Original subtitles

I have visible holes in my memory from when I was a kid.

You know, trauma.

And it's a different kind of trauma because there's a monster involved.

It's 30 years later.

I can't imagine many things that are as terribly life -changing.

I was two weeks away from my 17th.

Sarah Wood, a 12 -year -old, left this church and was traveling a short

distance, about a mile, to her home. She made it about halfway, and we found her

bicycle at around 4 .30 that afternoon.

Ducted in 1993.

We need to know where Sarah is.

Please help us find her.

When I got a call from my sergeant that there was a missing girl, he didn't say

runaway, he said missing child, which was unusual.

So I immediately drove up there.

This is a church that Sarah's father was pastor at at the time. The day that

this happened, she was here doing schoolwork.

Tell me where she rode.

She would have gone right out here and right down this road.

So this is where she took a turn. Yep, her house is not too far up here on the

left. This is the area where the bicycle was found.

I remember that moment.

I'm standing next to my mother, and that's when you know it's all over.

It's all over.

And this was still back in the day where teletypes would come across.

One came over about an abduction or attempted abduction in Massachusetts.

that broke the entire case.

She's the key. She's the linchpin. She's what made it all happen. She got away.

Okay, that's what put us down to Lewis Lent.

Lewis Lent came across as just kind of an ordinary guy. He was a handyman. I

don't think anybody would have ever conceived that he was doing what he was

doing.

I'm Julia Cowley, retired FBI agent and profiler. He was prepared with duct

tape. He had a gun with him. He had a knife with him. He had rope with him. So

he was always ready.

He is a child predator.

He enjoyed going out and driving around and, in his words, hunting for children.

He killed Sarah Enwood. He did confess to it.

But we don't have Sarah's body.

Finding the body is important because then my mother could

know where she is.

Do you think Louis Flint will give that up? I don't know. If he does, it won't

be out of the goodness of his heart.

He does have a lot to hide.

My sister's life ended, and I couldn't stop that.

Someone hurt her and took her life.

I know at the time I felt like I could have done something, but I couldn't.

She was an exuberant person. She was excited to be alive.

It's been a little over three decades since his 12 -year -old little sister

disappeared.

But for Dusty Wood, memories of Sarah. What? Morning.

Morning.

Ready to eat?

No. I want to stay here and play video games.

Every picture you see of her, it's like a big beaming smile, those bright blue

eyes.

Dusty says the two of them had a lot in common.

I'm an extrovert. She's pretty extroverted. She's not a person in the

background. She's done me now.

On August 8th, three -year -old was enjoying a lazy summer day with his

in Sequoia, a small town in central New York.

That day we had gone shopping. We had come home.

We just hung around the house. We lived in the country, so there wasn't a lot of

stuff to do.

A mile down the road.

The last time I saw her, she was singing Dolly Parton.

Do you remember what song she was singing? Working 9 to 5.

She and I were at the front door, and so I was listening to her as she's

working, nine, two, five.

And then she got on her bike and was like, see you later.

When Sarah didn't return home later that afternoon, Dusty and Sarah's parents

began to worry.

So I remember getting a phone call from my parents at my friend's house. Hey,

did you see Bodar bike and came home?

Didn't see her.

Soon after, that's when a neighbor came across Sarah's bike hidden in the bushes

on the side of the road, less than a half mile from the family's home.

Police were called.

Around six, who is now retired, arrived at the scene.

So, Tim, where was her bicycle found?

It was off the grassy area. It was in where the shrubs are.

And there was also some school paperwork that was around. Some papers were blown

around. And at the time, did anyone remember seeing a truck or a child being

grabbed or anything?

I mean, she just vanished.

Well, as you can see, I mean, there's nobody here really to see anything, you

know. By early evening, the massive search for Sarah began.

We'd be out in the woods searching for her at midnight, one o 'clock in the

morning, hoping that we find her in maybe a hole or she fell down in

48 Hours was invited by Sarah and Dusty's parents, Bob and Francis Wood,

hopes that the media attention would help find Sarah.

Hold for an hour, sir, and I'll be right with you.

It would become one of the largest searches for a missing child during that

time.

Day was the worst, first night.

First night, of course, you know, I was up on the road all night, out in the

woods all night.

Second day, I was on the road all night, watching.

Bob Woods, Tiny Church.

The more people we can reach early on, while the thing is still fresh in their

minds, the better chance we stand of maybe turning something up that will

us.

The big thing as far as the uniformed troopers are concerned is the door -to

-door. The thing

that keeps everybody going is the uncertainty.

