The remains of a Maryland teacher were positively identified this week, more than a month after she vanished during her regular walk.
Police in Prince George County said that Mariame Toure Sylla, 59, was killed by a complete stranger when she left for her walk in Schrom Hills Park in Greenbelt on July 29.
The second-grade teacher at Dora Kennedy French Immersion School was found dead on August 1 near a Clinton pond.
On Friday, Prince George’s County Police Chief Malik Aziz revealed that DNA results confirmed the remains as Sylla and announced the arrest of a suspect, 33-year-old Harold Francis Landon III.
“This appears to be stranger to stranger at this particular time,” he said. “You know, when we’re investigating these types of things, we always leave a door open for something that could have been missed.”
“But our detectives have been working really hard to make those connections, and we haven’t found any connection that these two people knew each other, and I don’t believe they knew each other. I just think we have a person who decided to commit a horrific crime.”
Landon was already in police custody over an unrelated charge when Sylla’s remains were discovered. He was charged with her murder.
Sylla was planning to retire next year and return to her native country, the county educators association revealed.
“She had purchased a home back on the Ivory Coast in Africa. She was praying to move home.”
