FBI Pittsburgh
Public Affairs Officer Bradford Arick
(412) 576-9396
November 12, 2015

FBI and Beaver County District Attorney’s Office to Conduct Search of Crime Scene in Ongoing Disappearance and Homicide Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Pittsburgh Division and the Beaver County District Attorney’s Office continue to investigate the disappearance and murder of 14-year-old Sarah Rae Boehm. Investigative efforts will continue this week with a search of the location where Sarah’s body was discovered.

Sarah Boehm left the home she shared with her mother and brother in Rochester Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, July 14, 1994, never to return. At around 10:45 p.m., she informed her brother that she was leaving to walk to her friend’s house, which is located approximately two blocks from Sarah’s home. Sarah was reported missing to the Rochester Township Police Department on Friday, July 15, 1994.

Approximately four months later, on November 4, 1994, the remains of an unidentified human body were discovered in a remote, wooded area near the Berlin Reservoir in the Berlin Lake Wildlife Area located in Portage County, Ohio. Beaver County Detective Lieutenant Kim Clements, now retired, learned of the discovery while conducting some research online in April 2001. Detective Lieutenant Clements then contacted authorities in Ohio and requested FBI assistance in the investigation. In May 2003, DNA analysis revealed that the human remains discovered on November 4, 1994, in the Berlin Lake Wildlife Area were those of Sarah Rae Boehm. The Wildlife Area is located approximately 75 from Sarah’s home in Rochester Township, Pennsylvania.

On August 21, 1994, approximately two months before Sarah’s body was discovered, 17-year-old Kathryn Menendez’s body was discovered on an oil access road near the Berlin Reservoir. Kathryn’s body was discovered at a location in the Wildlife Area approximately half a mile away from the location where Sarah’s body was recovered. She had been strangled to death and left unclothed. Kathryn had been missing for approximately three days. It is unknown if these two unsolved murders are connected.

Investigators from multiple law enforcement agencies in Pennsylvania and Ohio, including the Alliance Police Department and the Portage County Sheriff’s Office, as well as from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children continue to share intelligence and investigate these cases in close coordination with each other. This week, on Friday, November 13, law enforcement will conduct a search of the sites where Kathryn’s and Sarah’s remains were discovered and re-examine the physical evidence collected.

Anyone with information regarding the disappearance and murder of Sarah Rae Boehm (pictured above) should contact the FBI Pittsburgh Field Office, 24 hours a day, at telephone number (412) 432-4000 or 1-800-CALL-FBI. Tipsters may remain anonymous. A reward is being offered for information leading to the successful identification and prosecution of the individuals responsible for these murders.