Investigators say they will never give up looking for the body of Sara Anne Wood.  The 12-year-old was abducted in 1993 in central New York. Even though her killer, Lewis Lent, is behind bars, authorities say he refuses to give her family the peace of knowing where Sara is. “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty has been on the case from the beginning and reports on the unending search for Sara.

Dusty Wood: 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 could have done something but I couldn’t.

It’s been a little over three decades since his 12-year-old little sister disappeared, but for Dusty Wood, memories of Sara have not faded with time.

Dusty Wood: She was an exuberant person. She was excited to be alive. 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.

Dusty Wood: I’m an extrovert. She’s pretty extroverted. … She’s not a person in the background. She stuck out.

Dusty Wood: … she was funny … I imagine she would be funny now.

On August 18, 1993, Dusty, then just 16 years old, was enjoying a lazy summer day with his family in Sauquoit, a small town in central New York.

Dusty Wood: That day we had gone shopping, uh, 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.

Sara had made plans to ride her bike to Vacation Bible School at the church where her father was a pastor. It was just about a mile down the road.

Dusty Wood: The last time I saw her she was singing Dolly Parton.

Erin Moriarty: Do you remember what song she was singing?

Dusty Wood: “Working 9 to 5.” Yeah.

Dusty Wood: She and I were at the front door and … so I was listening to her as she’s “Working 9 to 5” (singing) … and then, uh, she got on her bike and was like, “see you later.”

THE SEARCH FOR SARA ANNE WOOD

When Sara didn’t return home later that afternoon, Dusty and Sara’s parents began to worry.

Dusty Wood: So, I remember … getting a phone call from my parents at my friend’s house. “Hey, did you see Sara?” And me being like, “no.” And so at that point we rode our bikes … and came home and didn’t see her.

Soon after, that’s when a neighbor came across Sara’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 6 p.m., New York State Police Trooper Timothy Blaise, who is now retired, arrived at the scene.

Erin Moriarty: So, Tim, where was her bicycle found?

Timothy Blaise (pointing towards woods): 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 blowing around.

Erin Moriarty: And at the time, did anyone remember seeing a truck or a child being grabbed or anything?

Timothy Blaise: No. No.

Erin Moriarty:  I mean she just vanished.

Timothy Blaise: Yeah, well, as you can see, I mean there’s nobody here really to see anything you know.

By early evening, the massive search for Sara began.

Dusty Wood: We’d be out in the woods searching for her at midnight, 1 o’clock in the morning hoping that we find her in maybe a hole or she fell down in something.

“48 Hours” was invited by Sara and Dusty’s parents, Bob and Frances Wood, to witness those early days of the investigation in hopes that the media attention would help find Sara. It would become one of the largest searches for a missing child during that time. 

Pastor Bob Wood (1993): The first day was the worst — the first night.

Pastor Bob Wood (1993): The first night, of course, you know, I was up on the road all night — out in the woods all night. The second day I was on the road all night, watching.

Bob Wood’s tiny church was turned into a state police command post. 

Major Pylman (1993): 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 — that’ll help us.

Major Pylman (1993): The big thing, as far as the uniformed troopers are concerned, is the door-to-door.

Major Pylman (1993): 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. 

Pastor Bob Wood (1993): All I’m doing is praying and encouraging people because they are doing all the work.

Searcher (1993): When you’re dealing with a child, if — it hits you personally. It hits me personally. You tend to devote 110 percent. … I hope we find this girl.

Major Pylman (1993): What we need is a break — a good solid lead that we can take and finish this case up with.

And Bob Wood believed police were going to get that break if enough people could see his daughter’s face.

Pastor Bob Wood (1993): Somebody stops in one of these stores and gases up, 10 minutes later you’ll see my daughter, they could make the phone call we need to get.

Frances Wood (1993): You 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.

Sara’s mother, Frances, made a public plea.

Frances Wood (crying): And whoever is behind this, I don’t hate you. I don’t hate you. I just want my daughter back. That’s all. I just want her here, right here with us.

Investigators were determined to find out what happened to Sara, and they did not shy away from looking anywhere or at anyone.

Dusty Wood: Our entire family was focused on getting Sara back. … So if you want to investigate me … I’m OK with that. … Sara has got to come home. We’ll do whatever it takes, period. 

THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY

Det. Reece Treen: When this happened, people realized this could happen to anybody. It could be their children.

Retired New York State Police detectives Reece Treen and John Fallon were state troopers when Sara Wood disappeared in 1993.

Det. John Fallon: My daughter was only five miles from there when this happened at her grandparents’ house at 3 years old. It’s home.

Treen and Fallon were part of the army of investigators from around the assigned to search for Sara.

Det. Frank Lawrence: We had no vehicle. She didn’t just go into thin air.

They would join Frank Lawrence, one of the lead detectives.

Det. Frank Lawrence: Something or someone had to have taken her.

Yet, despite the weeks of media attention that Sara’s case received, Lawrence says law enforcement still had very little to go on.

Det. Frank Lawrence: Somebody took her we didn’t know. So, when you don’t know, you have to eliminate everything, every possibility and you start local.

And that included questioning the people closest to Sara  —  her brother and her parents.

Erin Moriarty: You had to look at the Woods.

Frank Lawrence: The Woods were looked at.

Erin Moriarty: I mean wasn’t that tough though?

Det. Frank Lawrence: They have to. It’s very — it’s always difficult to do that, you know, especially in this case cause they’re such good parents.

Det. Frank Lawrence: Bob Wood was there every day. Every day. I had a hard time going every day. (emotional)

Once the Woods were eliminated, Lawrence says they turned their attention to investigating known and suspected sex offenders.

Det. Frank Lawrence: Each and every one of them had to be spoken with and eliminated. … And we did. We did.

And they still had nothing despite the long hours and heavy manpower until a bitterly cold day in January 1994 – five months after Sara disappeared. Officer Timothy Blaise was working in the command center when a message came in via teletype – a device that police departments used at the time to share information.

Officer Timothy Blaise: One came over about an attempted abduction in Massachusetts that I 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 Hours”‘ most recent request for an interview, but back in 1994, she did speak with “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty and told her her remarkable story.

It was 7:10 a.m. on Jan. 7 at one of the busiest intersections in town.

Becky Savarese (1994): I was coming up here.

Becky Savarese (1994): I was listening to my music, he, he was on the side of me. He’s…

Erin Moriarty (1994): Like, where I am … ?

Becky Savarese (1994): Yeah. He was saying stuff before I didn’t know what he was saying so I took my earphones out to um hear what he was saying and then he said, “Do you see the gun I have”? And I was like “Yes, I see the gun you have.” He’s like “Just do everything I say, everything will be perfectly OK.” I was like, “Alright.” 

Erin Moriarty (1994): He had it up against you?

