Unseen - The GTA Killer | The Case of Aundreah Maes & Kaylee Sawyer | UNSEEN

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

“Do you think this is a game?”-- On July 25th, 2016 Aundreah Maes has just finished her shift at the mall in Salem Oregon, when a man armed with a handgun forces his way into her car and tells her to start driving. This man, a cop-in-training named Edwin Lara, is wanted for the disappearance of a young woman, Kaylee Sawyer, in Bend Oregon and is now on the run, killing and car-jacking anyone in his way. The only person able to stop him is the one he expects the least: his own hostage, 19-year-old Aundreah Maes. Credits: Directing, writing & editing by Alexandre Gendron Research by Tiffany Loxton Script revision by Tiffany Loxton Produced by Alexandra Salois & Salim Sader Voiceover by William Akana Sources: NBC - Dateline - Into The Night Rockstar Games - Grand Theft Auto V Trailer KATU2 - Aundreah Maes reunites with her family KATU2 - Edwin Lara's crime spree coverage KGW8 - Edwin Lara's settlement KOBI - Edwin Lara get's life in prison KOIN6 - Edwin Lara's plea deal KTVL - Kaylee Sawyer's missing Law & Crime Network - The Rent-A-Cop Killer The Oregonian - Police pursuit COCC - Sneak peak on campus NBC - Urge to Kill podcast NBC - Urge to Kill extra material WPLG - Carjacking in Salem and Yreka Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pay attention to the girl in the black dress. To someone walking by, this might look like a normal interaction, a typical couple booking a room at a motel. But notice how she keeps her distance from the man, crossing her arms, and looking around anxiously. Seconds later, he orders her to stand closer to him, and she quickly wipes away a tear behind his back. This security footage hides a disturbing secret. This man claims to be a cop, but he's not here to protect her. When officers arrived on scene, they found a man had been shot in the stomach.

Minutes later, another call from a gas station just down the road. The young man stole a car and went on a spree straight out of grand theft auto. I used to kill that other girl, you know. She kept screaming and I'd stop her forever. You know, I just, my back girl in terms of Oregon, I ever want to met. And if you guys are wondering if I have that dirty thing to hurt them. An aspiring cop turned murderer is on the loose, killing and carjacking anyone in his way.

The only person able to stop him. is the one he expects the least, his own hostage, 19-year-old Andreah Mase. My phone was just pinging and pinging and pinging, and the very first message that I looked at was from Cam saying, have you seen Kaylee, have you heard from Kaylee? The day before Andrea's kidnapping, July 24, 2016, Julie Van Cleave, mother of 23-year-old Kaylee Sawyer, received dozens of messages concerning her daughter's recent disappearance. And I called her first, and her phone went to voicemail. The part that was hard, sometimes she would call and it would go straight to voicemail.

But sometimes she would call and it would ring, but nobody ever answered. This indicated some activity at the other end. Either Kaylee intentionally avoided her mother and boyfriend, or she was truly missing, and somebody else was using her phone. Worried, they both contacted the police. Is this vet, how can I help you? Hi, I'm not sure if it was a question. Right number to call.

Last night I got home from the bars with my girlfriend. She got upset at me and ran off. And I chased her and wasn't able to find her, and I called all her family and they haven't heard from her, so I'm wondering what you recommend I do. Is that she can I help you? My daughter is missing, and she has epilepsy and some medical issues. What's the address that she's missing from?

I don't have the exact address. Later the next day, rookie police officer Isabel Ponce burst into her local police station, claiming she had learned crucial information about Kaylee's disappearance, following a confrontation with her husband, 34-year-old police in training, Edwin Laura. I asked him, what's wrong with you? You know, we've been together for very long time,

I know something's up, and then he just says that. He hit her with the car, so then I asked him, you hit her with the car, that's an accident. It doesn't make sense, like, you're lying to me. It wasn't making any sense to me, because I'm like, why would somebody do that, especially you, especially him? Like, it doesn't make any sense.

Isabel spoke to the detective for hours, revealing that her husband had hidden some of Kaylee's belongings inside their shed and that he stole her service weapon and car. They launched a manhunt for Edwin, but he was already long gone. In a straight line from Redmond, Oregon, the man had already reached Salem by the evening. There, oblivious to the fact that a potential killer was on the run in her city, 19-year-old Andrea Mays was hanging out in her car after a long day at work. I was supposed to leave like in the middle of the afternoon, but I decided to stay and cover someone's shift. It was just a long day. I was on my Snapchat.

