Upon searching the Ponce-Lara and Lara home, police found a white bag with Sawyer's high-heel shoes, a purse containing her black wallet, a blood-stained rock and a clump of hair, according to testimony given Monday. Ponce-Lara, at the time an officer in training for the Bend Police Department, went to the Redmond Police Department to report the crime. Lara told her he hit a woman with his car and discarded the body, according to statements she made to Redmond Police Department Sgt. Lara fled to Salem after his then-wife, Isabel Ponce-Lara, confronted him the day after the killing, accusing him of acting weird. He said a person could see Sawyer's shoulder from the road side of the guardrail. Brian Kindel testified that the body was dumped just off the side of the road and wasn't covered with rocks or brush. Police used the Deschutes County property information database to run the number, which turned up an address on Highway 126 between Sisters and Redmond.īend Police Lt. The note three times had the number 18700, though there was no context. Police discovered it after Lara alerted them to a note he left in a car he abandoned in Salem. Police believe Lara put Sawyer in the trunk of his car - where blood was also found -and transported her body to the location on state Highway 126 where it was found two days later. However, this is not where Sawyer's body was found. The drag marks led up the hill to a location in the brush where a significant amount of blood was found. Investigators from the Central Oregon Major Crimes Team - made up of officers from various local law enforcement agencies - found drag marks and blood in the parking lot, Gunnels said. Gunnels said the scene of the killing was parking lot B12, a gravel lot high up on the hilly campus surrounded by juniper and sagebrush. Friends and family never saw her again.Īt Monday's hearing, Deschutes County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Gunnels said in his opening statement that Lara was at work that night as a security officer for the college. After getting in an argument with her boyfriend during the ride home, Sawyer walked off from her house near Central Oregon Community College. Sawyer disappeared in the early morning hours of July 24 after a night in downtown Bend. A group huddled across the courtroom's pew-like benches and prayed in anticipation of graphic testimony, which included a 15-minute 911 recording where Lara discussed Sawyer's death. The family said they know Aundrea was spared for a reason, and because of that, they know they will heal.As with nearly all hearings in the case, a number of Sawyer's friends and family were present in the courtroom Monday. “We are just glad she is alive and she is well, there are a lot of emotional things going on with her but we are going to make it through,” Miranda said. “It’s incredible we look back and realize how close we came to tragedies happening and we are so thankful for how things turned out,” Miranda said.Īundrea is now back in Salem at her family home, surrounded by her closest loved ones trying to work through this terrifying ordeal. READ MORE: Suspect in Bend woman’s killing hit her with car, disposed of body The Maes family says they are now forever changed, realizing the importance of family and how differently this situation could have turned out. “We realized the fragility of life, I mean you can be here one moment and gone the next, like she goes off to work you say bye-bye and then. He's also accused of stealing a number of cars in both Oregon and California. the next seven or eight hours were horrifying,” Maes' great-uncle Jerry Miranda said Thursday.įor the next eight hours, Aundrea sat next to Lara, as he drove to Northern California on a bizarre crime spree that included a carjacking and shooting.

“ was doing what all young girls do, taking a selfie after work, when a man popped the lock, got in, had a gun.

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