Becky Savarese (1994): He, he he had it an inch away from me.

Erin Moriarty (1994): Were you scared?

Becky Savarese  (1994): No.

Erin Moriarty (1994): You weren’t scared?

Becky Savarese (1994): I wasn’t scared. (laughs nervously) 

Becky Savarese (1994): We turned down here to where his truck was parked.

Erin Moriarty (1994): Now he wants you to go in the truck that’s over there..

Becky Savarese (1994): Right, right.

Erin Moriarty (1994): But you are not intending to go into that truck.

Becky Savarese (1994): No. If I got away, I didn’t care if he shot me, I, I just knew I was not going to get into that truck.

Erin Moriarty (1994): Why, why did you know that, was that something someone told you or…?

Becky Savarese (1994): I, I just felt it inside me and I 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.

Becky Savarese (1994): I started to fake that I was like losing breath. When I was trying to take my backpack off uh, he tried to grab it from me and he got my backpack instead and I just ran.

Becky ran into a man clearing snow off a sidewalk who called the police. At about the same time, a witness called in with three digits from the truck’s license plate. Investigators began searching for the vehicle.

Det. Frank Lawrence: I remember it well because it was a blizzard. It was not nice out there. It was bad.

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.

Det. Reece Treen: And they … knocked on the door and said, “Yeah, who was driving this truck earlier?”

The homeowner told the officers a friend named Lewis Lent had 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 Becky, but willingly agreed to come down to the police station.

Erin Moriarty: Had Lewis Lent, that name, Lewis Lent, ever come up before?

Det. Reece Treen: No, not in our investigation.

Erin Moriarty: Had he ever been connected to a disappearance of a child?

Det. Reece Treen: No.

Erin Moriarty: But he did have a criminal history?

Det. Reece Treen: 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.

Det. Reece Treen: They found, Rebecca’s backpack. They found a gun. They found … duct tape and a clothesline rope. … basically his, his kidnapping abduction kit.

Although the attempted abduction was 100 miles away in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, everyone wondered if Lent could have also taken Sara.

Det. Frank Lawrence: I got a call from the lieutenant … He says well go home and pack a bag and you’re going to Pittsfield.

QUESTIONING LEWIS LENT

Almost 12 hours after the attempted abduction of 12-year-old Becky Savarese, New York State Police Detective Frank Lawrence struggled through a snowstorm and finally arrived at Pittsfield, Massachusetts — eager to speak to Lewis Lent. But he would have to wait his turn.

Det. Frank Lawrence: There’s similarities, but it’s a Pittsfield case, OK. … They would talk to him then … we’d get him in between.

Erin Moriarty: And he was willing to talk to you?

Det. Frank Lawrence: Yeah. He talked to us.

And during their conversations, Lawrence says he and two other New York investigators made sure Lewis Lent understood why they were there.

Det. Frank Lawrence: I actually showed him this poster. And I said to him, “Lew, this is who I’m here to talk to you about.” (points to a photo of the poster shown above) So he knew that eventually we’re gonna be talking about this, OK? 

Erin Moriarty: How did he react? Did he –

Det. Frank Lawrence: He, he was, he was  —   he was flat.

Erin Moriarty: Flat?

Det. Frank Lawrence: Yeah. He was flat to the whole thing.

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

Det. Frank Lawrence: I didn’t really care. … I was gonna 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.

Lewis 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.

Det. Frank Lawrence: 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.

Det. Frank Lawrence: We … found out that he was religious.

So, he says, they brought a Bible into the interview room.

Det. Frank Lawrence: That Bible sat on the table in front of him … Any time he would wander, OK, we would use the Bible and we’d go “Lew you gotta tell the truth. And it comes from the heart and you gotta tell us the truth.” … We would go back to the Bible.

And Lawrence says the strategy appeared 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.

Det. Frank Lawrence: He told us about his “master plan.” … Once he found the acceptable vulnerable individuals, he was gonna bring ’em back to his house and put ’em in,  —  I describe it as a coffin, but keep them alive. So he could use them and have them whenever he wanted them.

Investigators would later find the beginning of his horrifying construction project when they searched Lent’s bedroom and found a wooden partition wall. And things only got worse.

Det. Frank Lawrence: He wanted to talk about Jimmy Bernardo.

Jimmy Bernardo was a 12-year-old boy who had gone missing three years earlier in Pittsfield. A month later, hunters would find his body. The case had stumped local investigators for years, but now Lent was about to tell everyone what had happened to Jimmy. 

Det. Reece Treen: He was riding his bike through a strip mall in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Lewis 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 Lent said he offered him money to help him clean the movie theatre. Jimmy agreed.

Det. Reece Treen: 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 near his hometown of Reynoldsville, New York. Then he said he strangled Jimmy to death and left him there.

Det. Reece Treen: He had details that only the killer and the police knew.

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

Det. Frank Lawrence: The more we talked about Sara, we’re 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 Sara Anne Wood.

Det. Frank Lawrence: She was vulnerable. He was hunting and he found a victim.

And just like Jimmy Bernardo, Lawrence says Lent’s account matched details only known to investigators. Lent knew specifics about what Sara had been wearing and details about her bike that had not been made public.

Det. Frank Lawrence: He knew that the chain on the bike was broken. … And he also said that the bike was a little bit big for her. I didn’t know that. I found out later that it was …

Then Lawrence says Lent drew them a map showing where he said he buried Sara’s body.

Det. Frank Lawrence: This is just a copy, obviously. (referencing the map shown above).

Erin Moriarty: Right. But this is actually what Lewis Lent did.

Det. Frank Lawrence: Drew. He drew that. … I handed him a piece of paper and this is what he drew.

Erin Moriarty: And where did he say he put her?

Det. Frank Lawrence: Off Route 28, up by Blue Mountain Lake. 

Blue Mountain Lake is located in a remote, woody area near Raquette Lake in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. Within hours, police from all over New York state were dispatched and searched the area. Bob Wood was there, along with Dusty, who was a senior in high school.

Dusty Wood: It was very cold. It was ridiculous. And it was tons of snow. … I remember a lot of help. A lot of people. (emotional)

Erin Moriarty: Was this a time when you thought you might be able to bring Sara home?

Dusty Wood: Yeah.

For over 50 days they searched for Sara in the Adirondacks.

Timothy Blaise: It was 30 below zero. We could only stay outside for 20 minutes at a time.

Timothy Blaise: 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 Sara. … You know we were hoping somebody would come up with something, that had something to do with her. That just didn’t happen.

As investigators continued to look for Sara’s body, Lent would face murder charges in both Massachusetts and New York.

Dusty Wood: It was a rare occasion where everyone was laser focused on one event which was find Sara … bring him to justice.

