The Dateline episode “Into the Night” investigates the 2016 murder of 23-year-old college student Kaylee Sawyer in Bend, Oregon. On the night of her murder, July 24, 2016, Sawyer went to a friend’s bachelorette party at a bar called Mavericks. She laughed and danced and played drinking games with the bachelorette group. Sawyer and a friend left Mavericks to go to another bar downtown at around 10:30 pm. She got home late, reportedly had an argument with her boyfriend, and stepped outside for a walk to clear her head.
That’s when Kaylee Sawyer was abducted, sexually assaulted and killed by Edwin Lara, a 32-year-old security officer who was out on patrol at Central Oregon Community College, where Sawyer was a student. Lara initially pleaded not guilty. In January 2018, Lara pleaded guilty which means he will avoid a possible death sentence. The Sawyers have filed a federal lawsuit against the community college which claims Sawyer accepted a ride from Lara “believing he was a police officer she could trust.” The Sawyers have founded KK’s Readers, a nonprofit organization in Kaylee’s name that sends Dr. Seuss books to children in the Head Start program every year. Dateline airs Fridays at 9pm on NBC.
