Sara Tancredi will not appear in the first few episodes due to Sarah Wayne Callies' pregnancy and subsquent birth of her daughter Keala, on which Paul Scheuring commented that her absence conveniently fitted the plot. It was thought in the season three opener that Tancredi was found in a Panama morgue, however Lincoln said the body was not hers. Later in the same episode a mysterious woman reveals to Lincoln with a cell phone video that Sara and LJ are being held at ransom.

In episode three of the season, a Polaroid photograph of Tancredi is shown to Michael, however, her face is half-covered by her own long hair and it is shown at a distance, so that the viewer cannot see that the picture is not of Sarah Wayne Callies. Sara manages to get a coded message out to Michael via telephone, and during the conversation, her back is to the camera. This coded message leads Lincoln to locate her and to make an unsuccessful attempt at freeing her.