For 34 years, she thought her children were dead

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   >>> than three decades in the making. a mother back together with a son and daughter she thought she had lost in a deadly car accident . we'll talk to them exclusively in a moment. but first, natalie has their story. natalie , good morning.

   >> hey, matt. vickie and her children say they have waited a long time to be together. it all began more than 34 years ago when vickie was separated from karen and scott 's father.

   >> he wanted the divorce. and i said, i'll give you that, but i want my children back.

   >> reporter: it was the fall of 1976 . vickie 's divorce to her husband, jimmy, had just been finalized. victoria says after months apart from her children, karen and scott , ages 8 and 5 at the time, were on their way back to her.

   >> i was excited. i couldn't wait for them to come back home.

   >> reporter: but instead, vickie says she got a shocking phone call . there was a terrible car accident . her ex-husband in critical condition and her two young children dead.

   >> i was distraught. i said, well, where did this accident happen? click went the phone.

   >> reporter: devastated by determined, vickie says she tried to track down her ex-husband, jimmy, but vick ski said he vanished and so did any information about how her children died.

   >> not being able to see my children's bodies and not being able to bury them just devastating. i couldn't say good-bye.

   >> reporter: but karen and scott , the two children, were very much alive, living in new jersey. they say they were enduring a mystery of their own.

   >> i used to ask my dad, you know, questions like, "where's mom?"

   >> reporter: they say their father told them, "mom had abandoned the family."

   >> he said, she didn't want you. she dumped you on my doorstep.

   >> reporter: after searching in vain, vickie , living just six hours away in rochester, new york, said she hired a private investigator.

   >> i couldn't find any answers. and i needed answers.

   >> reporter: meanwhile, all the kids wanted was stability.

   >> my dad constantly moving us from school to school.

   >> we didn't stay very long anywhere.

   >> reporter: vickie says her private investigator never got a good lead, but she found hope in the gaps of information.

   >> i truly believed in my heart that they were still alive.

   >> reporter: meanwhile, karen and scott were growing. and so were their suspicions about their father's story.

   >> he never gave us a straight answer.

   >> you keep hearing so many conflicting stories, you've got to find out for yourself.

   >> reporter: last month with the help of an internet-savvy friend, karen and scott went looking for their mother. and in just days, they found vickie . they reconnected first over the phone.

   >> i felt like this void, this emptiness i had in my heart, it's just filled up instantly.

   >> i just had so much i wanted to say, so much i wanted to hear from her.

   >> it was definitely one of the better days of my life.

   >> reporter: less than a week after that call, vickie made the drive to georgia where her grown children now live. the reunion happened before she could even get out of the car.

   >> my daughter and my son came running over to the car, opened up the door, and hugged me. i wrapped my arms around them. the fullness in my heart, if it were a balloon, it would have been burst. just being able to hug my daughter and my son was a dream come true.

   >> and we reached out to karen and scott 's father, jimmy black, who currently lives with scott . and he tells us after the divorce, vickie never called asking for the children back. he also maintains that he had no knowledge of that phone call that vickie says upended her world decades earlier claiming they were all dead in a car crash . he says he moved his children because he was trying to put them in better schools. matt?

   >> natalie , thanks very much. vickie and her children, scott black and karen cason, are with us. good morning to everyone. tears all around here. you must, in some ways, feel like life has begun again.

   >> yes, it has. you live your whole life being told one thing, and you find something else out. the person that was taken away from you at an early age, you finally get them back.

   >> i would imagine there are people right now, despite what they've just seen, shaking their heads at home. at the time you were going through this separation and divorce, vickie , was there no custody agreement? was there nothing legal in place that you could have used to help find these kids?

   >> nothing. the only thing i had in my divorce decree was that custody and visitation rights would be decided by the new york state family court system. and when i met karen and scott after all these years, they said their father had told them that he had legal custody . so when we talked on the phone, they told me that, i brought a copy of my divorce to show them. your father never, ever had custody of you.

   >> you went to the police. the police could not help you? they couldn't track down this man and these children?

   >> i went to the -- we had several incidences in jersey city . and the police said, that's a matter for family court .

   >> and family court , then, didn't step up and they couldn't help you either?

   >> well, i went to family court , you know, where i live in rochester with my lawyer. and he says, we need the children in order to pursue this in court. i told him, i can't find my children.

   >> yeah. when did you two begin your own search? you obviously had questions. when did you actively start the search for your mom?

   >> i started searching -- it had to be in the mid-'90s. and it led to dead ends. and i didn't have -- you know, the internet wasn't back then what it is today. and social security administration told me, well, you know, if you can give us an unsealed letter, a letter with an unsealed envelope explaining why you want to find her, we can track her down through whatever information you have. they never forwarded it. i guess they didn't feel it was a good enough reason why.

   >> karen , you were told by your dad your mother abandoned you. she didn't care about you. was it only after a certain amount of time that it just didn't add up to you?

   >> after a certain amount of time, you know, my father would always tell me different stories. he said i told, you know, my father said, i told your mom you were dead. she's in the army. she's in the peace corps . his story always changed.

   >> at any point -- and it's hard to ask this question with you here, vickie . i apologize for this. at any point, then or now, do you think perhaps your dad is telling the truth and vickie 's not telling the truth?

   >> i always look at it this way, you know. both parents have their own version of the story, okay? and i have to give her the benefit of the doubt . i have to try to give him the benefit of the doubt .

   >> the truth perhaps somewhere in the middle?

   >> when she tells me the story, and we talked about it three or four times over the past couple weeks, it always seem s to be the same. over the past 30 years when i asked him the story, it always changed.

   >> here's the thing that jumps out at me most, scott , for you is you live with him now. you're going -- he's watching this. and you're going to go home there tomorrow. there's going to be a lot of tension in that house, isn't there?

   >> well, there was already tension because my wife doesn't understand why i still let him live with me after i found out the truth. but the one thing i see is, no matter what, he's still going to be my father. and the second is he's a person. i can't put him out on the street with no place to go. he's on a fixed income. what he gets isn't enough to support himself in a regular apartment. i have a room in the back of my house. i rent him a room back there.

   >> quickly, what's the future of this relationship between the three of you now, vickie ?

   >> oh, i will never, never lose my children again. never. and, you know, when i talked to them on the phone, when they first found me, and even when i got down to scott 's house in georgia, i said, if i did not love you and i abandoned you and left you on your dad's doorstep, i said, it would have been very easy for me to say for when she called, i am not the victoria you're looking for. and i certainly wouldn't have driven all the way down here to come and see you.

   >> we wish you luck.

   >> thank you.

   >> thank you.

   >> with the rest of your story. appreciate you joining us

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