Transcript of True Crime Vault: Sabrina: Lost or Stolen?

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Step into the 2020 True Crime Vault where you'll hear our most gripping stories.

911.

My baby's been kidnapped.

All right, ma'am, you need to calm down.

I didn't know what to think. I'm just screaming.

Tonight on 20/20, a breakthrough in the story that transfixed the nation, the disappearance of baby Sabrina.

A 5-month-old girl who disappeared from her home in the middle of the night. This is where he heard the baby crying.

Grieving parents who some thought didn't quite look the part. Perception was that they were cold.

Seen by some as being unemotional.

Before long, police are zeroing in on them.

They said, we believe you know where your daughter is.

But the Eisenbergs say they know nothing.

They hire a lawyer and stop cooperating.

They're doing a half-ass 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, pulled pointing a gun at me.

Charging Steven and Marlene Eisenberg.

Either one of you have anything you want to say?

They had plenty to say, according to police, who had secretly bugged their house. The baby's dead because you did it.

We did not. We did not.

Did you start to believe that they were being framed?

Yes.

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 20/20.

Sabrina, come crawl to Mommy. Come here. Come here, gorgeous.

It's the classic family home video, a 5-month-old baby girl learning to crawl.

And there she is crawling. This is Sabrina's first video, and here she's crawling.

Sabrina Eisenberg captured for the very first time by adoring mom Marlene 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. 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. How much do you think about her?

I 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. And I've said from the very beginning, and I still say it, when she comes home, we're going to donate them together. 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?

Oh yeah, absolutely. 'Cause who would take a baby to hurt them?

Do you play that back in your mind, going into 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 23rd, 1997, a Sunday night. The family watching a movie. Later, Marlene and Steve tuck their 3 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.

And as I turn around and I look and notice my laundry room door to 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.

Her new baby and her favorite yellow blanket both gone without a trace.

911.

Emma, Emma, I need them to leave.

I think he's been kidnapped. All right, ma'am, you need to calm down.

OK. All right, take a deep breath.

Deep breath.

What do you mean your baby's been kidnapped? I just got a break.

I shut up.

My garage door was wide open.

My thing—

my house— my door was wide open and my baby's gone.

How old is your baby? My baby is 5 months old.

Oh, God, help me.

Marlene says she frantically runs to her next-door neighbor's house.

And I opened the door and she said, my baby's gone, my baby's gone. And I said, what do you mean your baby's gone? And I put my arm around her shoulder and she said, somebody came in and took my baby.

The Eisenbergs say they'd accidentally left their garage garage door up all night. Was there any sign that someone had been in your house?

Other than—

other than the door being open, her and her blanket missing.

The laundry door, was it closed when you went to bed?

Yes.

Was it locked?

No, it wasn't locked. It's something that we never locked because during the day when the children are playing, that's where they go in and out through the— with their bikes and basketball out front.

But we're not talking about the middle of the day, we're talking the middle of the night.

We felt that we were living in an area that was safer. We were on a cul-de-sac. There's one way in and one way out. We had a sense of security— a false sense of security.

Their 4-bedroom home nestled in the suburban sprawl of Valrico, Florida, a middle-class neighborhood outside Tampa where each house resembles the other. Some know Valrico for the flooding brought by last year's Hurricane Irma and the deluge of media that descended after baby Sabrina vanished. It's heart-wrenching.

It really is.

I mean, just for them to have to go through what they're going through. The community was stunned. How could a baby go missing in the night without anyone hearing a thing? Even the Eisenbergs' family dog, Brownie, didn't make a sound. But how can you explain how someone could get in here and you don't hear them and you don't find any sign that they've been in here?

Well, how do people get robbed all the time and they're sleeping and somebody goes in and steals a TV or their china? This is the same thing except they took our baby instead of China or TV.

What stood out was just how bizarre this abduction was.

Graham Brink, an editor at the Tampa Bay Times, has covered the story for years.

The idea that someone could have walked into a suburban home in the middle of the night, plucked a 5-month-old child out of her crib, obviously raised a lot of suspicion. Around the Eisenbergs.

It's unusual for a true kidnapping. A lot of times they find out that it's someone the family knew or had knowledge of, and that's part of the leads we're looking at.

This video from that morning showing a distraught Marlene led from her home by lead detectives Linda Burton and William Blake while investigators begin sweeping it for clues. They dust the garage for prints, confiscate the family cars, and bring the Eisenbergs to the police station for questioning.

