'Baby Savanna' stands by mum who kidnapped her

The woman unknowingly kidnapped by her mother and raised under a false identity has returned to her birthplace in the US to see her mother in prison.

Samantha Geldenhuys was born Savannah Todd, a household name in her birthplace South Carolina because she disappeared with her mother Dorothy Lee Barnett when she was just nine months old, following a bitter custody battle.

Raised in South Africa and Australia under a false identity with Barnett's second husband — who Samantha believed was her father — It was 20 years before she discovered the truth.

For those looking for her, the mystery came to an end in November 2013 when Savanna Todd and her mother were found living on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.

But Samantha never stopped supporting her mother, who in February 2015 was sentenced to 21 months prison followed by two years of supervised parole.

She is expected to be released within a few months to account for time served since her arrest in November, 2013.

Now Samantha has met her US family for the first time and faced the tough decision whether to meet her birth father.