Into the Night

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Speaker 7 From the Creator of Homeland, Claire Danes and Matthew Rees star in the new Netflix series The Beast in Me as ruthless rivals whose shared darkness will set them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 11 The Beast in Me is a riveting psychological cat and mouse story about guilt and justice and doubt, now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 15 A young woman alone, who was waiting in the dark.

Speaker 16 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 17 She would come into our room. The room would just brighten up.

Speaker 18 People instantly thought, I'm Kayleigh's best friend.

Speaker 17 The very first message that I looked at was, have you seen Kayleigh?

Speaker 15 Is that how can I help you?

Speaker 21 My daughter is missing.

Speaker 22 I had this sickening feeling.

Speaker 23 I'm looking at a desperate man. Anything can happen.

Speaker 17 I would have never been able to tell my daughter. Your monster, your boogeyman, will pull up alongside you.
And

Speaker 17 instead of him coming to help you, he has come to harm you.

Speaker 23 Inside the shed, there was a green purse. There's also a large rock saturated in dried blood.

Speaker 24 This is not a good sign at all.

Speaker 23 It is not.

Speaker 18 Have you ever been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer? That's about what it feels like.

Speaker 23 She began coming to and tried to fight. 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.
She knew.

Speaker 25 Here's Keith Morrison with Into the Night.

Speaker 30 It was a Saturday night in the summer, and they were so happy at their bachelorette party as they laughed and danced and played their drinking games.

Speaker 4 Well, outside in the dark, watchful, waiting, hidden in its clever disguise, death cruised by, looking for one of them.

Speaker 38 And all around, a peaceful town tucked into sleep.

Speaker 34 No ghost, no soothsayer to warn them that evil had fooled their defenses, had slipped inside to snatch its prey.

Speaker 38 This is the place, here in the wide, handsome high desert of central Oregon.

Speaker 42 The small city of Bend,

Speaker 33 an annual occupant of every list of the best places to live in America.

Speaker 45 It's a nice place to live. I love it here.
It's perfect.

Speaker 24 An outdoor recreation heaven on the slopes of the Cascade Range, rife with rivers and lakes and rugged independence.

Speaker 23 I mean everything here is about outdoors, about connection.

Speaker 1 And Bend was home to a beautiful young woman named Kaylee Sawyer.

Speaker 46 This is Kaylee's mother, Julie.

Speaker 17 She was probably 17, and she said to me, Mom, when people describe me, I want them to describe me as smart and strong and funny. And she was.

Speaker 14 Yes, and feisty and fearless.

Speaker 43 Her best friend, Naomi's sleepover buddy and stunt team cheerleading partner.

Speaker 50 I love Kaylee so much, but she's not the most coordinated person there was.

Speaker 50 We were probably the best stunt team on our squad because our communication, we didn't need to speak. We could look at each other and understand everything about one another.

Speaker 20 I wouldn't really call her a tomboy, but I also wouldn't really call her a girly girl. Somewhere in between.

Speaker 54 She could look like a model one minute and be in scrubby clothes and ready to go camping the next.

Speaker 24 She called her grandfather Papa Jim here with Grandma Sharon.

Speaker 4 She was our sunshine.

Speaker 55 She was just our world.

Speaker 32 Did you worry about her as a teenager?

Speaker 20 She was in Bend. She had family around.

Speaker 17 So

Speaker 20 my worry was if she left Bend, you know, oh my goodness, what if my Kaylee goes up to Portland? She won't have a Grandma Sharon there.

Speaker 57 We'll have to move.

Speaker 20 We'll have to go and be with her.

Speaker 20 That was my worry, not being in Bend.

Speaker 58 Mind you, Kaylee was on her own now, was living with her boyfriend, a young man named Cam.

Speaker 17 I could tell from the moment that Kaylee met Cam

Speaker 17 that this was a good relationship for her.

Speaker 17 I could see that she was happy.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 44 if she could just figure out what to do with her life.

Speaker 50 She was going to be a plastic surgeon, she was going to be a policeman, she was going to be a chef, she was going to be a photographer.

Speaker 1 The world was hers.

Speaker 50 She didn't pick one thing.

Speaker 46 No, but this year, the year she turned 23, that was changing.

Speaker 60 She'd held a job for two full years now as a dental assistant.

Speaker 22 She was my work daughter. She'd follow me around to learn how to do things because she really wanted to be the best.

Speaker 60 Lisa Castro was Kaylee's mentor at the dentist's office.

Speaker 12 It discovered Kaylee had this rare ability to make people laugh, even when they weren't in the mood or were scared.

Speaker 22 If there was a difficult patient, you'd put Kaylee in the room and they would just smelt.

Speaker 22 So those pretty eyes and that smile.

Speaker 39 And then, surprise, surprise, Kaylee was making plans to enroll in college.

Speaker 3 Now she knew what she wanted to do.

Speaker 22 And one day she comes into work, she says, I've decided I'm going to become a dentist.

Speaker 43 So both of them had something to look forward to that Saturday night, July 23rd, 2016.

Speaker 62 Lisa was celebrating her upcoming wedding.

Speaker 54 The Bachelorette Party was for her.

Speaker 62 Kayleigh had already told Lisa and her sister Jana that she couldn't go.

Speaker 6 She'd be out of town.

Speaker 24 But last minute.

Speaker 22 I got a text from her

Speaker 22 saying, guess what? I'm going to show up to your party to help celebrate you. But I'm going to show up a little late, but I'll be there.

Speaker 65 That's a great thing when the women get together for a bachelorette party.

Speaker 1 Katie bar the door.

Speaker 29 Especially at our age.

Speaker 66 It was after 8 p.m. when Kaylee showed up at a country bar called Mavericks.
The party was well underway.

Speaker 22 She came in a little dress and just looked adorable in it.

Speaker 68 Indeed, she did.

Speaker 32 Here are photos of Kaylee at that party in that black dress.

Speaker 16 She was kicking up her heels a bit, right?

Speaker 22 My door.

Speaker 22 She was having fun.

Speaker 52 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.

Speaker 20 You know, I checked them out and said, you know, you girls be safe. You're okay, right? And they said, yeah, we're okay.

Speaker 35 We'll be good.

Speaker 63 And a little before 10.30 p.m., she walked out into the night, happy, a little tipsy, altogether unaware of what was waiting on the other side of midnight.

Speaker 17 When we come back, a friend of Cam's texted him and said, your girlfriend's here dancing with another guy.

Speaker 25 Kayleigh, out for a night of fun. But where would she be when morning came?

Speaker 17 The very first message that I looked at was from Cam saying, have you seen Kayleigh?

Speaker 22 Instantly, I had the sickening feeling in my gut.

Speaker 41 It was late afternoon, Sunday, July 24th, the day after the Bachelorette party.

Speaker 54 Kayleigh's mother, Julie, was driving home from a weekend camping trip.

Speaker 5 She approached Bend around 5 p.m., re-entered cell phone range.

Speaker 17 I turned my phone back on and my phone was just pinging and pinging and pinging. And the very first message that I looked at was from Cam saying, have you seen Kayleigh? Have you heard from Kayleigh?

Speaker 38 Why would Cam be asking her about Kaylee?

Speaker 1 After all, they lived together.

Speaker 4 Judy's phone chirped over and over.

Speaker 7 Cam had texted her the same question almost hourly all day.

Speaker 9 So you're looking at multiple messages.

Speaker 17 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 61 It's getting a little more worried.

Speaker 17 And I called her first

Speaker 17 and her phone went to voicemail, which Kaylee notoriously let her cell phone battery go really low. Okay.
So that wasn't surprising.

Speaker 34 By then, Cam had already texted Kaylee's dad, Jamie, and stepmother Crystal as they sat in church.

Speaker 20 His phone in his pocket kept buzzing.

Speaker 67 And I'm elbowing him and I'm like, what's going on?

Speaker 20 So he kind of said, Cam doesn't know where Kaylee is.

Speaker 67 And I'm like, okay.

Speaker 59 So Kaylee's dad questioned Cam.

Speaker 32 What did Camera tell you?

Speaker 73 She went to a bachelor's party and

Speaker 73 they had an argument going home.

Speaker 74 An argument?

Speaker 73 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. And that was it.
I literally thought nothing more to it than that.

Speaker 4 But Cam clearly did.

Speaker 75 He'd spent that Sunday calling the entire family.

Speaker 20 Cam called and said, Grandma Sharon, have you heard from Kaylee? And I said, no, I hadn't. Grandma Sharon called and was like, have you talked to Kayleigh?

Speaker 50 And 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.

Speaker 50 And I figured, you know, she was out with friends. Maybe she ended up just staying with them.

Speaker 60 But the bride-to-be who'd said goodnight to that happy young woman was alarmed.

Speaker 22 Instantly, I had this sickening feeling in my gut because that's not Kaylee. She would have contacted somebody that, you know,

Speaker 22 I went to someone's house or whatever.