With the temperature reaching almost 90 outside, Andrea opened her driver's side window. Instantly, a figure wielding a gun reached into the opening. That's when he unlocked the door and sat in the car really fast and he had a gun just pointing it at me. That's where he like handcuffed me and had me hopped to the passenger side. And then the whole time he was just, just talking to me, trying to like find out who I was, my life, like, siblings. And I just kept telling him, like, I don't want to answer your questions. And that's when he got really upset. And he put the gun on my thigh.

And he had told me, he's like, do you think this is a game? Do you think this is a joke? Because I will shoot you. I'm not joking. Convinced she wouldn't see the light of day. Andrea was terrified. But this fear gave her an unexpected surge of confidence. I never in a million years would have thought, like, what was happened?

was actually happening. I really thought like I wasn't going to go home ever. I wasn't going to see my family. They're probably going to find my body in a ditch somewhere or find me dead in a motel or something. So when I would feel like that in those times, I would snap at him, I would say things. Instead of crying or getting terribly upset, you'd get mad.

Yeah. After driving for hours, the kidnapper stopped at a shoddy motel along the interstate. There, the establishment CCTV captured Edwin, booking a room and Andrea wiping her tears under the unassuming gaze of the clerk at the counter. Once inside the room, Edwin ordered her to strip down and take a shower in front of him. In my head, I thought I'd rather die than shower in front of you. And I told him, I don't care what you do to me at this point because that would be honestly worse than dying.

Frustrated, Edwin pushed Andrea onto the bed and forced her to take a sleeping pill. I remember I just kept trying to fight it and keep myself awake. I just kept thinking, like, if I fall asleep, he would try to, like, take advantage of me. And that's when he had, like, turned over and he, like, licked my earlobe. And I was like, oh, no, like, no, this is not going to happen. And then that's when my phone had gone off. Unaware of Andrea's kidnapping, the police were still trying to locate Edwin's first victim, 23-year-old Kaylee Sawyer.

Without a body to speak of, or any evidence except the bloodied clothes found in Edwin's shed, the DA in charge of the case strongly believed that she was still alive. I was holding on to hope and every officer was holding on to hope that she might be clinging to life. And if we could find her, we could race her to help and bring her back from the point of no return. 23-year-old Kaylee Sawyer is a dental assistant in Bend. She hasn't been seen since the weekend. Family says that Kaylee went for a walk around Central Oregon Community College. Shortly after, Edwin Lara was named a person of interest in her disappearance.

Laura works as a security guard at the Community College. Meanwhile, Kaylee's family members in Bend stood in anguish as the hours passed. Years later, when Keith Morrison from Dateline interviewed them, each described how they attempted to cling to their memories of Kaylee as their first night without her lingered, starting with her mother. She was probably 17, and she said to me, Mom, when people describe me, I want them to describe me as smart and strong and fun. For 23 years, nothing made me smile more than my daughter.

Jim and Sharon Walden, Kaylee's grandparents, were looking forward to Cameron and Kaylee's wedding. Cameron and Kaylee loved each other. They would probably be getting engaged before too long. They were a beautiful couple together. Yeah. Kaylee's best friend, Naomi, reminisced about how difficult it had been for her friend to choose a career path because she wanted to experience everything life had to offer. to offer. She was going to be a plastic surgeon, she was going to be a policeman, she was going to be a chef,

she was going to be a photographer. The world was hers. She didn't pick one thing. As the DA and the police were looking for Kaylee and Bend, the situation became dire for Andrea at the motel. Seconds before Edwin forced himself upon her, her phone suddenly rang, sending him off. I don't even know what that alarm was for, but that alarm probably saved my life because he saw it and was like, what's this, what does that mean? I don't know where I got the idea, but I was like, that's my timer. I have to take medicine. And he was like, for what?

And I was like, well, I have an STD. Did you think if I tell him that he won't want to rape me? Yeah. That was a lie, but enough to scare Edwin. He jumped out of bed and started pacing around the room. Eventually, he grabbed his phone and made a call. I was picking up bits and pieces, and he was talking to someone about, like, Helicopters, after that phone call, he was like, we gotta go, let's go.

