(CNN)An Oregon community college security guard has been charged with murder after allegedly running over a woman on campus and disposing of her body, according to authorities and court documents.
The suspect tipped off his wife, who is a police officer, to what happened and fled to California, where police say he allegedly shot a man in the stomach and carjacked a vehicle full of people.
Edwin Lara, 31, was arrested by California Highway Patrol on Tuesday on Interstate 5, ending a search that gripped his local community. Lara worked as a part-time, campus public safety officer at Central Oregon Community College in Bend.
Oregon authorities charged Lara with the murder of Kaylee Sawyer, a 23-year-old woman from Bend, who disappeared Sunday morning. Lara was also booked on attempted murder, kidnapping, carjacking burglary and more in California, according to police in the city of Yreka.
Police in Oregon said they have located what is believed to be Sawyer's body in Deschutes County, pending confirmation from the medical examiner.
How events unfolded
Early Sunday, Sawyer had gotten into a quarrel with her boyfriend, her uncle told CNN affiliate KTVZ. She was last been seen at 1 a.m. in the parking lot of her apartment, which is near the Central Oregon Community College.
During their argument, Sawyer's boyfriend went inside their apartment, but she did not, according to testimonies given to police.
Sawyer exchanged a few text messages and brief phone calls with her boyfriend, but after awhile, she stopped responding.
Her family became increasingly concerned and reported her missing to police later that day.
Worried family members, friends and volunteers fanned the area searching for her.
A startling conversation
That day, Isabel Ponce-Lara, who is married to Edwin Lara, noticed that her husband was acting strangely after his work shift at the community college, according to an affidavit.
The next morning, she questioned him about his behavior.
"At this time, Edwin (Lara) began to break down crying," according to the affidavit.
Lara said he had run over Sawyer in the security vehicle while working Sunday. He told his wife that Sawyer had walked out in front of him in the dark and that he had run her over.
He told Ponce-Lara that he panicked and got rid of her body, but he didn't say where.
Lara told his wife that some of the victim's belongings were stashed inside their shed. After their conversation, he left their house with a 9mm Glock pistol. His wife said that he may have been suicidal.
Ponce-Lara, who had recently been hired as an officer at the Bend Police Department, came forward with the information immediately, the agency said. It released a statement describing her as "cooperative throughout the investigation." She broke down and cried when she spoke to the Redmond police about what she had learned, according to the court document.
"She'll be on leave, not because of presumptive misconduct or policy violation," Bend Police Chief Jim Porter said at a Tuesday news conference. "I think we can all appreciate when someone you know so closely is accused of a travesty and a crime like this that you want to give that person room to respond and come back to some state of normalcy."
Search got underway
By Monday, police identified Lara as a person of interest, and warned the public that he was likely armed and dangerous.
On Tuesday around 5 a.m., police in Yreka, Calif., started receiving a string of calls.
First, a man was shot in the stomach at a Super 8 Motel. The shooting victim was in critical but stable condition, according to police.
Five minutes later, a man reported that his car had been stolen with three of his family members inside the vehicle. The carjacking occurred at a Mobil gas station across the street from the motel where the shooting occurred.
About half an hour after that 911 call, the three people called police to say that they had been dropped off at a rest area on Interstate 5 and that they were unharmed.
Police began tracking a cell phone ping on the suspect. By 7 a.m., police stopped the car that contained Lara and another victim, according to Yreka police.
No comments:
Post a Comment