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A young woman alone. Who was waiting in the dark? I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline.
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She would come into her room. The room would just brighten up. People instantly thought, I'm Kaylee's best friend.
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The very first message that I looked at was, have you seen Kaylee? Can I help you? My daughter is missing.
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I had this sickening feeling. I'm looking at a desperate man. Anything can happen.
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I would have never been able to tell my daughter, Your monster, your boogeyman Will pull up alongside you
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And instead of Him coming to help you He has come to harm you Inside the shed there was a green purse
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There's also a large rock Saturated in dried blood This is not a good sign at all
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It is not Have you ever been hitting a chest with a sledgehammer? That's about what it feels like
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She began coming to and tried to fight She was trying to turn emergency lights on
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Trying to grab the radio trying to honk the horn anything that she could do. Because she knew.
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She knew. Here's Keith Morrison with Into the Night. It was a Saturday night in the summer,
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and they were so happy at their bachelorette party as they laughed and danced and played their drinking games.
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Well, outside in the dark, watchful, waiting, hidden in its clever disguise, death cruised by,
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looking for one of them. It all around, a peaceful town tucked into sleep. No ghost, no soothsayer to warn them
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that evil had fooled their defenses had slipped inside to snatch its prey. This is the place, here in the wide, handsome high desert of central Oregon,
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the small city of Bend, an annual occupant of every list of the best places to live in America.
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It's a nice place to live. I love it here. It's perfect. An outdoor recreation heaven,
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on the slopes of the Cascade Range, rife with rivers and lakes and rugged independence.
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I mean, everything here is about outdoors, about connection. And Ben was home to a beautiful young woman named Kaylee Sawyer.
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This is Kaylee's mother, Julie. She was probably 17, and she said to me, Mom, when people describe me,
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I want them to describe me as smart and strong and funny. And she was. Yes, and feisty and fearless.
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Your best friend Naomi's sleepover buddy and stunt team cheerleading partner. I love Kaylee so much, but she's not the most coordinated person there was.
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We were probably the best stunt team on our squad because our communication, we didn't need to speak.
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we could look at each other and understand everything about one another. I wouldn't really call her a tomboy, but I also wouldn't really call her a girly girl.
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Somewhere in between. She could look like a model one minute and be in scrubby clothes and ready to go camping the next.
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She called her grandfather Papa Jim, here with Grandma Sharon. She was our sunshine. She was just our world.
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Did you worry about her as a teenager? She was in Bend. She had family around. So my worry was if she left Bend, you know,
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oh my goodness, what if my Kaylee goes up to Portland? She won't have a grandma's share in there.
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We'll have to move. We'll have to go and be with her. That was my worry, not being in Bend.
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Mind you, Kaylee was on her own now, was living with her boyfriend, a young man named Cam.
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I could tell from the moment that Kaylee met Cam that this was a good relationship for her.
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I could see that she was happy. Now, if she could just figure out what to do with her life.
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She was going to be a plastic surgeon. She was going to be a policeman. She was going to be a chef.
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She was going to be a photographer. The world was hers. She didn't pick one thing.
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No, but this year, the year she turned 23, that was changing. She held a job for two full years now as a dental assistant.
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She was my work daughter. She'd follow me around to learn how to do things because she really wanted to be the best.
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Lisa Castro was Kaylee's mentor at the dentist's office. It discovered Kaylee had this rare ability to make people laugh,
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even when they weren't in the mood or were scared. If there was a difficult patient, you'd put Kaylee in the room and they would just melt.
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So those pretty eyes and that smile. And then, surprise, surprise, Kaylee was making plans to enroll in college.
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Now she knew what she wanted to do. One day she comes into work, she says, I've decided, I'm going to become a dentist.
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So both of them had something to look forward to that Saturday night, July 23, 2016.
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Lisa was celebrating her upcoming wedding. The bachelorette party was for her. Kaylee had already told Lisa and her sister Jana that she couldn't go.
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she'd be out of town. But, last minute... I got a text from her saying, Guess what? I'm going to show up to your party to help celebrate you.
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But I going to show up a little late But I be there That a great thing Women get together for a bachelorette party Katie by the door Especially at our age It was after 8 p when Katie showed up at a country bar called Mavericks
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The party was well underway. She came in a little dress and just looked adorable in it.
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Indeed she did. Here are photos of Katie at that party in that black dress. She was kicking up her heels a bit, right?
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She was having fun. But when the bachelorette and her party began to run out of steam, Kaylee and a friend left to keep things going at another bar downtown.
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You know, I checked them out and said, you know, you girls be safe. You're okay, right?
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And they said, yeah, we're okay. We'll be good. And a little before 10.30 p.m., she walked out into the night happy, a little tipsy,
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altogether unaware of what was waiting on the other side of midnight. When we come back...
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A friend of Cam's texted him and said, your girlfriend's here dancing with another guy.
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Kaylee, out for a night of fun. But where would she be when morning came? The very first message that I looked at was from Cam saying,
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have you seen Kaylee? Instantly, I had this sickening feeling in my gut. It was late afternoon, Sunday, July 24th, the day after the bachelorette party.
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Kaylee's mother, Julie, was driving home from a weekend camping trip. She approached Bend around 5 p.m., re-entered cell phone range.
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I turned my phone back on, and my phone was just pinging and pinging and pinging.
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and the very first message that I looked at was from Cam saying, have you seen Kaylee? Have you heard from Kaylee?
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Why would Cam be asking her about Kaylee? After all, they lived together. Julie's phone chirped over and over.
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Cam had texted her the same question almost hourly all day. So you're looking at multiple messages.
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Yeah, yeah. It's getting a little more worried. And I called her first. and her phone went to voicemail,
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which Kaylee notoriously let her cell phone battery go really low. Okay. So that wasn't surprising.
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By then, Cam had already texted Kaylee's dad, Jamie, and stepmother, Crystal, as they sat in church.
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His phone in his pocket kept buzzing. I'm elbowing him, and I'm like, what's going on?
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So he kind of said, Cam doesn't know where Kaylee is. And I'm like, okay. So Kaylee's dad questioned Cam.
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What did Cameron tell you? She went to a bachelorette party, and they had an argument going home.
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An argument? It seemed really obvious that she just walked down the road and probably called a friend to come pick her up because she was mad.
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And that was it. I literally thought nothing more to it than that. But Cam clearly did.
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He'd spent that Sunday calling the entire family. Cam called and said, Grandma Sharon, have you heard from Kaylee?
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And I said, no, I hadn't. Grandma Sharon called and was like, have you talked to Kaylee?
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I was like, no, you know, is everything okay? What's going on? So I called her. I don't even know how many times, and her phone was going straight to voicemail.
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And I figured, you know, she was out with friends. Maybe she ended up just staying with them.
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But the bride-to-be who'd said goodnight to that happy young woman was alarmed. Instantly, I had this sickening feeling in my gut.
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Because that's not Kaylee. She would have contacted somebody that, you know, I went to someone's house or whatever.
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Julie, still driving, trying to comprehend, got a call from Cam, who told her that after the bachelorette party at that other bar,
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Kaylee had had a few and was having fun with some other guy. They were dancing. And I guess a friend of Cam's,
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texted him and said, your girlfriend's here dancing with another guy. And so he went and picked her up.
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And on the way home, they started to argue. Cam's story? He parked outside their apartment a little after midnight, tempers still hot.
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He got out of the car. She stayed inside. He told her, come up when you've cooled off.
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But a few minutes later, out she got and walked away into the night. And it didn't surprise me when he told me that she went for a walk, because she had always done that.
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When she was younger and she'd get in trouble and I would tell her, you know, you need to go to your room.