THE TWO SIDES OF LEWIS LENT

Before Lewis Lent could be tried for Sara Wood’s murder in New York, he first had to face charges in Massachusetts.

In 1995, Lent went on trial and was ultimately convicted for Becky Savarese’s attempted kidnapping and was sentenced to 17 to 20 years. Almost a year-and-a-half later, after taking a plea, he was given a life sentence for murdering Jimmy Bernardo.

And then on June 6, 1996,  Lent arrived at Herkimer, New York, to a media frenzy.

DA Jeffrey Carpenter: The District Attorney wanted justice for Sara Anne Wood and her family.

Jeffrey Carpenter is Herkimer County’s District Attorney. He wasn’t in office when Sara Wood was murdered, but he has studied Lewis Lent’s case files. He says the DA’s office thought Lent was going to plead guilty to killing Sara. But without warning, Lent changed his mind.

DA Jeffrey Carpenter: 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 day he did not want to enter a plea.

Days later, Lent would change his mind again, and finally entered a guilty plea.

Erin Moriarty: What do you remember of him sitting there?

Dusty Wood: I couldn’t believe … how small a man. You know, I couldn’t believe it. Not imposing.

Almost four years after Sara 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.

Dusty Wood: He will never cause harm to anyone else.

But it was not over for the Wood family and New York State police investigators. They still needed to find Sara.

Det. Reece Treen: He changes his story so often. It’s hard to — hard to tell what’s the truth and what’s fiction.

In fact, Treen says Lent’s original story that he buried her in the Raquette Lake area turned out to be a lie.

Det. Reece Treen: He cashed a check on August 18th … in Pittsfield at 6:18 p.m. So he did not physically have time to abduct Sara 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 time, he would reveal where he buried Sara … and perhaps even disclose the murders of other victims.

Det. Reece Treen: I do believe that there’s other ones that  —  that he is responsible for, other murders of children.

Detectives Fallon and Treen say they visited Lent in prison about 20 times.

Erin Moriarty: Isn’t it difficult at times though … for the two of you not to just jump across the table and grab him?

Det. John Fallon: 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 “Steven.”

Det. Reece Treen: He has this dichotomy —  this is the word he used. … He has a really good side that studies the Bible and actually was a traveling minister … but then he has this evil side. And he has these uh, uncontrollable compulsions. This is the way he put it, to do terrible things, that 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.

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

Phil Shallies (1994): He just came over and said, “Well, I’d be glad to give you a hand. I hear you’re doing work on your foundation.” He said, “I’d be glad to help you out.” We built a border all the way around. We put in probably hundreds of hours working together in that cellar. It was definitely hard work.

Richard Schlesinger (1994): He — and he did that all out of the goodness of his heart?

Phil Shallies (1994): Yes, he did.

To Frank Colet, the dean of students at a Bible school that Lent attended, he was a gentleman.

Frank Colet (1994): He was intelligent, he was unassuming, he was quiet. One thing about Lewie that everyone remembered was he always had his hand out to — to shake your hand to — when you were meeting him. And if you didn’t watch out, he’d give you a big bear hug.

Richard Baumann (1994): 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 home.

To Richard Baumann, who employed him, Lent seemed like a mentor to children, who called Lent “the Big Brother.”

Baumann owned the movie theater where Lent worked as a janitor for six years, and he thought he knew Lent very well.

Richard Baumann (1994): I — I hired him. I worked side by side with him. (breaks down and cries)

Richard Schlesinger (1994): What’s — what’s — tell me what’s going on?

Richard Baumann (1994): I just feel as though I may have missed something that he might have said or done that would have keyed me.

Richard Schlesinger (1994): That would have let you know?

Richard Baumann (1994): Just — just give me a clue that there was something wrong with this guy.

Julia Cowley: 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.

Julia Cowley is a retired FBI agent and profiler who worked on cases like the Golden State Killer. She now hosts a true-crime podcast called “Consult: Real FBI Profilers.”

Cowley has never met Lewis Lent, but at “48 Hours”‘ 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.

Julia Cowley: 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.

Julia Cowley: His needs come before anyone else’s obviously. He had no regard for his victims, he has no regard for victims’ families.

Something Reece Treen says he has seen firsthand.

Det. Reece Treen: 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 that 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 doesn’t think that way.

Erin Moriarty: Lewis Lent so quickly admits to kidnapping and killing … Sara Wood. Why not tell it all? Why not give all the details?

Julia Cowley: It’s just a secret he wants to hold onto. 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 family members want answers … continuing to hurt them is something I think that he feeds off of… It’s — it’s — there’s some enjoyment in there. … most killers don’t tell us everything. … They rarely give the full story.

Instead, Lent reveals what he wants when he wants, on his own timetable. In 2013, he revealed something new.

DA Jeffrey Carpenter: I’ve described it … as speaking directly to the devil. He really is the devil.

FAMILY HONORS SARA ANNE WOOD

As Detectives Fallon and Treen continued to question Lewis Lent about Sara Wood and other possible victims, in 2013 he made yet another confession.

Det. John Fallon: He ended up admitting to uh, killing Jamie Lusher.

Nine months before Sara was abducted, Jamie Lusher, a 16-year-old teen with disabilities, disappeared in Westfield, Massachusetts —  just 40 miles from the Pittsfield area,

Det. Reece Treen: Again he was riding his bike um, 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 discarded the teenager’s remains in Greenwater Pond in Becket, Massachusetts.

Det. John Fallon: We had divers go actually with the Massachusetts State Police divers. … and they all dove the pond. … and, uh, nothing was found.

As he has done many times before, Lent would later recant his confession. Authorities decided not to charge Lent with Jamie’s murder  —  hoping that one day he will lead them to his body.

Det. John Fallon: At this point, we are not interested in further prosecution. … He’s not going anywhere.

At a press conference shortly after the confession, Jamie’s sister talked about the grief she endured since her brother went missing.

JENNIFER NOWAK (Jamie’s sister to reporters | emotional): Anybody that knows me knows that I talk about this, I think about this every day.

It’s this searing heartache, in part, that keeps authorities motivated to find the missing. So, soon after Lent confessed to killing Jamie, District Attorney Jeffrey Carpenter got permission to take Lent — who was serving his life sentence in Massachusetts — out of prison and back to New York. This time they drove him around hoping he would reveal anything that would help them find Sara.

DA Jeffrey Carpenter: So really what did we have to lose? … We had to do it. … We drove to the Massachusetts border. We drove to the Vermont border. He took us to where she was abducted. He took us to where he claimed he murdered her.

But after three long days and over 600 miles of driving, Carpenter says, New York authorities ended the operation.

DA Jeffrey Carpenter: The consensus was, he absolutely knew where she was. He just was not gonna tell us.

Before Carpenter sent Lent back to Massachusetts, he recorded this conversation with him:

DA JEFFREY CARPENTER: You know, we spent some time here the last couple of days. I hope you feel like you were treated with respect.

