Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Disappearance of Sara Anne Wood

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Disappearance of Sara Anne Wood · Murder Files Unsealed

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Speaker 1: Welcome back, deep divers. Ready for another deep.
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Speaker 2: Dive, absolutely, always ready to go deep.
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Speaker 1: Well, today we're going way back to nineteen ninety three,
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a case that's haunted Central New York for decades now,
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the disappearance of twelve year old Sarah and wid.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this one's stuck with a lot of people. I think,
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a real tragedy.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, And we're basing this deep dive on a forty
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eight hours episode that's just packed with information, first hand accounts,
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you know, the real deal. We hear from Sarah's brother Dusty,
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the investigators who work so hard on this case, and
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even from Lewis Lent, the man convicted of her murder.
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It's pretty heavy stuff.
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Speaker 2: It's a lot to unpack, for sure, But our mission here,
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you know, what we really want to get into is
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the timeline, the key events in this case and the
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massive search for Sarah. And then there's the really disturbing
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aspect of it all, why her killer just won't reveal
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where her body is, the psychological impact of that on
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her family, on the community. It's just it's hard to fathom.
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Speaker 1: No, it really is. And the forty eight hours piece
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starts by painting this picture of Sarah, you know, before
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everything went dark. They talked to her brother, Dusty, and
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he just lights up when he remembers her. He talks
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about her bright blue eyes, how full of life, she
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was always smiling, and it sounds like there were two
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peas in a pod, both so outgoing.
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Speaker 2: They're both really young too. Dusty was just a teenager
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when Sarah disappeared.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, just fourteen, And he shares this really specific memory
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of her. Right before she disappeared, she was heading out
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to a vacation Bible school on her bike and she
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was singing, get this, Dolly Parton's working nine to five,
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just normal summer day.
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Speaker 2: You know. It's those everyday details that really hit you, right, Yeah,
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makes the whole thing even more tragic.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, And then you know, as the day goes on,
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the alarm bells start ringing, Sarah doesn't come home. Dusty
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gets that call from his parents and you can just
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hear the panic in his voice as he recounts it
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in the episode. They find her bike hidden in the bushes,
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not even half a mile from home. But here's the thing.
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No one saw anything, No one reported a suspicious vehicle,
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no signs of a struggle, just the bike and some
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school papers scattered nearby.
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Speaker 2: It's like she vanished into thin air, exactly.
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Speaker 1: And you can only imagine the fear of the confusion
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that takes over the community just sprang into action. The
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forty eight hours report really captures that the police neighbors,
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everyone's out searching day and night. They turn the local
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church into a command post. It becomes the heart of
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the search effort.
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Speaker 2: It really speaks to the power of community, doesn't it.
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Speaker 1: It does, And you can see in the old news
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footage how desperately Sarah's parents were clinging to hope. They
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were pleading for her return. And Frances Wood, Sarah's mom,
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even said she didn't hate whoever took her daughter, She
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just wanted her back.
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Speaker 2: Just heart wrenching.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. And the investigators they had to start somewhere. They
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talk about considering every possibility, even the Sarah's own family.
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It's standard procedure, but you can only imagine how difficult
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that must have been for them.
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Speaker 2: It's going to be tough, but you have to rule
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everything out right.
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Speaker 1: And they also looked into known sex offenders in the area,
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but nothing panned out. Months went by with no solid leads.
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Must have been agonizing for everyone involved.
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Speaker 2: I can't even imagine. But then a break in the case,
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and it came from a totally unexpected place, a teletype
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message in January nineteen ninety four, that's almost a year
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after Sarah disappeared, about an attempted abduction in Pittsfield, Massachusetts,
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over one hundred miles away.
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Speaker 1: So this is where things take a turn. This twelve
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year old girl, Becky Savay's she's walking to school when
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this man pulls up in a truck, shows her a
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gun and tries to force her inside. But Becky, she
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keeps her cool and she pretends to have an asthma attack.
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Speaker 2: Talk about brave.
