48 Hours - Post Mortem | The Unending Search for Sara Anne Wood

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

In the Season Two premiere episode of Post Mortem, CBS News Correspondent Anne-Marie Green takes listeners behind the scenes of the disappearance of 12-year-old Sara Anne Wood. 48 Hours Correspondent Erin Moriarty and Producer Chris Ritzen talk about the impact this case continues to have on Sara's family. Lewis Lent, a serial killer, was convicted for her murder, but investigators are still searching for Sara's body 30 years later. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audio book is free. Visit audible.ca. I'm Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours and of all the cases I've covered, this is the one that troubles me most. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, The Trouble Case Against Crosley Green,

wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, listeners, and welcome back to Season 2 of Postmortem. I'm your host, Anne-Marie Green. We are diving right back into another really chilling case about the disappearance and the search for Sarah Ann Wood. Joining me today is 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty, who has been covering this case since Sarah disappeared, since she was reported missing back in 1993. We're going to get more on that in a bit, but we're also joined by longtime 48 Hours producer, Chris Young-Ritson. Welcome. It's great to be here. And we're starting another new season of 48 Hours.

And this, I think, is a perfect story to do it with. Absolutely. It's so great to be here. Thanks. So, listeners, if you are joining us for the very first time or you need a quick reminder, if you haven't actually listened to this 48 Hours episode yet, head on over to your podcast feed and then listen to the full audio version of it first. It's just below this episode.

It's on your feed. So go listen and then come back for our conversation where we're going to break it all down for you. The title of this episode is The Unending Search for Sarah Ann Wood. And it really has been unending for her family, for investigators. They are still searching for her body. It's been over 30 years. Both of you have been really covering true crime for decades now. In your experience, is it unusual for investigators to continue to pursue a case even after the suspect is already in prison? I don't think it's that unusual when you're talking about a case like this

with a young child. The one thing that struck me when we went back now, 30 years later, is investigators, they all remember the age of their children at the same time. And so this case stuck with them and they put themselves in the place of the victims and they think, what would I want done for me? And of course, also, we call it unending.

Sarah M. Woods' parents and her brother, they want to end this search. Yeah, the DA said to us, we all kind of adopted Sarah and they're going to continue looking until they find her. and they're going to continue looking until they find her. In the hour, you see how investigators continue to interview Lent in prison. You know, they bring him out, you know, spend days with him. What's the long game here? He's sitting in prison. He is going to be punished for the rest of his life. You know, years after he went to prison,

he suddenly brings up new information about another victim, Jamie Lusher. So there is this hope of trying to solve those cases. There are other kids missing. There's a side of me like feeling that Lewis Lund is kind of taking advantage of them. And it drives me crazy because he has the control and this is about control. But investigators believe that the longer they stick with it, maybe they can find Sarah Ann and maybe they can find other children. Yeah, I think it's everyone's hope that people close to Lewis Lynn will encourage him to speak out, you know, so he can give some closure to both Sarah's family and potentially others. I want to talk about retired FBI profiler Agent Cowley, because it was great to have her there. It's like a master class in profiling a serial killer.

Talking to a former FBI profiler, that was a little discouraging to me because Agent Julia Cowley said, these guys, that's all they have. They're in prison. All they have is this information. It is their currency. And so they can either give it or they can keep it in the bank to quote one of our investigators and die with it. So it's iffy. Yeah. And you do touch in the hour about just how time is ticking away. At some point, he won't be available anymore. And 48 Hours also interviewed people who knew Lent, like his friend, even a minister. I was really struck by Richard Bauman, who was a theater owner. He had hired him. And the way he broke down, you just got the sense that he felt

personally sort of offended, or he was questioning himself that he could not identify the evil that this man was capable of. How could these people, how were they fooled by Lent? I thought the importance of that interview that Richard Schlesinger did so many years ago was that it really put almost like a period on what the FBI profiler said, that this guy was so able to hide this evil side of himself. here's a guy who owned the cinema who trusted Lewis Lent so much that he allowed him to have contact with kids. And the fact that this owner was so devastated that he had been fooled, that really told you how good an actor Lewis Lent was. Absolutely. Yeah. One of the detectives talked about Lewis Lent told him that, you know, that he kind of has two personalities, you know, one side. He was this nice person always helping others. And then he had this other side of him where he just did these awful things.

And, you know, when we interviewed our profile or Julia said, this is possible that these two, these two different personalities can be in a person. And it's hard to really fathom that. And she reminded us though, that, you know, that he wasn't the good person because when he cried and felt sad, he was sad. He got caught. He never expressed concern about these children. I mean, all you have to do is watch this hour on 48 hours and see that beautiful face of Sarah M. Wood. And you realize yourself how devastating. And this guy seemed to feel nothing. But he had to have been such a great actor.