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Chances are she went to her room and out her window and she'd go for a walk. She had to work it out.
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Yeah. She was mad and she would go for a walk. And that wasn't unusual behavior.
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Anyway, Cam and Katie lived in a crime-free neighborhood right across the street from the local college.
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But Cam didn't sound so sure of his story. So where did she go? Why didn't she come back?
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Why didn't she call anyone? Julie encouraged Cam to call Ben police, which she did Sunday afternoon.
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Dispatch, how can I help you? Hi. Last night I got home from the bars with my girlfriend, and she got upset at me and ran off.
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and i still haven't heard from her her phone's off okay so did she just take up walking or
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something from the status like she was mad yeah i walked she was yeah she was mad at me so i walked
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inside and told her to come meet me and then when she's like calmed down and then i went back out in
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10 minutes and she was gone and i called her a few times and she said she was walking down the street i haven heard from her since As Julie neared Ben she worried would police take it seriously After all grown woman lover spat
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So Julie added a little urgency and called 911 herself. Can I help you? Yes, I need to have an officer call me.
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My daughter is missing and she is over 23, but she has epilepsy and some medical issues.
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I exaggerated her seizure condition. How did they react to that? They were concerned about that.
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They knew that she had been out the night before and she had been drinking. Could that have triggered a medical incident?
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Julie drove straight to the apartment where she questioned Cam. I was frustrated that his story just didn't make sense.
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and so I walked out of the apartment and I said I just needed to go and take a walk and get some fresh air
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and while I was out there walking the officer came and I said to him I need you to go talk to Cam
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because his story doesn't make sense to me. What was going on? And where was Kaylee Sawyer?
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Coming up Kaylee's mom wasn't the only one troubled by Cam's story. My thought was, did they really have that bad of an argument and something bad happened?
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And what did police think about Kaylee's sudden disappearance? Did you both agree at that point something was going on here? Something was off?
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Yeah, we were talking back and forth and he said, do you think we need to get detectives involved?
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And I said, yeah, absolutely. When Dateline continues. Sunday evening, July 24th, the sun descended toward the Cascades.
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Eighteen hours after Kaylee Sawyer argued with her boyfriend and walked alone into the dark,
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her extended family gathered at the apartment she shared with Cam. Her father, Jamie.
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Was part of you kind of suspicious of Cameron? Yes. My thought was that they really had that bad of an argument and something bad happened.
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But your mind went there because, you know, the vast majority of the time when something happens to a young woman, it's somebody very close.
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It's hard to believe, too, because we knew Cameron, very innocent young man. He's just a nice guy.
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Yeah. It's hard to imagine that, but you still do. Remember, Cam's story troubled Kaylee's mother, too.
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Then police officer Kyle Denny arrived and parked outside the apartment, right across
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the street from the campus of Central Oregon Community College. It's on Aubrey Butte, which is one of the more prestigious areas of town.
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It's very nice homes. Very safe area, I would think. It's very safe. Officer Denny was soon joined by Corporal Eric Suplee.
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Denny talk to the family, Siple found that friend, the girl who'd seen Kaylee dancing at the bar.
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The one who texted Cam, better come get her. And a little after midnight, Kaylee sent a text
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message to her friend saying, I'm home, everything's okay, I'm sorry about earlier tonight.
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And then her friend tried to call her just before 1 a.m. and Kaylee didn't answer the phone.
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Did there seem to be any chance that she would have gone back to be with that guy she had met
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at the bachelorette party? Initially, I thought maybe there was a chance, but... Did you talk to
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him? So I called him on the telephone. He didn't get Kaylee's phone number. He didn't give her his
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phone number. So it was just kind of, they were hanging out that night and that was the last he
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knew or saw over. And that seemed to make sense to you. It did. So nothing to disprove anything
00:15:54
Cam had told them. What was your take on Cameron's story? What happened? It didn't make sense.
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The story made sense. It made absolute sense. Officer Denny took Julie aside to address concerns about Cam.
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He was able to come and tell me it's not that his story is changing. His story is evolving. He's remembering things.
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I think that he, very early on, took on the guilt and the responsibility that if something did happen to her, that maybe it was his fault.
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Why'd you let her go off in the night alone? Yeah, but I never felt that he was involved in harming her.
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Then Officer Denny assembled the family and asked them a question. I said, hey, is there anywhere you can think of that she might be?
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And I kind of just sent them on a mission to go start looking at places where she could be if she was trying to cool off.
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I remember going up to the campus and walking the route that we were told or assumed that she might have walked that night.
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a terrifying thing to do said papa jim you didn't know whether we were looking for a body
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parts of clothing a purse so you were worried something very bad had happened oh yes petrified
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terrified i wanted to stay home and i wanted to be there because maybe she'd come home yeah maybe
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she'd come home maybe she'd call maybe she'd let you know my husband went out and looked for her
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We were praying that he find her, that she's safe. But in a way, you know that something's wrong.
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I was praying that he didn't find her. Because I didn't want him to have to find her if somebody had hurt her.
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Now for the two officers. A judgment call. she was a grown woman who was missing but she had a right to be somewhere else there was no evidence of foul play but did you both agree at that point something was going on here something was off yeah we were talking back and forth and he said do you think we need
00:18:06
to get detectives involved and i said yeah absolutely overnight the first missing person
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flyer in the kaylee sawyer case went out to law enforcement around central oregon
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And the next morning, everyone held their breath, hoping Kaylee would simply show up for work at the dentist's office.
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And then they'd all breathe again. I drove in and walked into her workplace, and they all looked at me, and their faces just showed me what they were already thinking.
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And I asked them, she called in, and they just shook their heads. It was heartbreaking. I mean, nobody could talk. There's just a lot of tears.
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That's when you knew. That's when I knew something and still didn't want to accept it.
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She was truly missing. And then a few hours later, 20 miles up the road from Bend in Redmond, Oregon,
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a police detective named Eric Beckwith got up from his desk. Went out to my car and got my lunch and was walking through the lobby and saw Isabel Ponce.
00:19:09
Who's Isabel Ponce? Isabel Ponce is somebody that we knew in Redmond. She was a police officer recruit and Redmond resident.
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She seemed to be waiting for something. Curious. He walked on, back to his office, sat down.
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No idea what was about to worm its ugly way into his world. Coming up, a worried wife with a wild story.
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She's crying. She's crying. uncontrollably. I knew we had a big problem. And reality sinks in.
00:19:48
You ever been hitting a chest with a sledgehammer? That's about what it feels like.
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By Monday morning, they were swamped under waves of panic. It was 36 hours since Kaylee Sawyer walked into the Oregon night and vanished.
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I'm trying to get a sense of what it felt like to be in the middle of all of that.
00:20:20
Complete loss of control, accompanied with sheer panic. You ever been hit in a chest with a sledgehammer?
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That's about what it feels like. And then, going on noon, 20 miles north of the Redmond Police Department,
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Detective Eric Beckwith noticed a newly-mitted Bend police officer named Isabel Ponce
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sitting calmly on a chair, as if waiting for something. Odd. It struck me as unusual, but I didn't approach her or strike up a conversation.
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I just went into the office. Unwrapped his lunch, prepared to tuck in, when a colleague appeared at his door.
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He had asked me if I had any idea why she would be in the office. that she had called and requested to talk to a watch commander or a supervisor of some kind.
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You had no idea? Had no idea. Just a short amount of time after that, Sergeant Duff opened his door
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and yelled down the hall for me to come into his office. So, of course, Beck was rushed in there
00:21:24
and right into the biggest, most shocking case of his life. Though at first, it was just puzzling.