Not knowing whether she's dead, whether she's alive, whether she's a mile away

or whether she's 120 miles away.

So now all I'm doing is praying and encouraging people because they're doing

the work.

We've expanded the search operation. We're probably in the area of...

600 square miles.

It's really thick once we get down in there. Let's find that guy, bud. Let's

When you're dealing with a child, if it hits you personally, it hits me

personally. I hope we find this girl.

Thank you, Lord, for this day, and we thank you now for the good food that we

have. We do ask that you would be with Sarah and nourish her, protect her.

Please bring her home to us tonight.

How's it going, guys?

Sarah's father.

Doing a good job out there.

It's like, you know, I'm on a precipice and there's a deep dip over and self

-pity and start to go down there. Bible a lot.

Dusty, he's strong. He's real strong.

Tell me about yourself. All myself.

Finish this case up with.

And Bob believed police were going to get that break.

We're doing the state of Texas.

Ten minutes later, you can see my daughter. They can make the phone call

to get.

See this little person here? This is my baby. Whatever I have to do, I'm going

to do to find this little girl here.

Sarah's mother, Frances, made a public plea.

Investigators were determined to fight or at any one.

Our entire family was focused on getting Sarah back.

So you want to investigate me?

I'm okay with that.

Sarah's got to come.

Period.

When this happened, people realized this could happen to anybody.

It could be their children.

Retired New York State police detectives Reese Treen and John Fallon were state

troopers when Sarah Wood disappeared in 1993.

My daughter was only at her grandparents' house at three years old.

Treen and Fallon were part of the army of investigators from around the state

assigned to search for Sarah.

We had no vehicle.

Something or someone had to take it.

Lawrence, now retired from the New York State Police, says law enforcement still

had very little to go on.

Somebody took her. We didn't know. So when you don't know, you have to

everything, every possibility.

And you start local.

And that included questioning the people closest to Sarah, her brother and her

parents. You had to look at the woods.

The woods were looked at. It wasn't bad to have, though.

It's always difficult to do that, especially in this case, because they're

good parents.

Bob Wood was there every day.

I'm glad you're here, though. You're helping out a lot.

Every day.

Investigation isn't over.

This is one fast... I had a hard time going there every day.

Once the Woods were eliminated, Lawrence says they turned their attention to

investigating known and suspected sex offenders.

Each and every one of them had to be...

Spoken with and eliminated.

And we did.

We did.

And they still had nothing.

We got this section done.

Despite the long hours and heavy manpower.

Until a bitterly cold day in January 1994, five months after Sarah

disappeared, Officer Timothy Blaze was working in the command center.

When a message came in, the intelligence used at the time to share information.

One came over about an abduction or attempted abduction in Massachusetts

handed off to Frank.

Another 12 -year -old girl named Becky Savarese was almost abducted as she

walked to school in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 100 miles away.

Becky didn't respond to 48 Hour's most recent request for an interview.

But back in 1994, she did speak with me and told me her remarkable story.

I was coming up here.

It was 7 .10 in the morning on January 7th at one of the busiest intersections

in town.

I was listening to him saying stuff before.

I didn't know what he was saying, so I took my earphones out to hear what he

saying. And then he said, do you see the gun I have?

I was like, yes, I see the gun you have. He's like, just do everything I say.

Everything will be perfectly okay.

All right.

No. You weren't scared? I wasn't scared. We turned down here to where his truck

was parked.

Now, he wants you to go in the truck that's over there. Right.

You're not intending to go into that truck.

No.

If I got away, I didn't care if he shot me. I just knew I was not going to get

into that truck.

That's when Becky came up with an idea that possibly saved her life.

She faked an asthma attack.

I started to fake that I was, like, losing breath.

When I was trying to take my backpack off, he tried to grab for me. He got my

backpack and said, and I just ran.

Becky ran into a man clearing snow off a sidewalk who called the police.

Investigators began searching for the vehicle.

I remember it well because it was a blizzard.

Despite the snowstorm, a Pittsfield officer spotted a truck with those three

digits in its license plate sitting in a driveway in a residential area.

The officer quickly called for backup.

And they knocked on the door.

And borrowed the truck.

And he just happened to be sitting in the kitchen.

When police entered the house to question Lent, he denied knowing about

but willingly agreed to come down to the police station.

Had Lewis Lent, that name, Lewis Lent, ever come up before?

No. Not in our investigation.

Had he ever been connected to a disappearance of a child?

No. But he had a criminal history?