They interviewed us separately, uh, doing a polygraph for Marlene and then one for me.

Did you have any concerns, any objections to doing a polygraph?

No, we even at that time offered to give them blood and fingerprints, anything they needed.

Hours later, the couple says police coached them in this televised plea.

Please Please bring our baby back to us. She needs her mother and her father. And we all miss her and love her very much. And we need her to come home to us, please.

It backfired because the perception was that they were cold.

Marlene was seen by some as being not authentic, unemotional. Law enforcement seemed to focus in on that display.

It took all the strength that I had to say what I said. And then the minute I was done, I broke down in tears. OK, hysterical. But of course, the cameras were not put on me then.

Yet the criticism would only grow, especially when the day after their daughter's disappearance, the couple was caught on camera appearing to laugh with detectives.

He said something funny on the way to the car, so that's where they got the film of me smiling.

It was like gas on a fire. Flame when they were pictured smiling so soon after Sabrina had gone missing. Then there were the polygraphs.

Steve passes his, but Marlene's comes back inconclusive, so police bring her in for another. Once again, the same results. What did the police say to you? What did they ask you?

They sat across from me and leaned forward, and they said, Marlene, Statistics show it's the parents that do these things. We believe you know where your daughter is. We believe you know what happened. And I have no idea. So here I am, my daughter's gone, and now I have the police sitting across from me who I think are going to help me, tell me that they think I know something about my baby.

When we come back, with police zeroing in—

I'd like to talk to an attorney.

The Eisenbergs shut down. Law enforcement look at that as, well, they must be trying to hide something. If you're innocent, why do you need a lawyer? Stay with us.

Stand by to go live, Bob.

I would like to say to whoever has my children, please bring them home. That's all.

In 1995, just 2 years before baby Sabrina vanished, all eyes were on this woman, Susan Smith.

State intends to seek the death penalty.

The tearful young South Carolina mom told police her young sons were abducted during a carjacking.

We have to remember the timing of Sabrina's disappearance. They were functioning under the cloud of Susan Smith.

In a gruesome turn, Smith would later confess that she drove her own children into a lake, letting them drown, hoping to win the affection of a boyfriend who said he didn't want children.

They did not want to follow in those steps. They wanted to solve the case and not be upheld to public ridicule because of their investigation.

Now, here in Florida, the public and police are wondering if Marlene Eisenberg is just the latest mom turned murderer.

We love her very much and need her to come home. But like we say—

when I first met the couple 20 years ago, suspicion had already engulfed their lives. Does it get any easier?

No, never.

All these years later and still no answers. What really happened in this Tampa suburb in the middle of the night? Was it a kidnapping, as the Eisenbergs say, or do they know more than they're letting on?

Now there's a very serious story out of Florida that's making national headlines.

The investigation into that question transfixes the national media.

It created, uh, a media frenzy in Florida.

The FBI is now involved in the search for a missing baby.

Deputies expanded their search for Sabrina. Today, the frantic mother cried out in grief.

When they come to the home, there are a lot of suspicious circumstances. It struck fear into the hearts and the minds of families all over the country. To think that while you're asleep and your child is one room away, that they could be taken.

When Marlene's polygraphs come back inconclusive, Police turn up the heat.

I couldn't believe it. I just was answering everything they said. You know, they would throw, you know, "Oh, you're under stress," and I would, "No, I'm not under stress.

You know, I have 3 beautiful children." At that time, I said, "Are you charging us with anything? Did we do anything?" He said no to those questions. And then I said, "Then I'd like to see—

talk to an attorney." That didn't sit well with the public or the police.

And they don't hire just any lawyer. They take on famed Florida attorney Barry Cohen.

They're doing a half-assed job of trying to find Sabrina.

I first spoke to Cohen back in 1998. These are parents of a kidnapped child. Why do they need a lawyer?

They were being accused of a crime that they didn't commit, and anybody that's accused of a crime that they didn't commit sure needs a lawyer pretty badly.

Today, Cohen is waging a more personal battle. Fighting cancer.

We're at the cul-de-sac where the Eisenbergs live.

So we caught up with his old team who helped defend the Eisenbergs— lawyers Todd Foster and Steve Romine and private investigator Kevin Calwary. Did you all make a conscious decision to cut them off from police and, and cooperation?

Yes, we sensed that the sheriff's office wasn't as interested in solving the case as they were making a case against the Eisenbergs.