And I think that's a reason for doing this show is to remind people, you know, bad people don't come with horns. They look like anyone else. So the other thing that you covered when you initially did this story for 48 hours is you spoke to some of Lent's family members. Did they give you any insight into how he could have become like this? Well, I should point out initially, they were shocked. I mean, nobody, again, he hid what he called his evil side, his alter ego from his family, but all of us wondered, why would Lewis Lent turn out this way?

And many experts, including our FBI former profiler, said that often they are abused. And in fact, they did believe that Lewis might have been abused as a child. So we did learn that from talking to the family. As I was watching this, I couldn't help but to think about my own kid. Right. She's a tween. I'm struggling like many parents with, you know, letting the leash a little looser and then pulling it back. I know you guys are journalists, but you're also moms. I wonder if, you know, being a mom, being a parent,

if that kind of like factored into how you felt about this story, how you felt about why you wanted to tell it? Well, it's funny. I was on it back in 1993. And I think we need to have empathy when we're doing interviews. But then when you have empathy for the victims, you're feeling it yourself, particularly if you're a mom. And my son was a little younger than Sarah M. Wood. And I didn't realize how much I was affected until I went back home to New York, New York City, and we were riding a bike. And I thought Nick was behind me, but he was ahead of me. And when he wasn't behind me, I mean, look, I went crazy. In seconds, I already said, my son's missing me. And I had organized people, and he was just right ahead of us.

And some man rides back with a bike, and he goes, is this your son? My son was mortified. But the other mothers around me said to him, look, she was reacting properly. You have to react right away. So I think that tells you how much you do internalize. This could happen to anybody. It could happen to us because it did happen to wonderful people. I think also as a journalist, you know, covering these kind of stories, I tend to compartmentalize because also, you know, you don't want to be that parent that's overly protective at the same time. But I'll tell you, I have two daughters, an 11 year old and a nine year old. And after doing the story, I literally have sat down with them and said, you know, what, what, what do you do if someone pulls up in a car and, and, and I've gone through the steps with them. And so it was a kind of education for them. And I'm happy that I've done that. And I hope maybe parents watching this will also take the time to do that with their children. Well, I got

to tell you, after watching it, I thought I have to have this conversation. I just got to make sure I know what she knows and what she doesn't know. And I also thought maybe we should take a self defense class together or something just to be prepared. When we get back, we're going to talk to Aaron and Chris about Sarah Ann's family and how they coped with this incredible loss. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military, and when they do, the NCIS gets involved.

From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman? Now, we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear.

But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. We're going to talk to the people who were there, and we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created. Literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America. If you really believed in tough on crime,

then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder. Early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Welcome back, everyone. So 48 Hours started covering this case just days after Sarah went missing and had incredible access in those early days. We see so much of that rich archival footage in the hour. And Erin, what was your impression of Sarah's family, especially in those early days? I think you saw really what families go through in a way that you rarely do. So at first it was shock. Then you see Sarah Ann's mother unable

almost to talk. You could see her suffering. And dad, you know, he felt he had to be the strong one. He was there every day. But then when he was pushed just a little bit, and I think it was, was it our cameraman who kind of pushed him? Somebody who was with him and said, but how are you doing? Then you see him dissolve. And that is, to me, the importance. It's not to interfere or interrupt or violate someone's privacy. It is to let you know how difficult it is to go through something like this, the guilt the parents feel, the loss the parents feel, the gratitude they feel for everybody who's

helping them search. And that access allowed us really to share what this family was going through. really to share what this family was going through. Yeah, that dad, I just thought this is sort of the epitome of I have to be the rock for everyone and I have to stay busy so I don't focus on this. And then when he was asked how are you, I probably know what had asked him that. No, you saw him struggling not to break down. But how could you not?

That's how he was getting through it, not thinking about it. And now suddenly he had to think about it. Yeah. And Chris, Dusty Wood has never actually given an interview about his sister until this for 48 hours. Well, an in-depth interview. I mean, he spent two hours with Erin. And he really talked a lot about long-term grief. He says that there's two paths. He decided to go one path, which he became more extroverted.

His family, they're more introverted. And so he represented his family in this. And he shared with us some things that we actually couldn't put in the broadcast. He pulled out all these letters from children that had sent letters to his family and to him, thanking them for speaking out and saying, I'm really sorry about what happened to your sister. You know, he kept saying how grateful he was for the support that he and his family have received from the community. But the letters were very emotional for him. And that was meaningful to him to have those letters. Very meaningful. And I think Dusty really compartmentalizes this as well.

