New details in killing of 2nd-grade teacher Mariame Toure Sylla
Mariame Toure Sylla liked to take evening walks around Schrom Hills Park near her home in Greenbelt, an acquaintance told police, enjoying the small oasis of tall trees, trails and ballfields nestled amid residences near the Capital Beltway.
Police said the second- and third-grade teacher was at the park in Maryland the night of Saturday, July 29. So, police said, was Harold Francis Landon III, who lived in nearby University Park, driving a white two-decade old Chevrolet pickup truck.
The 59-year-old Sylla never returned from the park in Prince George’s County, prompting a frantic month-long search by police, her family, friends and colleagues at the Dora Kennedy French Immersion School.
On Friday, Prince George’s County police announced human remains found Aug. 1, 19 miles south of Schrom Hills, were hers and they charged Landon in her killing. Police said in court documents filed Friday that final results from DNA testing of the remains is still not completed. But preliminary comparisons provided enough information to conclude the remains are of Sylla.
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Police said Sylla and Landon were strangers, and a motive remains unclear.
But court documents made public Friday night offer additional insight into the weeks-long investigation and the clues that led police to a suspect, including video, a photo, GPS records and power tools detectives reported finding in Landon’s house, among them a reciprocating saw they said could be used to dismember a body.
The principal of the Dora Kennedy school, James A. Spence II, said Sylla taught at the school for nearly 20 years, and had a loyal following of current and past students who sought her advice and brought her gifts over the holidays.
“She was a loving, caring and passionate teacher,” Spence said in a brief interview Saturday. “She was a student favorite.” He described Sylla as elegant, faithful and sophisticated.
The school’s 671 students in kindergarten through eighth grade returned to classes Monday. Spence said the school sent notices to students’ homes explaining that Sylla would not be in classes, so parents could prepare the youngsters — some too young to comprehend.
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Spence said a fourth-grade boy, who had Sylla the previous year, sent him an email: “I am sad that Madame Sylla is missing. I hope we find her soon.”
Students will return to school Tuesday, the loss now permanent. Spence said crisis counselors will be there to help.
In a letter to parents and staff, the school’s parent-teacher organization called Sylla’s death an “unfathomable loss” and urged everyone “to show kindness and respect to one another and to support those in their suffering.”
Efforts to reach Sylla’s family were not successful on Saturday.
Landon, 33, has been charged with first- and second-degree murder, two counts of assault and disposing a body in an unauthorized location. An attorney was not listed in court records. Landon is scheduled to have a bail hearing in court on Tuesday.
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A person listed in public records as a relative of Landon hung up the phone when a reporter called. Others did not return calls seeking comment. Efforts to obtain other public records about Landon were not possible over the holiday weekend. He has connections through family to North Carolina and Florida, according to public records.
Police said a person who knew Sylla reported her missing to Greenbelt police in the early hours of July 30, hours after they had last talked. The person told police of Sylla’s routine, such as her walks at Schrom Hills along Hanover Parkway.
Two days later, a person reported finding the remains of a body on some rocks near a pond off Old Alexandria Ferry Road, near Joint Base Andrews. Police said the body had been decapitated and dismembered.
Police said they’d also received a tip from someone who witnessed the moments leading up the remains being dumped. He took a photograph, police said.
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That person, according to court documents, told police they saw a white pickup truck near the pond about 9:30 p.m. on July 31, and saw a man wearing a blue shirt and blue jeans carrying an item from the truck and dump it near where the remains were later found. The witness told police the man then walked near the pond and “appeared to clean his hands in the water,” the documents say.
Authorities also said surveillance video from the park, time-stamped 9:34 p.m., shows a white pickup truck being driven into a parking lot, according to the documents. The truck’s headlights went out as the driver headed across the grass toward the pond, police said in the charging documents. The video then shows the vehicle being driven out of the park, turning left on Old Alexandria Ferry Road.
Police said in the court documents that Landon became a suspect, though they did not describe precisely how they first identified him. They said he had been arrested on Aug. 1 in an unrelated domestic violence case, in which he was seen driving a white 2004 Chevrolet Silverado pickup with Florida license plates. He has been in custody since that arrest, according to police.
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Authorities said they believe that is the same vehicle seen at the pond in Clinton. They also said Landon’s cellphone records show both he and Sylla at Schrom Hills shortly after 7 p.m. on July 29, “when the decedent is last presumed to be alive,” according to the court documents. Police said those same records show him in the area where Sylla’s remains were found.
Police said people who know Landon identified him from surveillance video and photos.
Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.
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