Law enforcement look at that as that, well, they must be trying to hide something. If you're not guilty of anything, just being honest is going to help the cops find your child. In the days following Sabrina's disappearance, police mount a massive search on the ground, in the air, and in the waters surrounding the family home.

Detectives say the bloodhounds were on something.

At the time, it was the largest land and water search in Florida history.

And with the couple refusing to talk, it sets up a standoff between the parents and the police.

As far as the questions that we would like to ask them, they need to come in and sit down with us to have a formal interview.

Lieutenant Greg Brown was the Sheriff's Office spokesperson in 1998.

Can you understand their reluctance No, I can't, because as a parent, I would want my child back, and I would do whatever it takes to get my child back.

If you have nothing to hide, why not just tell the police anything and everything and let them say anything and everything?

We tried. We called the police a week ago and said we would come in and talk to them as long as it could be taped and our attorney could be present, and they said no.

They don't want the information to find Sabrina. They want the information to close a case. They've even said to our relatives, We're not looking for a baby. We're looking for a body. How would you feel as a parent when you heard that? Does that make you feel open to talking to them?

So while police continue their massive search, the Eisenbergs attend candlelight vigils surrounded by supporters and work to get Sabrina's picture out far and wide.

I smile at every baby I see to see if it smiles back, and if it does, I know it might be Sabrina.

And while they aren't talking to police, they are talking to the media.

We are now joined by Marlene and—

Appearing on Good Morning America, Oprah, and 20/20.

Tonight we take you inside this explosive case.

Then, 2 months after Sabrina vanished, the Eisenbergs find themselves in danger of losing their 2 other children as well, this time at the hands of Florida's Child Protective Services. How frightening was it for you that the Department of Children and Family Services showed up and started looking at your other children?

Yes.

Yes.

And we— and we— you know what? We left the room and let them interview our children. And after they left, they said, "These kids are great.

There's nothing wrong in this household." A week later, the couple back on the hot seat, this time with federal prosecutors asking questions in front of a grand jury.

Either one of you have anything you want to say?

But if authorities think they'll finally get the Eisenbergs talking again, They are wrong.

Steve and Marlene Eisenberg were silent as they walked into the federal courthouse, and apparently they also had little to say before the federal grand jury. You would think that naturally parents of a child that had gone missing would spill everything they know in the hope that maybe it could help the investigation. That's not what happened. The Eisenbergs took the Fifth Amendment at grand jury.

Why?

Well, that's what we were advised to do from our attorney.

Because it was a stacked deck in our view against them.

But you understand that to a lot of people it didn't look good for them to take the Fifth.

Plenty of people that are innocent take the Fifth. There's somebody on the other side that has an intent to try and hurt you. You can tell the truth, but they take your words and they spin it to fit what they want.

How did this ordeal affect this family?

It ran them out of town. They had to leave Tampa. It was just untenable for them to remain in this community.

Nearly 2 years after Sabrina vanished, the family moves to Maryland, back into Steve's childhood home.

One of the biggest reasons we were moving was because we couldn't raise our children to respect the authorities there.

But the Eisenbergs discover that 1,000 miles cannot protect them from determined Florida authorities.

They busted. In my front door.

Who will reveal that they have secret tapes. So you never heard the baby's dead and buried? It was found dead because you did it. Stay with us.

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The couple flees Florida for the refuge of Steve's childhood home in Bethesda, Maryland. But on September 9th, 1999, a knock on the door sends their new lives spinning.

I noticed a bunch of cars coming up and a lot of men getting out of the cars, and they busted in my front door, and they are pointing a gun at me, and they're like, Marlene, put down the phone. And I said, put down the gun and I'll put down the phone.

Steve Eisenberg is at his real estate office when police arrived for him.

They said, we've got a break in the case. I go, great, did you find our daughter? Was my first question. They said, we're here to arrest you.

Arrested not for the death of their daughter, but charged with lying to law enforcement about what happened to her. There was a dramatic break in the case.

Steven and Marlene Eisenberg have been charged with lying to authorities.

The indictment includes jaw-dropping quotes implicating the Eisenbergs in the death of their infant daughter.

The Eisenbergs discussed on several occasions that the baby was actually dead.

Is there anything at all that you guys have to say to the people?

And just How did prosecutors know what they discussed? Police had secretly been bugging their Florida home for nearly 3 months, recording more than 2,600 private conversations.

A chilling twist in the story of a missing child in Florida.