Edwin seemed convinced that police choppers were right outside the door, even though the night was dead quiet. Andrea pleaded with him to let her go, but his answer only made it worse. And he was just still like, no, you need to come with me. Basically still trying to use me as like a human shield, he kept saying. In another room, a man named Jack Levy was preparing for a day out photographing butterflies at the nearby National Park at around 5 a.m. as he loaded his camera gear, into his truck. His plans took an unexpected turn when a strange man, followed by a frightened girl in

handcuffs, came out of nowhere asking him to give up his car keys. You must have found the wrong room. The gun just went off and everything just kind of went black in my head. And then I'm like thinking, well, I just seen him shoot. I'm someone in front of me. In a panic, Edwin pulled Andrea back and started running, gun in hand. They quickly reached a gas station on the other side of the street. There, Edwin spotted a car. with its passenger door opened. At this point, the police knew nothing of Edwin's recent crime spree. They were convinced something had happened to Kaylee,

yet no one declared Andrea missing until something major changed this situation. Jack Levy, the man Edwin shot right through the chest at the motel, survived. No, what's your emergency? At Super 8 Motel, there's a gentleman who says you got shot in the stomach. Jack didn't know anything about Edwin, but he told him. police about the fear-stricken young woman who followed him around in handcuffs. He saw them run toward a gas station across the street, where Edwin carjacked a family before taking them hostage.

When they said on the news early on Tuesday morning that there was a female in the car, I actually was like, it's Kaylee. She's with him. However, after interviewing Jack Levy and multiple witnesses present at the gas station, it became clear that the person Edwin dragged along with him wasn't Kaylee, but Andrea. With her last hope vanishing into thin air, Kaylee's mother gave up. I told my husband, I'm not stupid. I know she's not with us anymore.

While police made their way onto the interstate, tension in the car escalated. Edwin now had three more hostages, Nima, the 17-year-old at the wheel, his 14-year-old brother, and their grandmother, who didn't speak a word of English. As Edwin waved his gun, barking orders at her grandson, the elderly woman's started screaming at the kidnapper. She just didn't really to understand what was going on. I mean, who would?

Edwin's getting very paranoid, and he's like, tell her to shut the F up or, I'll shoot. And we don't know how to seek or out, like, how to conquer. He asked us if we want to hear a story and then he said, well, I used to be a good guy, I used to be a cop.

Then he proceeded to ask her, have you guys ever had her urge to kill? I'm only answer this guy, like, this is crazy, though. As he screamed over Nima's distressed grandmother, Edwin grabbed all of the family's phones and handed them over to Andrea. He then pointed his gun right between her eyes and ordered her to throw them out the window. I was just trying to throw them as hard as I could to the grass to make sure that they wouldn't like break so maybe they could pinpoint where we're going or something.

Afterward, Nima pleaded with Edwin arguing that he should let them go now that he had their car. And in a bizarre twist of fate, Edwin agreed. He stopped along the road, asked everybody to step up. out, took the wheel and pointed his gun at Andrea, who followed Mima and his family outside. I was just like, can I just stay with them? Like, you have a perfect working car now. Like, you have everything you need. And he was like, no, like I told you, like, they're, they'll try to shoot me and kill me if you're not with me. So still, he just needed, like, that human shield. Remember, I just, like, sort of bawley again. And I was like, oh my gosh,

I just want to go home. Edwin's time was running out. Not long after he dropped off the other hostages, police sirens could be heard in the distance, so he took Andrea's phone and started recording himself. I used to kill that other girl, you know, and she kept screaming and hasn't signed her forever. He then handed her phone to Andrea and, at gunpoint, ordered her to post it online. And so he wanted me to post that to my Facebook and share it with everybody. He was threatening to kill me if I didn't post it. And I remember, I think he had me caption it, crazy murderer on the loose or something to that effect.

When police finally caught up with him, Edwin sped up, grabbed Andrea's phone again, and called 911. Emergency reporting. Yes, hi. This is Edwin Lara, and I'm the guy on Interstate 5. Are you by yourself or? No, I have someone with me. I kidnapped her in Oregon. She's innocent.

Her name is Andrea. Edwin, do you have any weapons with you? Yeah, that's what I was going to say. have a gun on me. I can just give it to Andrea to see if she wants to kill me. No, no, no. Edwin, how fast you're going? He was going like 120 at that time now. And he was just zooming in and out of cars, honking at people, just driving reckless and crazy. After a 15-minute high-speed chase, Edwin suddenly hit the brakes and stopped. He handed her phone back to Andrea, put his hands in the air, and walked out of the car.

For the first time since Edwin kidnapped her, the young woman was finally alone and gave in, sobbing into the phone as she tried to follow the 911 operator's instructions. I'll let you talk to Andrea. Okay, I just don't hang you. Hello? Yeah, hi, Andrea. Are you okay? You don't need any medical or anything?

Mm-hmm. Okay, make sure your hands are up to and step by. I know you're on the phone right now, but just hold your hand up so they can see your hand. I'm going to stand in the line with you until the officers get there, okay? And you're going to be okay. Okay. I'm more letting the office know that he can't hear. I can't.

