Greece, 5,000 miles away, Stephanie was worried enough to order her daughter to cut off contact, and fast.
Goodbye.
We sat her down, my husband and I, when he came home, and we just explained to her that this was extremely upsetting and totally inappropriate. What did she say about this guy? That she loved him and that he cared for her and that age shouldn't have anything to do with it. Lindsey was adamant. He just had her so wrapped by that time that it was just too late to get her to change.
And the emails and letters just kept on coming. Soon the man began calling Lindsey in the middle of the night. He had our cell phone number. He told me he knew where we lived. And, you know, he was thinking of purchasing a home down the street. He was just controlling our life. Stephanie tried everything. I just went ballistic on him. I just said, you know, I don't want you calling here.
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Chapter 5: How did Lindsay end up in Greece?
Have you heard from Lindsay lately? And she's worried sick. Yeah.
Klinger still doubted a 14-year-old with no passport could have made it out of the country. But soon, the emails changed. Behring was implying now that Lindsay was with him. I wouldn't put anything past him or anyone involved with him. And rubbing salt into the wound, Behring suggested he had rescued her from an unfit home. I know I done right. I just helped a friend to get out from a misery.
Always stabbing that knife just a little bit deeper. As the months passed, Klinger funneled information to the Greek police, and he urged Stephanie to keep the lines of communication open. I was told to kind of play the game. Your name here is Broken Heart Mama? Yes. To help them pinpoint exactly where he was. Then Klinger's work finally paid off.
We traced back Lindsay's instant messenger screen name to Thessaloniki, Greece.
The big break in the case came when police here in Greece decided to enlist the help of the local press. Soon pictures of Lindsay and Baring were on TV and splashed across newspapers all across the country. Just days later, someone in Thessaloniki saw Lindsay's picture on the news and called authorities.
Police found Lindsay walking along this street near the center of town, apparently not realizing that Baring was walking just a few yards ahead of her. They grabbed Lindsay. Baring saw it and kept on walking. You were out of here like a shot. I was out of here. Amidst the crush of cameras and cops came the moment she had prayed for for five long months. When I saw her face, I just
grabbed her and hugged her and she hugged back. It was really nice. Wonderful. But soon, details of Lindsay's ordeal began to emerge. Were you shocked at how she looked? Yes, I was. Just the hair color and very tired and worn. Details so awful, she says, that despite months of counseling, Lindsay still is too fragile to talk specifically about what happened.
Going days without food, days without showers.
She looks like she hasn't had a shower or washed her hair in weeks. She has dark circles, bags under her eyes, and they may even be black eyes.
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Chapter 6: What did Lindsay's experience reveal about online safety?
Correct.
And underground contacts to lure a vulnerable 14-year-old away from her family. She had no clue what she was getting ready to be involved in.
Before I started working this case, you could have never convinced me that a teenage child could walk onto an airplane and fly out of the state, let alone out of the country, without some type of ID or challenge.
In the weeks after Lindsey disappeared, Sergeant Gary Klinger realized he had underestimated con bearing. Is this guy just an unbelievably good con man?
He must be.
Good enough to persuade total strangers to help him smuggle a teenage girl out of the country. Why would anyone? Pick up a child from their home. Go get a plane ticket and put them on a plane.
But that is exactly what this woman did.
I thought he was a nice guy. I mean, he was very intelligent, very articulate.
Martino Cravaro, 24, who worked at a cell phone company in Lindsay's hometown.
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