Sara Anne Wood's tragic backstory
NCMEC discusses the case of Sara Wood, whose body hasn't been found 30 years after she disappeared in 1993. (Credit: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children)
A young girl's killer continues to toy with investigators as they look for Sara Anne Wood's body, which could be buried in a dumping ground with other children, a prosecutor told Fox News Digital.
Wood was 12 when she vanished during an Aug. 18, 1993, bike ride from her church, where her dad was a pastor, to her home in upstate New York.
Lewis Lent Jr. admitted to abducting and killing the girl in 1996, but he's kept her grave site a secret for decades.
"My investigators and I have been visiting Lewis Lent continuously for the last 30 years," Herkimer County District Attorney Jeffrey Carpenter said. "He's a psychopathic child murderer, so you have to start with that premise. And he wants to keep her presence all to himself."
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On Aug. 18, 1993, Sara Wood hopped on her bike and rode home from church in Frankfort, New York, and vanished. Thirty years later, her body still hasn't been found. (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children)
There was a potential lead in the case as recently as mid-November that led investigators to scour 29 acres of dense Vermont woods, but the search came up empty.
"Investigators reviewed all of their prior discussions they had with Lent, and they focused on one particular occasion where he described the location where he buried Sara's body," Carpenter said.
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That description seemed to match the Dome Hiking Trail, a small section of the 400,000-acre Green Mountain National Forest in southwestern and central Vermont.
The three-day search led by New York State Police included over 80 New York and Vermont state troopers and forest rangers with squads of K-9 units.
But the frustrating case hit another dead end.
More than 80 New York and Vermont state troopers and forest rangers with squads of K-9 units searched the Dome Hiking Trail, a small section of the 400,000-acre Green Mountain National Forest in southwestern and central Vermont in mid-November for Sara Wood's remains. (New York State Police)
Carpenter discussed a couple of theories when asked why he thinks Lent Jr. won't give up Wood's grave site.
Part of it, he said, is he thinks Lent Jr. could be toying with investigators. Carpenter recalled bringing Lent Jr. back to New York in 2013 "with the hopes that he was going to show us where he buried Sara."
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Again, he kept the secret to himself.
"I think he doesn't want to give up the location to keep her presence all to himself," Carpenter said. "There's always been this theory that there are other children buried with Sara, and those are crimes for which he could be prosecuted for.
"This is just speculation, but when you look at what Lewis has done over the course of his lifetime, it's not wild speculation."
Who is Lewis Lent Jr.?
Lent Jr., now in his 70s, was a janitor in Massachusetts when he burst on law enforcement's radar with an attempted gunpoint abduction Jan. 7, 1994.
He threatened 12-year-old Rebecca Savarese with the weapon and tried to snatch her and drag her into his truck in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
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But the sharp-witted Savarese pretended to be out of breath, which tricked Lent Jr. long enough to get away. He grabbed her backpack, but she shimmied out of it and escaped.
A year later — Jan. 12, 1995 — Lent Jr. was convicted on several charges for the attempted abduction.
Sara Wood, 12, was abducted and killed in 1993, but her body was never found. (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children)
During his interrogation, Lent Jr. admitted to abducting and killing 12-year-old James Bernardo from a Pittsfield movie theater, where Lent used to work, in October 1990.
The boy's body was found naked and hanged in Newfield, New York, near Lent Jr.'s childhood home.
He also admitted to killing Wood during the same interrogation. Lent Jr. was sentenced to life without parole for Bernardo's murder and 25 years to life in New York for Wood's murder.
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He originally told investigators he buried Wood near Raquette Lake in the Adirondacks but refused to give an exact location. Multiple searches at different times of the year came up empty.
He also confessed to kidnapping and murdering James Lusher, 16, in Westfield, Massachusetts, in 1992. But he later recanted, and law enforcement couldn't make a strong enough case to convict him.
James Bernardo was 12 when he was abducted and killed by Lewis Lent Jr., who's serving life without parole in Massachusetts for the boy's 1990 murder. (weremember.com)
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Lent Jr. hasn't served any time in New York for Sara's murder, which is something Carpenter said he wants to change.
"I think, at this point in time, what I am going to focus on is attempting to get him back to New York State to serve the sentence that was imposed upon him for Sara's murder," he said. "It's going to take multi-state cooperation, but we're looking into that now.
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"Every day he's in Massachusetts is another day that he doesn't serve any time for Sara's death. I want justice for her family."
The New York county's top prosecutor and the investigators have taken this case personally, he said.
"Many (investigators and law enforcement officers) have come and gone, retired, etc.," Carpenter said. "And none of them lost contact with this case, even after retirement. They're still active in it. It's personal, and my hat's off to them."
Herkimer County District Attorney Jeffrey Carpenter wants to restore the innocence lost when Sara Wood was abducted in 1993 from the small, upstate New York county. (Herkimer County District Attorney Jeffrey Carpenter's Office)
Herkimer County is a 1,458-square-mile county in upstate New York with a population around 60,000. Carpenter said it's a "small, close-knit county that lost a child."
"Sara was doing what normal little girls do back when she was abducted," he said. "And, unfortunately, not only was she taken from us, but a certain innocence was taken from everyone in our county and the surrounding area.
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"All of a sudden, you couldn't let your children be children. You can't let them walk alone. It changed everything for us, and that's something we're trying to fight to get back."
Carpenter said he, his office and law enforcement officers "want closure for Sara's parents, her family and for our community."
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