In short
A 14-year-old girl, Lindsay, is seduced online by a 35-year-old man posing as “Khan/Con” Baring from Greece, leading to her disappearance, international smuggling, sexual abuse, and a later child-pornography investigation.
Guest backgrounds
Stephanie Lavoie is Lindsay’s mother from near Tampa, Florida; she later testifies in Greece and campaigns for missing kids. Sergeant Gary Klinger (Polk County Sheriff’s Department) leads the cyber investigation. Other key figures include Ohio officer Todd Beeman and two alleged accomplices: Martino Cravaro (cell phone company worker) and Dawn Arnder/Robert Arnder (who helped with identity changes and transport).
Key claims
Baring coordinated a global cyber conspiracy using forged identities, underground contacts, and manipulated intermediaries; investigators suspect an international child-porn ring.
Notable examples
Lindsay’s explicit love letters; her being found in Thessaloniki, Greece; hair dye/contact lenses to pass as Dawn; 87 discs/porn evidence; prior attempted seductions of Carrie Voss and others.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOLindsay's Early Life and Disappearance
1:20 to 2:09
Learn about Lindsay's challenging early life and the circumstances of her disappearance.
“When her daughter Lindsay was born, Stephanie Lavoie nicknamed her blonde little girl her miracle child.”
The Internet Connection
2:09 to 2:58
Discover how Lindsay's online interactions led to her abduction.
“Lindsay's experience was so painful, she's not yet ready to talk about it on camera.”
Attempts to Rescue Lindsay
2:58 to 4:52
Follow the frantic efforts of her mother and police to locate Lindsay.
“And the story of how she got here is enough to make every family in America throw its computer right out the window.”
Sergeant Klinger Takes Charge
4:52 to 7:09
Understand how Sergeant Klinger began to investigate Lindsay's case as a kidnapping.
“And, you know, he was thinking of purchasing a home down the street.”
Klinger's Collaboration with Authorities
7:09 to 7:40
Learn about Klinger’s work with Greek authorities to track down Lindsay.
“I would be frantic if it was my daughter.”
The Discovery of Lindsay
7:40 to 11:20
Hear about the moment Lindsay was found and the initial reactions.
“I turn the computer on in hopes that I'd hear from Lindsay saying, I'm coming home.”
Lindsay's Ordeal Unveiled
11:20 to 13:34
Gain insight into the traumatic experiences Lindsay faced during her abduction.
“When I saw her face, I just grabbed her and hugged her and she hugged back.”
The Conspiracy Behind the Abduction
13:34 to 14:00
Explore the broader conspiracy involving Lindsay's abduction and the perpetrator's network.
“A cyber conspiracy using bogus documents She was in a motel.”
The Persuader: Con Baring's Deception
14:00 to 16:04
Learn how Con Baring manipulated individuals into aiding his scheme.
“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 idea or challenge.”
The Arnders' Involvement and Consequences
16:04 to 18:58
Explore the role of the Arnder family in aiding Lindsay's escape.
“Did you have any qualms at all about putting a 14-year-old girl on a plane to go off to whatever?”
Show all 16 chapters
Baring's Online Seduction Tactics
18:58 to 22:23
Understand Baring's methods of seduction across different cases.
“But Con Baring, mastermind of Lindsay's escape, was still one step ahead of the police.”
Confronting Con Baring: His Defense
22:23 to 27:09
Witness Baring's justifications for his actions during an interview.
“When they bought the computer for Carrie, her parents, Les and Irma, had had a heart-to-heart with her about safe surfing.”
Baring's Claims and Investigative Findings
27:09 to 28:06
Analyze the evidence against Baring as he denies serious allegations.
“Lindsay says that the two of you watched it.”
The Pornography Case and Its Implications
28:06 to 30:55
Explore the troubling case of Khan Baring and the implications of his actions.
“Ohio Police Officer Todd Beeman says Baring and Robert Arnder traded hundreds of pictures, considered themselves big-time porno kings.”
Lindsay's Court Experience and Emotional Turmoil
30:55 to 34:29
Lindsay confronts her abuser in court and the emotional complexities involved.
“Stephanie simply collapsed, crushed by the decision.”
Aftermath and Ongoing Struggles
34:29 to 36:28
Lindsay and Stephanie discuss the ongoing impact of Baring's actions.
