On Monday, Bend police said the case had become a homicide investigation and they were looking for Edwin Lara as a person of interest.
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Sawyer was last seen at her apartment near Central Oregon Community College.
Later Tuesday, Lara was charged in Bend, Oregon, with one count of murder in the killing of Sawyer, Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel told a news conference.
Isabel Ponce-Lara, Lara’s wife, was recently hired by the Bend Police Department and has been receiving field training, the department said on Tuesday. Isabel Ponce-Lara, reported him Monday as possibly connected to Sawyer’s disappearance, after her husband said he accidently struck Kaylee with his vehicle, but hid her body and belongings to cover up the crime.
He told Ponce-Lara that he panicked and got rid of her body, but he didn’t say where.
Bend Police Chief Jim Porter told the news station investigators have found a body they believe is the missing girl’s, and they are waiting on a medical examiner to confirm the identity. Redmond police described Ponce-Lara as cooperative and she’s been placed on leave because of the trauma of the situation. His crimes there include a shooting and a carjacking.
Edwin Enoc Lara, 31, of Redmond, Ore., and Aundrea Elizabeth Maes, 19, of Salem, Ore., were taken into custody after they fled from the California Highway Patrol southbound on the freeway at speeds reaching 100 miles per hour in a silver Honda Accord over a 10-mile distance.
The mayhem in the former gold-mining town of Yreka started near dawn Tuesday when a man was shot in the stomach at the Super 8 Motel and critically wounded.
Officers had been looking for the auto after investigators said he shot an elderly man at a Yreka motel and then stole a vehicle at gunpoint from a Mobil Gas Station in Yreka.
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. But charges against Maes were dropped after police determined she was a victim, reports CBS affiliate KOIN.
Lara “did unlawfully and intentionally cause the death of Kaylee Anne Sawyer”, the murder charge filed against him Tuesday reads.
Family members told reporters that the woman had been kidnapped. Lara worked as a part-time, campus public safety officer at Central Oregon Community College in Bend.
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“We’re cooperating with the police as best we can”, Paradis said, declining to comment further.