00:21:33
Describe the scene to me. She's crying. She's crying uncontrollably. Could you tell what was going on?
00:21:40
I knew we had a big problem. There'd been an accident. She got out through her tears.
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Or at least her husband said he'd had an accident, said he'd hit someone with his car.
00:21:51
And it must have been that missing girl they'd been showing on TV, Kaylee Sawyer.
00:21:57
Did that name, Kaylee Sawyer, mean anything to you? It did. When I had arrived at work on that Monday, I noticed that Ben PD had put out a missing persons flyer and were requesting other agencies for any information or to be on the lookout for her.
00:22:10
So I knew right away what she was talking about. Isabel said her husband was a security guard at Central Oregon Community College, and something must have happened there late Saturday.
00:22:22
Because, she said, he seemed kind of distant all day Sunday. Like here, when they went to the movies, this picked up by a surveillance camera.
00:22:31
And then, Monday morning... So he comes out of the room, and his eyes were all teary.
00:22:41
That's when I'm like, what happened? Tell me what happened. What's wrong? Then he's like, I hit her with the car.
00:22:50
And did he tell you which car? He said the security, the car that they used at the job.
00:22:57
And what did you say to that? So I'm like, what do you mean? What do you mean you hit her? And he's like, yeah, I hit her and I panicked.
00:23:09
All he said was he hit her and he panicked. He never said. But it wasn't making any sense to me because I'm like, why would somebody do that? Especially you, especially him. It doesn't make any sense.
00:23:29
Didn't make sense, said Isabel, because her husband, Edwin Laura, was a good man, had a degree in criminal justice, was in training to be a cop.
00:23:40
And then he told her that awful, confusing story and just got in his car, told her he was going to make a run for it, and took off, fled, ran away.
00:23:50
How long did this conversation go on before he left? It was pretty brief. It was just him moving around.
00:23:58
I'm not sure if he, I don't think he grabbed anything other than he did grab my gun from my purse.
00:24:04
And then he just kept saying, I need to go, I need to go. What did you think when you heard all these things?
00:24:10
I thought we had a significant problem. We had a gentleman who was potentially armed, would have some knowledge of the way police initiated an investigation.
00:24:21
So Edwin Laura, now on the run, knew what police would do. But it seemed like Isabel was being rather vague about him.
00:24:32
The only place that she thinks he could be going would be traveling southbound from central Oregon to his grandfather's place in Los Angeles.
00:24:39
Right away, Beckwith issued a bolo beyond the lookout for Laura and the 2008 silver Nissan Altima he was believed to be driving.
00:24:48
And then he activated the major crimes team, called in dozens of investigators in town and out.
00:24:54
Among those responding, Deschutes County Sheriff's Detective James McLaughlin, who had his own questions about the story Isabel Ponce had reported about her husband.
00:25:05
He told his wife this crazy tale which might or might not be true. May or may not be.
00:25:10
There were a lot of things left out as far as details that we needed to know law enforcement-wise,
00:25:16
like how did it happen, where is she now. Where is Kaylee, that is? Was she lying in some ditch badly hurt?
00:25:25
What exactly did Edwin Laura do to her? And how big a head start did he have? After all, Isabel hadn't seemed to be in a real rush to report any of this.
00:25:35
Driving from their home eight minutes away from the police department, then waiting for who knows how long, just sitting in the office, waiting to speak to a sergeant.
00:25:44
So she could have been on the phone and let people know in a heartbeat. Yes. So there is an unknown period of time in between his confession to her from when the actual report took place.
00:25:58
You're on a manhunt now. We are. Our goal was this. We are going to hunt for Edwin Enoch Laura as quickly and as fiercely as we can so that we can, A, potentially locate Kaylee alive.
00:26:14
and B, if we can't, that we can find her and that we can stop anyone else from being hurt.
00:26:22
And so began one of the largest manhunts in Oregon history. But not so easy to find a man who doesn't want to be found
00:26:32
or to know what that man might do next. Coming up, a mother's nightmare. You hear about news stories about people stealing young women,
00:26:46
and now I'm going to have to search for her, you know, being a sex slave. When Dateline continues.
00:27:01
By Monday afternoon, Kaylee Sawyer had been gone a day and a half, and the calculus was very grim.
00:27:08
If Edmund Laura had told his wife the truth, Kaylee might be dead. But was he telling the truth?
00:27:15
And was she? Or was Kaylee still alive and injured? Or alive and the captive of an armed and obviously dangerous fugitive?
00:27:25
But having told them what she came to say, Isabel Ponce was no longer much help.
00:27:30
I don't think he has a plan. I don't think he... No, I think you're right. He knows what he's doing.
00:27:35
I don't think he does. Did you ping his phone? We pinged his phone immediately. and it initially pinged in Eagle Crest.
00:27:42
Eagle Crest is a resort about 10 minutes west of Redmond, but it must have been a false signal.
00:27:49
Didn't pan out. So we really didn't have a good idea of where he was or where he might go.
00:27:57
None of this, of course, could be shared with Kaylee's family. Not yet. Not even with her mother, Julie, who was conducting a search of her own.
00:28:06
My best friend and I went and made missing posters and started distributing those all throughout Bend.
00:28:15
Panicky day. Yeah. And, you know, the whole time that you're doing this, you're checking your cell phone.
00:28:23
Did you think maybe she'd been kidnapped or something? When I heard that she'd gone for a walk, you hear about news stories about people stealing young women.
00:28:32
and now I'm going to have to search for her being a sex slave. It's just a pretty awful thing to call it.
00:28:41
It is a very awful thing. We knew how hard the family was searching for Kaylee, how many friends and relatives and people that were out looking for her.
00:28:50
So yeah, that was weighing on my mind and other investigators as well. And the major crimes team was growing by the hour.
00:28:58
Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel. This was full-on every man and woman in every law enforcement agency in Deschutes County and also Crook and Jefferson Counties,
00:29:08
with the Oregon State Police Department as well, putting all resources into it. We needed to find Kaylee because we thought she may, may still be alive.
00:29:19
Edwin Laura was the key. So again, they asked his wife, where could he be? Did you ask her whether he knew other people around town that he might hide with or something like that?
00:29:31
Yes, I did. She told me that there would be no place for him to go in town or close or anywhere in Oregon for that matter.
00:29:39
No place at all, she said. No family to run to. No one. And then a bit later, one of the investigators Beckwith had called in, remembered something.
00:29:49
Laura did in fact have family in the area. Police had once arrested his stepfather And that how the investigator knew that the stepfather lived five minutes from the police department And also only five minutes from Laura house What do you know And his wife the police officer basically led you away from that
00:30:10
She definitely didn't lead us directly to that place, that's for sure. And there, lo and behold, just two blocks from his parents' house,
00:30:18
detectives found Edwin Laura's getaway car. His 2008 Nissan Altima abandoned. A swap team was assembled, went to his parents' door.
00:30:29
Was he at his parents' house? He was not at his parents' house. And from the parents?
00:30:34
There wasn't much detail, if any, only that he had come by, that he had asked for some money.
00:30:40
They had no idea where he was, where he had gone, that there was any trouble at all.
00:30:44
That was the initial interview. They gave no credible information for us to use.
00:30:48
Did they tell the officer that they'd given him a car? to use? No. That doesn't make it easy to find a person. No, it's typical, but no, it does not.
00:30:59
Maybe there'd be something at Laura's house, some clue to what made him tick or to where he might
00:31:04
have gone. Detective McLaughlin got a search warrant, headed over there, went inside. But
00:31:11
nothing could have prepared him for what he would discover. Nothing at all. Coming up, two discoveries at Edwin Lara's home.