LEWIS LENT: Oh, all the way.

DA JEFFREY CARPENTER: Yeah. Treated well?

LEWIS LENT: Yes.

DA JEFFREY CARPENTER: Well that was our end of the bargain right?

LEWIS LENT: Yes.

DA JEFFREY CARPENTER: Right?

LEWIS LENT: Yep.

DA JEFFREY CARPENTER: What was your end of the bargain?

LEWIS LENT: Do the very best I can to find Sara.

DA JEFFREY CARPENTER: Yeah.

LEWIS LENT: Yeah.

DA JEFFREY CARPENTER: Is that what we’ve done?

LEWIS LENT: That’s what we’ve done. …  I would say that, uh, that I tried. I was absolutely sure that I knew the route but when it came down to it, I could only get partial of what I, where I actually, where I actually went.

Erin Moriarty: What was going through your head when you were talking to him?

DA Jeffrey Carpenter: 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 that fruitless search, in November 2023, investigators were back out looking again — this time at the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont after Treen identified an area with landmarks that Lent had talked about during their many conversations.

Det. Reece Treen: Just too many things matched up. … A lot  — a lot, a lot of boxes were checked.

What’s more, search and rescue dogs taken to the area had alerted to a possible body there.

Det. Reece Treen: So we were hopeful, optimistic, that we would find something there. … And we never, never found anything.

But authorities kept looking. Earlier this year, detectives went back to the cellar that Lent worked in with Phil Shallies to see if they missed something in 1994. The search turned up no new evidence. 

Erin Moriarty: Do you feel in a way that you might be running out of time? Lewis Lent is in his 70s.

Det. John Fallon: It’s a concern. But that’s one of many things we can’t control.

Regardless of the challenges, authorities say they will never stop looking for Sara Wood and Jamie Lusher.

Dusty Wood says he chooses not to think about Lewis Lent.

Dusty Wood: 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 for Missing Children, a 78-mile bike ride that was created in Sara’s honor by Bob Wood.

The riders wore turquoise and pink – the colors that Sara wore when she was abducted. Riders stop at schools along the way to talk about abduction prevention.

Dusty Wood: The most important thing for us 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 Lewis Lent, that it be done.

Riders pay silent tribute to those children whose families hold out hope that they will be found alive, and to children who went missing and are never coming home … like Sara Anne Wood.

Dusty Wood says he and his family are grateful to their community who have supported them since the beginning.

Dusty Wood: There’ll be never a way to repay the kindness, of strangers that opened up the possibility of giving the best chance to my sister.

He’s not sure if they will ever find his sister’s body, but he is at peace.

Dusty Wood:  I’m waiting for the day I see Sara in heaven. And I know that day is coming. And that makes me feel good

If you have information about where Sara Wood or Jamie Lusher are, please contact New York State Police Troop D Headquarters at 315-366-6000.

To learn how to educate children about abduction prevention, please visit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website.

REMEMBERING PHIL JONES

In memory of longtime CBS News correspondent Phil Jones. Jones, who also reported for “48 Hours,” reported on Sara Wood’s case in 1993.  

 

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Produced by Chris Young Ritzen. Michael McHugh is the producer-editor. Ken Blum is an editor. Marc Goldbaum is the development producer. Michael Loftus is the associate producer. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.

 

To learn how to educate children about abduction prevention, please visit the

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website.

Six years after the murder of Blaze Bernstein, his family came face to face with his killer, Sam Woodward, a former high school classmate.

KEN MORRISON (in court): The why is the single most important issue you will need to decide. Not who is responsible for the death of a young man, but exactly why he was killed six years ago.

For Jeanne Pepper and her husband Gideon Bernstein, those six years were painfully marked by COVID delays, shifting lawyers and legal strategies.

Jeanne Pepper: Slow justice is no justice. … It’s not fair to victims and it’s not fair to the deceased.

Finally, came April 2024. Jeanne Pepper and Gideon Bernstein were more than ready for their day in court.

Jeanne Pepper: We’re impatient. We want to get on with our lives.

But not before telling the story of their first-born child, Blaze Bernstein. How he lived, and why they believe he died: murdered because of who he was. Targeted by hate.

Gideon Bernstein: It’s not safe for you to be a lot of different minorities now.

KEN MORRISON (in court): The victim in this case — and nobody disputes that he was a victim — was stabbed to death.

Ken Morrison would defend Samuel Woodward, charged with first-degree premeditated murder. Morrison squared off against Prosecutor Jennifer Walker.

JENNIFER WALKER (in court): And where we start is with who was killed. Blaze Bernstein … and he was 19 … He was gay and Jewish. 

The silent, ghostly presence in the courtroom was Blaze — that slender, curious, playful young man with a big world. Images that refuse to fade.

Tracy Smith: Are there pictures or things that flash through your mind … that you think of Blaze?

Jeanne Pepper: Always. Every day.

It was just weeks after Blaze’s death that “48 Hours” first met Jeanne and Gideon. Wounds raw, they shared bittersweet memories of the son they described as magical.

Jeanne Pepper: And the first time I saw him, I looked in his eyes. … Something about this baby, he’s gonna change the world someday.

Tracy Smith: What do you miss most about Blaze?

Jeanne Pepper: His quirky personality.

Jeanne Pepper: He was different.

Gideon Bernstein: He liked to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Jeanne Pepper:  I call him a unicorn … He was magnificently creative.

It was late summer 2016, and Blaze who’d already achieved so much, was headed to an Ivy League school in Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania. There’d be new friends, mentors and challenges. And Blaze seemed ready for it all.

Jeanne Pepper: He really hit his stride.

A creative writer. Thinking about a career in medicine.

Jeanne Pepper: He was finding himself.

Then came winter break, sophomore year. Blaze headed home.

Jeanne Pepper: He was really looking forward to being with us, too. 

There were holiday celebrations and Hannukah candles. The budding chef cooked up a gourmet meal. And then, sometime on the night of Jan. 2, 2018, Blaze secretly left his parents’ house. It would be the last time.

Tracy Smith: That night — when did you realize that he was missing? 

Gideon Bernstein: We didn’t. 

Jeanne Pepper: I didn’t know that night.

Gideon Bernstein: We didn’t even know. We thought he slept in and the next day we were —

Jeanne Pepper: I — I had my aha moment when I was at the dental appointment. 

The next day, Blaze was due to meet his mother for that dentist appointment. But Blaze never showed up and wasn’t answering his cellphone. 

Jeanne Pepper: I called Gideon … he asked me if Blaze had ever come home the night before? And I screamed out, “I don’t know!”

Gideon Bernstein: Rushed outta the office and came home. 

Jeanne Pepper: We both did. We flew home. 