One was in the bedroom, one was in the kitchen area.

I had never heard before or since about putting a wiretap in a marital bedroom.

Yet prosecutors insisted they found a smoking gun in those private comments, leading to salacious headlines. Marlene quoted as saying to Steve, "The baby's dead and buried. It was found dead because you did it." And this damning comment attributed to Steve, "I wish I hadn't harmed her. It was the cocaine." That's all they needed.

Case closed.

How do you feel about the Eisenbergs?

I hope they convict them. If it's true, I hope they convict them, period. We hope that the people will remember that accusations are just accusations. They are presumed innocent, and we will meet these accusations head-on.

Though defense lawyer Barry Cohen publicly comes out swinging, today the rest of his team admits they were privately worried.

I mean, it sounded bad. I made some kind of comment of like, we've got our work cut out for us. And I'll never forget, he looked me straight in the eye and he's like, they didn't do this.

And when you learned that your house had been bugged, I know it ain't them.

I couldn't believe that they bugged us, our kitchen, our bedroom. You know, we thought it was a little ridiculous that they would do that. But, you know, they did it.

Some of what the investigators say that you two said was pretty damning.

All things that were never said.

Proclaiming their innocence and steadfast in the belief that their daughter's out there somewhere alive, The Eisenbergs and their defense team start doing the work they say police are not. You felt that the police made mistakes very early on?

Absolutely.

What, what kind of mistakes?

Not following up on certain leads and targeting the Eisenbergs from the minute they got there.

P.I. Kevin Colwery takes us back to the family's Valrico subdivision where he initially interviewed dozens of neighbors.

What we found is within the recent year, there had been a number of attempted break-ins, one being just 3 houses away from the Eisenbergs, when there happened to be an infant living there.

And further down the block, another tip from a neighbor named Pete McDonald. Pete has since died, but his wife Mary meets with Kevin in the same house.

Hello.

Hello.

I remember you.

I remember you too.

How are you?

Good to see you.

Back then we had a basset hound named Murphy, and he would get Pete up every single night to go out. Pete let him out the back door, and as he's opening up the door, he hears a baby crying. And he said, well, that's odd. And he didn't think anything of it till I call him at work the next day and tell him, baby Sabrina's missing. She says her Her husband called police to report what he heard. They took down the information, but she says no one bothered to follow up. This is the door that the dog went out, and this is where he heard the baby crying.

Go ahead.

There's no fence in between our house and the neighbor's house, so anybody could walk back here.

Right.

The Eisenbergs live in the cul-de-sac. Which is down and around, and it isn't far. And you can see the cars going by, how close it is. So you could walk right through there.

It's possible to have left a getaway car there. It's possible to have come in there. Anything's possible.

The Eisenbergs insist police weren't interested in other leads because they were too focused on them, feeding years of whispers and wild stories. There were a lot of theories circulating over the years, theories that Theories that maybe you had had an affair and that you weren't the father of the baby. Theories that maybe you had abused the baby. What did you make of all of these theories?

We think they're ridiculous, so we kind of ignore them because we know they're not true.

I ain't had an affair.

Ever.

But what about those damning statements prosecutors insist they recorded? When we come back, after the sensational headlines, the public finally hears those secret tapes.

When I first heard the tapes, my position was they're screwing with us.

Did you start to believe that they were being framed?

Yes.

Plus, the first glimmer of hope that baby Sabrina is alive.

A gorgeous little baby pops up from Illinois, baby Paloma.

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3 decades ago, a young woman named Angie Dodge is found brutally murdered in her bedroom in Idaho Falls.

It was the— probably the worst case I've ever seen. It is the one that sticks with me.

Police zero in on a suspect and put a man behind bars.

I don't know what the hell you guys want. Do you think we'd be wasting our time and wasting your time if we didn't think you're involved?

But as the years pass, doubts emerge about Whether the real killer was ever caught. That's when Angie's own mother embarks on a decades-long mission to uncover the truth.

23 years I've been trying to put this puzzle together, and the center's missing. I've always been told the truth will come out. You can't hide the truth.

Listen to The Snare, a new series from ABC Audio. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Podcast app and ad-free on Amazon Music. Tampa, Florida, U.S. District Court, where prosecutors are about to reveal those secret tapes which they say prove Marlene and Steve Eisenberg know what happened to their 5-month-old baby Sabrina. Their smoking gun. The only problem, there is no smoke.