Speaker 71 Julie, still driving, trying to comprehend, got a call from Cam, who told her that after the bachelorette party at that other bar, Kaylee had had a few and was having fun with some other guy.

Speaker 17 They were dancing,

Speaker 17 and I guess a friend of Cam's texted him and said, your girlfriend's here dancing with another guy. And so he went and picked her up.
And on the way home, they started to argue.

Speaker 39 Cam's story.

Speaker 75 He parked outside their apartment a little after midnight, tempers still hot.

Speaker 2 He got out of the car.

Speaker 60 She stayed inside.

Speaker 7 He told her, come up when you've cooled off.

Speaker 1 But a few minutes later, out she got and walked away into the night.

Speaker 17 It didn't surprise me when

Speaker 17 he told me that she went for a walk because she had always done that when she was younger and she'd get in trouble and I would tell her,

Speaker 17 you know, you need to go to your room.

Speaker 17 Chances are she went to her room and out her window and she'd go for a walk.

Speaker 18 She had to work it out.

Speaker 57 Yeah. She was mad.

Speaker 17 Yeah, she was mad and she, you know, she would go for a walk. And that wasn't unusual behavior.

Speaker 24 Anyway, Cam and Katie lived in a crime-free neighborhood right across the street from the local college.

Speaker 78 But Cam didn't sound so sure of his story.

Speaker 12 So, where did she go?

Speaker 24 Why didn't she come back?

Speaker 8 Why didn't she call anyone?

Speaker 33 Julie encouraged Cam to call Benn police, which she did Sunday afternoon.

Speaker 79 Is that show going to help you? Hi. Last night I got home from the bars with my girlfriend, and she got upset at me and ran off.
And I still haven't heard from her. Her phone's off.

Speaker 80 Okay, so did she just take off walking or something from the dieters?

Speaker 79 Like, she was mad? Yeah, I walked. She was, yeah, she was mad at me, so I walked inside and told her to come meet me.
And then when she's like, calm down.

Speaker 79 And then I went back out in 10 minutes and she was gone. And I called her a few times, and she said she was walking down the street.
I haven't heard from her since.

Speaker 58 As Julie neared Ben, she worried, would police take it seriously?

Speaker 1 After all, grown woman, lover's spat.

Speaker 49 So Julie added a little urgency and called 911 herself.

Speaker 21 Is that going to help you? Yes, I need to have an officer call me. My daughter is missing and she is over 23, but she has

Speaker 21 epilepsy and some medical issues.

Speaker 17 I exaggerated her seizure condition.

Speaker 32 How did they react to that?

Speaker 17 They were concerned about that.

Speaker 17 They knew that she had been out. the night before and she had been drinking.
Could that have triggered a medical incident?

Speaker 71 Julie drove straight to the apartment where she questioned Cam.

Speaker 17 I was frustrated that his story just didn't make sense. And so I walked out of the apartment and I said I just needed to go and

Speaker 17 take a walk and get some fresh air. And while I was out there walking, the officer came and I said to him, I need you to go talk to Cam

Speaker 17 because his story doesn't make sense to me.

Speaker 35 What was going on?

Speaker 59 And where was Kaylee Sawyer?

Speaker 25 Coming up, Kaylee's mom wasn't the only one troubled by Cam's story.

Speaker 73 My thought was, did they really have that bad of an argument and something bad happened?

Speaker 25 And what did police think about Kaylee's sudden disappearance?

Speaker 32 Did you both agree at that point something was going on here?

Speaker 28 Something was off?

Speaker 82 Yeah, we were talking back and forth and he said, do you think we need to get detectives involved?

Speaker 4 And I said, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 26 When line continues.

Speaker 71 Sunday evening, July 24th, the sun descended toward the Cascades.

Speaker 48 18 hours after Katie Sawyer argued with her boyfriend and walked alone into the dark.

Speaker 27 Her extended family gathered at the apartment she shared with Cam.

Speaker 1 Her father, Jamie.

Speaker 78 Was part of you kind of suspicious of Cameron?

Speaker 73 Yes. My thought was that did they really have that bad of an argument and something bad happened.

Speaker 78 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.

Speaker 73 That's hard to believe, too, because we knew Cameron, very innocent young man. He's just

Speaker 73 a nice guy.

Speaker 57 Yeah.

Speaker 73 It's hard to imagine that, but you still do.

Speaker 52 Remember, Cam's story troubled Kaylee's mother, too.

Speaker 48 Then police officer Kyle Denny arrived and parked outside the apartment right across the street from the campus of Central Oregon Community College.

Speaker 82 It's on Aubrey Butte, which is one of the more prestigious areas of town. It's very nice homes.

Speaker 16 Very safe area, I would think.

Speaker 41 It's very safe.

Speaker 38 Officer Denny was soon joined by Corporal Eric Sapli.

Speaker 53 While Denny talked to the family, Sapli found that friend, the girl who'd seen Kayleigh dancing at the bar, the one who texted Cam, Better come get her.

Speaker 85 And a little after midnight, Kaylee sent a text message to her friend saying, I'm home, everything's okay, I'm sorry about earlier tonight. And then her friend tried to call her just before 1 a.m.

Speaker 85 and Kaylee didn't answer the phone.

Speaker 32 Did there seem to be any chance that she would have gone back to be with that guy she had met at the bachelorette party?

Speaker 85 Initially, I thought maybe there was a chance, but...

Speaker 82 Did you talk to him? So I called him on the telephone. He didn't get Kayleigh's phone number.

Speaker 82 He didn't give her his phone number. So it was just kind of they were hanging out that night, and that was the last he knew or saw of her.

Speaker 78 And that seemed to make sense to you. It did.

Speaker 38 So, nothing to disprove anything Cam had told them.

Speaker 84 What was your take on Cameron's story?

Speaker 78 What happened? It didn't make sense.

Speaker 82 The story made sense. It made absolute sense.

Speaker 64 Officer Denny took Julie aside to address concerns about Cam.

Speaker 17 He was able to come and tell me. It's not that his story is changing.
His story is evolving. He's He's remembering things.

Speaker 17 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.

Speaker 58 Why'd you let her go off in the night alone?

Speaker 29 Yeah.

Speaker 17 But I never felt that he was involved in harming her.

Speaker 42 Then Officer Denny assembled the family.

Speaker 60 and asked them a question.

Speaker 82 I said, hey, is there anywhere you can think of that she might be? And I kind of just sent them on a mission to go start looking at at places where she could be if she was trying to cool off.

Speaker 18 I remember going up to the campus and walking the route that we were told or assumed that she might have walked that night.

Speaker 27 A terrifying thing to do, said Papa Jim.

Speaker 56 You didn't know whether we were looking for a body, parts of clothing, a purse.

Speaker 10 So you were worried something very bad had happened.

Speaker 56 Oh, yes, petrified. Terrified.

Speaker 17 I wanted to stay home and I wanted to be there because maybe she'd come home.

Speaker 84 Yeah, maybe she'd come home. Maybe she'd call.
Maybe she'd let you know.

Speaker 17 My husband went out and looked for her. We were praying that he finds her, that she's safe, but in a way, you know that something's wrong.
I was praying that he didn't find her

Speaker 17 because I didn't want him

Speaker 17 to have to find her if

Speaker 17 somebody had hurt her.

Speaker 48 Now, for the two officers, a judgment call.

Speaker 59 She was a grown woman who was missing, but she had a right to be somewhere else.

Speaker 75 There was no evidence of foul play.

Speaker 1 But.

Speaker 32 Did you both agree at that point something was going on here?

Speaker 28 Something was off?

Speaker 82 Yeah, we were talking back and forth, and he said, Do you think we need to get detectives involved?

Speaker 4 And I said, Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 6 Overnight, the first missing person flyer in the Katie Sawyer case went out to law enforcement around central Oregon.

Speaker 1 And the next morning, everyone held their breath, hoping Kaylee would simply show up for work at the dentist's office.

Speaker 74 And then they'd all breathe again.

Speaker 73 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.

Speaker 73 And I asked them that she called in, and they just shook their heads.

Speaker 22 It was heartbreaking. I mean, nobody could talk.
There was just a lot of tears.

Speaker 84 That's when you knew.

Speaker 73 That's when I knew something, and still didn't want to accept it.

Speaker 12 She was truly missing.

Speaker 2 And then a few hours later, 20 miles up the road from Bend in Redmond, Oregon, a police detective named Eric Beckwith got up from his desk.

Speaker 45 Went out to my car and got my lunch and was walking through the lobby and saw Isabel Ponce.

Speaker 6 Who's Isabel Ponce?

Speaker 45 Isabel Ponce is somebody that we knew in Redmond. She was a police officer recruit and Redmond resident.

Speaker 6 She seemed to be waiting for something.

Speaker 1 Curious.

Speaker 42 He walked on back to his office, sat down.

Speaker 11 No idea what was about to worm its ugly way into his world.

