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Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
I think she just was out there just searching for someone to talk to.
Susan Spencer (Investigator)
Do you know who's keeping your child company on the Internet? 14 year old Lindsey met a stranger online.
Reporter
What did she say about this guy?
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
That she loved him and that he cared for her.
Susan Spencer (Investigator)
When her parents discovered he was 35 and sending explicit love letters, they tried everything to stop him.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
I just said, I want you to leave my daughter alone.
Susan Spencer (Investigator)
Then suddenly Lindsay was gone.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
I just knew she was probably going to be dead.
Susan Spencer (Investigator)
Susan Spencer investigates a shocking global cyber conspiracy. Using forged documents.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
She was in a motel, having her identity changed.
Kahn Baring
Correct.
Susan Spencer (Investigator)
And underground contacts.
Investigator/Police Official
They all worked together to get her
Susan Spencer (Investigator)
out of the country, luring Lindsay to the darkest corner of the Internet. And she wasn't the first he had tried to seduce.
Narrator
That could have been me. That's scary.
Susan Spencer (Investigator)
The astonishing story of a family torn apart and a detective determined to find Lindsay and bring her home.
Investigator/Police Official
I would be frantic if it was my daughter.
Susan Spencer (Investigator)
Web of seduction.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
She was born way early, three and a half months early. I had her. She was only a pound and 10
Reporter
ounces when her daughter Lindsay was born. Stephanie Lavoy nicknamed her blonde little girl. Her miracle child.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Lindsey loved life. She loved everything about it. She loved animals. I mean, everything you can imagine. Look at Lindsay. It's real pretty.
Reporter
Fifteen years later, later, she says the miracle is that Lindsay is still alive.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
What she went through, no one would want their child to go through.
Dr. Haruni Bhatt (Podcast Host)
No one.
Reporter
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, Lindsey's experience was so painful. She's not yet ready to talk about it on camera.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
I beat myself up every day for not finding some way of preventing it.
Reporter
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.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
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.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Remarkably, Lindsay was found here in the port of Thessaloniki in northern Greece.
Reporter
And the story of how she got
Sergeant Gary Klinger
here is enough to make every family in America throw its computer right out the window.
Reporter
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.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
She's very free spirit and just likes to enjoy learning new things and seeing new things.
Narrator
All these people email me and I don't know who they are.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
I think she just was out there just searching for someone to talk to.
Reporter
But Stephanie couldn't believe her eyes when she saw who Lindsay was talking to and what they were saying.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
These are just all the emails that I have that I printed.
Reporter
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.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
She was 14 at the time. And in those letters he stated he was 35,
Reporter
even though he was in Greece, 5,000 miles away. Stephanie was worried enough to order her daughter to cut off contact and fast.
Kahn Baring
Goodbye.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
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.
Reporter
What did she say about this guy?
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
That she loved him and that he cared for her and that age shouldn't have anything to do with it.
Reporter
Lindsay was adamant.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
He just had her so wrapped by that time that it was just too late to get her to change.
Reporter
And the emails and letters just kept on coming. Soon the man began calling Lindsey in the middle of the night.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
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.
Reporter
Stephanie tried everything.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
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.
Reporter
She took the computer keyboard with her to work.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
There was no access to the computer in our home.
Reporter
Put Lindsey into counseling.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
He just convinced Lindsey that this particular counselor didn't know what she was talking about.
Reporter
Even sent the letters she'd found to
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
the FBI and they said that basically there was nothing they could do.
Reporter
Then came that horrible August day. Lindsay 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.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
And when I brought my son home from school about 3:30, she was gone.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
What was the first thing that went through your mind?
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Just terror. And I knew instantly he had something to do with it.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
You did?
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Instant. Yeah, it was just an instant gut reaction.
Reporter
The local police said it was too soon to declare Lindsey a missing person.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
I had nowhere to turn. Nowhere.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
They thought this was a runaway.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
A runaway.
Reporter
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.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
I felt so helpless because I just knew. And it seemed like no one wanted to listen. Not until Sergeant Klinger came onto the department.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
So this is just part of her file, right?
Kahn Baring
Yes.
Reporter
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 disappeared.