You know, when you look at that indictment and You read all the damning quotes, even one should have sealed their fate, until you actually hear the audio.

I remember sitting in the gallery of the courtroom with other reporters, and when they were played, looking at each other and wondering, I can't hear anything, can you hear anything? It sounded like chickens squawking in a hurricane.

At first, even the Eisenbergs' own attorneys can't believe what they're hearing.

My position was they're screwing with us. They're giving us bad tapes.

Because when you began listening to the tapes—

Because there's no way they could be hearing what they're saying. So we'd cue it up and play it, and it's shh, shh, shh, these noises. Nothing.

So you never heard anything that resembled the baby's dead and buried, it was found dead because you did it? You never heard anything like that?

So this came from somebody's head listening to static.

You take a listen. This is that supposedly incriminating statement made by Marlene. And now here's what the indictment alleges she's saying.

Every time there would be a damning statement, you couldn't make it out. I've never in my life and all the wiretaps and all the bugging cases that I have handled heard anything as bad as this bugging attempt.

You have to be crystal clear that what a person— what you're alleging in an indictment is actually— you have it on tape. You can either hear it or you can't hear it. Did you hear those tapes?

We listened to—

we tried to—

there was nothing on them.

When Hillsborough County lead detectives Linda Burton and William Blake takes the stand in court, the Eisenbergs' attorneys pounce.

The hardest part about dealing with them was marshaling all of the errors, inconsistencies, things they didn't follow up on, um, lies. There was so much to go after her with that, I mean, truly it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Eventually, the court rules that 4 of the 12 tapes it reviewed are unintelligible. And the rest contained statements where detectives distorted the context. No bombshell at all.

One of the prosecutors said, "I understand there's nothing worse than somebody losing a child," and the judge says, "I can think of something worse," and the something worse is being falsely accused of being responsible.

A judge recommends those tapes be thrown out and blasts the lead detectives for their investigation, saying they acted at times with a reckless disregard for the truth, the charges quickly dropped.

Those wiretaps were a total self-inflicted wound the state performed on its own case. It really obscured the rest of the investigation. It overshadowed the question as to whether Steve and Marlene Eisenberg had anything to do with their daughter's disappearance.

Oh, she's getting up. There she goes. I would say, you know, all the truth is going to come out. And then finally it did, you know, the judge threw everything out, all the tapes, everything was lies, and the government paid a lot of money to your legal team, to our legal team.

It's another extraordinary twist.

Outraged, their legal team goes after the government for millions of dollars for a prosecution undertaken in bad faith.

For the first time in our government's history, since or before, that the government conceded that a federal prosecution was done vexatiously and in bad faith.

It was empowering because they said we did things that we'd never done.

But there was still some suspicion. If you believe what the Eisenbergs said happened, you have to believe that someone walked into the house in the middle of the night, picked the baby up out of a crib, crib and no one ever saw her ever again. That's difficult for a lot of people to believe.

But Marlene and Steve Eisenberg once again brush aside suspicion and try to regain a normal life.

You know, people said to us in the beginning, how could you not have a nervous breakdown? How could you not? And I'm like, well, I have a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old.

How were you able to shield them from the ordeal?

When things would come out and people would be staring and talking, we just marched on. And we just lived life with the kids.

Then in 2003, a possible prayer answered when an abandoned child surfaces in Illinois.

A woman in Illinois is looking through a missing child database and she sees a child who looks a little like Sabrina.

No one could pinpoint where she came from. She didn't come from an adoption agency. There wasn't a young mom who gave her up. She just seemingly appeared, and she looked amazingly like baby Sabrina— the fuzzy dark hair, the big brown eyes, the same skin tone.

We were shown a picture. We were said that this— there was a lead that was called in.

How much did your hopes—

Oh, a ton.

Quite a bit.

I mean, this is— this is— it's an emotional roller coaster. Poster for us.

But the mystery baby's identity would ultimately remain a mystery.

They said they did the DNA and it wasn't her.

Their hopes are dashed. Meanwhile, Florida police won't give up on their deep suspicions about the Eisenbergs. And in 2008, they think they've got another shot at arresting them. This time, police record inmate Scott Overbeck at this Tampa jail talking about his supposed involvement in baby Sabrina's disappearance. And once again, it implicates the Eisenbergs. Overbeck is said to have been asked to dispose of the infant's body, which he says was inside a boat he had retrieved from the Eisenbergs' home.

