Lewis Lent: Crimes, Confessions, and Missing Remains

Lewis Lent Jr. is a convicted serial killer from North Adams, Massachusetts, who murdered at least two children in the early 1990s, is suspected in the death of a third, and is serving a life sentence without parole in a Massachusetts prison. A former handyman and part-time movie theater janitor, Lent was captured in January 1994 after a 12-year-old girl escaped his attempted abduction in Pittsfield. That single failed kidnapping unraveled a pattern of child abductions stretching back years, and more than three decades later investigators are still trying to find the remains of victims he has never led them to.

The Children He Killed and the One Still Missing

Lent’s known crimes span three states and cover a period of roughly three years.

Jimmy Bernardo, 12, disappeared on October 22, 1990, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He was last seen at the Pittsfield Plaza Cinema Center, where Lent worked as a part-time janitor. Bernardo’s body was found on November 21, 1990, in a wooded area near Ithaca, New York.¹

Jamie Lusher, 16, vanished on November 6, 1992, while bicycling from his father’s home in Westfield, Massachusetts, to his grandmother’s house in Blandford, about 12 miles away. Lusher was developmentally disabled. Five days later, a hunter found his bicycle near a pond in heavily wooded terrain. Law enforcement drained the pond and searched 47 acres of surrounding woods along with a 100-square-mile aerial sweep. Nothing was found.²

Sara Anne Wood, 12, disappeared on August 18, 1993, while bicycling home from church in Sauquoit, New York, in Herkimer County. Her bicycle was found in brush about half a mile from her home. A large-scale search by her family and law enforcement turned up nothing else.³

How Lent Was Caught

The break came on January 7, 1994, in Pittsfield. Lent, then 43, tried to abduct 12-year-old Rebecca “Becky” Savarese as she walked to school. Savarese faked an asthma attack, broke away, and ran to a nearby witness who caught three digits of the license plate on Lent’s truck. Police traced the plate to Lent. Inside his truck they found Savarese’s backpack, a gun, and what investigators called a “snatch kit” of duct tape and clothesline rope. Authorities later credited Savarese as the “linchpin” whose escape broke the serial murder investigations open.⁴

Confessions and the “Master Plan”

During questioning, Lent mentioned that he had worked at the Pittsfield movie theater where Jimmy Bernardo was last seen. That detail prompted a regional alert, and New York State Police traveled to Pittsfield to interview him about Sara Anne Wood.¹ After two days of questioning, Lent confessed to killing both Bernardo and Wood.

He also described what investigators called a “master plan.” According to retired New York State Police detective Frank Lawrence, Lent said he intended to identify “acceptable vulnerable individuals,” bring them to his home, and keep them imprisoned in a coffin-like structure so he could assault them repeatedly.⁵ When police searched Lent’s bedroom, they found a large wooden partition wall that appeared to be the start of that construction.³

Regarding Sara Anne Wood, Lent gave details that had not been made public, including the condition of her bike chain and the fact that the bicycle was too large for her. He drew a map indicating he had buried her off Route 28 near Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondack Mountains. Investigators ran a 50-day search of the Adirondacks during the winter of 1994 and found nothing. Authorities later determined the location Lent described was inconsistent with the timeline of his activities on the day of the abduction.³

Convictions and Sentences

Lent was prosecuted in multiple jurisdictions.

On January 7, 1995, he was found guilty of attempted kidnapping in the Savarese case and sentenced to 17 to 20 years in Massachusetts.¹
On June 3, 1996, he pleaded guilty to murdering Jimmy Bernardo and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.¹
In Herkimer County Court, Lent initially pleaded not guilty on October 16, 1996, then changed his plea to guilty of second-degree murder for the killing of Sara Anne Wood on October 25, 1996, before Judge Patrick Kirk. On April 11, 1997, he was sentenced to 25 years to life and returned to Massachusetts to serve his life-without-parole sentence.⁶¹

During the Bernardo case, Lent’s defense argued he was not mentally competent to stand trial, citing an unspecified brain disorder. Lent claimed to experience memory blackouts and to hear a voice he called “Stephen,” his own middle name. He also reported flashing lights and said he had encountered space aliens. Prosecution psychologists argued he was faking mental illness.⁷

The Jamie Lusher Confession and Recantation

Nearly two decades after Lusher’s disappearance, on July 15, 2013, Hampden District Attorney Mark Mastroianni announced that Lent had confessed to the kidnapping and murder of Jamie Lusher. Mastroianni said Lent provided “great detail” about the killing and said he had disposed of the body in Greenwater Pond in Becket, Massachusetts.⁷ In exchange for the confession and the location of the body, prosecutors agreed not to charge him.⁸

A three-day dive operation of Greenwater Pond began the next day. Massachusetts and New York State Police dive teams, along with the Massachusetts Environmental Police, searched a gridded area roughly the size of a football field. Nothing was found.⁹ Lent then recanted, following what investigators describe as a well-established pattern of giving information and withdrawing it.¹ Because no charges had been filed, the investigation remained open.