Investigator/Police Official
She'd been corresponding with a 35 year old man from Greece. Well, that to me threw up a red flag.
Reporter
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.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
He kept telling me, don't give up faith.
Reporter
Klinger was absolutely determined to get Lindsay back.
Investigator/Police Official
I would be frantic if it was my daughter.
Reporter
Coming up, Sergeant Klinger reaches out to Greek police to expose what he believes to be an international Internet conspiracy.
Investigator/Police Official
They all work together to get her
Reporter
out of the country and to hunt down the man who lured a child halfway around the world.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
He almost killed her. I walk the floors at night. I turned the computer on in hopes that I'd hear from Lindsey saying I'm coming home.
Reporter
In the weeks after her 14 year old daughter Lindsey disappeared, Stephanie Lavoy was desperate.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Just hoping that I could see that maybe she's on the instant messenger or she's emailed me or something.
Reporter
Stephanie's only real hope, Sergeant Gary Klinger.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
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.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
What has she gotten herself into? She can't be thinking straight. That's what he says.
Reporter
Her deepest fear was that Lindsay's mysterious Internet pen pal, writing from Greece, somehow had lured her away.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
I guess you could call it mother's instinct. You know, how you just get that gut reaction and you just know she was gone.
Investigator/Police Official
And I was determined to get her back. I guess just a normal family.
Reporter
Klinger analyzed Lindsay's email records and finally identified her mystery man. He was a shady Internet entrepreneur named Franz Constantin Baring, a German national. But actually finding Kahn Baring was another matter. Even though he was emailing Stephanie regularly.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
His pose to you is that he's
Reporter
in contact with her, but he doesn't
Sergeant Gary Klinger
know where she is.
Lindsay Lavoy
Yeah.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
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.
Investigator/Police Official
He would just taunt her like that all the time, you know. Have you heard from Lindsey lately?
Sergeant Gary Klinger
And she's worried sick.
Investigator/Police Official
Yeah.
Reporter
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.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
I wouldn't put anything past him or anyone involved with him.
Reporter
And rubbing salt into the wound, Baring suggested he had rescued her from an unfit home.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
I know I done right. I just helped a friend to get out from a misery.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Always stabbing that knife just a little bit deeper.
Reporter
As the months passed, Klinger funneled information to the Greek police, and he urged Stephanie to keep the lines of communication open.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
I was told to kind of play the game.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Your name here is Broken Heart, Mama.
Ohio Police Officer Todd Beeman
Yes.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
To help them pinpoint exactly where he was.
Reporter
Then Klinger's work finally paid off.
Investigator/Police Official
We trace back Lindsay's instant messenger screen name to Thessalonoki, Greece.
Reporter
The big break in the case came when police here in Greece decided to enlist the help of the local press.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Soon, pictures of Lindsay and Baring were
Reporter
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 Lindsey walking along this street street near the center of town, apparently
Sergeant Gary Klinger
not realizing that Baring was walking just
Reporter
a few yards ahead of her. They grabbed Lindsey.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Baring saw it and kept on walking. You were out of here like a shot.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
I was out of here.
Reporter
Amidst the crush of cameras and cops came the moment she had prayed for for five long months.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
When I saw her face, I just grabbed her and hugged her. And she hugged back. It was really nice, wonderful.
Reporter
But soon, details of Lindsay's ordeal began to emerge.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Were you shocked at how she looked?
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Yes, I was Just the hair color and very tired and worn.
Reporter
Details so awful. She says that despite months of counseling, Lindsey still is too fragile to talk specifically about what happened.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Going days without food, days without showers.
Investigator/Police Official
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.
Reporter
Oh, boy. This is where they lived. Yes, but Lindsay was willing to talk to us off camera about certain things.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
His office comes out into a balcony. And I spent most of my time
Lindsay Lavoy
out there looking down at everybody.
Reporter
She had slept on the floor and she hadn't slept alone.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Is there any doubt in your mind that this was a sexual relationship?
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
No doubt at all, no.
Reporter
Lindsay admitted that Baring had sexually abused her, sometimes even videotaping their encounters.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Awful things. Just he's. Let me just tell you that he was extremely sadistic. It's going to take her years and years to get over it.
