The case of a missing 23-year-old Bend woman has now become a homicide investigation, police said Monday night.
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Police responded to a shooting call at 5 a.m. on Tuesday at a Super 8 Motel in Yreka, California, Yreka Police Chief Brian Bowles said.
After tearfully telling his story to her, Lara drove off, said his wife, a new Bend police officer who was anxious that he was suicidal.
Unfortunately for friends and family of the missing Kaylee Sawyer, law enforcement investigating the disappearance of the OR woman quickly announced that their investigation had led them to believe that they were dealing with a homicide, not a simple missing person case.
A body that resembles the 23-year-old Sawyer was found later but has not yet been positively identified.
Detectives with Redmond Police Department, Bend Police Department, Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, Sunriver Police Department, Black Butte Police Department, the Oregon State Police, the Oregon State Police Crime Lab and the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office are involved with the investigation.
The arrested man was being sought in the disappearance of a woman from Oregon. Police say the woman was Sawyer, and that Lara told his wife he panicked and disposed of the body.
The Yreka Police Department said in a statement that Aundrea Elizabeth Maes, a 19-year-old from Salem, was not a suspect but a victim.
Authorities say they are processing a scene where a woman’s body matching Sawyer’s description was found.
Yreka Police said the suspects were located by law enforcement around 7:00 a.m. north of Redding, California. Formal identification of the remains from a medical examiner is expected in the next few days. Police tell KOIN they believe Lara was behind the shooting.
Five minutes after police got the call about the shooting, a man called from a gas station, saying his auto had been taken with his family still inside.
Lara was a graduate of the college’s criminal justice associate degree program, as was his wife, Isabel Ponce-Lara, who graduated with an associate degree in criminal justice in 2010.
Bowles said Lara forced one of the man’s sons to drive at gunpoint. Destiny Search Project is also beginning plans for a public vigil in support of Kaylee and her family.
About half an hour after that 911 call, the three people called police to say that they had been dropped off at a rest area on Interstate 5 and that they were unharmed. The victim, an elderly man, was shot in the stomach and is reported to be in unstable critical condition, Bowles said.
By Monday, police identified Lara as a person of interest, and warned the public that he was likely armed and risky.
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“The man had come out of the gas station to see his dog running around and his vehicle gone”, Yreka Police Chief Brian Bowles told The Associated Press.
