PITTSFIELD, Mass., Jan. 13 -- Suspected child killer Lewis S. Lent Jr. was sentenced Friday to 17 to 20 years in prison for attempting to abduct a 12-year-old girl in Massachusetts a year ago. Lent, who was convicted by a jury in Pittsfield late Thursday, still faces charges of kidnapping and murdering two other 12-year-old children, including an upstate New York girl whose body has never been found. The Berkshire County Superior Court jury in Pittsfield deliberated just five hours before returning its verdict after a four-day trial. He will serve the sentence at the state's maximum security prison in Walpole. Lent, 44, an unemployed handyman from North Adams, Mass., has been under investigation by a special task force looking into child murders from Maine to Florida. Lent was convicted of trying to kidnap Rebecca Savarese at gunpoint from Pittsfield street corner Jan. 7, 1994, as she walked to school. The girl, now 13, testified she feigned an asthma attack and then slipped out of backpack as Lent tried to force her into his black pickup truck. He was arrested a short time later. A New York State police officer also testified that Lent was constructing a secret room beneath his house at the time of his arrest where he planned to store the bodies of his alleged victims so he could have sex with them. Prosecutors have not said when they plan to try Lent for the murders of Jimmy Bernardo and Sarah Ann Wood.
Bernardo was abducted in Pittsfield in 1990. His body was found a month later in upstateNew York. Wood vanished near her home in Frankfort, N.Y., near Utica, in 1993. Her body has never been found, but is believed buried in New York's Adirondack Mountains. Lent intially confessed to killing both children, but later recanted, saying he had been coerced by police.