Thirty Years of Searching for Remains

The bodies of Sara Anne Wood and Jamie Lusher have never been found. Retired New York State Police detectives John Fallon and Reece Treen have visited Lent in prison roughly 20 times. Treen has described Lent as “flat” when confronted with case materials and said he changes his stories often, making it hard to tell truth from fabrication. Lent has claimed blackouts and described an “evil alter ego” named Steven, casting his crimes as the product of uncontrollable compulsions. Treen said Lent understands emotion as a concept but does not appear to feel it, and has expressed that the murders “ruined his life” because he was caught, showing no awareness of the impact on his victims or their families.³

Investigators believe Lent uses his knowledge of the burial locations as a form of control. Herkimer County District Attorney Jeffrey Carpenter, who organized a 2013 operation in which Lent was taken from prison and driven over 600 miles to potential sites, concluded that Lent “absolutely knew where she was” but refused to reveal it.³

Major searches over the years include:

Winter 1994: A 50-day search in the Adirondack Mountains based on Lent’s hand-drawn map. No remains found.
July 2013: The three-day dive at Greenwater Pond for Jamie Lusher. No remains found.
2013: The three-day, 600-mile operation transporting Lent to sites he identified. No remains found.
May 2015: A search in a section of Mount Greylock, Massachusetts.¹⁰
November 2023: A search of the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont, where search dogs alerted to a potential site but no remains were recovered.³
June 18, 2024: A joint search by New York and Massachusetts State Police and several district attorneys’ offices at a property on Summer Street in Lanesborough, Massachusetts, where Lent had done basement work for a former friend. The property had been searched in the 1990s. No additional evidence was found.¹¹
Early 2025: Detectives returned to a Massachusetts cellar where Lent had previously worked. No new evidence was recovered.³

What Came Out of Sara Anne Wood’s Case

After his daughter’s disappearance, Sara Anne Wood’s father established the Sara Anne Wood Rescue Center in Utica, New York, to speed the distribution of missing child posters. In 1996 it became the Mohawk Valley Office of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s New York branch. According to program director Wendy Fical, the center has sent out more than 10.5 million posters for over 11,000 children, contributing to the recovery of more than 7,500.¹²

On May 25, 1995, National Missing Children’s Day, a group of bicyclists rode nearly 400 miles from Utica to the U.S. Capitol to raise awareness for the rescue center. The Ride for Missing Children became annual, now takes place at locations across upstate New York, and has grown into the largest annual fundraiser for NCMEC.¹³

Where Lent Is Today

Lent, now in his 70s, remains imprisoned in Massachusetts, serving life without parole for the murder of Jimmy Bernardo along with a concurrent 25-years-to-life sentence for the murder of Sara Anne Wood.¹ He was never charged in the death of Jamie Lusher. Both the Lusher and Wood cases remain open with respect to recovering remains, and New York State Police continue to visit Lent, seeking information about those victims and potential others.⁵ Berkshire County District Attorney spokesperson Julia Sabourin said, “Law enforcement in both Massachusetts and New York are dedicated to bringing justice for the children who remain missing and will continue to investigate all leads until their cases have been solved.”¹¹

1
CBS News. Serial Killer Lewis Lent Timeline
2
The Doe Network. Case File 424DMMA – James Lusher
3
CBS News. Sara Anne Wood Murder Mystery
4
CBS News. Becky Savarese Attempted Abduction
5
Paramount Press Express. 48 Hours Season Premiere – The Unending Search for Sara
6
Syracuse.com. Throwback Thursday – Lewis Lent
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Syracuse.com. Man Convicted of Killing Sara Ann Wood Admits to Killing a Third Child
8
WAMC. Child Serial Killer Lewis Lent Linked to Cold Case
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WAMC. Police Divers Suspend Search for Missing Teen at Berkshire County Pond
10
Spectrum News. Police Search Section of Mount Greylock in Connection With Lewis Lent Case
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LocalSYR. 30 Years Later Police Still Searching for Remains of Lewis Lent Victims
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National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The Legacy of Sara Anne Wood
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Utica Observer-Dispatch. Ride for Missing Children Returns to Sauquoit, Honors Sara Wood