00:31:22
One surprising. There were things that were written on certain pages, certain scriptures.
00:31:27
The other horrifying. This is not a good sign at all. It is not. Two massive searches were in full force across central Oregon late that Monday in July 2016.
00:31:51
In neither case did the searchers have all the facts. Kaylee Sawyer's family got word out every which way they could.
00:31:59
Posters, Facebook. Within less than 24 hours, there was 10,000 shares of Kaylee's missing picture.
00:32:09
There wasn't a spot in downtown Bend or Redmond that you could go that you didn't see Kaylee's missing picture.
00:32:20
We had people call and said, I just canceled everything for the week. What do you need?
00:32:25
Kaylee's family did not know what this police officer had told detectives. He said something that he hit her with the car and then he panicked.
00:32:33
Did not know that this security company car with the missing flyer attached was the very one Edwin Laurel was driving when, as he told his wife, he ran into Kaylee.
00:32:46
But was she dead or alive? It was most certainly, said DA John Hummel, a race against time.
00:32:54
I was holding on to hope, and every officer was holding on to hope, that she might be clinging to life.
00:33:00
And if we could find her, we could race her to help and bring her back from the point of no return.
00:33:05
And as they searched for her, they searched also for him, for answers. By now, the major crimes team had grown to more than 30 investigators,
00:33:15
one of whom was Detective James McLaughlin, about to be sent to conduct a search of Edwin Laura's home.
00:33:22
I would like to see what makes this person tick. And it just happened, coincidence really,
00:33:28
that McLaughlin was a former pastor, which was about to matter a lot. We go through the house and I'm immediately drawn to a music room.
00:33:37
There's pictures of Edwin and Isabel inside, various musical instruments. They found YouTube videos, Laura singing love songs.
00:33:53
But also in here was evidence that Laura was a member of his church's worship team.
00:34:00
And here on Laura's bedside table was a well-worn Bible. You've preached from a Bible.
00:34:06
I have. And so you know what a used Bible looks like. There were things that were written on certain pages, certain scriptures.
00:34:12
So I believed at this point, this is one of the focal points of his life. And when the detective found evidence in a note that Laurel was tithing, giving 10% of his income to the church, he began thinking several steps ahead.
00:34:25
My first thought is, I'm here for some kind of reason, and I believe that unless this is a complete farce, that there's a hook there.
00:34:33
And I'm looking for a hook through that house. I want a hook. If there is anybody who could use that hook, it's you.
00:34:39
And I believe that. That was my initial thought is that I can use this. Something going on with that man.
00:34:44
He's feeding something else. And I'm just wondering what that something else is.
00:34:49
Maybe they'd find it in the backyard shed. Isabel had told detectives Edwin Laura had left some things there.
00:34:57
Would it reveal anything about what happened or where Kaylee was? McLaughlin opened the door and this did not look good.
00:35:07
What did you find in there? So inside the shed, there was a trash bag. Inside that trash bag, there was a green purse. That green purse had a large amount of cast off and blood stain on it.
00:35:20
Inside the purse, Kaylee Sawyer's passport. And there were the shoes she'd put on before the bachelorette party Saturday night. But then there it was like a punch in the gut.
00:35:34
There's also a large rock that was very sharp. Half of it at least was saturated in dried blood.
00:35:41
A murder weapon had to be. This is not a good sign at all. It is not. Kaylee Sawyer was not a victim of a hit and run.
00:35:51
No, it was much more than that. And in that moment faint hope died I believe that she was dead This was a murder This wasn any accident This was definitely not an accident It was definitely a murder
00:36:07
But if that wasn't horrifying enough, there was one more thing in that shed. This.
00:36:13
It was a poster board for a criminal justice class Laura had taken at the community college.
00:36:19
A project on serial killers. He had a fascination with serial killers. And so you naturally ask, well, why?
00:36:28
Are you a serial killer? And if that was a real question, then what were your fears of what could happen?
00:36:36
I had very, very real fears that he was going to abduct and that he was going to harm someone else.
00:36:44
I knew he had a firearm. I knew clearly at this point in time, this man is willing to commit murder.
00:36:49
This man is willing to do heinous, unspeakable things. Detective McLaughlin had no idea then how right his instincts would be.
00:37:00
Coming up, a young woman alone with an unexpected visitor. He unlocked the door and sat in the car really fast and he had a gun just pointing it at me.
00:37:13
I didn't think I was going to live another day. I didn't think I was even going to see the moon that night.
00:37:19
when Dateline continues. Monday evening, late now, 48 hours after Kaylee Sawyer vanished.
00:37:37
Kaylee's friends and family had scoured the streets and alleys and woodlots around Bend, Oregon, and found no sign of her anywhere.
00:37:44
I told my husband... I'm not stupid. I know she's not with us anymore. About five minutes later, there was a knock on the door.
00:38:05
That's when they told her what they'd found. That Kaylee was dead. And the guy named Edwin Laura was on the run.
00:38:13
And now detectives worry what or who was next. I'm looking at a desperate man, and anything can happen at this point in time is my thought.
00:38:23
Anything can happen. Oh, it would. 9 p.m., 130 miles northwest of Bend in the capital city of Salem, Oregon.
00:38:32
A 19-year-old saleswoman named Andrea Mays was walking to her car, tired at the end of her double shift at the Ross Dress for Less.
00:38:42
I was supposed to leave like in the middle of the afternoon, but I decided to stay and cover someone's shift.
00:38:48
As she got in her car, she got out her phone and snapped a selfie. It was just a long day. I was on my Snapchat. Just took a picture of like working the double shift.
00:38:59
That's when she saw him. I just, in the corner of my eye. Somebody reaching into her window.
00:39:04
That's when he unlocked the door and sat in the car really fast And he had a big backpack with him and he had a gun just pointing it at me
00:39:15
She flinched, had to be a prank she thought I was really confused because at first I thought it was someone I knew
00:39:21
But then she saw this wild look It just happened all so fast Then I saw his face and I was like what are you doing
00:39:30
And then he started yelling at me Where was the gun? It was just in between him and his backpack.
00:39:35
What did he say to you about the gun? He didn't say anything. He just kept it pointing at me until I started driving.
00:39:42
And then Andrea started laughing. Had to be a prank. And that's when he got really upset and he put the gun on my thigh and he had told me, he's like,
00:39:54
do you think this is a game? Do you think this is a joke? Because I will shoot you. I'm not joking.
00:39:59
Her body reacted then almost before her mind. What does it feel like? just this whole part of my face into my ears was like numb and burning hot and red.
00:40:11
I wasn't even crying at this point yet because it was just so unreal to me. He told her he killed a girl in Bend,
00:40:19
made her look as she drove at the stories about Kaylee on her phone. How did you not become hysterical?
00:40:26
I don't know. In my head, I just kept thinking it'll end soon. maybe he'll just leave or maybe he'll just find another car.
00:40:34
She thought about her family. Would she ever see them again? Was he going to kill her?
00:40:40
And then somehow it occurred to her. Her car had an oil leak. If she made him believe it was worse than it was, would he let her go?
00:40:51
I kept telling him, it's not going to make it. You just need to find a different car, find somebody else because I can't help you.
00:40:57
and he kept telling me, we'll figure it out, we'll just keep adding oil. And so they did, stopped at a service station,
00:41:07
and then a McDonald's where he held her at gunpoint while he bought food. It was the most frustrating feeling ever knowing that I probably talked to maybe five people
00:41:20
while he had me captive, and nobody even suspected a thing. And so again, she drove. He held the gun. And a strange thing happened.
00:41:32
There was a couple of times where I really thought, like, I wasn't going to go home ever. I wasn't going to see my family.
