The car had three people inside and Lara forced one of the children to drive the car at gunpoint while the owner of the vehicle was left behind at the gas station and called 911, KGW8 reported. When officers searched their home, they found Sawyer’s purse and shoes, a blood-stained rock and a clump of hair as well as blood on his work boots, Chilling Crimes wrote.īy that time, Lara was on a crime spree, kidnapping a woman in Salem, Oregon, and bringing her to California, then shooting a man in the stomach at Yreka’s Super 8 Motel before stealing a car at a gas station close by. Lara’s wife, Isabel Ponce-Lara, was a new police officer in Bend and went to the station to report what he’d told her.

He then left town and began a crime spree using his wife’s handgun. Lara told his wife the day after the murder that he’d accidentally hit and killed Sawyer and hid her body. Her family filed a missing person’s report to Ben police that evening, according to KGW8. close to her apartment building’s parking lot in west Bend, near Central Oregon Community College. Sawyer was last seen shortly after 1 a.m. Sawyer Was Killed Early in the Morning While Walking Home & Lara Was Arrested A Few Days Later However, contrary to what Lara told his wife, investigators found evidence that Lara actually attempted to sexually assault the young student before killing her to cover up his crime, according to KATU. After his arrest, investigators said Lara told his wife that he’d accidentally hit Sawyer with his patrol car and dumped her body. Lara was arrested in Northern California after going on a crime spree that involved a car jacking, kidnapping and a shooting. Sawyer’s body was found a couple of days later off Highway 126 in the Dry Creek area of Redmond, north of Bend, and her death was ruled a homicide by blunt force trauma, KATU reported at the time. Kaylee Sawyer, 23, was a Central Oregon Community College student who was kidnapped, raped and murdered by Edwin Lara, a campus security guard at the school, on July 24, 2016.

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