Naman Shrestha
While the focal point of the episode titled ‘The Unending Search for Sara Anne Wood’ of CBS’ ’48 Hours’ is the vanishing of Sara Anne Wood, a few other abduction cases were also touched upon. For instance, the case of the attempted abduction of another 12-year-old girl named Rebecca “Beck” Savarese was also explored in the episode. It was thanks to her efforts that the perpetrator was finally caught after years of wreaking havoc on children across the nation.
Rebecca “Becky” Savarese Played a Huge Role in the Arrest of Lewis Lent
In the early 1980s, Christine Paoli entered motherhood after giving birth to her lovely daughter, Rebecca “Becky” Savarese. Raised by her single mother, Rebecca stayed with her family at 10 Riverview West in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In order to allow her daughter to achieve big things in life and support her education at the Notre Dame Middle School, Christine worked at the Cumberland Farms store. Walking to school every morning was a norm in Rebecca’s life, but this short walk down to the school almost turned out to be life-threatening for her on January 7, 1994.
Around 7 am that morning, the 12-year-old girl was on her way to school when a stranger approached her at a heavily crowded intersection. As soon as he got close to Rebecca, he pulled out a gun and threatened to pull the trigger if she did not listen to everything he told her to do. After he made her walk towards his van and ordered her to get inside, she used her presence of mind and faked an asthma attack. When she tried to take her backpack off, he attempted to grab her to prevent her from running away, but all he caught in his hand was her backpack, giving her the opportunity to escape the clutches of the man. Rebecca came across a man on the sidewalk and asked him to call the police, while another witness remembered a few digits of the truck in which the strange man was speeding away from the neighborhood.
Upon informing the authorities about the incident, they looked into the matter and, with the help of the partial license plate numbers, managed to connect Lewis Lent, a 43-year-old handyman and former janitor, to the abduction attempt of Rebecca. In the beginning, Lewis refused to recognize Rebecca at all but eventually ended up admitting that he tried to kidnap her while she was headed to school. After obtaining a search warrant for the accused’s truck, the investigators inspected the vehicle and came across Rebecca’s backpack that she left behind, a gun, and a “snatch kit.” According to him, it was his abducting kit that contained a clothesline rope and duct tape used for bounding his victims.
Rebecca’s Escape From Lewis Lent Led to the Solving of Other Abduction Cases
Once he was arrested for the attempted kidnapping of Rebecca Savarese, the police enquired if he had taken other victims in the past. Eventually, he admitted that he was responsible for the disappearance of a 12-year-old girl named Sara Anne Wood of Sauquoit, New York. He claimed that he abducted and sexually assaulted her before killing her. Lewis also confessed to kidnapping and killing a 12-year-old Pittsfield resident named Jimmy Bernardo. While the authorities were able to locate his body in a secluded area 200 miles away from Pittsfield, they could not get him to reveal the location of Sara’s burial site.
New York State Police Detective Frank Lawrence gave credit to Rebecca’s bravery and intelligence as she was the reason that broke open the case of Sara’s disappearance. Frank stated in the show, “She’s the key, she’s the linchpin. She’s what made it all happen…She got away…That’s what put us on to Lewis Lent.” About a year after Rebecca’s attempted abduction, in 1995, Lewis Lent was convicted and sentenced to 17 to 20 years in prison. As for the murder of Jimmy Bernardo, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996.
The following year, in 1997, he was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the killing of Sara Anne Wood. Thinking back to the time when Rebecca managed to escape the clutches of Lewis Lent, Herkimer County District Attorney Jeffrey Carpenter said, “I think Becky Savarese not only saved herself, she saved countless children because this man (Lewis Lent) was developing his skills. He was getting better at it. She outsmarted him…and brought an end to his reign of terror.” As of today, Rebecca has gone off the radar and prefers to lead a private life, seemingly with her family and other loved ones.
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