They're desperate. We love to solve these cold cases, but when you have the answer being from some guy who's been sitting in jail, I mean, why didn't he come forward before? That's always the big question.

Eventually, Barry Cohen and his other attorneys went and got statements.

What did you find out from him?

He was all over the place. I mean, he was just a junkie, and he was— we knew he was lying.

I mean, all you have to do is check public records for, um, boat ownership and see that I— we never owned a boat. So I mean, the whole story was another one of these fabricated stories to try and disparage Marlene and myself.

Did you know Overbeck, or did you know—

never heard the name.

And like so many jailhouse confessions, this one turns out to be bogus. The sheriff's office admits it's a dead end. Overbeck recants his story.

It was very surprising the Hillsborough law enforcement would put any credence in a jailhouse snitch, but you know the old saying, sometimes you got to go to hell to get your witnesses to put the devil in jail, and that's just what they did.

Still, the Eisenbergs can't seem to shake suspicion.

I know there are always going to be people that think Marlene and I had something to do with it, with Sabrina's disappearance. We did not. We did not.

When we come back, a Facebook message from a 20-year-old woman who says she thinks she's Sabrina.

She has no pictures, no baby pictures.

And she had to check her Social Security number, and she found out another woman in California has her Social Security number.

Stay with us. One online predator unleashed hell on his targets.

An internet terrorist. For the young female gamers he's hunting, there's no getting away.

It was unrelenting.

The cops need to figure out who he is and stop him before it's too late.

How is he doing all of this?

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If you like your true crime like you like your coffee, Red Handed is the podcast for you. It's dark, intense, and might just keep you up all night. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti.

And every week on Red Handed, we break down a different fascinating case. From the most recent US trials everyone is obsessing over, like Brendan Banfield, Karen Reed, and Ellen Greenberg, to the most unbelievable stories from around the world, there's nothing we love more than digging into every detail of the cases we cover, getting beyond a basic analysis and cutting to the heart of the story. Red Handed has over 400 episodes ready to binge right now. Plus, be sure to check out our weekly sister show Shorthand, where we unpack everything from the Black Death to Area 51. If you're looking for smart, detailed true crime with personality, check out Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts.

When she comes home, this will be her room.

She's never been in this house.

She's never been here, but we have mementos that we've got on travels and things from when she was born— her stool, her piggy bank, You've got pictures in here of Sabrina.

We do.

Um, William, um, Monica, and Sabrina.

So you store your memories of your daughter here?

Yeah, until she comes home.

20 years after she last saw her youngest child, Marlene Eisenberg is still waiting, hoping Sabrina will soon join her siblings William and Monica.

This is why he was so late.

He was Adults now who still come home for family game night.

Oh my God.

Back in Florida, a lot has changed too. The original detectives on the case have since retired. Sergeant Samuel Bailey now heads up the investigation. He declined to discuss those early days but says the sheriff's office remains committed to the case.

All the speculation about what occurred in the early part of the investigation is just speculation. Today we're still currently focused on trying to find Sabrina Eisenberg and bring this case to a resolution.

The Sheriff's Department doesn't have any reason to come out and say, yeah, we colossally screwed up here, um, and we're sorry for doing it, because the screw-up is so bad. You have two parents that lost their child, and then on top of it, somebody goes, you did it, and they didn't.

Have you been formally cleared as suspects, or do you think you're still under suspicion?

Uh, we don't know. We don't really talk to the authorities. We talk to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

We have a full-time case manager that is working with, um, the Eisenbergs.

Robert Lowery, a vice president at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, offers this startling fact the Eisenbergs cling to. Out of the 325 infant abductions they've studied dating back more than 50 years, Most remain alive and well cared for, and only 12 are still missing today.

An infant abduction is typically going to be by a woman of childbearing age who either had lost a child or was unable to get pregnant, and the motivation is really to take the child and, and raise the child as their own.

Like the case of Kamiyah Mobley, who was snatched from a Florida hospital just 8 months after Sabrina disappeared.

In South Carolina, we found an 18-year-old young woman.

So further investigation revealed that fraudulent documents had been used to establish that young woman's identity.

She was taken by a woman who wanted a baby of her own, who has now been prosecuted for kidnapping. That gives us a glimmer of hope, and it proves that miracles do happen.

Which is why the Eisenbergs have worked with the center for years, releasing 8 age progression photos of what Sabrina might look like. When doing an age progression, we use the family members as reference points for what we think the missing child would look like. For the latest image, the couple provided the center with teenage photos of their children, Monica and William.

