Dateline: Unforgettable: What happened to Kaylee Sawyer?

Kaylee Sawyer
23-year-old Kaylee Sawyer was murdered in July 2016 (Image via @DatelineNBC/Twitter)

In 2016, 23-year-old Kaylee Sawyer, a resident of Bend, Oregon, was brutally murdered by a Central Oregon Community College security guard while returning from a friend's bachelorette party.

Sawyer was with her boyfriend Cameron Reimhofer that night when the two reportedly had an argument, prompting her to leave without him. A missing persons report was filed the next day.

Authorities would only find Kaylee's body after catching the killer himself and extracting a confession from him. Her body was found by 18700 West Highway 126. An autopsy revealed that the victim's cause of death was blunt force trauma. Kaylee also had a fractured skull and showed signs of strangulation.

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Dateline: Unforgettable is scheduled to revisit the 2016 disappearance and subsequent murder of Kaylee Sawyer in an upcoming episode titled Into the Night. The episode airs on Oxygen at 9 pm ET this Thursday, December 1, 2022. The synopsis says:

"The manhunt for the suspect in an Oregon woman's 2016 disappearance leads to a 60-hour crime spree including carjacking, abduction and murder."

What happened in the days that followed Kaylee Sawyer's disappearance?

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Kaylee Sawyer was brutally murdered on the night of July 23, 2016. She was picked up by her boyfriend Cameron Reimhofer just after midnight from downtown, where she was celebrating a close friend's bachelorette party. The couple reportedly had a disagreement on the way back to their shared apartment near Central Oregon Community College.

Sources stated that Sawyer left after the argument and that was the last time she was seen alive - during the early morning hours of July 24. Reimhofer tried calling her, but she refused to pick up his calls and shortly after, her phone became unreachable.

Kaylee, who used to work at Aubrey Dental Group, was reported missing the next day when she failed to turn up for work, and nobody knew anything about her whereabouts, which got her boyfriend and mother worried.


Kaylee Sawyer's killer Edwin Lara went on a crime spree before turning himself over to the authorities

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Authorities initially suspected that Kaylee Sawyer's boyfriend may have been involved in her disappearance, given that he was the last person to have seen her alive.

But on July 25, they received an unexpected tip from Isabel Ponce-Lara, a new Bend Police Officer, who claimed that her husband Edwin Lara, who worked as a security guard at the community college, confessed to killing a woman.

She said that Edwin, who used to drive a security patrol vehicle, had admitted to her that he accidentally ran over the woman, resulting in her death. He also said that her belongings were in their home's shed. Isabel immediately went to the police with the information.

Edwin went on a crime spree for roughly 24 hours that spanned from Northern California to Northwest Oregon. He committed multiple crimes, carjacked multiple people and terrorized numerous families before calling 911 on his own on July 26.

Later, he confessed not only to Kaylee Sawyer's murder, but to a range of other crimes as well, which included shooting a man. He also told authorities where to find Kaylee's remains.

An autopsy revealed that the 23-year-old died of Blunt force trauma. Other signs included strangulation, multiple skull fractures, and other wounds. Edwin reportedly attacked Kaylee that night and used a rock to kill her. He then loaded her into the trunk of his car and dumped it near the highway where it was found days later.


Dateline: Unforgettable will air with Kaylee Sawyer's murder case on Thursday, December 1.

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