And checked Blaze’s room. 

Jeanne Pepper: His wallet. His retainers. His keys. 

Gideon Bernstein: Those were all still at the house. 

Jeanne Pepper: His glasses. Yeah, all of that stuff was at the house.

Tracy Smith: But your thought was?

Gideon Bernstein: Well, it was just so highly unusual.

Jeanne Pepper: He wanted to spend time with us. … I just kept texting and calling him and leaving messages all day.

Jeanne Pepper: Where had he been? … We didn’t know.

They called police and tried to log on to Blaze’s social media accounts.

Gideon Bernstein: We just jumped on his computer. This was a big challenge for us. 

But with the help of family and friends, they logged on to Blaze’s Snapchat. That’s where they discovered the night he disappeared, Blaze had sent his home address to someone: Sam Woodward, a seeming stranger.

Gideon Bernstein: We never heard the name.

Jeanne Pepper: We never heard the name before.

Gideon and Jeanne were panicked and baffled. Who was Sam Woodward?

So Gideon messaged Woodward: “Please pick up.” Woodward got on the phone. The Bernsteins recorded the phone conversation and would share it with police:

GIDEON BERNSTEIN (phone call with Sam Woodward): “And we just cracked into his Snap account and saw that – that you had been, uh, trying to find him. So you’re the first real clue to the, to the puzzle here.”

Woodward’s pieces of the puzzle began with him meeting Blaze near the Bernsteins’ home.

SAM WOODWARD (phone call): “I picked him up at 11.”

And he said he drove him to nearby Borrego Park, with its thick brush and twisting paths. And that once there, they parked.

GIDEON BERNSTEIN (phone call): “OK. And then did he get out of the car, or what happened?”

SAM WOODWARD: “Yeah. He got out of the car, and, uh, I got out of the car, too.”

And Woodward added, Blaze, claiming he was going to meet a friend, walked down a path, and vanished into the darkness.

SAM WOODWARD: “I shouted out, ‘Blaze! Blaze! …  But I didn’t see anything. I – I didn’t hear anything.”

Woodward explained to the Bernsteins how he knew Blaze and why he says they were getting together.

SAM WOODWARD (phone call): “It was more of a spur of the moment kind of thing … ‘Yeah, dude, let’s hang out’ … since he and I were friends when we were at OCSA.”

OCSA  — The Orange County School of the Arts, where Raiah Rofsky, Blaze and Sam Woodward were once classmates. Rofsky’s high school memories of Woodward were about to come flooding back with a vengeance.

Raiah Rofsky: I got a call from my mom. ‘Raiah, did you hear?’ And I said ‘what?’ And she said, ‘Blaze is missing.’ And then my mom said, ‘Raiah he was with this guy named Sam Woodward.’ I screamed in the phone, ‘he what!’ And she was like, ‘do you know this guy.’ And I said, ‘yes. I know this guy. He’s crazy!!’

Tracy Smith: How different were Sam and Blaze?

Raiah Rofsky: Oh, they were so different. Probably about as different as you could be.

Hauntingly different says Blaze’s oldest friend. So, when that word began to filter across Orange County that Blaze hadn’t come home, and that Sam Woodward might be a person of interest, it chilled Rofsky to the bone. Her memories of Woodward are impossible to shake.

Raiah Rofsky: He was drawing guns in his notebook in class.

Tracy Smith: Did you say anything?

Raiah Rofsky: No.

Tracy Smith: But you thought?

Raiah Rofsky: This is terrifying.

THE SEARCH FOR BLAZE BERNSTEIN

The spotlight was on Sam Woodward, whom Rofsky remembered from high school.

Raiah Rofsky: He was very quiet, very withdrawn, didn’t really talk to people.

Woodward. Odd man out, says Rofsky.

Raiah Rofsky:  You know everybody has their clique. But I don’t think he identified with any of them really.

And as far as anyone knew, he was the last person to see Blaze Bernstein alive.

Raiah Rofsky: The only reason I could think of Sam meeting up with Blaze is because either number one, he wanted to hook up with him, or two, because he was planning to murder him.

And as for that story Woodward told — that on the spur of the moment he and Blaze had decided to hang out — it didn’t come close to adding up for Rofsky.

Tracy Smith: He had a reputation of being what? 

Raiah Rofsky: Racist, homophobic, sexist.

It was Rofsky who was there when Blaze’s sexuality was still a secret until, along a glistening California beach, he bravely confided in his oldest friend.

Tracy Smith: So you guys were kind of walking down the beach alone together and —

Raiah Rofsky: Yeah.

Tracy Smith: —  he came out to you? 

Raiah Rofsky: Yeah.

Rofsky, who would later also come out, stepped up when it mattered most.

Raiah Rofsky: All I could do was … be a good friend and love him … unconditionally.

Tracy Smith: Did you get the sense that Blaze had told anyone else that he thought he was bi? 

Raiah Rofsky: I don’t think that he did. He was kind of upset to say it. 

Tracy Smith: Something that clearly was a big secret for him and … 

Raiah Rofsky: Yeah, you know, coming out to yourself is a really mature, difficult thing to do.

Tracy Smith: And what did you tell him? 

Raiah Rofsky: I told him, “It’s OK. If you like boys that’s totally fine. Love who you love.” 

While he hadn’t yet told his parents, Gideon and Jeanne sensed Blaze might be gay. 

Jeanne Pepper: We went up to him and said, “Listen, whatever your situation is, we embrace it. We love you. We don’t care.” 

But in those first days of 2018, it wasn’t just love. It was also an unimaginable fear that consumed Jeanne and Gideon, as the search for Blaze began.

Orange County cops spoke with Woodward. He repeated what he told the Bernsteins on that phone call. That he had picked Blaze up, driven to Borrego Park. And that then Blaze had vanished.

By Jan. 5,  the search had become massive. 

Rabbi Arnold Rachlis coordinated the search from University Synagogue, where Blaze was an active member and a role model.

Rabbi Arnold Rachlis: And we printed up thousands and thousands of fliers that people in the congregation put up … Everybody’s looking.

Blaze embraced his Jewish heritage and confronted its haters.

Rabbi Arnold Rachlis: At such a young age to see someone with so much talent … is a beautiful thing. … A good heart, a good soul. That’s what Blaze had.

Everyone was somehow hoping for good news. Including, it seemed, Sam Woodward.

GIDEON BERNSTEIN (phone call):  OK. So, is this the best number to reach you at?

SAM WOODWARD: Uh, yes, sir, it is.

On that call that Gideon had recorded, Woodward sounded deeply concerned.

SAM WOODWARD (phone call): Yeah, I wanna find Blaze as much as you do.

But Blaze was nowhere to be found. Anxious hours stretched into sleepless nights.

Jeanne Pepper: I really didn’t know if we would ever find him.

