Lewis Lent Redux

   What we didn't know until later, or had not connected to murder:

     He was staying at the rectory of the  church on Old Rte 146. He helped out by doing some custodial work there.
     He frequented movie theaters; one was a short walking distance away from the theater in the mall.
     A local family, who attended the Clifton Park church where Lent was staying, befriended him and he was a frequent guest in their home, where he played board games with the three younger sisters of my son's classmate.
      At one time, after Lent was in custody, investigators  knew he had lived nearby and searched the area near Exit 9 of the Northway for clues to, or a buried body, of the missing girl.


   None of the above  information was known or cared about until after he was captured.  I think the family involved did not want to disclose that, out of religious compassion, they had allowed a murderer to be in contact with their 4 young children.  As I remember, the oldest, a boy, revealed it as something he wasn't to talk about.
     On a warm summer day, during the "U2, Rattle and Hum" afternoon showing, my son, my nephew, and I came into contact with him.  Of course we didn't know the extent of danger at the time, but even the youngest knew something was amiss.
     He entered part way through the movie.  We three had been the only audience that beautiful day.  I was sitting in the back because of the amplified concert music, while the boys, 10 and 11 or so, were closer to the front, in the center section of seats.  He entered and at first sat in the left tier.  Then he moved across to the center aisle, closer to the boys.  One of the boys, influenced probably by the musical tastes of older siblings, was attentive to the movie. .  The younger, bored after a while, engaged in flipping a quarter down the center aisle, and then retrieving it.  Since the theater had been empty save for us, it caused  no disturbance, and he was fairly low-key about it, and would return to his seat sporadically.  The man then moved to directly behind the boys.  At this move, the older boy came up to my seat,and said he thought something was wrong.  Both boys then moved a few rows in front of me; it was near the end of the movie.
     I kind of regret my next move, though remember times were different  back in 1988 or so.  We weren't nearly as aware of sexual offenders or sexual predators on children.  I only knew about "perverts" who exposed themselves in theaters.  So when the man left first, by the entrance to the left, I told the boys to stay seated in the back of the theater, and I walked out the same exit area the man had.  It is a curved archway to the theater exit, but the man was standing there, with his back against the wall, waiting---for what?  I almost said something to him, but for some reason did not.  I just circled back to where the boys were, and faced the wrath of my son-----"How could you.....?
     I remember telling the boys, "You've met you first pervert."  As we left the theater, we spotted the man going into the men's room.
On a usual day, most likely the boys would have used the restroom before going to the McDonald's that was then in the mall.
    That day, we drove to the McDonald's in Mechanicville, kind of joking about what had just occurred.
   I wonder about what would have happened if the boys had decided to go to the restroom during the movie.  I'm sure I would have let them go together.  Old enough to be responsible, a summer afternoon, Clifton Park, not many people around.  When Lent was captured, after the girl he tried to kidnap right off the street succeeded in slipping out of his grasp, he was found to have rope and tape in his vehicle.  On a later trip to the theater, my son checked and said there was an exit from the men's bathroom to outside the theater.
    I don't know what would have happened if I'd spoken to him.  I guess I didn't because I didn't know what to say.  "Why did you move your seat 3 times?  Why are you standing here now?"  I had passed  within inches of him, and could see his face for the first time.  He looked benign enough, kind of like a school teacher, I'd thought.  He was wearing a short-sleeved button-up shirt, and army green khaki type pants.