I don't think he really has looked at these letters in a long time. So for him to pull them out and to share them with us, that was really special. And it kind of took him back to that time. You always think, you know, when someone's going through something like that, there are no words that could make a difference, but clearly those letters did. And there was another way that this case had kind of a surprising impact on Dusty. Dusty and the rest of his family had spent a lot of time with our longtime cameraman, Daryl Barton, and had shown, I guess, so much sensitivity that Dusty decided he too would become a cameraman and even adopted

the way Daryl shot things, which was constantly, never stopping, just shooting everything. And that's what Dusty does today. He's a cameraman. Listening to Dusty also makes you realize that it's not like something that happened to him 30 years ago. It continues to affect his life even today. And I think that's, again, something that we forget, that the news cycle moves on.

You know, we say, oh, this is sad. This family went through. Well, it doesn't end for the family. It's there every day. There's a reminder every day. And you could really see that in Dusty. It changed his life then. It changed the trajectory his life took, what he decided to do with his life.

And to this day, it's still what drives his life is to save other children from the same fate. So is that another reason why he was willing to talk so openly with you all? Yes. He's very passionate, both Dusty and his family, and kind of educating, you know, others about, you know, how we can protect children. And he does a ride every year called the Ride for Missing Children. And he allowed us to follow him. It was a 78 mile bike ride and they would stop at schools along the way and kids would come out and they would talk about abduction prevention. And it's a very important thing that he does every year. And I'm really happy that we were able to include that in the broadcast.

And if you need an example of a kid who's educated, who knows what to do in a situation like that, you got one right in the hour, right? Because Erin, you have this incredible interview with Becky Savarese. This is from way back then. She was approached by Lent and really smartly used these tactics to avoid being abducted. And this was in the middle of a busy intersection area, busy town. There would have been a ton of witnesses, which just told you how sort of bold he was. We're going to play some of that sound. I was listening to my

music. He was on the side of me. Like where I am? Yeah. He was saying stuff before. I didn't know what he was saying, so I took my earphones out to hear what he was 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. I was like, all right. He had it up against you? He had it about an inch away from me. Were you scared? 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. Why did you know that? Was that something someone had told you or? I just felt it inside me. I knew I was not going to get into that truck. I got to tell you why I'm smiling is I still smile when I think about Becky Savarese. Becky Savarese was the savviest little 12-year-old. I mean, what a hoot. She keeps her head through it all and says that it came to her to fake an asthma attack and then, you know, planned that she was just going to slip out of her backpack and get away, which is exactly what she did. Did she learn like that whole stranger danger thing? Is that what kind of helped to protect her? Well, she said she didn't. She said it just came to her mind. Now, later on, I had spoken to her mother. She said that she had

talked to her daughter. And we also know that Sarah Ann Wood's dad went around and was in that Pittsfield area. So she may have gotten some ideas, but the bottom line was Becky Savarese just was so smart and used this amazing ruse to escape. And let's not forget that she's a hero in this story because she probably saved other kids' lives because of what she did. So yes, I'm smiling because she's a hero in this story because she probably saved other kids lives because of what she did. So yes, I'm smiling because she's just, to me, she's one of those people you never forget. Oh, absolutely. And that delivery, I mean, she's just seemed so calm about it. And I wonder if outside of the cameras, did she express any other emotions? No, she was, she was that cool character. I actually wonder,

I think about that, like if she had not gone away, what would have happened? I mean, I don't even want to think about it. You're right. Like not only was it fantastic that she got away, but then, you know, she saw him, she had an interaction with him. She could give police details about him that, you know, others couldn't. Well, she picked him out of a lineup, too, which was very important. Yeah, definitely a turning point. Why do you think 48 hours you come back to this case? What is it about this case?

Because, you know, it is the unending search. We don't have that wrap it up with a bow ending. It is the unending search. We don't have that wrap it up with a bow ending. Maybe in a way we're driven by the same reason these investigators are. It's time to end this search. And he's getting older. He's in his 70s.

He professes to be religious. Maybe he should cleanse that soul of his before he goes. And also, let's not forget Jamie Lusher, who's another child who disappeared. Those parents deserve to know where their children are. They deserve peace. And I think that's a big reason why we're doing this. Do investigators believe he knows where Sarah Ann is or where Jamie is? Absolutely. Actually, the district attorney in our broadcast says they absolutely believe he knows where he buried Sarah and where he put Jamie Lusher. And he refuses to tell them, which is very frustrating for them. But they're going to keep going.

Well, it's a remarkable story told in the usual 48 hours remarkable way. And it's another example of something that 48 hours does so well, that you follow stories to the very end. So Erin, what other projects are you working on now? One that is near and dear to my heart, a new podcast. And you can listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, The Troubled Case Against Crosley Green, early and ad-free on the 48 hours plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. Erin, Chris, thank you so much for joining me for the premiere of season two of Postmortem. It's always great to be able to be here with you and talking

about this show. Thank you so much. So if you like this series, Postmortem, please rate and review 48 Hours on Apple Podcasts and then follow 48 Hours wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen ad-free on Amazon Music, Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, or with a 48 hours plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. Thanks again for listening. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing the best idea yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin

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