Gideon Bernstein: As the days passed —

Jeanne Pepper: You know —

Gideon Bernstein:  — it became more and more difficult.

Jeanne Pepper: And I thought, “We’re never gonna know. We’re never gonna know what happened exactly. We’re never gonna figure it out.” Yeah that’s what I thought.

Raiah Rofsky: I immediately thought he’s dead. He’s dead.

Tracy Smith: Just from hearing that he was with Sam?

Raiah Rofsky: Yes.

It was day seven since Blaze last left home. A family and a community was beyond frustrated. Detectives had searched Borrego Park over and over. But they decided to give it one more look. In the pouring rain, hidden under a large tree branch was a mound of dirt. Under the wet, caked earth lay Blaze Bernstein.

Leah Bernstein: If not the rain, we would have never known what happened to him. So the rain uncovered his face.

Leah and Richard Bernstein are Blaze’s grandparents.

Leah Bernstein: We just loved him. 

Richard Bernstein: I wish I could write like he wrote. … I wish I could cook like he cooked. 

“48 Hours” met them just a few months after Blaze was murdered.

Richard Bernstein: I think the world lost a beautiful soul.

Leah Bernstein: I always think of him before I go to sleep. (teary)  

Their grandchild, once brimming with life and possibility, had been horrifically slaughtered with a knife.

Rabbi Arnold Rachlis: And then the funeral happened … And it was shattering.

The grief stretched across Orange County.

Gideon Bernstein: Just wanna know why.

Jeanne Pepper I don’t. I don’t even want to know because I’m not gonna like that answer.

SAM WOODWARD’S DARK AND FRIGHTENING SECRET

 
Three days after Blaze Bernstein was found butchered and broken, investigators confronted his one-time classmate Sam Woodward at his parents’ home.

REPORTER: Can you tell us what happened to Blaze?

SAM WOODWARD: No comment.

REPORTER: Were you there when he disappeared?

SAM WOODWARD: No comment. 

REPORTER MICHELE GILE | CBS LOS ANGELES: Undercover officers made their move on Sam Woodward this afternoon, as he pulled out of his Newport Beach driveway and went down the road, they pulled that car over and arrested him.

Tony Rackaukas: Sam Woodward was charged with murder with the personal use of a knife.

Then-Orange County D.A Tony Rackaukas.

Tracy Smith: How did Blaze Bernstein die?

Tony Rackaukas: He was stabbed multiple times in the neck.

Tracy Smith: What does that tell you?

Tony Rackaukas: Well it tells me there was a lot of hate.

For Blaze’s parents, the details of his murder were too much to even imagine.

Jeanne Pepper: I just try not to think about what that really meant. I don’t think I — that I physically can deal with the trauma of what’s happened.

As police gathered evidence, the violence that happened in Borrego Park was revealed. With Blaze’s body — his battered phone. Inside Sam Woodward’s car — blood.

Tony Rackaukas: The blood on the headliner, uh, belonged to both Sam Woodward and Blaze Bernstein.

Tracy Smith: Blaze Bernstein’s blood was in Sam Woodward’s car?

Tony Rackauckas: Yes. Yes.

Tracy Smith: And then they went on to search the house?

Tony Rackauckas: Yes.

Tracy Smith: What kind of forensic evidence did they gather ?

Tony Rackauckas: There was a knife. … The knife had blood on it. Blaze Bernstein’s blood on the knife.

At his arraignment, Sam Woodward would plead not guilty. Investigators would continue to search for what happened that night in Borrego Park. They would soon come to believe that Woodward had a dark and frightening secret.

Sarah Moore: He was involved in this extreme neo-Nazi organization, Atomwaffen Division, which does expect its members to explicitly target members of the Jewish and LGBTQ  community.

Sarah Moore monitors hate crime, working for GLAAD, one of the most prominent gay rights organizations in the country.

She has kept a close eye on the small but violent group, Atomwaffen.

Sarah Moore: They want to kind of blow up the world as it is. They want to create something entirely new.

Tracy Smith: And the new thing is what?

Sarah Moore: In their mind it would be a White ethno-state.

Sarah Moore: And there’s either no Jewish, or no LGBTQ, or no people of color in that society.

Tracy Smith: How does Atomwaffen recruit?

Sarah Moore: They recruit primarily online.

Just a click away, and exactly where Woodward — who Raiah Rofsky remembers had trouble making friends — found some strangers who welcomed and encouraged him.

Tracy Smith: Did you consider yourself a neo-Nazi ?

Former Atomwaffen member: I just considered myself a Nazi.

This man doesn’t want his identity revealed. But he says he was once a member of Atomwaffen. And that he came in contact with Sam the year before Blaze was murdered.

Former Atomwaffen member: It was like a camaraderie type of thing … common interests.

Tracy Smith: And those interests were hating other groups. Hating Jews. Hating gays. Hating Blacks.

Former Atomwaffen member: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Tracy Smith: How involved was Sam Woodward in Atomwaffen?

Former Atomwaffen member: I know that he was involved.

Involved enough, say investigators, to wear the Atomwaffen mask, give the Nazi salute, make a pilgrimage to Colorado to meet neo-Nazi leader James Mason, and travel to Texas to attend Atomwaffen’s version of a corporate retreat. They call it “hate camp.”

Sarah Moore: At hate camps, members will get kind of a one-on-one training in how to be a violent extremist.

And that bitter January 2018, when news broke that Blaze had been stabbed to death —  allegedly by a member of Atomwaffen — as Orange County mourned, neo-Nazis reportedly cheered.

Former Atomwaffen member: Everyone was celebrating him. … Like he killed a gay Jew.

Sarah Moore: Which in their mind is a sort of jackpot.

Tracy Smith: Ugh.

Sarah Moore: It’s disgusting.

Jeanne Pepper: There were people congratulating this accused killer for what he had done, killing my son. Congratulating him.

Tracy Smith: Had you ever heard of Atomwaffen?

Jeanne Pepper: No.

Tracy Smith: Before this?

Jeanne Pepper: No. But we should have. Because we’re a perfect target for that group.

Because of Sam’s involvement in Atomwaffen, seven months after Blaze’s murder, prosecutors upped the ante, adding a hate crime enhancement — a murder motivated by prejudice.

Rabbi Arnold Rachlis: As the story unfolded that the murder was related to homophobia and antisemitism, well then the anger in the community ratcheted up.

For some it brought back the darkest of times.

Tracy Smith: It must seem like all this hate was behind you. That’s something from the past.

Leah Bernstein: You can’t forget it.

Tracy Smith: You can’t forget it?

Leah Bernstein: Never.

It is a murderous echo from her past, all too real for Grandma Leah, a Holocaust survivor — once a little girl forced by Hitler’s Nazis to wear a yellow star.