Speaker 81 Coming up.

Speaker 61 A worried wife with a wild story. She's crying.

Speaker 45 She's crying uncontrollably. I knew we had a big problem.

Speaker 25 And reality sinks in.

Speaker 18 Ever been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer? That's about what it feels like.

Speaker 31 By Monday morning, they were swamped under waves of panic.

Speaker 44 It was 36 hours since Kaylee Sawyer walked into the Oregon night and vanished.

Speaker 78 I'm trying to get a sense of what it felt like to be in the middle of all of that.

Speaker 17 Complete loss of control, accompanied with sheer panic.

Speaker 18 You ever been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer?

Speaker 18 That's about what it feels like.

Speaker 14 And then, going on noon, 20 miles north at the Redmond Police Department, Detective Eric Beckwith noticed a newly minted Bend police officer named Isabel Ponce sitting calmly on a chair, as if waiting for something.

Speaker 1 Odd.

Speaker 45 It struck me as unusual, but I didn't approach her or strike up a conversation. I just

Speaker 45 went into the office.

Speaker 11 Unwrapped his lunch, prepared to tuck in, when a colleague appeared at his door.

Speaker 45 He had asked me if I'd 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.

Speaker 67 You had no idea.

Speaker 45 Had no idea. Just a short amount of time after that, Sergeant Duff opened his door and yelled down the hall for me to come into his office.

Speaker 24 So, of course, Beck was rushed in there and right into the biggest, most shocking case of his life.

Speaker 34 Though at first, it was just puzzling.

Speaker 16 Describe the scene to me.

Speaker 47 She's crying.

Speaker 45 She's crying uncontrollably.

Speaker 35 Could you tell what was going on?

Speaker 45 I knew we had a big problem.

Speaker 38 There'd been an accident.

Speaker 71 She got out through her tears.

Speaker 60 Or at least her husband said he'd had an accident, said he'd hit someone with his car.

Speaker 70 And it must have been that missing girl that had been showing on TV, Kaylee Sawyer.

Speaker 69 Did that name, Kaylee Sawyer, mean anything to you?

Speaker 55 It did.

Speaker 45 When I had arrived at work on that Monday, I had noticed that Ben P.D. had put out a missing persons flyer and were requesting other agencies for any information or to be on the lookout for her.

Speaker 45 So I knew right away what she was talking about.

Speaker 78 Isabel said her husband was a security guard at Central Oregon Community College, and something must have happened there late Saturday because she said he seemed kind of distant all day Sunday.

Speaker 46 Like here, when they went to the movies, this picked up by a surveillance camera.

Speaker 1 And then, Monday morning.

Speaker 87 So he comes out of the room. And his eyes were all teary.

Speaker 87 That's why I'm like, what happened? Tell me what happened. What's wrong?

Speaker 87 Then he's like, I hit her with the car.

Speaker 23 And did he tell you which car?

Speaker 87 He said the security, the job, the car, the things at the job.

Speaker 28 And what did you say to that?

Speaker 87 So I'm like, what do you mean?

Speaker 87 What do you mean you hit her?

Speaker 37 And

Speaker 87 he's like, yeah, I hit her and I panicked.

Speaker 45 All he said was he hit her and he panicked. He never said...

Speaker 87 But it wasn't making any sense to me because I'm like, why would somebody

Speaker 87 do that? Especially you, especially them. Like, it doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 60 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.

Speaker 60 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.

Speaker 45 How long did this conversation go on before he left?

Speaker 87 It was pretty brief. It was just him moving around and I'm not sure if he, I don't think he grabbed anything other than he did grab my gun from my purse.

Speaker 87 And then he just kept saying, I need to go, I need to go.

Speaker 19 What did you think when you heard all these things?

Speaker 45 I thought we had a significant problem. We We had a gentleman who was potentially armed,

Speaker 45 would have some knowledge of the way police initiate an investigation.

Speaker 2 So, Edwin Laura, now on the run, knew what police would do.

Speaker 4 But it seemed like Isabel was being rather vague about him.

Speaker 45 Only places she think he could be going would be traveling southbound from central Oregon to his grandfather's place in Los Angeles.

Speaker 48 Right away, Beckwith issued a bolo, be on the lookout for for Laura and the 2008 Silver Nissan Ultima he was believed to be driving.

Speaker 24 And then he activated the major crimes team, called in dozens of investigators in town and out.

Speaker 62 Among those responding, Deschutes County Sheriff's Detective James McLaughlin,

Speaker 62 who had his own questions about the story Isabel Ponce had reported about her husband.

Speaker 66 He had told his wife this crazy tale, which might or might not be true.

Speaker 55 May or may not be.

Speaker 23 There were a lot of things left out as far as details that we needed to know law enforcement-wise, like how did it happen? Where is she now?

Speaker 63 Where is Kayleigh? That is.

Speaker 69 Was she lying in some ditch badly hurt?

Speaker 2 What exactly did Edwin Laura do to her?

Speaker 62 And how big a head start did he have?

Speaker 13 After all, Isabel hadn't seemed to be in a real rush to report any of this, 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.

Speaker 24 So she could have been on the phone and let people know in a heartbeat. Yes.

Speaker 23 So there is an unknown period of time in between his confession to her

Speaker 23 from when the actual report took place.

Speaker 61 You're on a manhunt now.

Speaker 11 We are.

Speaker 23 Our goal was this.

Speaker 23 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, and B,

Speaker 23 if we can't, that we can find her and that we can stop anyone else from being heard.

Speaker 6 And so began one of the largest manhunts in Oregon history.

Speaker 89 But

Speaker 54 not so easy to find a man who doesn't want to be found or to know what that man might do next.

Speaker 25 Coming up, a mother's nightmare.

Speaker 17 You hear about about news stories about people stealing young women, and now I'm going to have to search for her, you know, being a sex slave.

Speaker 26 When dateline continues.

Speaker 24 By Monday afternoon, Kaylee Sawyer had been gone a day and a half, and the calculus was very grim.

Speaker 48 If Edwin Laura had told his wife the truth, Kaylee might be dead.

Speaker 60 But was he telling the truth?

Speaker 49 And was she?

Speaker 9 Or was Kaylee still alive and injured or alive and the captive of an armed and obviously dangerous fugitive?

Speaker 70 But having told them what she came to say, Isabel Ponce was no longer much help.

Speaker 87 I don't think he has a plan.

Speaker 29 I don't think he's right.

Speaker 87 He knows what he's doing. I don't think he does.

Speaker 40 Did you ping his phone?

Speaker 45 We pinged his phone immediately when it initially pinged in Eagle Crest.

Speaker 62 Eagle Crest Crest is a resort about 10 minutes west of Redmond.

Speaker 69 But it must have been a false signal.

Speaker 5 Didn't pan out.

Speaker 35 So...

Speaker 45 We really didn't have

Speaker 45 a good idea of where he was or where he might go.

Speaker 6 None of this, of course, could be shared with Kaylee's family.

Speaker 74 Not yet.

Speaker 33 Not even with her mother, Julie, who was conducting a search of her own.

Speaker 17 My best friend and I went and

Speaker 17 made missing posters and started distributing those all throughout Bend.

Speaker 32 Panicky day.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 17 And,

Speaker 17 you know, the whole time that you're doing this, you're checking your cell phone.

Speaker 78 Did you think maybe she'd been kidnapped or something?

Speaker 17 When I heard that she'd gone for a walk,

Speaker 17 you hear about news stories about people stealing young women and, you know, now I'm going to have to search for her, you know, being a sex slave, you know, and that's just a pretty awful thing to go.

Speaker 17 It is a very awful thing.

Speaker 45 We knew how hard the family was searching for Kaylee, how many friends and relatives and people that were out looking for her. So yeah, that was weighing on my mind and other investigators as well.

Speaker 38 The major crimes team was growing by the hour.

Speaker 6 Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel.

Speaker 65 This was full on every man and woman in every law enforcement agency in Deschutes County and also Crook and Jefferson counties with the Oregon State Police Department as well putting all resources into it.

Speaker 65 We needed to find Kaylee because we thought she may, may still be alive.

Speaker 35 Edwin Laura was the key.

Speaker 3 So again, they asked his wife, where could he be?

Speaker 27 Did you ask her whether he knew other people around town that he might

Speaker 78 hide with or something like that?

Speaker 45 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.

Speaker 59 No place at all, she said.

Speaker 6 No family to run to, no one.

Speaker 11 And then a bit later, one of the investigators Beckwith had called in remembered something.

Speaker 9 Laura did, in fact, have family in the area.

Speaker 6 Police had once arrested his stepfather.

Speaker 71 And that's how the investigator knew that the stepfather lived five minutes from the police department.

Speaker 38 And also, only five minutes from Laura's house.

Speaker 24 What do you know?

Speaker 41 And his wife, the police officer,

Speaker 90 basically led you away from that.

Speaker 45 She definitely didn't lead us directly to that place, that's for sure.