When I line them up side by side, start to see things like the shape of their eyes, very unique to this family, and the length and shape of the nose nose and, uh, the angle of their mouth when they smile and just the overall shape of the face. A lot of similarities there.

I'm gonna just do an overall trace of the face. I'm gonna line up the facial features, and then I'm gonna start to add in those features that I'm actually gonna be borrowing from the siblings' faces.

Sabrina and Monica's baby pictures were identical. They were so hard to tell apart that we really believed that the 3 of our kids are gonna look so much alike. And a young girl sitting at home watching TV is gonna see William and Monica and go, "I look like those kids." But miracle homecomings aren't always perfect.

Listen to Kamiyah Mobley talk about the woman who stole her. I still do call her Mom. She will always be Mom.

She wasn't sure that she wanted to know her parents. I could never imagine that. Like, to me, it's like, when Sabrina's found, she's gonna wanna come home. And all of a sudden, I'm listening to the news say that this young woman might not wanna meet her parents.

Even if that happens to her, Marlene says she's ready for a miracle. And is it about to happen? Just months ago, a startling Facebook message from a woman 3,000 miles away sparks new hope.

I wake up and look at my phone. There was a note from a young lady who believes that she may be Sabrina. My heart's racing. She basically was like, I don't want to give false hope, but she hasn't felt like she belonged where she was.

Why does she think she could be Sabrina?

Um, she's about the same age, 20 years old.

She has no pictures, no baby pictures from the time she was 5 months. Her pictures start after that.

Her grandparents tried to adopt her, and the adoption took about 4 years.

And she doesn't necessarily believe that.

And then she had to check her Social Security number, and she found out another woman in California has her Social Security number.

So she has reason to believe that something is amiss.

Correct.

She even sent along pictures of herself, which Marlene she declines to share to protect the young woman's privacy.

So I ran around the house and grabbed pictures that, you know, of Monica, of Sabrina, of Will, and, and started looking at their, you know, ones that were matching what she sent me. I think there's some resemblances that you could see, but it's so hard to know.

And it's not just her. Another 20-year-old woman has now surfaced saying she too could be Sabrina. How much do you allow yourself to hope?

Oh, we hope every day. I mean, hope is what keeps us going and moving forward.

When we come back, after all that hope, will a DNA test solve this mystery? After 2 decades of heartache and suspicion, still no answers about what happened to baby Sabrina. But parents Steve and Marlene Eisenberg are holding out for a happy ending.

There's always that suspicion that maybe she's still alive, maybe she's still out there. I think it's still just as much a mystery today as it was back in 1997.

Do you have regrets when you look back? What would you have done differently?

I wouldn't have done anything different. Anything differently because we didn't do anything wrong. I mean, leaving our garage door open was not done on purpose.

Are you angry? What do you feel when you look back over what you've gone through?

Probably more frustration over anything that, you know, a lot of time was wasted when they could have been looking for our daughter.

All it takes is one phone call or one piece of information to solve this case. Tonight, they anxiously await that phone call.. And though they haven't gone public, both young women who reached out suspecting they could be Sabrina have had their DNA collected for testing. The results may take an excruciatingly long 3 to 6 months.

I don't understand it. It's just waiting and more waiting, and here we're so hopeful. We just want to know.

The fact is that while we want to believe DNA, it can be done in minutes. In fact, it is just not The way that DNA works, it takes a lot longer than that. But either it's going to be their child or not.

I hope it's one of these two girls. But if it's not, our hope is that other people that are thinking that they're not in the right space and not in the right place will reach out to us so that we can get DNA for them taken, because it's time.

What do you most want people to know about Marlene and Steve Eisenberg?

That we love our family and that we—

and we love each other.

And love each other and we want our daughter to come home to make our family whole again.

And if you think you've seen Sabrina, you can call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-373-7888. 800-THE-LOST. You've been listening to the 20/20 True Crime Vault. Friday nights at 9 on ABC, you can also find all new broadcast episodes of 20/20. Thanks for listening.

If you sold somebody a loaded gun who you knew was in a vulnerable state and they shot themselves, I think it is murder.

Just because you're using the internet doesn't mean you get away with murder. I'm Damon Fairless, host of Hunting Warhead. This season, I take you inside the business of suicide and the places desperate people go when they can't find what they need in the real world. Hunting the Suicide Salesman, available now wherever you get your podcasts.