Leah Bernstein: Yes we did wear the stars.

Tracy Smith: It’s a horrible irony, that what you escaped is —

Leah Bernstein: Is following me.

Sam Woodward was locked up in the Orange County Jail. He would begin his yearslong journey through the justice system. It included a revolving door of defense lawyers who raised questions with the court about Woodward’s mental health, and his ability to defend himself. In 2022, Woodward was found competent to stand trial.

Investigators say they also mined Woodward’s phone and social media activity. And along with the Nazi propaganda, they found something else. Woodward had visited gay dating and porn sites. And he had exchanged flirtatious messages with Blaze.

Louis Keene: So, they match twice on Tinder.

Louis Keene, a reporter for “The Forward,” would cover the case and report on the conversations between Woodward and Blaze.

Louis Keene: Blaze admits that he’s gay. … Blaze says, “I think you’re hot” … And Sam says back to Blaze, “You’re not too bad looking yourself, Blaze.” And so they kind of had this flirty interaction.

Raiah Rofsky: Maybe Sam was like closeted and wanted to hook up.

Rofsky moved to New York City, where she lives as an openly bisexual woman. She still wonders about Woodward’s intention, and Blaze’s, that tragic night in Borrego Park.

Tracy Smith: The defense may argue that Blaze made a move on Sam and Sam freaked out. 

Raiah Rofsky: OK. And if you freak out, does that excuse you stabbing somebody?

In April 2024, Sam Woodward finally headed to trial. Over time, the case had taken on even greater meaning.

Sarah Moore: There’s a lot at stake here because it’s not just about getting justice for Blaze, but it’s also about what precedent this is setting for other LGBTQ+ people who have been or might in the future be in similar situations.

Blaze’s parents steadied themselves to relive the night that shattered their lives.

Jeanne Pepper: I know that a lot of things will be said that are probably untrue, because that’s what happens in a criminal trial. … I have an opportunity to defend Blaze and that’s what I will do.                                          

MAKING THE CASE FOR HATE

Jeanne Pepper: It’s the final thing that I have to do for my son — is be there and make sure there is some form of justice.

It took more than six years for Jeanne Pepper and Gideon Bernstein to get this day in superior court. But it comes with terrible memories of the day they lost their son, Blaze.

JENNIFER WALKER (in court): I just want to thank you for being here and I’m sorry that the circumstances. You remember where you were when you got the phone call?

GIDEON BERNSTEIN: I do remember that, yes.

JENNIFER WALKER: And why does that stand out in your mind?

GIDEON BERNSTEIN: Because it was the beginning of… hell.

The couple has to come face to face with their son’s killer, but the killer, Sam Woodward, doesn’t seem to want to be seen.

KENNETH MORRISON: Can I ask you to move the hair out of your face a little bit, maybe pull the hair on your right side … of your head away so we can see you? Please? Thank you.

SAM WOODWARD: No. 

Even before he took the stand, Woodward was already an eerie presence in the courtroom who got everyone’s attention.

Louis Keene: Sam looked like Charles Manson … You couldn’t really see his face.

Louis Keene: You couldn’t really hear him all the time. … If you’re in the jury he looks extremely menacing.

Tracy Smith: Do you want to look him in the eye?

Jeanne Pepper: Not really. I don’t care. He’s meaningless to me.

KENNETH MORRISON: Can I nag you one more time to move your hair out of your face a little bit for us?

Back when they were frantically searching for Blaze, Sam Woodward told the Bernsteins he didn’t know anything about what happened to their son.

SAM WOODWARD (PHONE CALL): I didn’t see where he went … I searched all over for him … I couldn’t find him anywhere …

But Woodward’s looks have changed dramatically and so has his story.

KENNETH MORRISON (in court): Do you remember what you were thinking when you were driving the knife down again and again and again?

SAM WOODWARD: (Long silence)  An anger like nothing I’d ever felt in my whole life.

There’s absolutely no question, Sam Woodward killed Blaze Bernstein.

KEN MORRISON (in court): The evidence will show that Samuel Woodward is guilty of homicide.

The question for the jury:

KEN MORRISON (in court): Why this homicide was committed?

Louis Keene: Sam’s defense attorney said in opening arguments that we were going to hear from Sam about something that happened that night, that provoked Sam into killing Blaze.

The challenge for defense attorney Ken Morrison is to prove voluntary manslaughter; that Woodward acted impulsively.

KEN MORRISON (in court): There was no cold, calculated decision to kill.

And the knife? According to the defense it wasn’t ever meant for murder. From the time Woodward was a Boy Scout, he was never without one.

KEN MORRISON (in court): Would you ever carry a pocketknife with you in your pants pocket?

SAM WOODWARD: Yes I would … Almost all the time.

KEN MORRISON (in court) Did you have a knife in your pocket when you were with Blaze Bernstein?

SAM WOODWARD: Yes I did.

Prosecutor Jennifer Walker argues this was premeditated murder and a hate crime.

JENNIFER WALKER (in court): The killing happened in less than an hour.

JENNIFER WALKER: You’ll see the cellphone evidence, the DNA evidence, the defendant’s words, the defendant’s hate.

In the nearly three months at trial, Walker painstakingly put on almost 20 witnesses including the same former Atomwaffen member who spoke with “48 Hours,” now a witness for the prosecution, who still wanted his identity concealed.

JENNIFER WALKER: Do you recognize that?

FORMER ATOMWAFFEN MEMBER: Yes.

JENNIFER WALKER: What is it?

FORMER ATOMWAFFEN MEMBER: That’s a picture of Samuel Woodward

All to build the case for the added hate charge and a greater sentence.

Louis Keene: The difference is the possibility of parole … If it’s no hate crime, then it’s 25 years to life with the possibility of parole. … if it’s a first-degree, premeditated murder and a hate crime, Sam faces life in prison without possibility of parole.

The defense uses a time-honored tactic – suggesting the victim is not as innocent as he appears.

KENNETH MORRISON (in court): The facts of this case are not simple. You will learn that Blaze Bernstein was not killed because of who he was, but because of what he did.

KENNETH MORRISON: Tell us what happened. … Sam, can you pick your head up, move your hair?

In Sam Woodward’s version, Blaze was toying with him and threatening to out him. Once they were in Borrego Park, Woodward says he smoked a joint.

SAM WOODWARD (in court): I started nodding off.

Woodward says he thought Blaze took a compromising picture.

SAM WOODWARD: I saw my pants unbuckled … I could practically, like, feel something somewhat close to my leg … and he had his phone in his hand.

Louis Keene: And he tells us that he believes that Blaze is taking a photo of his privates.

SAM WOODWARD (in court): I just came undone—I went in a state of just terror.

SAM WOODWARD (in court): And I asked, “What are you doing, what are you doing?”