Speaker 24 And there, lo and behold, just two blocks from his parents' house, detectives found Edwin Laura's getaway car, his 2008 Nissan Ultima, abandoned.

Speaker 1 A SWAT team was assembled, went to his parents' door.

Speaker 40 Was he at his parents' house?

Speaker 45 He was not at his parents' house.

Speaker 24 And from the parents?

Speaker 23 There wasn't much detail, if any, only that he had come by, that he had asked for some money.

Speaker 23 They had no idea where he was, where he had gone, that there was any trouble at all. That was the initial interview.
They gave no credible information for the family.

Speaker 62 Did they tell the officer that they'd given him a car to use?

Speaker 52 No.

Speaker 66 That doesn't make it easy to find a person.

Speaker 23 No, it's typical, but no, it does not.

Speaker 38 Maybe there'd be something at Laura's house.

Speaker 52 Some clue to what made him tick or to where he might have gone.

Speaker 38 Detective McLaughlin got a search warrant, headed over there, went inside.

Speaker 77 But nothing could have prepared him for what he would discover.

Speaker 32 Nothing at all.

Speaker 25 Coming up, two discoveries at Edwin Laura's home.

Speaker 8 One surprising.

Speaker 23 There were things that were written on certain pages, certain scriptures.

Speaker 57 The other, horrifying.

Speaker 24 This is not a good sign at all.

Speaker 23 It is not.

Speaker 34 Two massive searches were in full force across central Oregon late that Monday in July 2016.

Speaker 12 In neither case did the searchers have all the facts.

Speaker 58 Kaylee Sawyer's family got word out every which way they could.

Speaker 26 Posters, Facebook.

Speaker 17 Within less than 24 hours, there were 10,000 shares of Kaylee's missing picture.

Speaker 17 There wasn't a spot in downtown Bend or, you know, Redmond that you could go that you didn't see Kayleigh's missing picture.

Speaker 20 We had people call and said, I just canceled everything for the week.

Speaker 23 What do you need?

Speaker 64 Kaylee's family did not know what this police officer had told detectives.

Speaker 87 He said something that he hit her with the car and then he panicked.

Speaker 61 Did not know.

Speaker 83 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.

Speaker 1 But was she dead or alive?

Speaker 44 It was most certainly, said D.A.

Speaker 6 John Hummel, a race against time.

Speaker 65 I was holding on to hope and every officer was holding on to hope that she might be clinging to life.

Speaker 65 And if we could find her, we could race her to help and bring her back from the point of no return.

Speaker 14 And as they searched for her, they searched also for him, for answers.

Speaker 44 By now, the major crimes team had grown to more than 30 investigators, one of whom was Detective James McLaughlin, about to be sent to conduct a search of Edwin Laura's home.

Speaker 23 I would like to see what makes this person tick.

Speaker 14 And it just happened, coincidence really, that McLaughlin was a former pastor, which was about to matter a lot.

Speaker 23 We go through the house and I'm immediately drawn to a music room. There's pictures of Edwin and Isabel inside,

Speaker 23 various musical instruments.

Speaker 49 They found YouTube videos, Laura singing love songs.

Speaker 62 But also in here was evidence that Laura was a member of his church's worship team.

Speaker 2 And here on Laura's bedside table was a well-worn Bible.

Speaker 30 You've preached from a Bible.

Speaker 1 I have.

Speaker 23 And so you know the used Bible was.

Speaker 23 There were things that were written on certain pages, certain scriptures. So I believed at this point, this is one of the focal points of his life.

Speaker 38 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.

Speaker 23 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. And I'm looking for a hook through that house.
I want a hook.

Speaker 67 If there is anybody who could use that hook, it's you.

Speaker 23 And I believe that. That was my initial thought is that I can use this.

Speaker 24 Something going on with that man.

Speaker 23 He's feeding something else, and I'm just wondering what that something else is.

Speaker 70 Maybe they'd find it in the backyard shed.

Speaker 64 Isabel had told detectives Edwin Laura had left some things there.

Speaker 1 Would it reveal anything about what happened or where Kayleigh was?

Speaker 13 McLaughlin opened the door.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 38 this did not look good.

Speaker 40 What did you find in there?

Speaker 23 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 bloodstain on it.

Speaker 70 Inside the purse?

Speaker 44 Kaylee Sawyer's passport.

Speaker 33 And there were the shoes she'd put on before the bachelorette party Saturday night.

Speaker 1 But then

Speaker 58 there it was,

Speaker 6 like a punch in the gut.

Speaker 23 There's also a large rock that was very sharp. Half of it at least was saturated in dried blood.

Speaker 24 A murder weapon.

Speaker 58 Had to be.

Speaker 24 This is not a good sign at all.

Speaker 23 It is not.

Speaker 24 Kaylee Sawyer was not a victim of a hit and run.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 33 It was much more than that.

Speaker 32 And in that moment, faint hope died.

Speaker 45 I believe that she was dead.

Speaker 92 This was a murder.

Speaker 78 This wasn't any accident.

Speaker 45 This was definitely not an accident. It was definitely a murder.

Speaker 24 But if that wasn't horrifying enough, there was one more thing in that shed.

Speaker 1 This.

Speaker 14 It was a poster board for a criminal justice class Laura had taken at the community college.

Speaker 9 A project on serial killers.

Speaker 65 She had a fascination with serial killers. And so you naturally ask, well, why?

Speaker 32 Are you a serial killer?

Speaker 62 And if that was a real question, then...

Speaker 30 What were your fears of what could happen?

Speaker 23 I had very, very real fears that he was going to abduct and that he was going to harm someone else. I knew he had a firearm.
I knew clearly at this point in time this man is willing to commit murder.

Speaker 23 This man is willing to do heinous, unspeakable things.

Speaker 24 Detective McLaughlin had no idea then

Speaker 24 how right his instincts would be.

Speaker 25 Coming up, a young woman alone with an unexpected visitor.

Speaker 20 He unlocked the door and sat in the car really fast, and he had a gun just pointing it at me. I didn't think I was going to live another day.

Speaker 20 I didn't think I was even going to see the moon that night.

Speaker 26 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 77 Monday evening, late now, 48 hours after Kaylee Sawyer vanished.

Speaker 24 Kayleigh's friends and family had scoured the streets and alleys and woodlots around Bend, Oregon, and found no sign of her anywhere.

Speaker 17 I told my husband,

Speaker 17 I'm not stupid. I know she's not with us anymore.

Speaker 20 About five minutes later,

Speaker 17 there was a knock on the door.

Speaker 27 That's when they told her what they'd found.

Speaker 48 That Kayleigh was dead,

Speaker 48 and the guy named Edwin Laura was on the run.

Speaker 60 and now detectives worried what or who was next.

Speaker 23 I'm looking at a desperate man and anything can happen at this point in time is my thought. Anything can happen.

Speaker 37 Oh, it would.

Speaker 24 9 p.m., 130 miles northwest of Bend in the capital city of Salem, Oregon.

Speaker 53 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.

Speaker 20 I was supposed to leave like in the middle of the afternoon, but I decided to stay and cover someone's shift.

Speaker 24 As she got in her car, she got out her phone and snapped a selfie.

Speaker 20 It was just a long day. I was on my Snapchat, just took a picture of like working the double shift.

Speaker 43 That's when she saw him.

Speaker 20 I just, in the corner of my eye.

Speaker 6 Somebody reaching into her window.

Speaker 20 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.

Speaker 53 She flinched.

Speaker 24 Had to be a prank, she thought.

Speaker 20 I was really confused because at first I thought it was someone I knew.

Speaker 44 But then she saw this wild look.

Speaker 20 It just happened all so fast. Then I saw his face and I was like, what are you doing? And then he started yelling at me.
Where was the gun? It was just in between him and his backpack.

Speaker 19 What did he say to you about the gun?

Speaker 20 He didn't say anything. He just kept it pointing at me until I started driving.

Speaker 63 And then Andreas started laughing.

Speaker 74 Had to be a prank.

Speaker 20 And that's when he got really upset and he put the gun on my thigh and he had told me he's like, do you think this is a game? Do you think this is a joke? Because I will shoot you. I'm not joking.

Speaker 63 Her body reacted then almost before her mind.

Speaker 35 What does it feel like?

Speaker 20 Just this whole part of my face into my ears was like numb and burning hot and red. I wasn't even crying at this point yet because it was just so unreal to me.

Speaker 33 He told her he killed a girl and bend.

Speaker 62 Made her look as she drove at the stories about Kayleigh on her phone.

Speaker 32 How did you not become hysterical?

Speaker 57 I don't know.

Speaker 20 In my head, I just kept thinking, it'll end soon. Maybe he'll just leave or maybe he'll just find another car.

Speaker 75 She thought about her family.

Speaker 44 Would she ever see them again?

Speaker 48 Was he going to kill her? And then somehow, it occurred to her.

Speaker 35 Her car had an oil leak.