00:41:39
So when I would feel like that in those times, I was just in a, like, I don't care attitude.
00:41:44
And I would snap at him. I would say things. Instead of crying or getting terribly upset, you'd get mad.
00:41:50
Yeah. Huh. I kind of felt like that I probably not going to go home I probably never going to see anybody again They probably going to find my body in a ditch somewhere or find me dead in a motel or something
00:42:06
And sure enough, 90 miles down the interstate, he told her, we're stopping. They pulled up to a motel. They're relaxed in.
00:42:16
Here he is on surveillance video, keeping an eye on Andrea while he checks in. Once inside their room, he handcuffed her.
00:42:23
He took a shower, told her, now it's your turn. In my head, I thought I'd rather die than shower in front of you.
00:42:31
And I told him, I don't care what you do to me at this point because that would be honestly worse than dying, is to shower in front of you.
00:42:39
I would rather die. What did you do? Did you have a thought, maybe I could make a break for it here while he's in the shower or anything?
00:42:45
I was handcuffed the whole time in there, So a couple of times I thought I could probably just put the handcuffs around his neck and, you know, maybe make him pass out or something to give me enough time to run or drive away.
00:42:59
But then the thoughts would come into my head. Well, it could go really bad if I'm not strong enough to do that.
00:43:04
And he's the one with the gun. He moved her, handcuffed her to the bed, forced her to take a sleeping pill, put his face down beside hers.
00:43:17
I was freaking out because I had never been in a position like that. I didn't really know what to do.
00:43:23
He was, she knew, about to rape her. And just then, the alarm on her phone went off.
00:43:32
I don't even know what that alarm was for. But that alarm probably saved my life because he saw it and was like, what's this, what does that mean?
00:43:41
And then I don't know where I got the idea, but I was like, that's my timer. I have to take medicine every day.
00:43:50
And he was like, for what? And I was like, well, I have an STD. And he was like, you have a what?
00:43:55
And I was like, I have an STD, and I've been living with it, and I have to take medicine every day.
00:44:00
She didn't. But did you think if I tell him that, he won't want to rape me? Yeah.
00:44:06
And you were right. Yeah. Then the kidnapper's phone rang. It was someone from his family, saying the cops were after him.
00:44:14
He put on a bulletproof vest, announced they were leaving. And as Andrea's car sputtered down the highway, in the pitch dark, far from any town or help,
00:44:26
Laura frightened her with a fake story that he came from a family of rapists and murderers, known criminals.
00:44:34
He had started telling me that we're going to Los Angeles, that he has family there.
00:44:38
I didn't think I was going to live another day. I didn't think I was even going to see the moon that night.
00:44:46
And oh, it would get worse. Though, when it did... I didn't see anything. It just, my whole head just went black.
00:44:57
Coming up, a shooting. A gun just went off. Another kidnapping. He's like, you just need to drive.
00:45:04
You just need to get me out of here. And a Facebook message from a killer. And I just want to let family members, Andrea, that she's fine and she will be fine.
00:45:30
The morning sun lit up the sky over Mount Shasta as dawn arrived in Northern California.
00:45:36
It was Tuesday, 52 hours after Kaylee disappeared. Andrea Mays and her kidnapper, Edwin Laura, had been on the road eight hours,
00:45:46
and her car was overheating. And he told me, we're going to have to get a new car.
00:45:50
This one's not going to make it. 5 a.m., Laura pulled off the road in Wairica, California,
00:45:57
at this Super 8 motel, where he saw a man unloading his car, checking into his room.
00:46:03
He grabbed Andrea, dragged her along, and burst in on the man. And that's when it happened.
00:46:11
The guy was like, you guys have the wrong room, you need to leave. And Edwin, he's like, we just need your car, we're not going to hurt you, we just need to get out of here.
00:46:20
And the guy was like, no, help, help. And what happened? Then that's when he told him to stop yelling, and he told him if he didn't stop that he would kill him.
00:46:31
And he just kept yelling for help. And then the gun just went off, and everything just kind of went black in my head.
00:46:38
The man clutched his stomach, went down. And all I remember was my ears were ringing really loud, and I was just being pulled out of the room.
00:46:48
They ran, Laura pulling Andrea with him. And then I'm like thinking, well, I just seen him shoot someone in front of me.
00:46:55
What's to stop him from shooting me in the back on my way to the car? And I was just scared. I didn't know what to do.
00:47:02
And so all I saw ahead of me was just a gas station, and that's where he was running to.
00:47:07
Here, the mobile station, somebody was gassing up. In the car, an older woman and two young men, one behind the wheel.
00:47:16
Laura jumped in, pulled Andrea in, too. He's like, you just need to drive, you just need to get me out of here.
00:47:21
He had the gun out, pointing it at them. Yeah, he was pointing it at the driver at the time.
00:47:25
He slammed the doors, took off. Behind them, someone called 911. EMTs arrived just in time to save the life of the man Laura shot.
00:47:34
Well, in the car, the older woman was hysterical. She just really didn't understand what was going on.
00:47:41
I mean, who would? Laura took their cell phones, made Andrea throw them out the window.
00:47:47
I was just trying to throw them as hard as I could to the grass to make sure that they wouldn't, like, break
00:47:51
so maybe they could pinpoint where we were going or something. And then, 30 miles down the road, he suddenly snuck.
00:48:00
And he's like, okay, you guys just, I'll get out. That is, all but Andrea, who, as she watched them leave, saw that one of them still had a cell phone.
00:48:11
I think it was one of the boys who was smart enough to just keep it. Out of the car, the boy called 911.
00:48:18
Well, Laura, unaware of what the boy was doing, kept driving. He was going like 120 at that time now.
00:48:25
and he was just zooming in and out of cars, honking at people, just driving reckless and crazy.
00:48:33
So how did you understand that somebody was following you? I didn't. It was just him that kept saying,
00:48:40
oh, there's a helicopter that's following me, they know where I'm going. And I think he was just paranoid.
00:48:46
Did you see the helicopter? I didn't. And a couple of times he could even hear it, I guess.
00:48:51
And he would tell me, do you hear it? Where's the helicopter? and I would look and there would be nothing there.
00:48:57
Paranoid. But before long, they heard the sirens, saw the highway patrol cars behind them.
00:49:05
Here's the dash cam video. But even then, screaming down the freeway, Laura made phone calls to his family
00:49:13
and recorded this on Andrea's phone. Hi, everybody. I just want to say that I apologize for everything I've done.
00:49:25
Most likely I'm going to get caught. And, uh, sorry about that girl. About that girl in Central Oregon.
00:49:37
And I just want to let family members, Andrea, that she's fine. And she will be fine because so far she's been doing
00:49:48
what I've been going to do. You know, and if you guys are wondering if I have done dirty things to her, no.
00:50:01
Alright, I'm not that kind of guy. You know, I just... I used to kill that other girl, you know, and
00:50:10
I regret it. I regret killing her. You know, she's kept screaming and I have to stop in here forever.
00:50:21
So the cops said not to shoot us, because if they shoot us, then that's not my fault.
00:50:26
Okay, but sorry, everybody. Bye. And just here, Andrea made the last in a series of remarkable decisions.
00:50:37
Decisions that very likely saved her life and certainly saved her family anguish.
00:50:42
and so he wanted me to post that to my facebook and share it with everybody and i remember i think
00:50:50
he had me caption it crazy murderer on the loose or something to that effect and i kept telling him
00:50:57
like i have a lot of people i don't want to see this because he did record me in that video a
00:51:02
couple of times and i didn't want teachers or pastors and friends and people to see that
00:51:10
It would be terrifying for you. So vulnerable, yeah. So I just changed the setting on the post to just only me to see it.
