Left: Harold Francis Landon III (Prince George”s County police). Right: Mariame Toure Sylla (Greenbelt police).
A Maryland jury has found a 34-year-old man guilty of first-degree murder in the case of a well-loved elementary school teacher whom he killed and dismembered after an assault during her walk in a local park.
Key evidence that influenced the jurors to convict Harold Francis Landon III for the murder of 59-year-old Mariame Toure Sylla included a recorded jailhouse call that prosecutors presented in court.
During closing arguments, jurors listened to Landon’s words: “I literally let the savage inside of me out,” as reported by local NBC affiliate WRC.
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The call, along with photos a nearby business owner took of Landon as he dumped what turned out to be part of Sylla’s dismembered body in a retention pond, cellphone data and DNA evidence, was enough for jurors to issue a verdict after about an hour of deliberations.
Sylla was last seen around 8 p.m. on July 29, 2023, at a park in Greenbelt, a Washington, D.C., suburb. Shortly before 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 1, 2023, officers from the Prince George’s County Police Department responded to the 7300 block of Old Alexander Ferry Road in Clinton after human remains were located outside.
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Landon was picked up that same day on an unrelated assault charge. He was arrested for Sylla’s murder about a month later, after further investigation and the positive identification of the teacher’s body.
The assault was random, as Landon and Sylla did not know each other. Investigators never officially determined Sylla’s cause of death, although they believe he strangled her before chopping up her body parts and dumping them around the area, according to The Washington Post. Cops never recovered all of her remains.
Detectives later found Sylla’s DNA on Landon’s boots, and cellphone data showed he was in the area at the time of the murder. A portion of her dress and scarf were also in the bed of Landon’s truck, according to the Post. In addition, there was surveillance video showing what appeared to be a body in a black bag in the defendant’s truck.
State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy told reporters after the verdict that it was important to get Landon off the streets.
“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.”
Sylla was originally from the Ivory Coast and moved to the United States about a decade before she was killed. She taught second grade at Dora Kennedy French Immersion School, according to the Post.
Landon claimed his innocence. His attorney reportedly said the case was “pure speculation.” Landon is slated to be sentenced on Oct. 17.