No photo was ever found, so there’s no evidence that Blaze actually took one.

KEN MORRISON (in court): What were you afraid of?

SAM WOODWARD: I grew up in a home with my mother and my father and I love them more than I can imagine. My father though he — there’s no way not a chance people like him … just even thinking about the look on his face if he saw something like that, if he’d heard about something like that, that got out somehow, I couldn’t fathom that.

Louis Keene: Sam grew up in an ultra-conservative Catholic household. He had parents who believed homosexuality was a sin, but Sam also seemed to have really conflicted feelings about his own sexuality. … What you come away with is just immense sadness. … of all these external forces coming to bear on his life … He did what he did. And what he did can’t be undone.

KEN MORRISON (in court): Any idea how long it took to stop stabbing Blaze?

SAM WOODWARD: No idea. No.

Louis Keene: It was one of the most awful things I’ve ever heard … and you know that Blaze’s parents are sitting there … for months of this trial, they’ve been hearing … their son is accused of sexual assault … you can’t really imagine what that’s like. Jeanne Pepper … walked out of the room.

For the prosecution, the only predator in this story is Sam Woodward.

JENNIFER WALKER (in court): He has a six-inch knife out and Blaze is the predator? Blaze is the problem here?

JENNIFER WALKER: That’s what’s being sold to you by the defendant. … He was interested and fixated on hate. Atomwaffen Division had that outlet for him.

Only two people know what really happened that night. Sam Woodward has had his say. Blaze Bernstein isn’t alive to tell us.

JENNIFER WALKER (in court): You should find him guilty of first-degree murder with the hate crime. It’s the only reasonable conclusion.

KENNETH MORRISON (in court): Do you have any hesitation? Do you have any doubt?

Now it’s up to the jury.

CELEBRATING BLAZE BERNSTEIN’S LEGACY WITH LOVE

The passage of time has been doubly hard for Blaze’s grandparents Richard and Leah, still waiting for justice for the grandson they loved and lost.

Leah Bernstein: I miss him all. Everything about him. He was loving and caring. He was handsome too. (smiles)

Blaze and his exceptional appetite for life.

Richard Bernstein: I tried to treat him as just a normal kid, you know. And he turned out uh — (breaks down)

Tracy Smith: I’m sorry.

Richard Bernstein: He turned out well.

On July 3, 2024, the jurors began their deliberations.

Leah Bernstein: I don’t want him to die. I want him to suffer every day of his life.

Tracy Smith: Is there a part of you that wants to look that young man in the eye?

Richard Bernstein: No.

Tracy Smith: Why not?

Richard Bernstein: Because he’s a footnote in history.

Whether footnote or headline, grandparents, parents, Rabbi, or oldest friend, It felt like forever.

Raiah Rofsky:  I was nervous, and I felt anxiety because I was not sure what the verdict was going to be

2,364 days after his arrest, Sam Woodward’s fate is on the line: living and dying in prison. Or someday possibly walking free.

It took the jury eight hours.

Louis Keene: The verdict being read. There’s no way to describe what it’s like, sort of the emotional intensity of the moment.

COURT CLERK: We the jury … find the defendant Samuel Woodward guilty of the crime of first-degree murder.

JEANNE BERNSTEIN (reacts off camera) Thank God! (cries)

Guilty of murder. But was it “hate”? Did Woodward target Blaze because he was gay? The jury spoke again.

COURT CLERK: We the jury … find it to be true that the defendant Samuel Woodward committed hate crime first-degree murder.

Outside the Orange County courtroom all that pain and uncertainty overflowed.

The current D.A. offered thoughts on love and law.

D.A. TODD SPITZER (addressing reporters): We don’t care who you love, or who you want to be with. … You deserve to be a free person with free will and love who you love. And that needs to be protected.

JEANNE PEPPER (adressing reporters): We are thrilled with the verdict, which holds Samuel Woodward accountable for the brutal, violent, painful murder of our son, brother, grandson, cousin, Blaze Bernstein on January 3rd, 2018.

Louis Keene: His parents will never get to speak to him again. … And that loss is incalculable. The Woodwards also lost their son. He’s going to prison.

Raiah Rofsky: When the verdict was that the murder was a hate crime, that essentially meant that there is the proof that Blaze was murdered because he was gay and Jewish. Simple as that.

For Rofsky, who Blaze first came out to, on that California beach —

Raiah Rofsky: In my head I was telling Blaze “we finally got him.” … Like, you know, case closed.

And says the prosecutor, Woodward should pay the maximum price.

JENNIFER WALKER (addressing reporters): He faces life without possibility of parole. And that’s what we’ll be asking for.

Experts who monitor Atomwaffen say it has largely dissolved. But that the threat of hate groups remains today.

Tracy Smith: You said, “love who you love” … it sounds so simple … but it’s not.

Raiah Rofsky: Mm hmm … Just because you’re accepting of yourself … that doesn’t mean that everybody is going to see the same as you do, you know… (emotional).

Tracy Smith: Can you picture Blaze if he was alive today?

Raiah Rofsky: No. I don’t think I can.

Tracy Smith: Can you still hear his voice?

Raiah Rofsky: No.

Tracy Smith: That’s kind of sad.

Raiah Rofsky: Yeah.

For Jeanne Pepper and Gideon Bernstein, every day brings reminders, of what might have been.

Jeanne Pepper: I think of Blaze all the time, because when I see things, I think to myself “what would Blaze be doing now?”

They founded what they call “a kindness movement,” promoting “positivity” and random acts of kindness, in Blaze’s name.

Gideon Bernstein: “BlazeItForward” was a response to Blaze’s death.

And In Borrego Park, where Blaze took his last breath, there are hundreds of hand-painted stones, most left by total strangers, in the memory of Blaze Bernstein.

Tracy Smith:  This pile of stones has grown and grown and grown.

Jeanne Pepper: Yes. … It’s great to see the messaging. It’s always positive.

Gideon Bernstein: And they’re getting sent to us from all around the world.

Tracy Smith: Still?

Gideon Bernstein: Still.

The silent stones speak of tolerance and Blaze Bernstein’s transformation into a kind of martyr, his murder a marker of rabid hate. His spirit an inspiration to LGBTQ+ people wherever they live and with whomever they love.

Jeanne Pepper: Blaze’s life mattered and he has a legacy … to create good news, to inspire people to be better, to be kinder. And to work on repairing the world, because it’s not too late and we can make it better.

Sam Woodward is due to be sentenced on Oct. 22, 2024.

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Produced by James Stolz and Mary Murphy. Shaheen Tokhi is the field producer. Lauren Turner Dunn is the associate producer. Cindy Cesare is the development producer. Atticus Brady, Wini Dini, Diana Modica, Doreen Schechter and Diana DeCilio are the editors. Peter Schweitzer is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.

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