00:51:17
So it looked like it really did post, but only I could see it. He was threatening to kill me if I didn't post it.
00:51:23
It was at this very moment, 6.40 a.m., when Edwin Laura called 911. 911 emergency reporting.
00:51:32
Yes, hi. This is Edwin Laura, and I'm the guy on Interstate 5, going on high speed.
00:51:39
I just want to say I am going to turn myself in. The dispatcher tried to understand.
00:51:44
Are you by yourself? No, I have someone with me. I kidnapped her in Oregon. She's innocent.
00:51:51
Her name is Andrea. What's your last name? I'll let her give her a last name if you can call her family, okay?
00:51:58
Hello? Yeah, hi. What's your name? Andrea. Okay, are you hurt at all, Andrea? No.
00:52:04
Then, sounding a little sorry for himself, Laura started bargaining. I want to ask you a favor.
00:52:11
Uh-huh. So I have asthma. You have asthma? Okay. Yeah, so you tell them not to be too rough on me because, you know, I can't breathe right now.
00:52:19
You want me to throw my gun out of the window right now? No, no, no, no. Don't do that right now.
00:52:24
All right. I just want you to stop safely. I can just give it to Andrea and see if she wants to kill me.
00:52:30
No, no, no. Finally, just before 7 a.m. Don't keep them chasing you. Just pull over.
00:52:38
Yeah, I'll pull over right now. Okay, I'll let you talk to Andrea. Okay, just don't hang up.
00:52:45
I'm not. Hello? Yeah, hi, Andrea. Are you okay? You don't need any medical or anything?
00:52:54
No. He is stopping? Mm-hmm. Get your hands up! Can you see? Do they have him in custody already?
00:53:02
They're putting the cuffs on him right now. Putting the cuffs on him? I'm going to hang up and just get out and you walk backwards towards them with your hands up, okay?
00:53:10
Okay. But it still wasn't over for Andrea. She was arrested too, and it was hours before detectives from Oregon arrived
00:53:20
and explained that Andrea was the innocent one, a victim. And then two more things happened in this remote California police station.
00:53:29
First, a horrifying story A confession about what that man did to Kaylee Sawyer And then, quiet and unnoticed
00:53:41
An extreme complication Coming up A brave young woman's battle He said she began coming to and tried to fight
00:53:52
She was trying to turn emergency lights on Trying to grab the radio Trying to honk the horn anything that she could do Because she knew And an odd request from a killer It was shocking to me to hear him say that When Dateline continues
00:54:14
Red Bluff, California, Tuesday. Tehama County Jail. After a three-day two-state crime spree,
00:54:21
killing, kidnapping, shooting, carjacking, manhunt, high-speed chase, and finally surrender.
00:54:34
Edwin Laura seemed eager to talk to the detectives who'd just arrived from Oregon.
00:54:39
We were informed, actually, as we were walking into the jail, that he's been asking for you, been waiting for you.
00:54:46
The question was, what would he say? But as the detectives soon learned, a better question might be, what wouldn't, Laura said?
00:54:57
My name is Sergeant Beckwith. I'm Matt. I shouldn't introduce myself because you guys know me.
00:55:03
I'm sure you guys already know who I am. There's a really, really strong hint of arrogance and ego behind that statement.
00:55:12
And right away it was obvious. Laura seemed to be enjoying his new role as notorious criminal.
00:55:19
Well, all I got to say is that I want to go home. Okay. I'm going to do everything possible to go home.
00:55:24
Yes, sir. And home meaning Oregon? Yes. But first things first, the detectives implored, where was Kaylee Sawyer?
00:55:33
We have not been able to find Kaylee's body. Can you please help me find her body immediately before we start talking about anything else?
00:55:42
else. The reason why I'm asking you that is I've done this a bunch of times. I want to tell you
00:55:50
where the body is. And so Laura went to work drawing a crude map. The 26th highway that's
00:56:01
going towards St. Hunt. He dumped her along a highway, he said, 10 miles outside of Redmond.
00:56:09
There's a mailbox right here. It's 18700. Really? 18700? Isn't that kind of a significant number?
00:56:22
It's significant because the California Penal Code for Murder or Homicide is 187.
00:56:27
And just about then, as the detectives were talking to Laura, their colleagues back in Oregon found the car he'd taken from his parents.
00:56:35
and the note inside on which he'd written repeatedly 1-8-7-0-0. Had he been toying with them, playing games?
00:56:44
A wannabe cop who left the call signal for homicide in a note, is that an address or is it just a message or what the hell is it?
00:56:53
And that's exactly what we're thinking. That is something that he spent time developing and looking for
00:57:01
And it just so happened to fit his desire to hide her body, but hide it in a way that he's not hiding his body of work from the public.
00:57:13
He wants it seen eventually. Detective Beckwith got on the phone to Oregon. He said it's directly across from the scene he walks on the south side of the highway.
00:57:23
They went to look. And just like that. It's about five minutes after that that we locate Kaylee.
00:57:31
Here is where she was, a ravine just off the highway. And Kaylee Sawyer's family got the call they dreaded.
00:57:41
The last time I got to kiss my baby girl on the forehead was through a black body bag.
00:57:53
We asked when we can see her identify their body and they would not let us see her.
00:57:57
Their words were, you cannot see her because she's unrecognizable. Unrecognizable is the haunting word.
00:58:07
How do you accept that? Kaylee's mom couldn't bring herself to visit the morgue.
00:58:13
I just knew that if I went, I might climb up on that table with her and not leave.
00:58:23
But back in jail with the detectives, Laura seemed pleased to have an audience and had decided to reveal more and worse.
00:58:33
Like the reason why Kaylee's body was unrecognizable. He was in his cruiser, he told them, at Central Oregon Community College,
00:58:42
the cruiser that looked just like a real police car, in a uniform that made him look just like a real policeman.
00:58:50
And along came Kaylee Sawyer. after that argument with her boyfriend. I turned and I didn't hit her that hard.
00:59:00
He's bumper with the patrol car. An accident? That's what he told his wife, Isabel, the morning he left
00:59:07
and what he claimed in the note he left behind in his car. He kind of stuck to that I hit her with the car story for a little bit.
00:59:16
You knew it wasn't true. We knew it wasn't true and it was easy to get past that.
00:59:23
How? Well, remember Detective McLaughlin, the former pastor, had searched Laura's home the
00:59:28
previous day and found his Bible and evidence of his apparent devotion to his church,
00:59:33
the hook he now could see for this very moment. I was in your house. I saw the Bible. I know you
00:59:41
thumbed through it a lot. I see that you've tithed for months consecutively. He appealed to Laura the
00:59:47
the way a pastor would with Psalm 24, clean hands and a pure heart. I said do you clean one hand when you wash your hands or do you clean them both Well both Okay so now your time to tell me the real story because what you just said didn happen that way
01:00:06
And he begins to describe to my shock and quite frankly, terror, listening to the things that he had done.
01:00:15
The truth, Laura said, was that when he saw Kaylee that night, he knew she was the one he'd been looking for.
01:00:23
and upwelled a familiar urge. His urge to kill a beautiful woman. He saw her as a target the moment he laid eyes on her.
01:00:35
And so he cruised alongside Kaylee, excited, stopped, got out of his cruiser in his cop-like uniform,
01:00:42
trying extra hard to look safe, hiding his ugly intention. Mr. Lara offered her a ride,
01:00:50
and she refused. She didn't want a ride from him. So I panicked and I just grabbed her with the door.