He's too far. Okay. You've already walking towards them. And if you want to do the same once he gets out stuff, just turn around and back up, walk backwards towards him. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. At that moment, I was like, oh my gosh, like this is done. Like, I can go home. Like, this is over. Like, I'm okay. I'm safe. Like, I just felt like this way, like, this way.

I just felt like this weight lifted. But this couldn't be further from the truth. Even though Edwin clearly stated to the operator that she was innocent, miscommunication between the Oregon and California authorities led to Andrea's arrest. They had me get out of the car and had me walk backwards and handcuffed me and I was like,

okay, this might just be like a formality thing just because they don't know what's going on, maybe, but I'm like, he told dispatch everything. Like, I didn't know that they couldn't like tell the situation. The police arrested both Andrea and Edwin, But to them, Kaylee's location remained the most pressing matter, so they immediately proceeded to question him. We were informed, actually, as we were walking into the jail, that he's been asking for you, been waiting for you. I'm not.

I'm sure you guys already know who I am. I'm sure you guys already know who I am. There's that really, really strong hint of arrogance and ego behind that statement. Edwin didn't seem to mind being arrested and immediately revealed Kaylee's location. to the detectives. They sent officers and paramedics to the address located along Highway 26 in Oregon, and in a matter of minutes, they finally found Kaylee. I came across what I believe to be Ms. Sawyer laying on the rocks. When I saw her initially, I thought she was alive and I thought that she was attempting to crawl up the face of the rocks that were on the south side of the road.

Her right hand was on the edge of a rock as if she was. you were pulling yourself up the embankment. Kaylee apparently clung to life for as long as she could, but the police were too late. Her body was recovered and her family informed the tragedy. The awful news also came with a warning from the DA. We advised her family not to look at the autopsy photos. I'm glad they took her advice. We asked when we can see her identify their body and they would not let us see her.

Their words were you cannot see her because she's unrecognizable. The last time I got to kiss my baby girl on the forehead was through a black body bag. I just knew that if I went, I might climb up on that table with her and not leave. As the Bend Police in Oregon recovered Kaylee's body, the Redding Police in California incarcerated Andrea. Due to miscommunications between the two departments, she had been labeled as an accomplice. The police went as far as to declare her a co-conspirator publicly, flooding the media with false information about the survivor. Laura's run from the law ended. Authorities caught up with him and Andrea. They were booked into the Tahoma County Jail, charged with attempted murder, kidnapping,

carjacking, and burglary. It's something out of the movies, and it turns out he wasn't alone. The relationship between Edwin Lara and Andrea Mays is still under investigation. Then they ended up, like, strip searching me and, like, completely treating me like I was the criminal, and I was just like, okay, like, felt 100% violated after everything I had just gone through. They were like, okay, we need to get your mug shot. And I was like, why? Like, I didn't do anything. And I kept trying to tell him, like, what was going on. And this wasn't the last of Redding's authorities' mistakes.

After his arrest, Edwin attempted to exercise his rights, but was ignored by police and prison staff alike. Ashley Corslian, of NBC's Urge to Kill Podcast, explains it best. Edwin's attorneys argue that when he was initially booked into the Tahima County Jail in California, he indicated to jail staff that he wanted to speak to a lawyer. He said, when do I get a lawyer? My lawyer, I'm okay. Well, according to jail staff, they interpreted that as a procedural question rather than a specific request for an attorney.

Unawares of the blunder, detectives continued to pressure Edwin for answers. So far, the prisoner kept claiming Kaylee's murder was an accident, that he hit her with his car, panicked, and dumped her body in a hurry. But the injuries she suffered told another story. Now is your time to tell me the real story because what you just said didn't happen that way. And he begins to describe to my shock and, quite frankly, terror, listening to the things that he had done. Continuing from Kaylee's boyfriend's account in which she had a fight with him late in the night and walked off, Edwin, who worked as a campus security guard, spotted her walking alone. According to him, he approached her and offered her a ride home. She refused.

He then walked out of his vehicle and ordered her to stop. It is important to note that campus security uniforms and vehicles were almost identical to police at the time. Edwin tried to fool Kaylee by acting like an actual officer, but she caught on and tried to flee. It's like Ben, I can ask for a good girl? Oh, shut out, shut out, shut out. Did she fest out? Edwin then pulled Kaylee into his car, but the campus security vehicle didn't just look like a police cruiser. It had every feature of one, including a caged back seat.