“Although it's still painful to talk about the details of that relationship.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:04I 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.
0:45Lindsay Lavoie:Having her identity changed. Correct. And underground contacts. They all worked together to get her out of the country. Luring Lindsay to the darkest corner of the internet. And she wasn't the first he had tried to seduce. That could have been me. That's scary. The astonishing story of a family torn apart and a detective determined to find Lindsay and bring her home. I would be frantic if it was my daughter. Web of Seduction.
1:19She was born way early, three and a half months early I had her. She was only a pound and ten ounces.
1:26Lindsay Lavoie: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 at her, Lindsay. It's real pretty. Fifteen 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.
1:54Lindsay Lavoie:Today, Stephanie has brought Lindsay to a rally for missing kids. I don't believe that we need to terrify our children. 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 Lindsey 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.
2:37Lindsay Lavoie: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.
2:57Lindsay Lavoie: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.
3:43Lindsay Lavoie: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?
4:26That she loved him and that he cared for her and that AIDS shouldn't have anything to do with it. Lindsay was adamant. He just had her so wrapped by that time that it was just too late to get her to change.
4:41Lindsay Lavoie:And the emails and letters just kept on coming. Soon, the man began calling Lindsay 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. And 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. I am changing the numbers. I want you to leave my daughter alone. She took the computer keyboard with her to work. There was no access to the computer in our home. Put Lindsey into counseling. He just convinced Lindsey that this particular counselor didn't know what she was talking about.
5:22Lindsay Lavoie:Even sent the letters she'd found to the FBI. And they said that basically there was nothing they could do. Then came that horrible August day. Lindsey said she wasn't feeling well, so against her better judgment, Stephanie left her home alone. while she went to her job as a legal secretary. And when I brought my son home from school about 3.30, she was gone. What was the first thing that went through your mind? Just terror. And I knew instantly he had something to do with it. You did? Instant. Yeah, it was just an instant gut reaction. The local police said it was too soon to declare Lindsay a missing person.
6:04I had nowhere to turn. Nowhere.
6:06Lindsay Lavoie:They thought this was a runaway. A runaway. Lindsay had a turbulent adolescence and a healthy disdain for authority. But Stephanie was convinced she would not simply run away, that the mysterious man in Greece had, in effect, kidnapped her. I felt so helpless because I just knew, and it seemed like no one wanted to listen. Not until Sergeant Klinger came on to the department. So this is just part of her file, right? Yes. Sergeant Gary Klinger of the Polk County Sheriff's Department had just taken over the missing persons unit when he opened Lindsay's file. It was two weeks since she'd disappeared.
6:45She'd been corresponding with a 35-year-old man from Greece. Well, that, to me, threw up a red flag.
6:50Lindsay Lavoie:He copied Lindsay's computer hard drive and put his team of cyber sleuths to work. But he really didn't think that a 14-year-old runaway with no passport could get very far. He kept telling me, don't give up faith. Klinger was absolutely determined to get Lindsay back. I would be frantic if it was my daughter. Coming up, Sergeant Klinger reaches out to Greek police to expose what he believes to be an international internet conspiracy. They all worked together to get her out of the country. And to hunt down the man who lured a child halfway around the world. He almost killed her.
7:39I walk the floors at night. I turn the computer on in hopes that I'd hear from Lindsay saying, I'm coming home.
7:49Lindsay Lavoie:In the weeks after her 14-year-old daughter Lindsay disappeared, Stephanie Lavoie was desperate. Just hoping that I could see that maybe she's on the instant messenger or she's emailed me or something. Stephanie's only real hope, Sergeant Gary Klinger. Sergeant Klinger. He has been a godsend from the day he called me and said, I'm going to take a personal interest in your daughter's case. What has she gotten herself into? She can't be thinking straight. That's what he says. Her deepest fear was that Lindsay's mysterious internet pen pal, writing from Greece, somehow had lured her away. I guess you could call it mother's instinct.
8:31You know how you just get that gut reaction and you just know. She was gone and I was determined to get her back. I guess just a normal family.
8:42Lindsay Lavoie:Klinger analyzed Lindsay's email records and finally identified her mystery man. He was a shady internet entrepreneur named Franz Konstantin Bering, a German national. But actually finding Kahn Bering was another matter, even though he was emailing Stephanie regularly. His pose to you is that he's in contact with her, but he doesn't know where she is. Yes. Throughout the months she was gone, I would hear from him saying, oh, well, I heard from her and she's in California. Or she's going across the states to the north. It would just be a continual game with him. He would just taunt her like that all the time, you know?