Speaker 59 If she made him believe it was worse than it was, would he let her go?

Speaker 20 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.
And he's like, he kept telling me, we'll figure it out.

Speaker 20 We'll just keep adding oil.

Speaker 9 And so they did.

Speaker 44 Stopped at a service station.

Speaker 24 And then a McDonald's, where he held her at gunpoint while he bought food.

Speaker 20 It was the most frustrating feeling ever knowing that I probably talked to maybe

Speaker 20 five people while he had me captive and nobody even suspected a thing.

Speaker 6 And so again, she drove.

Speaker 69 He held the gun.

Speaker 38 And a strange thing happened.

Speaker 20 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.

Speaker 20 So when I would feel like that in those times, I was just in a like, I don't care attitude and I would snap at him. I would say things.

Speaker 66 And instead of crying or getting terribly upset, you'd get mad.

Speaker 61 Yeah.

Speaker 20 Huh. I kind of felt like that.
I'm probably not going to go home. I'm probably never going to see anybody again.

Speaker 20 They're probably going to find my body in a ditch somewhere or find me dead in a motel or something.

Speaker 6 And sure enough.

Speaker 69 90 miles down the interstate, he told her, we're stopping.

Speaker 38 They pulled up to a motel.

Speaker 1 They relax in.

Speaker 38 Here he is on surveillance video, keeping an eye on Andrea while he checks in.

Speaker 38 Once inside their room, he handcuffed her.

Speaker 27 He took a shower, told her, now it's your turn.

Speaker 20 In my head, I thought I'd rather die than shower in front of you.

Speaker 20 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. I would rather die.

Speaker 16 What did you do?

Speaker 38 Did you have a thought maybe I could make a break for it here while he's in the shower or anything?

Speaker 20 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.

Speaker 20 But then the thoughts would come into my head: well, it could go really bad if I'm not strong enough to do that, and he's the one with the gun.

Speaker 44 He moved her, handcuffed her to the bed, forced her to take a sleeping pill, put his face down beside hers.

Speaker 20 I was freaking out because I had never been in a position like that. I didn't really know what to do.

Speaker 48 He was, she knew, about to rape her.

Speaker 1 And just then, the alarm on her phone went off.

Speaker 20 I don't even know what that alarm was for,

Speaker 20 but that alarm probably saved my life because he saw it and was like, what's this? What does that mean? And then I don't know where I got the idea but I was like that's my

Speaker 20 timer I have to take medicine every day and he was like for what and I was like well I have an STD and he was like you have a what and I was like I have an STD and I've been living with it and I have to take medicine every day she didn't but did you think if I tell him that he won't want to rape me yeah

Speaker 68 And you were right.

Speaker 51 Yeah.

Speaker 46 Then the kidnapper's phone rang.

Speaker 39 It was someone from his family saying the cops were after him.

Speaker 9 He put on a bulletproof vest, announced they were leaving.

Speaker 1 And as Andrea's car sputtered down the highway in the pitch dark, far from any town or help, Laura frightened her with a fake story that he came from a family of rapists and murderers, known criminals.

Speaker 20 He had started telling me that we're going to Los Angeles, that he has family there. 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.

Speaker 4 And oh, it would get worse.

Speaker 20 Though, when it did, I didn't see anything. It just, my whole head just went black.

Speaker 81 Coming up, a shooting.

Speaker 20 The gun just went off.

Speaker 25 Another kidnapping.

Speaker 20 He's like, you just need to drive.

Speaker 40 You just need to get me out of here.

Speaker 25 And a Facebook message from a killer.

Speaker 95 And I ever want to let family member

Speaker 95 Andrea that she's fine and she will be fine.

Speaker 34 The morning sun lit up the sky over Mount Shasta as dawn arrived in Northern California.

Speaker 44 It was Tuesday.

Speaker 43 52 hours after Kaylee disappeared.

Speaker 24 Andrea Mays and her kidnapper Edwin Laura, had been on the road eight hours, and her car was overheating.

Speaker 20 And he told me, we're going to have to get a new car. This one's not going to make it.

Speaker 83 5 a.m., Laura pulled off the road in Huaika, California, at this Super 8 motel, where he saw a man unloading his car, checking into his room.

Speaker 9 He grabbed Andrea, dragged her along.

Speaker 70 and burst in on the man.

Speaker 9 And that's what had happened.

Speaker 20 The guy was like, you guys have the wrong room. You need to 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.

Speaker 20 And the guy was like, no, help, help. And

Speaker 84 what happened?

Speaker 20 Then that's when he told him to stop yelling. And he told him if he didn't stop, that he would kill him.

Speaker 20 And he just kept yelling for help. And then the gun just went off and everything just kind of went black in my head.

Speaker 6 The man touched his stomach, went down.

Speaker 20 And all I remember was my ears were ringing really loud, and I was just being pulled out of the room.

Speaker 13 They ran, Laura pulling Andrea with him.

Speaker 20 And then I'm like thinking, well, I just seen him shoot someone in front of me. What's to stop him from shooting me in the back on my way to the car?

Speaker 20 And I was just scared. I didn't know what to do.
And so all I saw ahead of me was just the gas station, and that's where he was running to.

Speaker 38 Here, the mobile station, somebody was gassing up. In the car, an older woman and two young men, one behind the wheel.

Speaker 52 Laura jumped in, pulled Andrea in too.

Speaker 20 He's like, you just need to drive.

Speaker 16 You just need to get away.

Speaker 78 He hit the gun and pointed at them.

Speaker 20 Yeah, he was pointing it at the driver at the time.

Speaker 52 He slammed the doors, took off. Behind them, someone called 911.

Speaker 69 EMTs arrived just in time to save the life of the man Laura shot.

Speaker 38 Well, in the car, the older woman was hysterical.

Speaker 20 She just really didn't understand what was going on. I mean, who would?

Speaker 27 Laura took their cell phones, made Andrea throw them out the window.

Speaker 20 I was just trying to throw them as hard as I could to the grass to make sure that they wouldn't like break so maybe they could pinpoint where we were going or something.

Speaker 52 And then, 30 miles down the road, he suddenly stomped.

Speaker 20 And he's like, okay, you guys, just all get out.

Speaker 77 That is, all but Andrea, who, as she watched them leave, saw that one of them still had a cell phone.

Speaker 20 I think it was one of the boys who was smart enough to just keep it.

Speaker 2 Out of the car, the boy called 911.

Speaker 48 Well, Laura, unaware of what the boy was doing, kept driving.

Speaker 20 He was going like 120 at that time now.

Speaker 20 And he was just zooming in and out of cars, honking at people, just driving reckless and crazy.

Speaker 32 So how did you understand that somebody was following you?

Speaker 20 I didn't. It was just him that kept saying, oh, there's a helicopter.
It's following me. They know where I'm going.
And I think he was just paranoid or...

Speaker 78 Did you see the helicopter?

Speaker 20 I didn't. And a couple of times he could even hear it, I guess, and he would tell me, do you hear it? Where's the helicopter? And I would look, and there would be nothing there.

Speaker 37 Paranoid.

Speaker 37 But before long, they heard the sirens.

Speaker 8 Saw the highway patrol cars behind them.

Speaker 38 Here's the dash cam video.

Speaker 79 They're approaching Samoa Street.

Speaker 52 But even then, screaming down the freeway, Laura made phone calls to his family and recorded this on Andrea's phone.

Speaker 95 Hi, everybody. I just want to say that

Speaker 95 I apologize for everything I've done. Most likely I'm going to get caught.

Speaker 95 And

Speaker 95 I'm sorry about that girl.

Speaker 95 About that girl in Central Oregon. And I also want to let family members

Speaker 95 Andrea that she's fine and she will be fine because

Speaker 95 so far she's been doing

Speaker 95 what I've been told to do.

Speaker 95 You know, and and if you guys are wondering

Speaker 95 if I have done dirty things to her, no.

Speaker 95 Alright, I'm not that kind of guy. You know, I just

Speaker 95 I used to kill that other girl, you know, and

Speaker 95 I regret it.

Speaker 95 I regret killing her.

Speaker 95 You know, she's kept screaming and

Speaker 95 I had to suffer forever.

Speaker 95 So the cops said

Speaker 95 not to shoot us because if they shoot us then that's not my fault. Okay, but

Speaker 95 sorry everybody.

Speaker 12 Bye.

Speaker 33 And just here, Andrea made the last in a series of remarkable decisions.

Speaker 63 Decisions that very likely saved her life and certainly saved her family anguish.

Speaker 20 And so he wanted me to post that to my Facebook and share it with everybody. And I remember, I think he had me caption it,

Speaker 20 crazy murderer on the loose or something to that effect. And I kept telling him, like, I have a lot of people.
I don't want to see this because he did record me in that video a couple of times.

Speaker 20 And I didn't want...