Yeah, some minor things like bad checks and forged checks, things like that. But

nothing that approaches this.

And when investigators searched Lent's vehicle, they knew they had the right

man. They found Rebecca's backpack. They found the gun.

They found duct tape and clothesline rope. Basically, his kidnapping

kit. Although the attempted abduction was 100 miles away in Pittsfield,

Massachusetts,

everyone wondered if Lent could have also taken Sarah.

Got a call from the lieutenant.

He says, well, go home and pack a bag and you're going to Pittsfield.

New York State Police Detective Frank Lawrence struggled through a snowstorm

finally arrived at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, eager to speak to Lewis

he would have to wait his turn.

There's similarities, but it's a Pittsfield case.

Okay? They would talk to him, and then we'd get him in between.

And he was willing to talk to you? Yeah.

He talked to us.

And during their conversations, Lawrence says he and two other New York

investigators made sure Louis Lent understood why they were there.

I actually showed him this poster, and I said to him, Lou, this is who I'm here

to talk to you about. So he knew that eventually we were going to be talking

about this, okay? How did he react, did he?

He was flat.

Flat? Yeah. He was flat through the whole thing.

Did that make you think he had no idea who she was?

I didn't really care. I was going to find out. That's what we were there for.

But getting Lewis Lent to admit anything was not going to be easy.

Although Becky Savarese and a witness picked him out of a lineup, it took Lent

until the next morning to admit he had tried to take her.

Louis Lent was arrested and charged with kidnapping and assault with a deadly

weapon. But New York investigators were not done with Lent. They started to ask

him questions about other missing kids.

We talked to him. We spent a lot of time with him.

And that's when Lawrence says he and New York investigators came up with a

strategy. We found out that he was religious.

So he says they brought a Bible.

Any time he would wander, okay?

We would use the Bible.

And we'd go, Lou, you've got to tell the truth.

And Lawrence says the strategy appeared to be working because as the hours went

by, Lent started to reveal things about himself and some very disturbing plans

for the future that involved kidnapping young victims.

He told us about his master plan once he found the acceptable vulnerable

individuals.

He was going to bring him back to his house and put him in, like, I'd describe

it as a coffin, but keep him alive.

Instruction project when they searched Len's bedroom and found this wooden

partition wall, and things only got worse.

He wanted to talk about Jimmy Bernardo.

Jimmy Bernardo was a 12 -year -old boy who had gone missing three years earlier

in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

A month later, Hunter's first.

But now Lent was about to tell everyone what had happened to Jimmy.

He was riding his bike through a strip mall in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Louis Lent was a janitor at the cinema center there in Pittsfield.

When Jimmy stopped in front of the cinema to wait for a friend, that's when

said he offered him money to help him clean the movie theater.

Jimmy agreed.

And then once Lent got him inside, he overpowered him and kidnapped him.

Lent told investigators he drove Jimmy 200 miles to a rural and isolated area,

strangled Jimmy to death, and left him there.

He had details that only the killer and the police knew.

As horrific as that revelation was, investigators kept pressing him about

Wood. The more we talked about Sarah, we were probing.

He's responding.

And then, five months after she went missing,

Lewis Lent finally confessed.

Lent admitted that he had kidnapped, raped, and then murdered. And just like

Jimmy Bernardo, Detective Lawrence says Lent's account matched in details about

her bike that had not been made public.

He knew that the chain on the bike was broken.

And he also said that the bike was a little bit big for her.

But he buried Sarah's body.

This is just a copy, obviously.

Right, but this is actually what Louis Lunt did.

He drew that.

I handed him a piece of paper, and this is what he drew.

And where did he say he put her?

Alfred 28.

Located in a remote woody area in New York's Adirondack Mountains.

And within hours, police from all over New York State were dispatched and

searched along with Dovesy, who was a senior in high school.

It was very cold. It was ridiculous.

And it was hundreds of, you know, I remember a lot of helping, a lot of

How are you guys doing for tarps up here?

Yeah. For over 50 days, they searched for Sarah in the Adirondacks.

It was 30 below zero.

We were in waist -high snow.

We had shovels. We're digging. We're looking for any evidence at all having

anything to do with Sarah. We were hoping somebody would come up with

that had something to do with her. It just didn't happen.

As investigators continued to look for Sarah's body, Lent would face murder

charges in both Massachusetts and New York.

It was a rare occasion where...

Everyone was laser -focused on one event, which was find Sarah, bring him

justice.

Lewis had to face charges in Massachusetts.

In 1995, Lewis went on trial and was ultimately convicted for

Becky Savarese's attempt at kidnapping and was sentenced to 17 to 20 years.