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Speaker 1: It's incredible. It saved her life. And there was a
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witness who got a partial license plate number, and wouldn't
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you know it, that partial plate leads the police straight
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to Lewis Lent.
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Speaker 2: Wow. Talk about a lucky break, if you can even
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call it that.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And what's even crazier is that Lent wasn't even
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on their radar at this point. He had a minor
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criminal record, but nothing to suggest he was capable of
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something like this.
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Speaker 2: Shows you how these guys can fly into.
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Speaker 1: The radar exactly and then they searched his truck and
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it's like something out of a night mare. They find
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Becky's backpack, a gun, duct tape rope. One of the
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detectives even calls it lents kidnapping abduction kit.
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Speaker 2: Chilling stuff, Oh, absolutely chilling. So at this point they've
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got Lent in Massachusetts, but the New York Investigators they're
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thinking about Sarah, right.
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Speaker 1: And Detective Frank Lawrence goes up to Massachusetts to interview Lent,
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but Lent's not giving much away. They show him Sarah's
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poster and he's just completely flat, no.
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Speaker 2: Reaction, a poker face, you got it, And.
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Speaker 1: Eventually he confesses to Becky's attempted abduction, but still nothing
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about Sarah. It's not until the next day, and here's
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where it gets interesting. The detectives find out that Lent's religious,
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so they put a Bible in the interview room with him.
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Speaker 2: Interesting tactic, it was.
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Speaker 1: And then Lent starts talking and it gets really dark.
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He talks about this plan he had to kidnap people
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and keeps him alive in this coffin like box he
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was building. They even found a weird partition wall in
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his bedroom that seemed to fit his stories, so creepy,
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and brings up Jimmy Bernardo.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, Jimmy Bernardo, a twelve year old who disappeared from
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Pittsfield three years before Sarah. His body was found a
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month later, but the case went cold.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, just awful, and Lent confesses to Jimmy's murder. He
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tells them he met Jimmy at the movie theater where
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he worked as a janitor, offered him money to help
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with something, then overpowered him, drove him all the way
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to New York, strangled him, and dumped his body. And
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here's the kicker. He gave details about the murderer that
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only the killer and the police knew.
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Speaker 2: That's when you know they've got the right.
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Speaker 1: Guy, no doubt. So that confession in their pocket, they
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keep pressing him about Sarah, and finally, five months after
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she vanished, he admits to killing her too. He gives
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them specific details like what she was wearing, that her
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bike chain was broken, even that her bike was a
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little too big for her stuff. No one else would know.
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Speaker 2: Those details really seal the deal.
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Speaker 1: They do, and then comes the map. Lent draws them
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a map, says he buried Sarah's body off Route twenty
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eight near Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks. And that's
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when they launched this massive search the Adirondacks.
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Speaker 2: That's a huge area to search, it is.
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Speaker 1: And the conditions were brutal. Dusty Wood remembers it was
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the middle of winter. Temperatures were like thirty below zero,
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snow up to their waists. They searched for fifty days,
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but they found nothing.
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Speaker 2: Just devastating. After all that, still know Sarah.
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Speaker 1: Nope, and legally Lent's in big trouble. He gets convicted
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in Massachusetts for Becky Savareze's attempted abduction, then gets a
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life sentence for Jimmy Bernardo's murder. Finally, he pleads guilty
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to Sarah's murder in New York and gets another twenty
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five years to life.
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Speaker 2: So at least there's some justice.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's not real closure, you know, because Sarah's
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still out there. And then the investigators start noticing problems
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with Lent's story. For one thing, he cashed to check
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in Massachusetts just hours after Sarah disappeared. There's just no
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way he could have driven all the way to the
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Adirondacks and buried her in that timeframe.
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Speaker 2: So he lied about where he buried her.
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Speaker 1: Looks like it and a lot of the investigators who
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worked on the case they think Lent killed other kids too.
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They visited him in prison for years hoping he'd slip
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up and tell them more.
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Speaker 2: Makes you wonder why he wouldn't just tell them where
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Sarah is if he's already serving life sentences.
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Speaker 1: That's the million dollar question. And Lents got his own explanations.