Speaker 20 teachers and pastors and friends and people to see that. It's terrifying for you.
So vulnerable, yeah. So I just changed the setting on the post to just only me to see it.

Speaker 20 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.

Speaker 27 It was at this very moment, 6.40 a.m., when Edwin Laura called 911.

Speaker 96 911 emergency reporting.

Speaker 97 Yes, hi, this is Edwin Laura, and I'm the guy on

Speaker 98 Interstate 5.

Speaker 98 Going at high speed.

Speaker 97 I just want to say I am going to turn myself in.

Speaker 27 The dispatcher try to understand.

Speaker 96 Are you by yourself, or?

Speaker 98 No, I have someone with me. I kidnapped her in Oregon.

Speaker 97 She's innocent.

Speaker 98 Uh her name is Andrea.

Speaker 97 What's your last name?

Speaker 98 I'll let you I'll let her give her a last name if you can call her family, okay?

Speaker 96 Hello? Yeah, hi. What's her name?

Speaker 99 Andrea.

Speaker 96 Okay, are you hurt at all, Andrea?

Speaker 99 No.

Speaker 14 Then, sounding a little sorry for himself, Laura started bargaining.

Speaker 98 I want to ask you a favor.

Speaker 97 Uh-huh. So I have asthma.
You have asthma? Okay.

Speaker 98 Yeah, so you tell them not to be too rough on me because, you know, I can't barely breathe right now.

Speaker 97 You want me to throw my gun out of the window right now? Don't do that right now. No, no, no.

Speaker 96 Don't do that right now.

Speaker 79 Alright.

Speaker 96 I just want you to stop safely.

Speaker 97 How can you give it to Andrea in case she wants to kill me?

Speaker 96 No, no, no.

Speaker 33 Finally, just before 7 a.m.

Speaker 96 Don't keep this tasing you.

Speaker 1 Just pull over.

Speaker 98 Yeah, I'll pull over right now.

Speaker 98 Okay, I want you to talk to Andrea.

Speaker 96 Okay, just don't hang up.

Speaker 97 I'm not.

Speaker 97 She doesn't want to.

Speaker 97 Are you okay?

Speaker 96 You don't need any medical or anything?

Speaker 99 No.

Speaker 96 See you stopping?

Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Get your hands up!

Speaker 96 Can you see, do they have him in custody already?

Speaker 99 Um, they're putting the cups on him right now.

Speaker 96 I'm gonna hang up and just get out, and you walk backwards towards him with your hands up, okay?

Speaker 99 Okay.

Speaker 12 But it still wasn't over for Andrea.

Speaker 74 She was arrested too, and it was hours before detectives from Oregon arrived and explained that Andrea was the innocent one, a victim.

Speaker 33 And then two more things happened in this remote California police station.

Speaker 1 First, a horrifying story, a confession about what that man did to Kaylee Sawyer.

Speaker 54 And then, quiet and unnoticed, an extreme complication.

Speaker 25 Coming up, a brave young woman's battle.

Speaker 23 He said she became coming to and tried to fight. 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.

Speaker 8 And an odd request from a killer.

Speaker 64 It was shocking to me to hear him say that.

Speaker 26 When date line continues.

Speaker 48 Redloft, California, Tuesday, Tehama County Jail.

Speaker 27 After a three-day two-state crime spree, killing, kidnapping, shooting, carjacking, manhunt, high-speed chase,

Speaker 27 get your hand up!

Speaker 46 And finally, surrender.

Speaker 62 Edwin Laura seemed eager to talk to the detectives who'd just arrived from Oregon.

Speaker 23 We were informed, actually, as we were walking into the jail that he's been asking for you, been waiting for you.

Speaker 2 The question was, what would he say?

Speaker 9 But as the detectives soon learned, a better question might be, what wouldn't Laura say?

Speaker 45 My name is Sergeant Eckwith.

Speaker 86 I'm back.

Speaker 100 Wait, I shouldn't introduce myself because you guys know me.

Speaker 23 I'm sure you guys already know who I am.

Speaker 23 There's a really, really strong hint of arrogance and ego behind that statement.

Speaker 66 And right away, away it was obvious.

Speaker 6 Laura seemed to be enjoying his new role as notorious criminal.

Speaker 89 Well, all I got to say is that I want to go home.

Speaker 100 I'm going to do everything possible to go home. Yes, sir.

Speaker 101 And home meaning Oregon?

Speaker 100 Yes.

Speaker 11 But first things first, the detectives implored, where was Kaylee Sawyer?

Speaker 101 We have not been able to find Kayleigh's body. Can you please help me find her body immediately before we start talking about anything else?

Speaker 89 Oh,

Speaker 101 the reason why I'm asking you that is uh, I've done this a bunch of times.

Speaker 100 I want to tell you where the body is.

Speaker 4 And so Laura went to work

Speaker 53 drawing a crude map.

Speaker 100 126 Highway

Speaker 100 that's going towards Salem.

Speaker 24 He dumped her along a highway, he said, 10 miles outside of Redmond.

Speaker 66 There's a mailbox

Speaker 86 right here:

Speaker 86 that reads 18,700.

Speaker 35 Really?

Speaker 78 1-8700? Isn't that a kind of a significant number?

Speaker 45 It's significant because the California Penal Code for Murder or Homicide is 187.

Speaker 75 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.

Speaker 59 And the note inside, on which he'd written repeatedly, 1-8700.

Speaker 24 Had he been toying with them, playing games?

Speaker 66 A wannabe cop who left the call signal for homicide in a note.

Speaker 62 Is that an address or is it just a message or what the hell is it?

Speaker 23 And that's exactly what we're thinking. That is something that he spent time developing and looking for.
And it just so happened to fit his

Speaker 23 desire to hide her body, but hide it in a way that

Speaker 23 he's not hiding his body of work from the public. He wants it seen eventually.

Speaker 57 Detective Beckwith got on the phone to Oregon.

Speaker 101 He said it's directly across from the senior box on the south side of the highway.

Speaker 60 They went to look, and just like that.

Speaker 45 It's about five minutes after that that we locate Kayleigh.

Speaker 62 Here is where she was, a ravine just off the highway.

Speaker 64 And Kaylee Sawyer's family got the call they dreaded.

Speaker 40 The last time I got to

Speaker 52 kiss my baby girl on the forehead was through a black body bag.

Speaker 80 We asked when we can see her identify the body and they would not let us see her.

Speaker 20 Their words were, you cannot see her because she's unrecognizable.

Speaker 73 Unrecognizable is the haunting word. How do you accept that?

Speaker 27 Kaylee's mom couldn't bring herself to visit the morgue.

Speaker 17 I just knew that if I went,

Speaker 17 I might climb up on that table with her and not leave.

Speaker 60 Back in jail with the detectives, Laura seemed pleased to have an audience and had decided to reveal more.

Speaker 54 And worse,

Speaker 33 like the reason why Kaylee's body was unrecognizable.

Speaker 31 He was in his cruiser, he told them, at Central Oregon Community College, the cruiser that looked just like a real police car, in a uniform that made him look just like a real policeman.

Speaker 60 And along came Kayleigh Sawyer, after that argument with her boyfriend.

Speaker 100 Lights turn and

Speaker 101 I mean, I think I had her that hard.

Speaker 100 He's bumped her with the patrol car.

Speaker 4 An accident?

Speaker 46 That's what he told his wife, Isabel, the morning he left, and what he claimed in the note he left behind in his car.

Speaker 45 He kind of stuck to to that hitter with the car story for a little bit.

Speaker 84 You knew it wasn't true.

Speaker 45 We knew it wasn't true, and it was

Speaker 45 easy to get past that.

Speaker 1 How?

Speaker 38 Well, remember, Detective McLaughlin, the former pastor, had searched Laura's home the previous day and found his Bible and evidence of his apparent devotion to his church.

Speaker 74 The hook he now could see for this very moment.

Speaker 88 I was in your house. I saw the Bible.
I know you thumbed through it a lot. I see that you've tithed for months consecutively.

Speaker 2 He appealed to Laura the way a pastor would, with Psalm 24,

Speaker 4 clean hands and a pure heart.

Speaker 23 And I said, do you clean one hand when you wash your hands or do you clean them both?

Speaker 68 Well, both.

Speaker 23 Okay, so now's your time to tell me the real story because what you just said didn't happen that way.

Speaker 23 And he begins to describe, to my shock and quite frankly, terror, listening to the things that he had done.

Speaker 7 The truth, Laura said, was that when he saw Kaylee that night, he knew she was the one he'd been looking for.

Speaker 63 And upwelled a familiar urge.

Speaker 64 His urge to kill a beautiful woman.

Speaker 45 He saw her as a target the moment he laid eyes on her.

Speaker 10 And so he cruised alongside Kayleigh, excited, stopped, got out of his cruiser in his cop-like uniform, trying extra hard to look safe, hiding his ugly intention.

Speaker 45 Mr. Laura offered her a ride, and she refused.
She didn't want a ride from him.