Almost one and a half years later, after taking a plea, he was given a life

sentence for murdering Jimmy Bernardo.

Television, radio, and newspaper outlets... And then on June 6, 1996,

Lewis Lent arrived at Herkimer, New York, to a media frenzy.

And the district attorney wanted justice for Sarah Ann Wood and her family.

Jeffrey Carpenter is Herkimer County's district attorney.

He wasn't in office when Sarah Wood was murdered, but he has studied Lewis

Lent's case files.

He says the DA's office thought Lewis Lent was going to plead guilty to

Sarah. But without warning, Lent changed his mind.

It's my understanding that when he entered the courtroom and he saw certain

members of the public, especially, I think, her family, he decided on that

he did not want to enter a plea.

Days later, Lent would change his mind again.

and finally entered a guilty plea.

What do you remember of him sitting there?

I couldn't believe how small a man.

You know, I couldn't believe it. Not imposing.

Almost four years after Sarah Wood was abducted and murdered, Lewis Lent was

sentenced to 25 years to life. He was sent back to Massachusetts to serve the

rest of his life in prison.

He will never cause harm to anyone else.

But it was not over for the Woods who still needed to find Sarah.

He changes his story so often it's hard to tell what's the truth and what's

fiction. In fact, Detective Treen says Lent's original turned out to be a lie.

He cashed a check on August 18th in Pittsfield at 6 .18 p .m. So he did not

physically have time to abduct Sarah at around 2 .30 p .m. and then drive to the

Adirondacks. dig a grave, bury her, and then drive back to Pittsfield to cash a

check. So investigators continued to visit Lent in prison, hoping that over

he would reveal where he buried Sarah and perhaps even disclose the murders of

other victims.

Detectives visited Lent in prison about 20 times.

Isn't it difficult at times, though, for the two of you not to just jump across

the table and grab him? No. One of the things you have to do is you have to

leave hate outside of the room when you go in.

They didn't push him, but during their conversations, Lent revealed that he

often suffered from blackouts and claimed he had an evil alter ego that he

called Stephen.

He has this dichotomy, is the word he used. He has a really good side that

studies the Bible.

Actually was a traveling minister.

Then he has to do terrible things. He could not stop.

Somehow, Lent managed to hide that evil side from nearly everyone he knew.

Back in 1994, 48 Hours correspondent Richard Schlesinger interviewed

some of Lent's friends.

The sidewall here, it was caving right in. Right. And he helped you with that

too, huh? Oh, yes.

To Phil Challies, who is legally blind, Lent was a good Samaritan.

Just came over and said, well, I'd be glad to give you a hand.

I hear you're doing work. We put in probably hundreds of hours working

in that salary.

It was definitely hard work.

And he did that all out of the goodness of his heart?

Yes, he did.

To Frank Collette, the dean of students at a Bible school that Lent attended, he

was a gentleman.

He was intelligent. He was unassuming. He was quiet.

One thing about Louis that everyone remembered was he always had his hand

shake your hand when you were meeting him.

And if you didn't watch out, he'd give you a big bear hug.

He had a lot of children with him, young kids. The kids would play video games,

and then they would come in and go to the movies, and he would bring them

To Richard Bauman, who employed him, Lent seemed like a mentor to children.

They called him the big brother.

They did? Oh, yeah.

The kids?

Yes.

Bauman owned the movie theater where Lent worked as a janitor for six years,

he thought he knew Lent very well.

I hired him.

I worked side by side with him.

What's... Tell me what's going on.

I just feel as though I...

May have missed something that he might have said or done that would have keep

me. That would have let you know. Just give me a clue that there's something

wrong with this guy.

People have trouble understanding that you can have this very religious, God

-fearing, nice, polite man in contrast that to his other side

where he is hunting and preying on and killing children.

Those can exist in one person.

Who worked on cases like the Golden State Killer.

She now hosts a true crime podcast called The Consult, Real FBI

Profilers. This podcast is about criminal profiling.

Callie has never met Lewis Lent, but at our request, she reviewed his background

and studied his confessions.

She says that what appeared to be Lent's desire to help people, could actually

have served a selfish purpose.

By helping all these people, this is a way to maybe hide who he really is, to

gain people's trust.

When you do that, you can manipulate them. You can control them.

It's strategically motivated as opposed to being motivated by true emotion.

Just like other serial killers she has studied, Cowley says Lent is completely

self -centered.

come before anybody else's, obviously.

He had no regard for his victims. He has no regard for victims' families.