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Of course. He says he has blackouts, even talks about
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this alter ego named.
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Speaker 2: Steven Oh the old the devil made me do it
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routine right.
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Speaker 1: What's really fascinating is that people who knew Lent describe
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him as a pretty normal guy. One guy, Phil Shaley's,
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who's legally blind, talks about how Lent would help him
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out with construction work. Frank Colet from Lent's Bible school,
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remembers him as quiet and unassuming. Richard Bauman, Lent's boss
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at the movie theater, even gets emotional talking about him,
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like he feels like he missed some warning signs.
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Speaker 2: It's really disturbing how someone can be so two face totally.
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Speaker 1: And the FBI profiler Julia Cally, she has a really
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interesting take on this. She says Len's helpfulness it wasn't genuine.
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It was all a way to hide his true nature,
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to manipulate people.
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Speaker 2: A wolf in sheep's clothing exactly.
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Speaker 1: And she thinks he won't tell them where Sarah's body
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is because he gives him control. It's a secret he
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can hold on to a way to keep hurting her family.
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So twisted and then get this. In twenty thirteen, Lent
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confesses to another murder. This time it's Jamie Lusher, a
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sixteen year old with disabilities who disappeared in Massachusetts in
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nineteen ninety two. He was riding his bike near a
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friendly's restaurant when he vanished.
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Speaker 2: Oh man, another kid.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And Lent tells them he dumped Jamie's body in
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greenwater pond, but they search the pond and come up empty.
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Then Lent takes back his confession. They decided not to
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prosecute him for Jamie's murder because he's already serving life,
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but they're still hoping he'll eventually tell them where to
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find Jamie. Jamie's sister, Jennifer Noak, talks about how her
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family just wants to be able to lay him to rest.
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Speaker 2: Awful, just another layer of tragedy.
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Speaker 1: And that same year, twenty thirteen, they take Lent on
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this three day road trip, driving him around Massachusetts and
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New York over six hundred miles, trying to jog his
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memory about where he buried Sarah. They even go back
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to the spot where he says he killed her. But
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the district attorney, Jeffrey Carpenter, he comes away convinced that
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Lent knows exactly where Sarah is, but he's just not
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going to tell them. There's even a recording of Carpenter
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confronting Lent. You can hear the frustration in his voice.
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Speaker 2: They must have been so close, yet so far.
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Speaker 1: And since then they've had a few more leads, a
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search in Vermont based on some landmarks Lent mentioned, another
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search of the cellar where he used to work, but nothing.
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Speaker 2: It's just unbelievable, it is.
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Speaker 1: But Sarah's brother, Dusty, he's turned his grief into something positive.
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He started this organization called the Ride for Missing Children,
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and they wear turquoise and pink, the color Sarah was
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wearing when she disappeared. They go to schools and teach
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kids about abduction prevention.
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Speaker 2: That's amazing turning such a horrible experience into something that helps.
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Speaker 1: Others, and Dussy says he's not as angry anymore and
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he believes he'll see Zera again in heaven. The forty
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eight Hours episode ends with a plea for anyone with
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information about Sarah or Jamie to come forward. They give
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a number for the New York State Police. It's reminded
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that even though there's been a conviction, these cases are
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still open and the families are still searching for answers.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a reminder that justice doesn't always mean closure.
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Speaker 1: So this whole case, it's just incredibly sad, this young
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girl taken from her family and her killer still holding
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onto that final piece of the puzzle, the location of
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her body. It's a reminder that evil can wear a
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very ordinary mask and that sometimes even with a conviction,
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there's no real end to the suffering.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, it makes you think about the power of memory,
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how important it is to those who've lost someone, and
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how it can be twisted and used as a weapon
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by someone like Lent. And it makes you wonder what
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does it really take to find peace when there's no closure.
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Speaker 1: That's a heavy question to end on but it's one
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we're thinking about. Thanks for joining us for another deem dive.
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We'll be back soon with another case that's sure to
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keep you on the edge of your seat.
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Speaker 2: Until then, stay curious and stay safe.