9:26Have you heard from Lindsay lately? And she's worried sick. Yeah.
9:30Lindsay Lavoie:Klinger still doubted a 14-year-old with no passport could have made it out of the country. But soon, the emails changed. Baring 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, Baring suggested he had rescued her from an unfit home. I know I'd 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.
10:10Lindsay Lavoie: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.
10:32Lindsay Lavoie: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.
11:13Lindsay Lavoie: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.
12:06Lindsay Lavoie:Oh, boy. This is where they lived? What, Aunt Anne? Yes? But Lindsay was willing to talk to us off camera about certain things. His office comes out into a balcony, and I spent most of my time out there looking down at everybody. She had slept on the floor, and she hadn't slept alone. Is there any doubt in your mind that this was a sexual relationship? No. No doubt at all? No. Lindsay admitted that Baring had sexually abused her, sometimes even videotaping their encounters. Awful things. Just, he's... Let me just tell you that he was extremely sadistic. It's gonna take her years and years to get over it.
12:54Lindsay Lavoie:Police turned up the heat in their hunt for Bering. We pursued him and discovered he had run away to Athens.
13:07Lindsay Lavoie:And, acting on a tip, just one day after they found Lindsay, they busted Baring in this house near Athens. They confiscated staggering amounts of pornography. We found 87 discs in his possession. 87? Wow. Thousands of pictures, some of Lindsay. And there was chilling evidence that Baring hadn't acted alone. It's amazing how they put it together. A cyber conspiracy using bogus documents She was in a motel. Having her identity changed? 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.
14:08Before 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 idea or challenge.
14:20Lindsay Lavoie:In the weeks after Lindsay 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 him on a plane? Page five, Martina Pavario. 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. This is Martino. He's extremely persuasive.
15:05Lindsay Lavoie:Baring had called the cell phone company to set up a prepaid account for Lindsay. Martina happened to take his call. Talking with her on the phone and online, Baring convinced Martina that Lindsay was a victim who had to be rescued. Did Lindsay herself tell you that she was being abused? Yes. Sexually abused? Yes. Emotionally, physically, sexually. So Martina reached out. So I will say it was enough to compel me to want to help. Eventually doing the unthinkable, helping a troubled teenager she hardly knew run away from home. He eventually gets Martina to agree to pick Lindsay up, take her to an airport and put her on a plane.
15:51You're waiving speedy trial? Yes, sir.
15:54Lindsay Lavoie:What she did was illegal. She pled guilty to charges of interfering with parental custody and was sentenced to two years of house arrest. At the time Lindsay got out of your car, walked into the airport, about to get on that plane, Did you have any qualms at all about putting a 14-year-old girl on a plane to go off to whatever? No. I wanted to help her. I believed her. And I wanted to make sure she was okay because I knew she was going to friends. Lindsay claimed she was going to stay with her best friend, Dawn Arnder, in Ohio. It was all part of Baring's plan. This is Dawn Arnder. The girls actually never had met, but Dawn, 18, and her father, Robert, were the next players in Baring's elaborate plot to get Lindsay to Greece.
16:47Lindsay Lavoie:He did it all. We just followed. Not quite. Baring had promised the Arnders, whom he'd met online,$2 ,000 for their help. He was betting that Lindsay could pass for Dawn, use her passport, if only the two looked a little more alike. This is where she was brought at the very beginning. Actually, she stayed at the Arnder residence for a day and then came to Motel 6. It was here that Arnder helped Lindsey cut her hair and dye it from blonde to dark brown. He gave her colored contact lenses and a pair of glasses belonging to his daughter. Lindsey was here for 17 days under the strictest instructions never to leave the room and never to open the door for anyone.
17:36Lindsay Lavoie:The Arnders put the new Lindsay on a bus to New York and handed her a plane ticket to Greece, paid for by Con Baring. Did a pretty good job. Went into her house through the computer lines. Clinger's investigators, meanwhile, had found emails from Dawn Arnder on Lindsay's computer. They called Ohio police officer Todd Beeman and they discovered the Ohio cops already knew the Arnders. Did they ever? They'd been out to his house on calls, disturbance calls, and various types of calls 23 times that year. Beeman went online to investigate Lindsay's disappearance. I assumed an identity as a male juvenile.