Reporter
Police turned up the heat in their hunt for bearing.
Chief Investigator Yorgos Kokines
We pursued them and discovered they had run away to Athens.
Reporter
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.
Chief Investigator Yorgos Kokines
We found 87 discs in his possession.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
87. Wow.
Reporter
Thousands of pictures, some of Lindsay. And there was chilling evidence that Baring hadn't acted alone.
Investigator/Police Official
It's amazing the how they put it together.
Reporter
A cyber conspiracy using bogus documents.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
She was in the motel having her identity changed.
Martina Cavario
Correct.
Reporter
And underground contacts to lure a vulnerable 14 year old away from her family.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
She had no clue what she was getting ready to be involved in.
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Investigator/Police Official
Before I started working this case, you could have never convinced me that a teenage child could walk on to an airplane and fly out of the state, let alone out of the country without some type of idea or challenge.
Reporter
In the weeks after Lindsey disappeared, Sergeant Gary Klinger realized he had underestimated Con bearing.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Is this guy just an unbelievably good con man?
Reporter
He must be good enough to persuade total strangers to help him smuggle a teenage girl out of the country.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Why would anyone pick up a child from their home? Put him on, go get a plane ticket and put him on a plane.
Ohio Police Officer Todd Beeman
Page five. Martina Cavario.
Reporter
But that is exactly what this woman did.
Dawn Arnder
I thought he was a nice guy. I mean, he was very intelligent, very articulate.
Reporter
Martino Cravaro, 24, who worked at a cell phone company in Lindsay's hometown.
Investigator/Police Official
This is Martino.
Dawn Arnder
He's extremely persuasive.
Reporter
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 Lindsey was a victim who had to be rescued.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Did Lindsey herself tell you that she was being abused?
Reporter
Sexually abused, yes.
Dawn Arnder
Emotionally, physically, Sexually.
Reporter
So Martina reached out.
Dawn Arnder
So I will say it was enough to compel me to want to help.
Reporter
Eventually doing the unthinkable, helping a troubled teenager she hardly knew run away from home.
Investigator/Police Official
He eventually gets Martina to agree to pick Lindsey up, take her to an airport and put her on a plane.
Reporter
You're waiving speedy trial?
Chief Investigator Yorgos Kokines
Yes, judge.
Reporter
What she did was illegal. She pled guilty to charges of interfering with parental custody and was sentenced to two years of house arrest.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
At the time Lindsey 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?
Ohio Police Officer Todd Beeman
No.
Dawn Arnder
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.
Reporter
Lindsey claimed she was going to stay with her best friend, Dawn Arnder, in Ohio. It was all part of Baring's plan.
Investigator/Police Official
This is Dawn Arner.
Reporter
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.
Kahn Baring
He did it all.
Reporter
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.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
This is where she was brought at the very beginning, actually.
Martina Cavario
She stayed at the Arnder residence for a day and then came to Motel 6.
Reporter
It was here that Arnder helped Lindsay 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. Lindsay was here for 17 days under the strictest instructions never to leave the
Sergeant Gary Klinger
room and never to open the door for anyone.
Reporter
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.
Investigator/Police Official
Went into her house through the computer lines.
Reporter
Klinger'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 Arenders. Did they ever.
Investigator/Police Official
They'd been out to his house on calls, disturbance calls and various types of calls. 23 times that year, Beeman went online
Reporter
to investigate Lindsey's disappearance.
Martina Cavario
I assumed an identity as a male juvenile.
Reporter
To his surprise, Don Arnder sent him suggestive pictures and bragged that she and her father had helped Lindsey get out of the country.
Investigator/Police Official
We went to Ohio to serve the search warrant.
Reporter
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.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Is there material specifically relating to Lindsay?
Kahn Baring
Yes.
Martina Cavario
Yes, there is.
Reporter
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.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
But con Baring, mastermind of Lindsay's escape,
Reporter
was still one step ahead of the police.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Having used Martina and the Arenders to get her to New York, he now used his own powers of persuasion to
Reporter
get her on that plane, giving her
Sergeant Gary Klinger
specific instructions on her cell phone every step of the way. This is the most amazing story I've ever heard.
Reporter
It is.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
It's just astonishing.
