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Edwin Lara pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and first degree robbery in the death of Kaylee Anne Sawyer and was sentenced to life without parole on January 22, 2018, in Deschutes County Circuit Court.

Sawyer, 23, was from Bend, Oregon. She worked as a dental assistant, took classes at Central Oregon Community College and lived in Bend with her boyfriend, Camron Reimhofer. Lara was a COCC public safety officer who patrolled the Bend campus at night in a uniform and marked vehicle resembling a police officer's. He held an associate degree in criminal justice, and his prior record consisted of traffic citations and a fish and game violation.

Sawyer attended a bachelorette party in Bend on July 23, 2016. Early the next day, Reimhofer picked her up, and they argued before she left their car outside their apartment and walked away. After sending him a text, she stopped answering her phone. Lara approached her near the edge of campus while on duty and offered her a ride, then drove her to an isolated campus parking lot and killed her by blunt force trauma. Investigators believed he had tried to sexually assault her and that she fought back. He left her body off Highway 126 in the Dry Creek area west of Redmond, where it was found July 26, 2016. Her blood soaked purse and bloody clothing were recovered from a shed at his home. His wife told police he claimed to have hit Sawyer with his patrol vehicle, panicked and hidden her. The district attorney rejected that account and charged intentional murder rather than a vehicular offense.

Sawyer's family reported her missing on July 24. Detectives first questioned Reimhofer because he was the last person to see her and had argued with her. He surrendered his phone, computer, car and apartment, and detectives concluded he was not involved. Lara left Oregon on July 25. In Salem, he abducted 19 year old Aundreah Elizabeth Maes at gunpoint outside a store and forced her to drive south. He handcuffed and drugged her at a Cottage Grove motel. Early on July 26, at a motel in Yreka, California, he shot Jack Levy in the abdomen after Levy refused to surrender his vehicle. Lara then took a car at a gas station with a woman and her two teenage grandsons inside and drove about 15 miles south on Interstate 5. He told the people he was holding that he had an urge to kill and had killed Sawyer. He surrendered near Red Bluff after a pursuit and was held at the Tehama County jail.

After jail staff said Lara wanted to talk, Redmond Police Det. Sgt. Eric Beckwith travelled to Tehama County on July 26, 2016, and questioned him for about six hours. Lara gave two conflicting accounts of the killing. He asked for paper and drew a map showing where Sawyer's body lay along Highway 126 between Sisters and Redmond. He said a cousin had helped move the body after Lara threatened the man with deportation. Lara also said he had a heavy heart and wanted to apologize to Sawyer's family. He asked for a lawyer at the end.

On October 21, 2017, Deschutes County Circuit Judge Michael Adler suppressed the entire interrogation, finding Lara had asked for counsel and been refused and that jail staff had denied him phone calls required by California law. Evidence concerning the body was allowed because the judge held that detectives would have found it regardless. Lara's January 22, 2018, plea admitted that he took Sawyer's purse by threat of deadly force and caused her death in furtherance of the robbery. The plea removed the death penalty prosecutors had planned to seek, and Adler imposed the life sentence the same day.

On April 25, 2019, Lara pleaded guilty in federal court in Eugene to kidnapping, carjacking and two counts of using a firearm during a crime of violence. U.S. District Judge Michael McShane imposed a second life sentence, concurrent with the state term and to be served in Oregon. Lara was never convicted of a sex offense. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed Senate Bill 576, Kaylee's Law, on May 25, 2019, barring campus security from police style uniforms and requiring cameras, GPS or monitored dispatch in security vehicles. COCC settled a $2 million lawsuit brought by Sawyer's family in July 2020. Lara is serving life without parole.

The video is a narrated analysis using police interview room footage and runs about 42 minutes. It covers the Tehama County jailhouse interrogation described above.