Oregonians arrested in California shooting, kidnapping

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.

The case of a missing 23-year-old Bend woman has now become a homicide investigation, police said Monday night.

Police say Sawyer’s body was found Tuesday off Highway 126 near milepost 100, which lies between the Central Oregon towns of Redmond and Sisters.

An Oregon college security guard allegedly went on a crime spree after being implicated in the murder of a missing woman, police said.

According to court documents attained by KOIN, Ponce-Lara tearfully told police her husband confessed to hitting a girl while driving a security vehicle near the Oregon Community College campus, adding he disposed of the body in a panic.

Lara was arrested Tuesday morning on Interstate 5 after Red Bluff CHP officers spotted the stolen auto. Yreka Police Chief Brian Bowles said Lara forced one of the man’s sons to drive at gunpoint.

Lara “did unlawfully and intentionally cause the death of Kaylee Anne Sawyer”, the murder charge filed against him Tuesday reads.

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.

On Tuesday, Lara and Maes were booked into the Tehama County jail on charges including attempted murder, kidnapping, carjacking and burglary, the Yreka Police Department said.

Five minutes after police got the call about the shooting, a man called from a Mobil gas station, saying his Honda Accord had been taken with his family still inside.

The mother and two sons were later dropped off at a rest stop at around 5.41am along the interstate about 30 miles south of Yreka, near the town of Weed.

Hummel told The Associated Press in an email that consequently he could not say what evidence led his office to charge Lara with murder instead of vehicular homicide. The man, who has not been identified, was hospitalized in critical condition, police said.

Shortly after the shooting, police received reports about a carjacking at a nearby gas station, where video surveillance footage again ties Lara to the scene.

“We’re feeling good about where we are in the investigation”, Hummel said. Ponce-Lara is reportedly not suspected to have involvement with the Sawyer case. “We’re a small department and stretched beyond our resources right now”.