WICOMICO COUNTY, Md. - For those who lived in Wicomico County, and on Delmarva in December of 2009, it may be hard to believe that this Christmas will mark fifteen years since Sarah Foxwell's abduction and murder.
The 11-year-old girl was taken from her Old Ocean City Road home on the night of December 22. Thomas Leggs Jr. raped and murdered Sarah, and set her body on fire. Thousands of community members and law enforcement fanned out across Wicomico County to search for Foxwell.
As we approach the grim milestone of fifteen years since Sarah's death, WBOC's Hunter Landon sat down with Sarah's mom Jennifer Foxwell, and Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis.
It was just before 4 p.m. on Christmas Day, after three days of searching, that Foxwell's body was found in the woods near Delmar.
"She still was wearing the charred remains of her little pajamas. Her pajamas were described to us in detail by her mother. We all knew that's exactly who we saw lying on the ground," Sheriff Lewis said.
Fighting back tears, Jennifer Foxwell says she cannot get the image of that discovery out of her mind. "It was an awful feeling. I'll never forget when Mike came in the room to tell me that she was gone. I just lost it..... I still.... can feel that emotion even now," she said.
Leggs was familiar to Sarah, he had dated her aunt, and she knew him as "Mr. Tommy." He's serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole.
"If you could sit down across from Thomas Leggs, what would you say to him?" asked WBOC's Hunter Landon.
"Why did you burn her? Why did you have to disfigure her? She didn't deserve that," Jennifer Foxwell said.
Sheriff Lewis added "This is the worst case I think has ever been handled by detectives in Wicomico County.... It's something we will never forget."
Foxwell says the pain she feels is immeasurable. "I don't wish it on anybody. It's one of the worst things as a parent you could go through. And I don't even put my tree up anymore," she said.
Sarah Foxwell would be 26 years old now. On that topic, her mom told us "Watching some of her school friends grow up and have children, and get married, and do all the things that she should be doing. He totally ripped her off. Like he took everything from her... and us."
We reached out to the Maryland Department of Corrections to see where Leggs is being incarcerated. A spokesperson said they cannot comment for "legal reasons." Two months after his conviction in 2011, Leggs was slashed by another inmate in a Western Maryland prison.
In the wake of Sarah Foxwell's death, lawmakers in Maryland passed what became known as "Sarah's Law." It strengthened sentencing guidelines for people convicted of sex crimes involving children, and worked to improve Maryland's sex offender registry.