Trapped and unconscious, Kaylee couldn't do anything while Edwin drove her up to a secluded parking lot. When she opened her eyes, it was already too late. He said she began coming to and tried to fight. She started to crawl through the plexigloor. glass caged back seat. She was trying to turn emergency lights on, trying to grab the radio, trying to honk the horn anything that she could do because she knew. He's struggling to scream. So I throw her down and he sexually assaults her there while she is dying and drags her up behind a tree and finishes the job with the big 60-70-pound rock.

And that's what I think she's dying. The horrific details of the murder shook county officials, and the DA chose to seek the death sentence. But this decision didn't take into account Redding's police denial of Edwin's right to an attorney on the day of his arrest. Under these circumstances, the judge dismissed his confession. Though they knew for sure what had happened, the DA and the detectives were back at square one. You know, they said, look, we got this. Sure. We can do it.

We have the evidence. If we thought it was a death penalty case before, there's no reason to back down now. Together, they rebuilt the case from the ground up and presented it to Edwin's defense team. Cornered, they offered the DA a plea deal. If they agreed to drop the death penalty, Edwin would plead guilty and accept a sentence of life without parole. The DA then explained the situation to Kaylee's mother, Julie, and left the final decision in her care. He explained to me what happens in a death penalty case. and the appeals. I would have had to show up to every appeal. As long as he's living on death row,

I would be too. Some choice. As this was happening, Andrea was eventually released from jail, and all charges against her were dropped. The Redding Police never publicly apologized for either her unlawful incarceration or the denial of Edwin's rights that lent to the dismissal of his confession. I just got off of the phone with Andrea's family, not just a few moments ago. They did confirm that Andrea has been released by police. Andrea's grandmother, Elizabeth Mays, never believed her granddaughter could have been involved. She's not a bad girl. She doesn't drink.

She doesn't smoke. We're church people. And so she's a good girl. She doesn't know nothing about the world. Afterward, the case lingered in court for almost three years. Although Edwin pleaded guilty, statements still had to be heard, and even Andrea was asked to speak. But the trauma she carried at the time prevented her from doing so. This was the first time that I had seen him since everything happened.

It was just hard even sitting there because I could see him trying to look over here. During that period, Andrea fell into a dark hole. She struggled with depression and severe PTSD, slowly becoming a shadow of her former self. Why is all this happening to me and I just felt like my life was going downhill? I was just dead for two years and my family will even tell you, you like I was not the same person I was completely shut down shut out of life I didn't have any interest I didn't want to do anything and it wasn't until I was I woke up one day and I was like you know what like I need to turn myself around

only person that's gonna change this is me you like start going through a bunch of thoughts in your head but like you have to like love yourself again and treat yourself with you know respect and kindness and move past and work on those things when you go through something you can't sit there and paint yourself as a victim because if you do, you'll never move past it. You have to think of the situation and be like, okay, something terrible happened to me, but I can turn it around and make something good out of it. I can help others. I can share my story. And I never would have thought my story could touch other people and like inspire people. And it's amazing to know that it does. The same is true for Kaylee's

family. Together, they sued the college for allowing Edwin to work there without any background check or psychological evaluation, and for letting untrained security personnel use police-grade gear and vehicles. Not only did they win, but their case led to the creation of Kaylee's law, prohibiting the use of such equipment on campuses. In the height of their tragedy, Kaylee's family stepped up and said, we're going to make sure that no young person has to go through what our daughter did. Nima and his family, who had also been taken hostage by Edwin, moved on with their lives. And so did Jack Levy. the butterfly photographer who almost died at the hands of Edwin in the motel parking lot. The bullet went out my back, missed the spine by about an inch.

It was two years ago now. I went back and stayed in the same room. I was in when I was shot at that two great motel in Wyrka. Like I said, I moved on with my life. Even Kaylee's mother eventually learned to live without her daughter, focusing on the glimpse of happiness she still brought into her life instead of the loss she had been dealing with since she'd been gone. Every morning I wake up and I love her more and more each day, just like I did when she was here.

You know, I have gotten to that point sometimes where I look at a picture and I smile. And I'm so glad for that. On the last day of the court hearing, Andrea, who had recovered from the ordeal in the years leading up to this day, finally spoke. With the support of Kaylee's family, with whom she struck a friendship over the tragedy, she gathered her courage and faced Edwin one last time before his condemnation. camera allowed inside that day, but she proudly repeated the word she spoke to journalists when she walked out of the courthouse. But like my main thing in there was just like, you know what, like you tried to paint me

as this victim and this weak person and that's not who I am. I'm not a victim. I am a survivor. I'm a warrior. I defeated him and I am truly blessed.