Left: Harold Francis Landon III (Prince George”s County police). Right: Mariame Toure Sylla (Greenbelt police).
A Maryland man will be spending the rest of his behind bars for the death and dismemberment of a beloved elementary school teacher who was attacked while she was out on a walk one summer night.
In June, Harold Francis Landon III, 34, was convicted by a jury of his peers in Prince George’s County on one count of murder in the first degree for the July 29, 2023, death of Mariame Toure Sylla, 59, Law&Crime previously reported.
On Friday, 7th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Carol Coderre sentenced Landon to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The underlying incident occurred somewhere in or near Schrom Hills Park in Greenbelt – a medium-sized suburb of the broader Washington, D.C., metro area. On the night in question, Sylla went out for a walk at the park right near her home and never returned.
After a search, the woman’s torso was found in a retention pond in Clinton – a census-designated place located some 20 miles south of Greenbelt. None of her other remains have been recovered.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
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.”
David Harris contributed to this report.
