Children Found After 20 years, Parents Talk to WSAV

It sounds like the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. A kidnapping, 20 years ago, solved...the good news is the children, now all grown up, are alive and safe. Christie and Bobby Baskin hadn't been seen in 20 years. The report started in Murphreesboro, Tennessee, where the children were living at the time. They've been found on the other side of the country, south of San Francisco. Another twist, their grandfather is under arrest tonight for their kidnapping. Authorities say they tracked him down after he read a story about himself online and complained to a bartender who turned him in.

"It was a blessing. To know they were alive and well,” Debbie Baskin said.

They could never call the past 20 years easy, but their constant sources of strength always stayed close and that's what got them through.

"When you go through horrible things you want to think that God has forgotten you and sometimes it can feel that way and luckily we've just been surrounded by Godly, Christian people who've just never forsaken us and we've seen the love of God through His people here on earth,” Debbie Baskin said.

Packing their bags to see their first two children who were allegedly taken by Debbie’s parents 20 years ago, they always hoped this day would come but sometimes it only seemed like a dream.

WSAV asked Mark Baskin if he thought he’d ever see the children again.

"In the first several years, I had the kind of faith that it would be the next day, I was just like a kid. But as time wore on, I began to get less expectant and in time I guess you get a little less hopeful. And it would kind of go up and down,” Mark Baskin said.

While they consider this a joyous journey ahead, they will not ignore the dark road that got them here.

“I could never imagine ever hurting my children, so what they've done to me, I've never been able to understand it,” Debbie Baskin said. “But I'm concerned about him, I know that he is not a nice person but he's still my father and my heart is breaking.”

The couple will arrive in San Jose Thursday and they plan to stay through Tuesday.