Naman Shrestha
In the late summer of 1993, 12-year-old Sara Anne Wood vanished into thin air while riding toward her Sauquoit house on her bicycle. Noticing her disappearance, the Woods filed a missing persons report, shaking the entire community to its core. Despite the best efforts of the authorities and neighbors, Sara was nowhere to be found and later declared to be dead. The disappearance case is the focus of discussion in the episode titled ‘The Unending Search for Sara Anne Wood’ of CBS’ ’48 Hours,’ which also features loved ones of the victims opening up about the impact her disappearance and death had on them.
Sara Anne Wood Disappeared in 1993
Robert and Frances Wood welcomed a little bundle of joy into the world on March 4, 1981, in the form of their adorable daughter, Sara Anne Wood. Growing up in New York, her elder siblings, Dusty and Nikki, used to worship at Norwich Corners Presbyterian Church in Sauquoit, New York, where their father was a pastor. The religious traits were also shared by Sara, who turned out to be an intelligent and free-spirited soul. A student of the Vacation Bible School in the rural area of Sauquoit, she also had an affinity towards poetry and dancing. Aged 12, Sara had a lot to look forward to and a lot of potential to achieve great things in life but unfortunately, she disappeared on August 18, 1993, while riding her bicycle on her way home from the Norwich Corners Presbyterian Church.
When she failed to return home, her family reported her missing on the same afternoon and conducted searches of their own around the neighborhood as well, inquiring about the 12-year-old girl. A few hours into the search, a neighbor found her bicycle on the side of the road near Hacadam Road. Knowing that Sara was abducted in a vehicle, the investigators combed through all the potential areas of interest over the next few days but could not find any signs of the missing girl. Since Sara’s disappearance received a massive amount of publicity, the police received more than 1,000 leads, with the public reward for her safe return reaching over $150,000.
An improvised headquarters named the “Rescue Sara Center” was established in New Hartford, New York, where all the details and developments related to the missing persons case were collected. A week after her disappearance, the search for Sara had expanded statewide and, eventually, nationwide. More than three decades into the search, Sara’s remains are still undiscovered despite the multiple searches conducted by the authorities. However, her family is still hopeful that they will eventually find her body and they will be able to host a proper Christian funeral for her.
Sara Anne Wood’s Killer Confessed After He Was Arrested For an Unrelated Crime
In their search for Sara Anne Wood, the investigators reached nothing but dead ends. On January 7, 1994, the case saw a major development when a janitor named Lewis Stephen Lent Jr. was arrested for attempted abduction of a 12-year-old girl named Rebecca Savarese at gunpoint. When the authorities noticed that he followed a similar pattern as Sara’s abduction to try to kidnap Rebecca, they interrogated him about the former soon after he was arrested. Without taking too long, Lewis admitted to the abduction, sexual assault, and murder of the 12-year-old girl in August 1993.
In a detailed confession about the entire incident, Lewis claimed that he found Sara walking alongside her bicycle on Hacadam Road. From there, he allegedly threatened her with his knife and got her into his van before driving up to the Adirondack Mountains. According to him, he then sexually assaulted her and then bludgeoned her to death with a tree branch. He claimed to have dug a shallow grave near Raquette Lake and buried her body. Despite his confession, the authorities chose not to charge him in hopes of making a deal with him and getting him to reveal the location of her burial site. After he pointed the authorities to her burial site, they searched in and around the alleged site for a couple of weeks, but all their efforts turned out to be for nothing.
The Killer Still Hasn’t Revealed Sara’s Burial Site
Admitting that he had buried Sara’s body at another location, Lewis Stephen Lent Jr. refused to reveal it to the police as another one of his victims was also buried in the same area, and he did not want that body to be discovered by the police. After a couple of years of trying to get him to disclose the actual whereabouts of Sara’s remains, in 1996, 45-year-old Lewis was formally charged with the abduction and murder of the 12-year-old girl. On October 25 of the same year, he pleaded guilty to his crimes against Sara but chose to keep the information about her body a secret even when asked about it in court.
Despite taking his confession of Sara’s kidnapping and killing back, Lewis was found guilty of second-degree murder. Finally, on April 11, 1997, he was brought to justice as he received 25 years to life imprisonment sentence. After Sara’s tragic case, various initiatives were taken by not just law enforcement but also the public in and around New York State in order to prevent such cases from happening in the future. Furthermore, the Sara Anne Wood Rescue Center, which was founded by Sara’s family, ended up becoming one of the prominent branches of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Read More: Brittanee Drexel Murder: How Did She Die? Who Killed Her?
