Federal authorities in Pittsburgh have a message for the murderer of 14-year-old Sarah Boehm:

We haven't forgotten, and we're getting close.

FBI agents in Pittsburgh said Friday they will return next week to a stretch of Ohio forestland to search the site where hunters found Boehm's body in 1994. With advances in investigative technology, agents said, they hope to uncover additional evidence — including DNA — that could lead to the murderer.

“Over the past year, we think we've taken steps in identifying” the murderer, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Greg Nelsen said. “We are making significant progress.”

Sarah Boehm was last seen July 14, 1994, when she left her Rochester home alone late at night. Hunters five months later found what were eventually identified as her remains.

Her body went unidentified at the coroner's office in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, for six years. Lt. Kim Clements, a detective with the Beaver County District Attorney's Office, searched the national “Jane Doe network” and connected the disappearance with the body, authorities said.

The investigation has moved slowly, in part, because Boehm's family refused to cooperate, Nelsen said.

Boehm's mother, Phyllis Williams, a former Hills department store employee, refused to provide the FBI a DNA sample to confirm the remains were her daughter's, Nelsen said. Investigators had to obtain a court order.

A man who answered the phone at Phyllis Williams' home in Beaver Falls on Friday said, “She isn't going to return your call.”

Sarah Boehm's brother, Mason, who was 17 when she disappeared, changed his account of the night his sister disappeared during the investigation, agents said.

Mason Boehm lives in Oklahoma and could not be reached.

Sarah Boehm's father, Jack, who pleaded guilty in Beaver County to a 1999 charge of indecent assault of a child younger than 13, lives in Kansas. He could not be reached.

Jack Boehm's ex-wife, Maryann Good of Beaver Falls, said the last night she saw Sarah, the side of her face was purple, “like she'd been punched.”

“She'd talk to me, but very quietly,” Good said. “She kept her head down that night. I asked her what was wrong, and she wouldn't say.”

The family found a two-page letter written by Sarah Boehm under her pillow two days after her disappearance. In the letter, Sarah wondered why nobody could tell that she was being abused.

“I've been forced to grow up in ways you don't realize,” she wrote. “I met a guy who gave me love and whatever else I was not getting at home. He was a very, very abusive man. Didn't anyone wonder why I always had injuries and said, ‘I fell'? ”

The family did not immediately turn the letter over, FBI agents said. When they did, Jack Boehm provided a photocopy.

Only after investigators obtained the original did they discover that the bottom of the second page had been torn off, never to be found, agents said.

Sarah Boehm kept a journal, but investigators never found it, Nelsen said.

Her remains were found 800 feet from another murdered girl's body. Kathryn Menendez, 17, was strangled and left in the forest in 1994. Her killer has not been found.

FBI agents said there is no evidence linking the murders, other than their proximity. But FBI agents in Cleveland are conducting a “parallel investigation” into the Menendez death with agents in Pittsburgh looking into Boehm's murder, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Scott Argiro said.

Investigators on Friday will conduct a “very thorough search” of the area, in Berlin Lake Wildlife Area, about 60 miles south of Cleveland, Nelsen said. Pittsburgh agents will search the area where Boehm was found; Cleveland agents will handle the area where Menendez was found.

Good said an arrest in Boehm's murder would be “a prayer come true. Maybe then she could finally rest in peace.”

Nelsen said new DNA evidence could be particularly revealing. “We will be asking suspects for their DNA,” he said.

The FBI has multiple suspects, “to the point where we have to prioritize them,” Special Agent Tom Carter said. “The FBI will never stop. ... When I retire, someone else will take over.”

Chris Togneri is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-380-5632 or ctogneri@tribweb.com.

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