18:19Lindsay Lavoie:To his surprise, Don Arnder sent him suggestive pictures and bragged that she and her father had helped Lindsay get out of the country. We went to Ohio to serve the search warrant. Lindsay was long gone by then, but police arrested Robert Arnder after they found scores of homemade sex videos at his house. Many featured children. They also found more child pornography from Con Baring on his computer. Is there material specifically relating to Lindsay? Yes, yes there is. Robert Arnder later would be sent to prison for 85 years for child rape in another case. His daughter Dawn, it was found, had been a victim of abuse and was placed in protective custody.
19:04Lindsay Lavoie:But Con Baring, mastermind of Lindsay's escape, was still one step ahead of the police. Having used Martina and the Arnders to get her to New York, he now used his own powers of persuasion to get her on that plane, giving her specific instructions on her cell phone every step of the way. This is the most amazing story I've ever heard. It is. It's just astonishing. It's amazing how they put it together and how it all worked out. Everything went so well that everyone involved in this investigation strongly suspects one thing. I don't think she was the first.
19:48Lindsay Lavoie:Varing had tried this before. Carrie Voss was 15. It wasn't too long after I had met him that he asked me to grease.
20:06Lindsay Lavoie:Even as he was led off to prison, Convaring insisted Lindsey was the only girl in the world for him. Lindsey, I love you so much. I know that you love me and one day we will get married. All of his Internet activities were innocent, he claims. Simply the writings of a man infatuated with his one true love. We came here to this Internet café where Baring once worked to see how much of his story really checked out. And who better to ask than the people he corresponded with on the Internet? One of them gave us Baring's address book, and we're emailing every name on it. The list reveals a trail of cyber seduction, or at least attempted seductions,
20:57Lindsay Lavoie:from Eastern Europe,
21:01Lindsay Lavoie:to the Mideast,
Read the full transcript
21:11Lindsay Lavoie:to tiny Bigelow, Minnesota.
21:20Lindsay Lavoie:That could have been me. That's scary. When Carrie Voss was just 15, she went into a chat room to meet other teens. I can't remember the exact room that I was in, but I know that it was a teen one. Instead, she met a 35-year-old smooth talker from Greece. He whispered me like that in a chat room. He seemed like a nice guy, but there was, I don't even know what it was. There was just something that just made me a little wary of him. She says Bearing asked her for a picture. And there were other questions that gave her the creeps. He asked me if I was in a relationship, and it wasn't too long until after I had met him that he asked me to grease.
22:09Lindsay Lavoie:That made Carrie so uncomfortable that she blocked Bearing from her list of chat buddies. I just had like this gut feeling that he just wasn't a good person. It could have been devastating. You're closed Monday, aren't you? When they bought the computer for Carrie, her parents, Les and Irma, had had a heart-to-heart with her about safe surfing. Actually, it gave me goosebumps. It was shocking to think that this type of thing hit so close to home. If it could happen to Carrie, it could happen to any person.
22:46Every time when he saw me online, he started to talk to me.
22:52Lindsay Lavoie:It also happened to this young woman in Eastern Europe, who began chatting online with the same charming stranger with the same M.O. He started to ask me to send him a picture of me. And the same request. Why don't you come? It's so close, so near to where you live.
23:19Lindsay Lavoie:When she refused, Bering actually went to visit her and scared her so much that even now she is afraid to show her face or even to reveal her native country. He was looking at me nonstop in a strange way. I can say I was feeling very uncomfortable. He mentioned something. He would like me to be his girlfriend.
23:48Lindsay Lavoie:Which is the same basic story he told a 23-year-old woman in Kuwait, whom he also courted online for almost two years. She, like Lindsay, thought she was in love with Khan Baring. She only agreed to speak with us by phone. So you had a definite plan. You were going to get married. That's right. Baring even had proposed to her.
24:16Lindsay Lavoie:You thought this whole time that you were the only person that he was talking to, that you were the love of his life, right? But little did she know, he already was married and even had a child. Baring kept that tidbit to himself. Lindsay didn't know either. In fact, none of the women had a clue about the others. He certainly has a reputation for being a smooth talker. But investigators agree Bering's intentions went far beyond simple seduction. I strongly believe that he belongs to an international child pornography ring.