Investigator/Police Official
It's amazing how they put it together and how it all worked out.
Reporter
Everything went so well that everyone involved in this investigation strongly suspects one thing.
Martina Cavario
I don't think she was the first.
Reporter
Baring had tried this before. Carrie Voss was 15.
Narrator
It wasn't too long after I had met him that he asked me to grease.
Reporter
Now let's go. Even as he was led off to prison, Con Baring insisted Lindsay was the only girl in the world for him.
Kahn Baring
Lindsey, I love you so much. I know that you love me, and one day we will get married.
Reporter
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 cafe
Sergeant Gary Klinger
where Baring once worked to see how
Reporter
much of his story really checked out. And who better to ask?
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Than the people he corresponded with on the Internet.
Reporter
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. From eastern Europe. To the mideast. To tiny Bigelow, Minnesota.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Here we go, girls.
Narrator
Talk it up.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Hey. Go.
Narrator
That could have been me. Scary.
Reporter
When Carrie Voss was just 15, she went into a chat room to meet other teens.
Narrator
I can't remember the exact room that I was in, but I know that it was a teen one.
Reporter
Instead, she met a 35 year old smooth talker from Greece.
Narrator
He whispered me like that in a chat room. He seemed like a nice guy, but there was. I don't. I don't even know what it was. There was just something that just made me a little wary of him.
Reporter
She says Baring asked her for a picture and there were other questions that gave her the creeps.
Narrator
He asked me if I was in a relationship and it wasn't too long after I had met him that he asked me to grease.
Reporter
That made Carrie so uncomfortable that she blocked Bering from her list of chat buddies.
Narrator
I just had like this gut feeling that he just wasn't. Wasn't a good person.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
It could have been devastating.
Kahn Baring
You're closed Mondays, aren't you?
Reporter
When they bought the computer for Carrie, her parents, Les and Irma, had had a heart to heart with her about safe surfing.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Actually, it gave me goosebumps. It was shocking to think that this type of thing hit so close to home.
Investigator/Police Official
If it could happen to Carrie, it
Martina Cavario
could happen to any person.
Ohio Police Officer Todd Beeman
Every time when he saw me online, he started to talk to me.
Reporter
It also happened to this young woman in eastern Europe who began chatting online with the same charming stranger with the same MO.
Ohio Police Officer Todd Beeman
He started to ask me to send
Reporter
him a picture of me and the same request.
Ohio Police Officer Todd Beeman
Why don't you come? It's so close, so, so near to where you live.
Reporter
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.
Ohio Police Officer Todd Beeman
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.
Reporter
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 Kahn Baring. She only agreed to speak with us by phone.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
So you, you had a definite plan you were going to get married.
Reporter
That's right. Bering even had proposed to her.
Lindsay Lavoy
Yeah, exactly.
Reporter
So I talked to my parents and say the few you thought this whole
Sergeant Gary Klinger
time that you were the only person that he was talking to, that you were. That you were the love of his life, right?
Lindsay Lavoy
Yeah.
Reporter
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.
Chief Investigator Yorgos Kokines
He certainly has a reputation for being a smooth talker.
Reporter
But investigators agree Baring's intentions went far beyond simple seduction.
Chief Investigator Yorgos Kokines
I strongly believe that he belongs to an international child pornography ring
Sergeant Gary Klinger
from 48 Hours.
Reporter
From CBS, talk to Mr. Bering.
Kahn Baring
Welcome.
Reporter
We managed to get inside a Greek prison to confront Bering.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
On that we've waited a long time to talk to you and on a
Reporter
few other things as well.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
I still don't understand what you plan to do with this 14 year old girl.
Kahn Baring
Yeah, why are you Americans stuck so much on age?
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Sergeant Gary Klinger
What if he walked in here now?
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
You better hope I don't have a knife because I seriously want to hurt him really severely.
Reporter
Stephanie Lavoy thinks Con Baring has a lot to answer for. And after hearing about Lindsey 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.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
But this case is so controversial and so important to the image of justice
Reporter
here that the minister himself intervened on our behalf, giving 48 hours an exclusive
Sergeant Gary Klinger
opportunity to speak directly with Kahn Baring.
