Where is the kidnapper and murderer today?

When 12-year-old Sara Anne Wood suddenly disappeared while riding her bike home from Norwich Corners Church in Sauquoit, New York, the nation was stunned. As CBS' “48 Hours: The Unending Search for Sara Anne Wood” investigates, she was likely abducted less than half a mile from home before being brutally abused and killed. After all, suspected serial killer Lewis Lent has since confessed to kidnapping, sexually abusing and murdering the young girl for his own perverse gratification.

Lewis Lent lived largely on the fringes of society

Although Lewis was from Reynoldsville in upstate New York, he led a rather nomadic life after dropping out of Watkins Glen High School in 1967 in the 10th grade. He spent the next six years mostly in Florida before ending up in a small town in New Mexico, where he was arrested on embezzlement and theft charges in June 1976. According to reports, he had apparently been hired to pick up some tires for a delivery that he never made – but the charges were dropped when it was discovered that he had paid for them himself.

According to records, Lewish then commuted between Pennsylvania and Virginia before settling in Pittsfield, Massachusetts for a while sometime in the early 1980s. We say “for a while” because by 1996 he had already worked tirelessly as a janitor at a multiplex movie theater in North Adams, Massachusetts, for at least seven consecutive years. He reportedly had his own keys, worked shifts that kept him up until the wee hours of the morning, and was long gone by the time employees arrived to start a new day, meaning his social contacts were virtually nonexistent.

A failed kidnapping led to the arrest of Lewis Lent

It was about 7:10 a.m. on January 7, 1994, when 12-year-old Rebecca “Becky” Savarese of Pittsfield encountered a shockingly calm stranger at a busy intersection as she walked to school as usual. According to her own account, he stood next to her, quickly pulled out a gun and pointed it directly at her before ordering her to get into his car a little further away if she wanted to be OK. However, knowing there was no way she could get kidnapped, the teenager came up with the brilliant idea of ​​faking an asthma attack and fleeing while her attacker was distracted.

As if that wasn't enough, despite her young age, Becky was so aware of what had happened that she remembered every possible characteristic of her attacker while searching for a safe place. Little did she know that a partial witness simultaneously contacted local police with three digits of the truck's license plate number, which they had collected as he fled the scene. Based on their combined statements, as well as other evidence, Lewis Stephen Lent Jr., then 45, was arrested and charged with her attempted kidnapping nearly two years later, in 1996.

This caretaker initially denied knowing Becky or anything about her ordeal, but confessed a short time later. In addition, the subsequent search of his vehicle revealed much disturbing evidence that led investigators to question how many children he had actually kidnapped over the years. After all, Becky's backpack, a loaded revolver, a knife, what he described as a “kidnapping kit” – consisting of duct tape and a clothesline – and candy were found. In addition, a search of his home uncovered an intricate private chamber that he admittedly built himself for the sole purpose of abusing future victims before ultimately killing them.

Lewis Lent has now confessed to two murders

Back in 1996, investigators questioned Lewis about the disappearance of Sara Anne Wood, particularly because her fate occurred just five months before Becky's less than 100 miles away. Again, he initially denied anything to do with the matter, but later confessed in horrifyingly gruesome detail – he said he kidnapped and sexually assaulted her before ultimately killing her. However, he never revealed the exact location of her remains, so despite the authorities' best efforts to locate her from the small piece they obtained, her body was sadly never found.

Furthermore, it is imperative to mention that Lewis also confessed to the 1990 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old James “Jimmy” Bernardo of Pittsfield. He was last seen outside a movie theater. According to his own confession, he took the boy home, tied him to his bed, and abused him before hanging him on a dirt road the next morning 200 miles away in rural Newfield. The teen's naked body was found by hunters on November 21, 1990, 30 days after his first disappearance. We should mention that in 2013, Lewis confessed to the 1992 murder of 16-year-old disabled Jamie Lusher, only to later recant his confession, as he had done many times before, stumping officials. However, he claimed that he often drove for hours and miles to “hunt” children he could kidnap.

As a result, Lewis has only been convicted of three serious crimes since then. On January 7, 1995, he was found guilty of the attempted kidnapping of Becky Savarese, for which he was sentenced the next day to 17 to 20 years. Then, on June 3, 1996, he surprisingly pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and murder of Jimmy Bernardo, for which he was immediately sentenced to life in prison without parole. Finally, on October 16, 1996, he pleaded guilty to charges related to the Sara Anne Wood case in New York, for which he was sentenced to 25 years to life before being sent back to Massachusetts to serve his sentence. So today, at age 73, he remains incarcerated at the medium-grade Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, where he is expected to spend the rest of his life.

Read more: Where is Sara Anne Wood's family now?