24:57Lindsay Lavoie:We've been 48 hours from CBS. Talk to Mr. Bering. Welcome. We managed to get inside a Greek prison. Hello. To confront Bering on that... We've waited a long time to talk to you. And on a few other things as well. I still don't understand what you plan to do with this 14-year-old girl. Yeah, why you Americans stuck so much on age?
25:30Lindsay Lavoie:What if he walked in here now? And you better hope I don't have a knife. because I seriously want to hurt him, really, severely. Stephanie Lavoie thinks Con Baring has a lot to answer for. And after hearing about Lindsay and the other young women, we had a few questions of our own. Here for Mr. Baring. Yes. The Greek justice ministry has a strict policy, no TV interviews in prison, period. But this case is so controversial and so important to the image of justice here that the minister himself intervened on our behalf, giving 48 Hours an exclusive opportunity to speak directly with Con Bering.
26:16I don't believe that I'm a monster.
26:17Lindsay Lavoie:Bering insists he is anything but a monster. That in fact, from the moment he met Lindsay in an online chat room. First thing what you're talking about is music. He was a friend to a troubled girl who claimed she was being abused. As far as we can tell, she was never an abused child. He's just a sadistic pedophile. But Baring portrays himself as always the perfect gentleman, insisting his intentions were honorable. Did you ever have sex with her? No. But you slept together? Yes, sometimes. And you never took any pictures of her yourself, naked? For myself? Uh-huh. Never. Never? Never. And I didn't take any here?
26:57Lindsay Lavoie:Never. Never. He says helping abused children is his passion, and any suggestion that he traded in child pornography is flat-out obscene. I hate pornography. You hate pornography. Lindsay says that the two of you watched it. To show her what is right and what is not right. So first you bring her here to save her, and then you show her pornography to protect her. No, you... A regular white knight. You try to put me something in my mouth. No, it's not true. Well, they found something like 37 CDs in one of your offices of kiddie porn. No, they didn't. Well, they did. No, they didn't. Well, we've seen it.
27:35No, they didn't. Mr.
27:36Lindsay Lavoie:Baring, it's part of the evidence in this case. We've seen it. These are pictures taken by Baring himself. Chief Investigator Yorgos Kokkinis believes Baring eventually planned to use Lindsay as a prostitute and even force her to appear in pornographic film. We believe he planned to sell the pictures of Lindsay. Police still are investigating the source of his porno pictures, many of which depict children as young as four. There was a lot of indications that some of these pictures have gone out all over the states. We kept a pretty detailed log. Ohio Police Officer Todd Beeman says Baring and Robert Arnder traded hundreds of pictures, considered themselves big-time porno kings.
28:23Lindsay Lavoie:In fact, Baring's email inbox is full of porno sites. But incredibly, he claims his only interest in porn was in trying to stop it. In the Internet, you will find about 170 organizations against child porn. In all the world. I'm a member in about 68. He sent us a partial list of those organizations, and we checked as many as we could find. None ever had heard of Khan Baring. I feel like I have an obligation to tell you that no one on the earth is going to believe that explanation for why there was all this pornography. Go, go, go in the internet. I know you don't care. I have explained that before.
29:04Lindsay Lavoie:He first claimed cops planted the porn to frame him. How many people can put in my hard drive whatever they want? Then admitted he did have a collection, but also a noble cause. I still don't understand what you plan to do with this 14-year-old girl when she got here. You're stuck too much on 14-year-old. I am. Why are you Americans stuck so much on age? Because she's still a child. Yes, for you. For you, it's a child. For me, she was not a child. Oh, you don't victimize somebody like that. This is your opinion victimized. I don't call this victimizing. I call this safing. But Baring admitted that as time went on, his feelings for Lindsay did begin to change.
29:45Lindsay Lavoie:You and Lindsay were going to get married. Making life. Together. Yes. She's 14. No, she's 15 and a half. No, she's 15 and a half. She was 14 when she came here. Okay, she was 14 and three quarters. Do you realize what parents sitting at home, listening to this, will think? This would absolutely terrify them to think that some guy in Greece can coordinate a smuggling job that well. No, I don't agree. They should be very thankful.
30:21Hope that Lindsay will be well. I love her very much.