Kahn Baring
I don't believe that I'm a monster.
Reporter
Bering insists he is anything but a monster. That in fact, from the moment he met Lindsay in an online chat room,
Kahn Baring
first thing, what you're talking about is music.
Reporter
He was a friend to a troubled girl who claimed she was being abused.
Investigator/Police Official
As far as we can tell, she was never an abused child.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
He's just a sadistic pedophile.
Reporter
But Baring portrays himself as always the perfect gentleman, insisting his intentions were honorable. Did you ever have sex with her?
Kahn Baring
No.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
But you slept together.
Kahn Baring
Yes. Sometimes.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
And you never took any pictures of her yourself?
Kahn Baring
Naked for myself?
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Uh huh.
Kahn Baring
Never.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Never, Never. And I didn't take any here in Greece.
Kahn Baring
Never.
Reporter
He says helping abused children is his passion. And any suggestion that he traded in child pornography is flat out obscene.
Kahn Baring
I hate pornography.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
You hate pornography. Lindsay says that the two of you watched it.
Kahn Baring
Two show her what is right and what is not right.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
So first you bring her here to save her and then you show her pornography to protect her.
Kahn Baring
Now you regular white knight, you tried to put me something in my mouth. No, it's not true.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Well, they found something. You know, like 37 CDs in one of your offices.
Reporter
Kitty porn.
Kahn Baring
No, they didn't.
Reporter
Well, they did.
Kahn Baring
No they didn't.
Reporter
Well, we've seen it.
Kahn Baring
No they didn't.
Reporter
Mr. Baring.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
It's part of the evidence in this case.
Reporter
We've seen seen it.
Chief Investigator Yorgos Kokines
These are pictures taken by Baring himself.
Reporter
Chief investigator Yorgos Kokines believes Baring eventually planned to use Lindsay as a prostitute and even force her to appear in pornographic film.
Chief Investigator Yorgos Kokines
We believe he planned to sell the pictures of Lindsay.
Reporter
Police still are investigating the source of his porno pictures. Many of which depict children as young as as four.
Martina Cavario
There was a lot of indications that some of these pictures have gone out all over the states. We kept a pretty detailed log.
Reporter
Ohio police officer Todd Beaman says Baring and Robert Arnder traded hundreds of pictures. Considered themselves big time porno kings. 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.
Kahn Baring
In the Internet you will find about 170 organizations against child porn in the whole world.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Right?
Kahn Baring
I'm a member. In about 68.
Reporter
He sent us a partial list of those organizations and we checked as many as we could find. None ever had heard of Kahn Baring.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
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.
Reporter
I know you don't care.
Kahn Baring
I have explained that before he first
Reporter
claimed cops planted the porn to frame him.
Kahn Baring
How many people can put in my hard drive whatever they want.
Reporter
Then admitted he did have a collection. But also a noble cause.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
I still don't understand what you plan to do with this 14 year old girl when she got here.
Kahn Baring
You stuck too much on 14 year old.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
I am.
Kahn Baring
Why are you Americans stuck so much on age?
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Because she's still a child.
Chief Investigator Yorgos Kokines
Yes.
Kahn Baring
For you for you as a child. For me she was not a child.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Well, you don't victimize somebody like that.
Kahn Baring
This is your opinion? Victimized? I don't call this victimizing. I call this safing.
Reporter
But Baring admitted that as time went on, his feelings for Lindsay did begin to change.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
You and Lindsey were going to get
Kahn Baring
married, making life together?
Sergeant Gary Klinger
Yes, she's 14 now.
Kahn Baring
She's 15 and a half.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
No, she's 15 and a half. She was 14 when she came here.
Kahn Baring
Okay, she was 14 and three quarters.
Sergeant Gary Klinger
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,
Kahn Baring
no, I don't agree. They should be very thankful. Lindsay hope that Lindsey will be well. I love her very much.
Reporter
In April of 2002, Constantine Baring went on trial on charges of pornography and having sex with a minor.
Kahn Baring
Never had any sexual contact.
Reporter
And Stephanie Lavoie returned to Greece alone to testify against him.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
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.
Reporter
But that hope quickly vanished.
