WHY WONT SEARCH FUNCTION CORRECTLY RETURN A POINTER

I need some help with my code. The function findNode lies within a header file, and is called in the main. As you can see, findNode calls itself until it finds the correct data value in each of the nodes. The type of tree implemented is a General Tree. My problem is that the function does find the TreeNode it needs to find, but it returns it incorrectly. The data value of p in main is empty

TreeNode<Type>* findNode(Type &_data, TreeNode<Type>* _ptr)
{

    if(_ptr->data == _data)
    {
        cout << "ptr->data: " << _ptr->showData() << endl;
        return _ptr;
    } 
    if(_ptr->children != NULL)
    {
        findNode(_data, _ptr->children->getHead());
    }
    if(_ptr->getNext() != NULL)
    {
        findNode(_data, _ptr->getNext());
    }

}


In MAIN:
.
.
        case 3:
        {
            string data;
            cout << "****************" << endl;
            cout << "***findNode()***" << endl;
            cout << "Data to find: " << endl;
            cin >> data;

            TreeNode<string>* p = Tree->findNode(data, Tree->getRoot());

            cout << "p->data = " << p->showData() << endl;

            break;
        }