30:24Lindsay Lavoie:In April of 2002, Constantine Baring went on trial on charges of pornography and having sex with a minor. Never had any sexual contact. And Stephanie Lavoie returned to Greece alone to testify against him. I told him on the phone one day that he's taken the wrong mother's child, and I'm going to stick to it and make sure he gets put away. But that hope quickly vanished. I hope that Stephanie will know what to mean justice. Without Lindsay, the court ruled, there could be no trial. Stephanie simply collapsed, crushed by the decision. The judge demanded that the 16-year-old Lindsay appear in person, fragile or not, to tell her own story.
31:13Lindsay Lavoie:She just might kill herself if she has to come here.
31:20Lindsay Lavoie:Lindsay's remarkable journey to the Greek court and her even more remarkable journey to find herself.
31:45Lindsay Lavoie:July 2002. Lindsay returned to Greece with her mother Stephanie to confront the man charged with abusing her. This despite fears that the 16-year-old Lindsay, who's on medication, was far from ready for this. I know that Lindsay is already here. It could prove to be very dangerous for Lindsay emotionally and mentally. because of the psychological control he has. When the moment arrives, the judge clears the courtroom, and Lindsey takes the stand. My biggest fear is it's going to trigger a lot of the pain that she's held in for so long. She explains in detail how Baring sexually abused her, and asks that he go to jail for what he did.
32:32Lindsay Lavoie:But then, astonishingly, she tells the court she loves him nonetheless. She said that she still loved me. She said that twice. Stephanie says Lindsay's been brainwashed. If they punish me, if they don't punish me, I don't care. I don't care. I care what's happened with her. It's only what I'm interested for. Nothing else. The court deliberates for just two hours before declaring Bering guilty. But the sentence is light. Eight years. I will not forget you, Lindsay. I want him gone for a long time. What would he get in the States? 20s, 30.
33:18Lindsay Lavoie:Conbearing seems almost pleased. She loves me. And now when I came out from the courtroom, she said that she loves me and she will wait off me. And you have eight years to think about that? I don't have eight years. Don't believe that. Thank you. He was almost right.
33:37Lindsay Lavoie:Two and a half years after our first report, Stephanie and a dramatically different Lindsey returned to Greece yet again. What's it like to be back here? Painful, but necessary. Convaring had appealed his conviction. The court could set him free in a matter of days. No, I don't have anything to say. If I have something to say, I say it only through the Greek press. Thank you. Lindsay and I just decided we're going to take care of what we have to do here and that is to keep him here in jail as long as we can.
34:12Lindsay Lavoie:Lindsay is now 18 and doing better. I'm going to do interior design and psychology and a degree in philosophy. And this time she agrees to speak to us on camera. I was very confused through the whole relationship so I can't really say how I think he changed me. Although it's still painful to talk about the details of that relationship. He had the power of everything. I didn't have basically no say in anything. It's getting a little bit easier. Yeah, it is, slowly. But there's really no control over it. You know, it'll go away for a little bit and then it'll come back, you know, go away and come back.
34:53Lindsay Lavoie:Lindsay suffers from flashbacks. She sees a therapist twice a week and is still on medication. But time has given her a better perspective on why things happened the way they did. I didn't know anything about the Internet or about older men. I thought he was like the smartest, most greatest person in the world. Some term that some people use is crazy love or sick love because you're just so caught up in it. She said that she still loved me. She's come a long way from the girl who told the court two years ago she still loved Con Baring. Does she now? No. No. but he's a very sadistic, manipulative, you know, pedophile.
35:34Lindsay Lavoie:The hearing, off limits to cameras, doesn't take long. Twenty minutes, half an hour about, we're going to have the decision. That decision, Baring's appeal, is denied. It's back to prison for at least six more years. Try to find me. The ruling gets the by now predictable reaction from Baring. Only take care of Lindsay. Everything else I have to say on the telephone. And a sigh of relief from Stephanie. We finally have a little bit more time to get well. To try to move on. But someday, Convaring will be out. And both mother and daughter wonder if the nightmare that started so innocently on the Internet ever really will end.
36:25He's not going to let her go. he's not going to let her alone and Lindsay knows it.
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From the publisher
Lindsay Lavoie was a suburban Florida teenager who began receiving explicit love letters online from a stranger in Greece. Despite the efforts of her mother, Stephanie Lavoie, Lindsay continued her online relationship and finally disappeared from her home.