Something Reese Treen says he has seen firsthand.

He knows what emotions are that other people have, but he doesn't feel them

himself. One of the things that he said in the past is that the

murders ruined his life.

He's remorseful that he got caught, that it ruined his life.

But he doesn't think in terms of it ruined anybody else's life. He just

think that way.

Lewis Lutz so quickly admits to kidnapping and killing Sarah

Wood. Why not tell it all? Why not give all the details?

It's just a secret he wants to hold on to. It's his. It's the only thing he has

that's his own that he can control. And a bit of sadism, knowing that meant in

there. Most killers don't tell us everything.

They rarely give the full story.

Instead, Lent reveals what he was when he was 13.

He revealed something new.

I've described it as speaking directly to the devil. He really is the devil.

How do you warn your loved ones about child predators?

For an in -depth look at the case,

As detectives Fallon and Treen continued to question Lewis Lent about Sarah Wood

and other possible... He ended up admitting to killing... Jamie Lusher, a

-year -old teen with disabilities, disappeared in Westfield, Massachusetts,

40 miles from the pit... Through a parking lot of a Friendly's restaurant.

His bicycle was later found in a wooded area close by.

Lent told investigators that after he kidnapped and murdered Jamie, he

the teenager's remains in Greenwater Pond in Beckett, Massachusetts.

We had divers go, actually, with the Massachusetts State Police divers, and

all dove the pond, and nothing was found.

As he has done many times before, Lent would later recant his confession.

Authorities decided not to charge Lewis Lent with Jamie's murder, hoping that

one day he will lead them to his body.

At this point, we're not interested in further prosecution. He's not going

anywhere. At a press conference shortly after... It's this searing heartache, in

part, that keeps authorities motivated to find the missing.

So soon after Lent confessed to killing Jamie...

DA Jeffrey Carpenter got permission to take Lent, who was serving his life

sentence in Massachusetts, out of prison and around.

We had to do it. We drove to the Massachusetts border. We drove to the

border. He took us to where she was abducted.

He took us to where he claimed he murdered her.

For 600 miles of driving, Carpenter says New York authorities ended the

operation.

The consensus was he absolutely knew where she was. He just was not going to

tell us.

Before Carpenter sent Lemp back to Massachusetts, he recorded this

with him.

You know, we spent some time here the last couple of days.

Hope you feel you were treated with respect.

Oh, all the way. Yeah? Treated well?

Yes. Well, that was our end of the bargain, right? Yeah.

Right? Yeah.

What was your end of the bargain?

Yeah. Is that what we've done?

What was

going

through your head when you're talking to him?

Anger. He does not forget details. He recalls details. He recalls many things

until he wants to pretend he doesn't remember.

A decade after November of 2023, investigators were back out looking

again after Detective Treen identified an area with landmarks that Lent had

talked about during their many conversations.

Just too many things matched up.

A lot of boxes were checked, and we never found anything.

But authorities kept looking.

Earlier this year, detectives went back to the cellar that Lent worked in with

Phil Challies to see if they missed something in 1994.

The search turned up. No new evidence.

Do you feel in a way that you might be running out of time? Lewis Lent is in

70s. It's a concern, but that's one of the things we can't control.

Regardless of the challenges, authorities say they will... Dusty Woods

he chooses not to think about Lewis Lenz.

Every day I'm less angry because I devote my energy to positive

things. Every year, Dusty and some family members participate in the Ride

Missing Children.

Ready? Rolling!

Bike rides that was created in Sarah's honor by Bob Wood.

The riders wore jerseys that were turquoise and pink, the colors that

abducted.

Riders stop at schools along the way to talk

about abduction prevention.

Most as a family is to protect kids.

And make sure that if there's anything that can be done to protect them from

monsters like Louis Lent, that it be done.

Writers pay silent tribute to those children whose families pulled out hope

they will be found alive.

And to children who went missing and would.

Dusty says he and his family are grateful to their community.

Who have supported them. Of strangers that

opened up the possibility of giving the best chance to my

sister. Not sure if they will ever find his sister's body, but he is at peace.

I'm waiting for the day I see Sarah in heaven.

And I know that day is coming.

And that makes me feel good.

CBS next Saturday.

A former state trooper's wife found dead in her bathtub.

It was a gunshot.

But was it a cover -up for murder?

Dan thought he was smart enough to trick everybody.

Packed duffel bags.

Wet towels. It looked odd.

A new 48 Hours next Saturday at 10, 9 central on CBS and streaming on

Paramount+.