Kahn Baring
I hope that Stephanie will know what
Reporter
means 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. She just might kill herself if she has to come here. Lindsay's remarkable journey to the Greek court and her even more remarkable journey to find herself. 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 Lindsey, who's on medication, was far from ready for this.
Kahn Baring
I know that Lindsey is already here.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Could prove to be very dangerous for Lindsey emotionally and mentally because of the psychological control he has.
Reporter
When the moment arrives, the judge clears the courtroom and Lindsey takes the stand.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
My biggest fear is it's going to trigger a lot of the pain that she's held in for so long.
Reporter
She explains in detail how Baring sexually abused her and asked that he go to jail for. For what he did. But then, astonishingly, she tells the court she loves him nonetheless.
Kahn Baring
She said that she still loved me. She said that twice.
Reporter
Stephanie says Lindsay's been brainwashed.
Kahn Baring
So 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.
Reporter
The court deliberates for just two hours before declaring Baring guilty. But the sentence is light. Eight years.
Kahn Baring
I will not forget you, Lindsay.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
I want him gone for a long time. What would he get in the States? 20s, 30?
Reporter
Con baring seems almost pleased.
Kahn Baring
She loves me. And now when I came out from the courtroom, she said that she loves me and she will wait of me and.
Investigator/Police Official
You have eight years to think about that.
Kahn Baring
I don't have eight years. Don't believe that. Thank you.
Reporter
He was almost right. 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?
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Painful but necessary.
Reporter
Con Baring had appealed his conviction. The court could set him free in a matter of days.
Kahn Baring
No, I don't have anything to say. If I have something to say, I say it only through the Greek rest. Thank you.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
Lindsey and I have 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.
Reporter
Lindsey is now 18 and doing better.
Lindsay Lavoy
I'm gonna do interior design and psychology and a degree in philosophy.
Reporter
And this time she agrees to speak to us on camera.
Lindsay Lavoy
I was very confused through the whole relationship, so I can't really, you know, say how I think he treated me.
Reporter
Although it's still painful to talk about the details of that relationship.
Lindsay Lavoy
He had the power of everything I didn't have. Basically no saying anything.
Reporter
It's getting a little bit easier.
Lindsay Lavoy
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.
Reporter
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.
Lindsay Lavoy
I didn't know anything about the Internet or about. 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.
Kahn Baring
She said that she still loved me.
Reporter
She's come a long way from the girl who told the court two years ago she still loved Con bearing. Does she now?
Lindsay Lavoy
No. No. He's a very sadistic, manipulative pedophile.
Reporter
The hearing off limits to cameras. Doesn't take long.
Chief Investigator Yorgos Kokines
20 minutes, half an hour about we're gonna have the decision.
Reporter
That decision, Baring's appeal is denied. It's back to prison for at least six more years.
Kahn Baring
Try to find me.
Reporter
The ruling gets the by now predictable reaction from Baring only take care of Lindsay.
Kahn Baring
Everything else I have to say on the telephone.
Reporter
And a sigh of relief from Stephanie.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
We finally have a little bit more time to get well, to try to move on.
Reporter
But someday con baring will be out and both mother and daughter wonder if the nightmare that started so innocently on the Internet ever really will end.
Stephanie Lavoy (Mother)
He's not going to let her go. He's not going to let her alone and Lindsay knows it.
Original Air Date: May 21, 2026
Podcast: 48 Hours
Host: CBS News (Primary Investigator: Susan Spencer)
"Web of Seduction" is an investigative episode exploring the harrowing case of 14-year-old Lindsay Lavoy, who, after meeting a much older man online, was lured across continents into a dangerous web of manipulation, deceit, and abuse. Through in-depth interviews with Lindsay’s mother, law enforcement, and key figures connected to the investigation, 48 Hours exposes the dangers young people face online, the complexities of global cybercrime, and one family’s desperate fight to bring a daughter home. This episode also uncovers the wider network behind the perpetrator, highlighting systemic gaps and the emotional aftermath for survivors and families.
If you or someone you know is impacted by similar issues, please reach out to local authorities or organizations specializing in cyber safety and child protection.
This summary covers the core investigative narrative and insights, omitting commercial breaks and non-content segments, while retaining the authentic language and tenor of the participants.