Speaker 100 So I panicked and I grabbed her by the toe and

Speaker 36 told her, shut up, shut up, shut up.

Speaker 101 She passed out.

Speaker 45 In his words, he put her in the car. He didn't open the door.
She didn't get in willingly. He put her in there.

Speaker 19 What did he do to her then?

Speaker 45 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.
She's completely under his control in a vehicle that she can't escape from.

Speaker 30 Can't escape because the campus car had a security cage in the back seat, just like a real police car.

Speaker 60 Then with Kaylee unconscious, he drove up the hill to a secluded parking lot.

Speaker 30 B-12.

Speaker 23 He said she became coming to and tried to fight. She started to crawl through the plexiglass caged back seat.

Speaker 23 She was trying to turn emergency lights on, trying to grab the radio, trying to honk the horn, anything that she could do to, because she knew.

Speaker 100 So I grabbed the choke hole

Speaker 86 and I was telling her, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.

Speaker 100 She was just struggling to scream.

Speaker 66 So I threw her down and

Speaker 66 put my head over the rock on the head.

Speaker 64 The rock, he saved and squirreled away like a trophy in his backyard shed.

Speaker 23 And he decides at that point that he does want to sexually assault her. And he sexually assaults her there while she is dying

Speaker 23 and

Speaker 23 drags her up behind a tree and finishes the job with the big 60, 70 pound rock.

Speaker 36 And that's when

Speaker 36 I think she died because I heard her breathing.

Speaker 100 Her last breath.

Speaker 6 Afterwards, he told them he felt bad about what he did.

Speaker 36 She looked breathing this true, she didn't deserve

Speaker 100 what I did to her.

Speaker 27 Laura's confession continued for six hours.

Speaker 42 They asked if he wanted to call someone.

Speaker 2 He said, Could I call the media?

Speaker 78 Like have a press conference about it or something? I mean, what in heaven's name?

Speaker 45 It was shocking to me to hear him say that.

Speaker 35 Detectives believed they had him.

Speaker 54 Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Speaker 74 Coming up, a question from a killer that could let him walk free.

Speaker 67 Wow, it had to be a bad day.

Speaker 19 It was.

Speaker 28 It was

Speaker 37 so hard.

Speaker 94 Hey, weirdos, I'm Elena, and I'm Ash, and we are the host of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 103 Each week, we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 94 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 102 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 94 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

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Speaker 53 On Tuesday evening, they had a vigil.

Speaker 13 From all around Ben, people gathered, most of them silent in disbelief.

Speaker 38 They had planned this in hope as they searched. And during those two days, the whole town seemed to to adopt Kaylee Sawyer.

Speaker 52 Ben's daughter, they took to calling her.

Speaker 46 But now Ben's daughter was dead, and unbelievably, at the hands of a security guard at the local community college, Edwin Laura.

Speaker 38 Sort of thing that gives a cop nightmares.

Speaker 45 I can imagine maybe my own kid, my own daughter, just out walking and to have somebody stop. And her dad's a cop, and she might associate that with being someone of safety and security and trust.

Speaker 57 And then

Speaker 45 in a moment like that, he takes it all from her

Speaker 45 using just what he's wearing. And, you know, it's disgusting.

Speaker 19 It's also very unsettling.

Speaker 45 It's as unsettling as it gets.

Speaker 84 You have to wondered a lot.

Speaker 40 What possessed him to be so apparently devoutly religious and to want to be a cop and want to be a kind of an upstanding member of society, but at the same time he had this stuff going on.

Speaker 45 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

Speaker 45 was alarming and is still alarming to me.

Speaker 24 So what to do with a man like Edwin Laura, now charged with aggravated murder and kidnapping and other crimes? It was the DA, John Hummel's job, to decide.

Speaker 65 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.

Speaker 65 And I decided to ask the jury to impose a sentence of death.

Speaker 6 And so they prepared for trial.

Speaker 2 They went over and over all that happened, minute by minute.

Speaker 90 They interviewed and re-interviewed witnesses.

Speaker 59 poured over the physical evidence. They examined in minute detail Laura's six-hour confession, ensured he'd been read his rights.

Speaker 88 You do have the right to remain silent.

Speaker 54 The detectives even went the extra mile and read Laura his consular rights.

Speaker 4 Though he was a permanent legal U.S.

Speaker 46 resident, he was born in Honduras.

Speaker 101 You want us to notify the consular's office at this time?

Speaker 88 No.

Speaker 52 It was quite a bit later they discovered one bit of video had been overlooked somehow.

Speaker 1 Didn't turn up for months?

Speaker 6 Mind you, it didn't exactly jump out.

Speaker 39 What Laura said off-camera, almost as an aside.

Speaker 101 My lawyer, I'm okay.

Speaker 105 No, it's directly requested a lawyer to come back.

Speaker 105 So when you get your phone calls, you can request a lawyer.

Speaker 13 And that was it.

Speaker 24 The moment passed. Laura, though entitled to phone calls, did not ask again and did not phone anyone.

Speaker 59 So there was a hearing.

Speaker 27 The judge listened to defense arguments that at the moment Laura asked about a lawyer, he invoked his right to counsel, that all questions should have stopped and tossed out Edwin Laura's confession.

Speaker 1 All of it.

Speaker 74 Every word.

Speaker 67 Wow, that had to be a bad day.

Speaker 19 It was.

Speaker 28 It was

Speaker 78 so hard.

Speaker 47 It's hard to take, huh?

Speaker 56 Very hard to take.

Speaker 18 And it's something we're going to live with, and we do live with every day of our lives.

Speaker 55 Till the time they put me under the grass, I'm going to have a hard,

Speaker 5 you know, hollow heart.

Speaker 62 Well, there was other evidence besides his confession, like Kaylee's purse and shoes and that rock covered in her blood all found in Laura's backyard shed, and Kaylee's blood inside Laura's security company car and on her body, evidence that she fought hard to survive.

Speaker 45 She left behind evidence that was incredibly damning. She had his DNA under her fingernails.

Speaker 33 So investigators encouraged the DA do not lose faith.

Speaker 64 Push ahead.

Speaker 65 You know, they said, you know, look,

Speaker 30 we got this.

Speaker 13 We can do it.

Speaker 65 We have the evidence. If we thought it was a death penalty case before,

Speaker 65 there's no reason to back down now.

Speaker 42 Except that everything changed again.

Speaker 81 Coming up.

Speaker 1 Disorder in the court.

Speaker 12 And a phone call with a killer.

Speaker 38 Well, hang on a second. You've got to explain that to me a little bit.

Speaker 27 Well, what are you suggesting?

Speaker 26 When dateline continues.

Speaker 26 She'll be breathing this girl. She didn't deserve

Speaker 26 what I did to her.

Speaker 1 Edwin Laura told the whole story, held little, if anything, back.

Speaker 74 And not a word of it would be heard by any jury any time.

Speaker 6 Inadmissible.

Speaker 63 So as prosecutors prepared, even without that confession, to ask a jury to give Laura the death penalty, his defense team asked for a meeting with the DA, made an offer.

Speaker 44 Laura would plead guilty and agree to a sentence of life without parole.

Speaker 24 But with Kaylee's family, go for that.

Speaker 27 A retired judge sat down with Kaylee's mother and told her what a jury conviction her desired result could almost certainly mean.

Speaker 17 He explained to me what happens in a death penalty case and the appeals.

Speaker 17 As long as he's living on death row, I would be too.

Speaker 84 Some choice. Yeah.

Speaker 17 I would have had to show up to every appeal.

Speaker 6 And so family members stuffed down their grief and anger and said, make the deal.

Speaker 74 On a January day in 2018, Judgment Day arrived for Edwin Laura.

Speaker 6 The courtroom was packed, the first row filled shoulder to shoulder with members of the major crimes team.

Speaker 27 Scattered in the gallery behind, Kaylee's large extended family and many friends.

Speaker 38 Her boyfriend, Cam. At the defendant's table, Edwin Laura.

Speaker 62 And finally, also in the courthouse that day, that young woman Laura was charged with kidnapping during his getaway, Andrea Mays.

Speaker 20 This was the first time that I had seen him since everything happened. It was just hard, even sitting there, because I could see him trying to look over here.

Speaker 63 There was something in the air that day.

Speaker 106 You have no idea how much irreversible damage this piece of

Speaker 106 has done to my extended family. And I'm going to fill his carcass full of lead.

Speaker 6 Finally, it was time for for Edwin Laura to speak.

Speaker 19 What could he say?

Speaker 1 Oh boy.

Speaker 107 God Almighty, who aren't here.

Speaker 107 I'll ask you please

Speaker 107 heal the hearts of all those broken hearts.

Speaker 60 Papa Jim, quite thoroughly disgusted, stormed out of the courtroom.

Speaker 107 I ask you please heal the hearts of this family.

Speaker 45 Felt like it was staged. And in retrospect, I wish I had the courage to stand up and tell him to turn around because all those people had to sit there and watch that happen, that show.