01:00:59
I told her, shut up, shut up, shut up. Did she pass out? In his words, he put her in the car.
01:01:07
He didn't open the door. She didn't get in willingly. He put her in there. What did he do to her then?
01:01:12
He took her cell phone from her. He told us that he knew that he felt a sense of relief once he took her cell phone.
01:01:18
It was completely under his control in a vehicle that she can't escape from. can't escape because the campus car had a security cage in the back seat,
01:01:30
just like a real police car. Then, with Kaylee unconscious, he drove up the hill to a secluded parking lot, B-12.
01:01:40
He said she began coming to and tried to fight. She started to crawl through the plexiglass caged back seat.
01:01:46
She was trying to turn emergency lights on, trying to grab the radio, trying to honk the horn, anything that she could do,
01:01:51
because she knew. So I grabbed a chuckle and I was telling her, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.
01:02:01
She was struggling to scream. So I threw her down and I hit the rock on the head.
01:02:12
The rock he saved and squirreled away like a trophy in his backyard shed. And he decides at that point
01:02:21
that he does want to sexually assault her. And he sexually assaults her there while she's dying
01:02:25
and drags her up behind a tree and finishes the job with the big 60, 70-pound rock.
01:02:35
And that's when she died because I heard her breathing, her best breath. Afterwards, he told them, he felt bad about what he did.
01:02:48
She looked up reading this girl. She didn't deserve what I did to her. Laura's confession continued for six hours.
01:02:58
They asked if he wanted to call someone. He said, could I call the media? Like have a press conference about it or something?
01:03:06
What in heaven's name? It was shocking to me to hear him say that. Detectives believed they had him.
01:03:14
Nothing could have been further from the truth. Coming up, a question from a killer that could let him walk free.
01:03:25
Well, it had to be a bad day. It was. It was so hard. On Tuesday evening, they had a vigil.
01:03:47
From all around Ben, people gathered, most of them silent, in disbelief. They had planned this in hope as they searched.
01:03:56
And during those two days, the whole town seemed to adopt Kaylee Sawyer. Ben's daughter, they took to calling her.
01:04:05
But now Ben's daughter was dead. And unbelievably, at the hands of a security guard at the local community college, Edwin Laura.
01:04:14
Sort of thing that gives a cop nightmares. I can imagine maybe my own kid, my own daughter,
01:04:21
just out walking in to have somebody stop. And her dad's a cop, and she might associate that
01:04:26
with being someone of safety and security and trust. And then in a moment like that, he takes it all from her,
01:04:36
using just what he's wearing. And, you know, it's disgusting. It's also very unsettling.
01:04:43
It's as unsettling as it gets. You have to have wondered a lot. What possessed him to be so apparently devoutly religious and to want to be a cop and want to be kind of an upstanding member of society, but at the same time he had this stuff going on?
01:04:58
Yeah, I still wonder about that to this day. For him to go from no criminal history to the most severe criminal history in a matter of three days was alarming and is still alarming to me.
01:05:11
So, what to do with a man like Edwin Lora, now charged with aggravated murder and kidnapping and other crimes?
01:05:20
It was the DA, John Hummel's job, to decide. If the facts in this case did not warrant a sentence of death, then I, in essence, would have been saying that no crime ever in Deschutes County would be appropriate for the death penalty.
01:05:39
and I decided to ask the jury to impose a sentence of death. And so they prepared for trial.
01:05:46
They went over and over all that happened, minute by minute. They interviewed and re-interviewed witnesses, poured over the physical evidence.
01:05:54
They examined in minute detail Laura six confession ensured he been read his rights You do have the right to remain silent The detectives even went the extra mile and read Laura his consular rights
01:06:07
Though he was a permanent legal U.S. resident, he was born in Honduras. You want us to notify the consular's office at this time?
01:06:15
No. It was quite a bit later they discovered one bit of video had been overlooked somehow.
01:06:21
Didn't turn up for months? Mind you, it didn't exactly jump out. What Laura said off camera, almost as an aside.
01:06:31
Is my lawyer on the camera? No, it's your right to request a lawyer. Okay. So when you get your phone calls, you can request a lawyer.
01:06:39
And that was it. The moment passed. Laura, though entitled to phone calls, did not ask again and did not phone anyone.
01:06:48
So there was a hearing. The judge listened to defense arguments that at the moment Laura asked about a lawyer, he invoked his right to counsel.
01:06:57
And all questions should have stopped. And tossed out Edwin Laura's confession. All of it.
01:07:04
Every word. Wow, that had to be a bad day. It was. It was so hard. It's hard to take, huh?
01:07:13
Very hard to take. and it's something we're going to live with and we do live with every day of our lives.
01:07:19
Until the time they put me under the grass, I'm going to have a hard, you know, hollow heart.
01:07:26
Well, there was other evidence besides his confession, like Kaylee's purse and shoes
01:07:33
and that rock covered in her blood all found in Laura's backyard shed and Kaylee's blood inside Laura's security company car
01:07:42
and on her body, evidence that she fought hard to survive. She left behind evidence that was incredibly damning.
01:07:51
She had his DNA under her fingernails. So investigators encouraged the DA do not lose faith.
01:07:58
Push ahead. You know, they said, you know, look, we got this. Sure. We can do it.
01:08:04
We have the evidence. If we thought it was a death penalty case before, there's no reason to back down now.
01:08:10
Except that everything changed again. Coming up. Disorder in the court. And a phone call with a killer.
01:08:27
Well, hang on a second. You've got to explain that to me a little bit. What are you suggesting?
01:08:31
When Dateline continues. Edwin Laura told the whole story, held little if anything back.
01:08:54
And not a word of it would be heard by any jury, any time. Inadmissible. So as prosecutors prepared, even without that confession, to ask a jury to give Laura the
01:09:06
death penalty. defense team asked for a meeting with the DA, made an offer. Laura would plead guilty and agree
01:09:14
to a sentence of life without parole. But with Kaylee's family, go for that. A retired judge sat
01:09:22
down with Kaylee's mother and told her what a jury conviction her desired result could almost
01:09:27
certainly mean. He explained to me what happens in a death penalty case and the appeals. As long
01:09:37
as he's living on death row, I would be too. Some choice. Yeah. I would have had to show up
01:09:46
to every appeal. And so family members stuffed down their grief and anger and said,
01:09:52
make the deal. On a January day in 2018, judgment day arrived for Edwin Laura. The courtroom was packed. The first row filled shoulder to shoulder with members of the major
01:10:06
crimes team. Scattered in the gallery behind, Kaylee's large extended family and many friends.
01:10:13
Her boyfriend, Cam. At the defendant's table, Edwin Laura. And finally, also in the courthouse
01:10:20
that day, that young woman Laura was charged with kidnapping during his getaway, Andrea
01:10:26
Mays. This was the first time that I had seen him since everything happened. It was just hard
01:10:33
even sitting there because I could see him trying to look over here. There was something in the air that day.
01:10:39
You have no idea how much irreversible damage this piece of s*** has done to my extended family.
01:10:49
And I'm going to fill this carcass full of lead. Pow! Finally, it was time for Edwin Laura to speak.
01:11:01
what could he say? Oh boy. God almighty who are in heaven I'll ask you please heal the hearts
01:11:11
of all these broken hearts Papa Jim quite thoroughly disgusted stormed out of the courtroom.
01:11:17
I ask you please heal the hearts of this family I felt like it was staged and in retrospect I wish I had the courage
01:11:25
to stand up and tell him to turn around because all those people had to sit there and watch that happen
01:11:30
that show. And they came to me so interesting. The death sentence, even if they carried it out,
01:11:38
would have been too quick for him. You know, he's going to die a lot slower death.
