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Wednesday, June 04, 2003

By Milan Simonich, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The mystery of what happened to 14-year-old Sarah Boehm after she vanished in 1994 is solved.

Now all that's left is to find her killer.

	Sarah Boehm, missing since 1994.

Beaver County District Attorney Dale Fouse said yesterday that Sarah was murdered after she disappeared from Rochester on July 14, 1994. Skeletal remains found by a hunter in Deerfield, Ohio, that November finally have been matched to Sarah through DNA analysis.

Fouse said the almost nine-year gap in tracing the skeleton to Sarah was unavoidable.

First, pathologists with the Cuyahoga County coroner's office in Cleveland estimated that the remains were those of a woman of 20 or so. Their finding seemed to rule out someone as young as Sarah.

Meantime, Fouse said, persistent "Sarah sightings" poured in to police in Beaver County. That pipeline of false information for years gave credence to the idea that the missing girl was still alive.

DNA tests completed last week by the FBI proved otherwise, Fouse said during a news conference at the Beaver County Courthouse.

"The search for Sarah's murderer is now beginning," he said.

Members of Sarah's family declined to comment, at least until her remains are returned home.

Sarah, who was about to enter ninth grade in the Rochester school system, disappeared after telling her family she was going to spend the night with a friend. As it turned out, her story was false. Sarah's friend knew nothing about a sleep-over nor did she see her that day.

Sarah's mother reported her disappearance to police on July 15, 1994. She was listed as a runaway that day.

The remains that turned out to be Sarah's were found less than four months later in rural Deerfield, halfway between Youngstown and Akron. The spot is about 60 miles from Rochester.

Dr. Elizabeth Balraj, the Cuyahoga County coroner, listed "violent homicide" as the cause of Sarah's death. Balraj said yesterday that the precise type of homicide could not be determined, given that only bones were left.

As far back as 1998, investigators for Portage County, Ohio, where the remains were found, and Beaver County began considering the possibility that the skeleton could be Sarah's. The FBI started DNA testing in 2001, but the bureau's work was delayed first by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and then by the insubstantial size of the first sample.

Fouse said Sarah's parents, who were divorced after her disappearance; her brother, Mason; and other relatives were notified of the DNA identification by Monday night.

Sarah left a note for her family before she walked out of the house in 1994, but the contents have been kept secret by investigators and her parents. Fouse said he believes she set out on foot. The friend she claimed to be visiting lived only a couple blocks away, he said.

Kim Clements, a Beaver County detective who worked on the case for years, said finding Sarah's remains was not the outcome that anybody had hoped for. But, Clements said, at least the family knows Sarah is dead, rather than being left to wonder about her whereabouts.

"I'm glad that we're getting her home," Clements said.

Law officers from Beaver County and Portage County, Ohio, will meet tomorrow to trade information on the case, which each had pursued independently over the years.

Even though the case is axlmost 9 years old, Rochester Police Chief George Yaccich said he thinks law officers can still find Sarah's killer. "Knowing the detectives in Beaver County, I think it can be done," he said.