Speaker 106 And they came with soy rest in peace.

Speaker 55 The death sentence, even if they carried it out, would have been too quick for him.

Speaker 56 You know, he's going to die a lot slower death.

Speaker 60 Now, you may recall, Laura, right after his capture, asked if he could call the media.

Speaker 39 An honest desire to explain?

Speaker 1 Hello. Ed one?

Speaker 79 Yeah.

Speaker 54 We were skeptical.

Speaker 70 So in May 2019, we called his bluff.

Speaker 69 I understand you've been wanting to tell your story for some time.

Speaker 64 But was he serious about explaining himself?

Speaker 36 No.

Speaker 38 Instead, Laura floated a strange little conspiracy theory about his bank statements.

Speaker 108 Yeah, I wish they would have gotten my statement, my bank statements, every time I stayed in Salem, Oregon. I wish they would have gotten that, but they never did.

Speaker 108 Right now, I'm like frustrated when it comes down to that. You know, but at this point I honestly don't have nothing to say.

Speaker 38 Well, hang on a second. You've got to explain that to me a little bit.

Speaker 27 What are you suggesting?

Speaker 31 Well, once they look into it, they'll be able to figure it out.

Speaker 89 But figure out what?

Speaker 108 There's a lot of things, so right now I don't have nothing to say.

Speaker 34 And with that, Laura's conversation with us was over.

Speaker 42 Of course, we checked, and of course, his bank statements, like everything else about him, had been examined in infinite detail, and there was just nothing to look at there.

Speaker 46 And the little charade in our phone call?

Speaker 40 Who knows why?

Speaker 6 But with Edwin Laura sentenced and safely tucked away in prison, did Kaylee's family simply turn the page?

Speaker 9 Oh no, not even close.

Speaker 63 And Laura still had to answer for one more thing.

Speaker 58 What he did to Andrea Mays.

Speaker 81 Coming up.

Speaker 65 Central Oregon Community College bears some responsibility for Kaylee Sawyer's death. They bear a lot of responsibility for her death.

Speaker 26 Kaylee's legacy and a time to heal.

Speaker 109 I'm not a victim. I am a survivor.

Speaker 63 In the years after Kaylee Sawyer's 2016 murder, her loved ones slowly and painfully worked their way through the stages of grief, anger, bargaining, depression.

Speaker 38 But that final stage, acceptance, the way this crime occurred?

Speaker 9 Not a chance.

Speaker 17 I would have never been able to tell my daughter. Your monster, your boogeyman, will pull up alongside you in a car that looks like a police officer's car.

Speaker 17 And he will get out and he will be dressed like a police officer.

Speaker 27 And Katie's Katie's family was not alone in its belief that Edwin Laura's crime, committed while on the job as a campus security officer, was aided and abetted by the community college that supplied both his cop-like uniform and patrol car with a cage.

Speaker 11 The props he used when he kidnapped and killed Kaylee, D.A.

Speaker 24 John Hummel.

Speaker 65 Central Oregon Community College bears some responsibility for Kaylee Sawyer's death.

Speaker 65 They bear a lot of responsibility for her death.

Speaker 63 Why?

Speaker 54 Because it turned out that as a campus security guard, Laura had undergone no background check, no psychological tests, and none of the training required of real police officers in Oregon.

Speaker 6 And yet, COCC had allowed its uniformed officers to make arrests and traffic stops and to investigate crimes.

Speaker 75 Actions the DA and other law officers had repeatedly demanded the college stop even before Kaylee's murder.

Speaker 78 How would they react to these demands?

Speaker 65 They would say that they think they are legally allowed to do it.

Speaker 14 Kaylee's family filed a civil rights lawsuit against Central Oregon Community College.

Speaker 100 Do you solemnly swear?

Speaker 42 Depositions were taken of the campus security director, Laura's boss, who had overseen many changes.

Speaker 77 When you first arrived here, did safety officers carry handcuffs?

Speaker 76 They did not.

Speaker 58 And what Edwin Laura's colleagues revealed about his behavior prior to Kaylee's murder was horrifying.

Speaker 37 And he's like, oh, here,

Speaker 100 look at this.

Speaker 64 Fellow security officers testified one by one.

Speaker 38 How he'd showed them pornographic videos starring himself.

Speaker 44 How he'd sent inappropriate text messages to them showcasing his obsession with dead bodies and more.

Speaker 20 His behavior changed so much so that I felt like I was trapped.

Speaker 38 The family's attorney, Tim Williams.

Speaker 72 He had physically pinned a female cadet within the building of CPS and forced her to reveal her religious beliefs in great detail.

Speaker 59 Those are the behaviors that the phrase red flag was invented for, it seems to me.

Speaker 72 That was our understanding as well, yeah.

Speaker 6 They were disturbing depositions. And Julie somehow sat through every one.

Speaker 17 It was really hard because at the end of these depositions they all asked to come and say something to me.

Speaker 17 They would have tears in their eyes and a lot of them just kept apologizing and

Speaker 17 I could have asked them at that point, you know, why didn't you say something?

Speaker 17 But then I saw the hurt and the guilt in their eyes and I didn't want to add.

Speaker 17 I didn't want to add to that.

Speaker 27 The college, for its part, admitted to no wrongdoing,

Speaker 24 but agreed to a $2 million settlement with Kaylee's family, the maximum allowed by law in Oregon.

Speaker 62 The college declined our request for an interview, but issued a statement saying in part, COCC sends our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Kaylee Sawyer.

Speaker 38 And noting its commitment to safety, the college then listed the changes it's made since Kaylee's death, including altering vehicles and uniforms, discontinuing the use of handcuffs, and implementing background checks and criminal history checks for officers.

Speaker 17 It's because of Kaylee that that campus is safe, and that makes me feel good.

Speaker 92 But was the family done?

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 27 When we're going to go ahead and call the Senate Judiciary Committee to order with you.

Speaker 2 They pushed Oregon's legislature to pass Cayley's Law to require background checks on security officers and to implement a host of other safety checks.

Speaker 2 Kaylee's Law was signed into law by Oregon Governor Kate Brown.

Speaker 17 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.

Speaker 1 But there was still the matter of that other woman who went through her own hell with Laura, Andrea Mays.

Speaker 14 How he'd hunted her, caught her, terrorized her, talked of his urge to kill.

Speaker 56 It was like something out of a horror movie, which she endured, said one prosecutor.

Speaker 1 Sometimes it all overwhelmed her.

Speaker 20 There's days where I wake up and I just really don't want to talk to anybody. I don't want to do anything.

Speaker 59 And so, as she waited more than a year for her case to make its slow way through the legal system, Andrea fretted over whether or not to be in federal court when Laura was finally sentenced for kidnapping and terrorizing her.

Speaker 19 Whether to face him, whether to say something.

Speaker 53 But then, in 2019, at the courthouse in Eugene, Oregon, there she was.

Speaker 109 I just didn't want to look back 10 years from now and just regret not coming or not saying anything.

Speaker 6 And so Andreas summoned up every ounce of courage she could and said her peace to his face.

Speaker 39 No cameras in this courtroom, so she told us what she said to him in court.

Speaker 109 I'm not a victim. I am a survivor.
I'm a warrior. I defeated him and I am truly blessed.

Speaker 27 For his crimes against Andrea, a federal judge handed Laura another life prison sentence.

Speaker 59 Laura has also agreed to plead guilty to a host of California charges related to his crime spree.

Speaker 8 Laura's wife, Isabel, by the way, who was never charged with any wrongdoing, filed for divorce, resigned from the Benn Police Department, and moved away.

Speaker 4 Perhaps there's a sigh for the madness of such a terrible story.

Speaker 34 Andrea has struck up her relationship with Kaylee's father, Jamie, and the family.

Speaker 6 It's been good for them and good for her.

Speaker 6 Freezing. Okay.

Speaker 103 We'll look for Kaylee's.

Speaker 80 Yeah.

Speaker 24 These days, Kaylee's grandparents visit the library.

Speaker 17 Oh, here it is.

Speaker 42 Where Grandma Sharon read books to Kaylee, now memorialized on this sidewalk.

Speaker 20 Kaylee, Ann, and Grandma Sharon.

Speaker 1 Love you.

Speaker 80 Love you, baby girl.

Speaker 39 Her family has its ways of coping. Yeah.

Speaker 10 And who's to say what's the right way?

Speaker 12 Maybe Julie's.

Speaker 6 Now that the court cases, depositions, and lawsuits are finally over.

Speaker 17 Every morning I wake up and I love her more and more each day, just like I did when she was here. You know, I have gotten to that point sometimes where I look at a picture and I smile.

Speaker 17 And I'm so glad for that because

Speaker 17 for 23 years, nothing made me smile more

Speaker 17 than my daughter.

Speaker 59 That's all for now.

Speaker 47 I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 25 Thanks for joining us.

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