01:11:43
Now, you may recall Laura, right after his capture, asked if he could call the media.
01:11:50
An honest desire to explain? Hello? Edwin? Yes. We were skeptical. So, in May 2019,
01:11:59
we... This bluff, I understand you've been wanting to tell your story for some time.
01:12:05
But was he serious about explaining himself? No. Instead, Laura floated a strange little conspiracy theory about his bank statements.
01:12:17
Yeah, I wish they would have gotten my statement, my bank statements, every time I stayed in Salem, Oregon.
01:12:22
I wish they would have gotten that, but they never did. Right now, I'm like frustrated when it comes down to that.
01:12:28
you know but at this point i honestly don't have nothing to say well hang on a second you got to
01:12:33
explain that to me a little bit well what are you suggesting well once they look into it they'll be
01:12:38
able to figure it out but figure out what there's a lot of things so right now i don't have nothing
01:12:43
to say and with that laura's conversation with us was over of course we checked and of course
01:12:51
his bank statements like everything else about him had been examined in infinite detail and there
01:12:57
was just nothing to look at there. And the little charade in our phone call? Who knows why?
01:13:03
But with Edwin Louris sentenced and safely tucked away in prison, did Kaylee's family simply turn
01:13:09
the page? Oh no, not even close. And Louris still had to answer for one more thing. What he did to
01:13:18
Andrea Mays. Coming up. Central Oregon Community College bears some responsibility for Kaylee Sawyer's death.
01:13:29
They bear a lot of responsibility for her death. Kaylee's legacy and a time to heal.
01:13:35
I'm not a victim. I am a survivor. In the years after Kaylee Sawyer's 2016 murder,
01:13:55
her loved ones slowly and painfully worked their way through the stages of grief,
01:14:00
anger, bargaining, depression. But that final stage, acceptance? The way this crime occurred?
01:14:08
Not a chance. I would have never been able to tell my daughter, you're a monster, you're a boogeyman.
01:14:18
will pull up alongside you in a car that looks like a police officer's car. And he will get out and he will be dressed like a police officer And Katie family was not alone in its belief that Edwin Laura crime committed while on the job as a campus security officer
01:14:36
was aided and abetted by the community college that supplied both his cop-like uniform and patrol car with a cage.
01:14:42
The props he used when he kidnapped and killed Kaylee. D.A. John Hummel. Central Oregon Community College bears some responsibility for Kaylee Sawyer's death.
01:14:53
They bear a lot of responsibility for her death. Why? Because it turned out that as a campus security guard,
01:15:02
Laura had undergone no background check, no psychological tests, and none of the training required of real police officers in Oregon.
01:15:11
And yet, COCC had allowed its uniformed officers to make arrests and traffic stops and to investigate crimes.
01:15:20
Actions the DA and other law officers had repeatedly demanded the college stop, even before Kaylee's murder.
01:15:28
How would they react to these demands? They would say that they think they are legally allowed to do it.
01:15:37
Kaylee's family filed a civil rights lawsuit against Central Oregon Community College.
01:15:44
Depositions were taken of the campus security director, Laura's boss, who had overseen many changes.
01:15:51
When you first arrived here, did safety officers carry handcuffs? They did not. And what Edwin Laura's colleagues revealed about his behavior prior to Kaylee's murder was horrifying.
01:16:04
And he's like, oh, here, look at this. Fellow security officers testified one by one.
01:16:10
How he'd showed them pornographic videos starring himself. how he sent inappropriate text messages to them showcasing his obsession with dead bodies, and more.
01:16:24
His behavior changed so much so that I felt like I was trapped. The family's attorney, Tim Williams.
01:16:31
He had physically pinned a female cadet within the building of CPS and forced her to reveal her religious beliefs in great detail.
01:16:42
Those are the behaviors that the phrase red flag was invented for, it seems to me.
01:16:46
That was our understanding as well, yeah. They were disturbing depositions. And Julie somehow sat through everyone It was really hard because at the end of these depositions they all asked to come and say something to me
01:17:04
They would have tears in their eyes, and a lot of them just kept apologizing. And I could have asked them at that point,
01:17:15
you know, why didn't you say something? But then I saw the hurt and the guilt in their eyes,
01:17:21
And I didn't want to add. I didn't want to add to that. The college, for its part, admitted to no wrongdoing,
01:17:31
but agreed to a $2 million settlement with Kaylee's family, the maximum allowed by law in Oregon.
01:17:39
The college declined our request for an interview, but issued a statement saying, in part,
01:17:45
COCC sends our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Kaylee Sawyer. and noting its commitment to safety,
01:17:54
the college then listed the changes it's made since Kaylee's death, including altering vehicles and uniforms,
01:18:01
discontinuing the use of handcuffs, and implementing background checks and criminal history checks for officers.
01:18:08
It's because of Kaylee that that campus is safe, and that makes me feel good. But was the family done?
01:18:17
Oh, no. We're going to go ahead and call the Senate Judiciary Committee to order.
01:18:20
They pushed Oregon's legislature to pass Kaylee's Law to require background checks on security officers
01:18:28
and to implement a host of other safety checks. Kaylee's Law was signed into law by Oregon Governor Kate Brown.
01:18:36
In the height of their tragedy, Kaylee's family stepped up and said, we're going to make sure that no young person has to go through what our daughter did.
01:18:46
But there was still the matter of that other woman who went through her own hell with Laura, Andrea Mays.
01:18:54
How he'd hunted her, caught her, terrorized her, talked of his urge to kill. It was like something out of a horror movie, which he endured,
01:19:03
said one prosecutor. Sometimes it all overwhelmed her. There's days where I wake up and I just really don't want to talk to anybody.
01:19:11
I don't want to do anything. And so as she waited more than a year for her case to make its slow way through the legal system,
01:19:19
Andrea fretted over whether or not to be in federal court when Laura was finally sentenced for kidnapping and terrorizing her Whether to face him Whether to say something But then in 2019 at the courthouse in Eugene Oregon there she was
01:19:38
I just didn't want to look back ten years from now and just regret not coming or not saying anything.
01:19:44
And so, Andrea summoned up every ounce of courage she could and set her peace to his face.
01:19:51
No cameras in this courtroom, so she told us what she said to him in court. I'm not a victim. I am a survivor. I'm a warrior.
01:19:59
I defeated him, and I am truly blessed. For his crimes against Andrea, a federal judge handed Laura another life prison sentence.
01:20:12
Laura has also agreed to plead guilty to a host of California charges related to his crime spree.
01:20:20
Laura's wife, Isabel, by the way, who was never charged with any wrongdoing, filed for divorce, resigned from the Bend Police Department, and moved away.
01:20:32
Perhaps there's a salve for the madness of such a terrible story. Andrea has struck up a relationship with Kaylee's father, Jamie, and the family.
01:20:42
It's been good for them, and good for her. Freezing. Okay. We'll look for Kaylee's.
01:20:50
Yeah. These days, Kaylee's grandparents visit the library. Oh, here it is. Where Grandma Sharon read books to Kaylee, now memorialized on this sidewalk.
01:21:01
Kaylee, Ann, and Grandma Sharon. Love you. Love you, baby girl. Her family has its ways of coping.
01:21:09
Yeah. And who's to say what's the right way? Maybe Julie's. now that the court cases, depositions, and lawsuits are finally over.
01:21:21
Every morning I wake up and I love her more and more each day, just like I did when she was here.
01:21:27
You know, I have gotten to that point sometimes where I look at a picture and I smile.
01:21:33
And I'm so glad for that, because for 23 years, nothing made me smile more than my daughter.
01:21:44
That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.