A Maryland resident has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the brutal murder and dismemberment of a cherished elementary school teacher, a crime that unfolded during a summer evening walk.

Harold Francis Landon III, 34, faced a jury in Prince George’s County this past June and was found guilty of first-degree murder for the tragic death of Mariame Toure Sylla, aged 59, which occurred on July 29, 2023, according to earlier reports from Law&Crime.

On Friday, Judge Carol Coderre of the 7th Judicial Circuit Court handed down the sentence, ensuring Landon will spend the rest of his life behind bars without the possibility of parole.

The horrifying events transpired in or around Schrom Hills Park located in Greenbelt, a suburban area within the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region. Sylla, who lived nearby, embarked on an evening walk through the park but never returned home.

After an extensive search, her torso was discovered in a retention pond in Clinton, approximately 20 miles south of Greenbelt. The rest of her remains have yet to be found.

The murder of Sylla shocked the community.

Sylla was originally from the Ivory Coast and moved to the United States roughly a decade before she was killed. She taught second grade at Dora Kennedy French Immersion School, where her pupils are said to have adored her. The slain woman dreamed of returning to her home country and even purchased a home there before her murder.

“This woman was a good person,” prosecutor Aisha Braveboy said during the sentencing hearing on Friday, according to a courtroom report by D.C.-based ABC affiliate WJLA “She cared about people. She was religious. She was a believer and she loved her children, the children she taught.”

Upon her disappearance, the community activated and engaged in a frantic search effort before the unthinkable discovery a few days later.

The evidence amassed against Landon included finding Sylla’s DNA on the defendant’s boots – as well as pieces of her dress and scarf in the bed of his pickup truck. Additionally, the victim’s cellphone and the since-condemned man’s cellphone were both determined to have been in the same area where Sylla disappeared. The killer’s truck was also seen near the pond where the woman’s torso was found.

Police also said they obtained surveillance video showing what appeared to be a body in a black bag in the defendant’s pickup.

But, perhaps key to the verdict, was a jailhouse phone call played for jurors in which Landon appeared to admit his culpability for the crime.

“I literally let the savage inside of me out,” he said, according to a courtroom report by D.C.-based NBC affiliate WRC.

Landon was coincidentally arrested the same day as the gruesome discovery of Sylla’s remains on an unrelated assault charge. He was arrested for Sylla’s murder about a month later, after further investigation and the positive identification of her body.

The assault is believed to have been random, as Landon and Sylla did not know each other, authorities said. Investigators never officially determined Sylla’s cause of death, although they believe the defendant strangled his victim before chopping up her body parts and dumping them around the area, according to The Washington Post.

“I don’t think we’ll ever know his true motive,” Braveboy said during the sentencing hearing. “What we do know is that he did it, that he was clear-minded that he did it, and he was very calculating in trying to cover up what he had done.”

During the sentencing hearing, Landon kept mum. His defense attorney, however, described a tumultuous childhood with a violent father and alcohol use beginning at age 7, followed by drug use beginning at age 13. At the time of the crime, the defense attorney insisted, Landon was in a drug-induced haze and had no memory of the violence.

The prosecutor, however, pushed back against that narrative.

“This act was not caused by some type of rage based on substance abuse; it was premeditated,” Braveboy insisted on Friday, WRC reported. “It was calculated before, during and after.”

The state’s attorney’s comments remained consistently incisive throughout the process. When Landon was convicted, the prosecutor employed an extended metaphor to describe the result.

“He tried to dismember her body so that he could sever any evidence regarding his crime,” she told reporters. “But today, the jury sent a very strong verdict, and now he is severed from our community.”