Authorities are investigating whether or not a Virginia sheriff’s deputy posed as a 17-year-old boy on-line to groom and sexually extort a teenage lady in California earlier than driving throughout the nation and killing her mom and grandparents and setting hearth to their house.
Austin Lee Edwards, 28, was killed Friday in a shootout with San Bernardino sheriff's deputies. The 15-year-old lady from Riverside, California, was rescued and is in counseling for trauma, relations and police stated at a information convention on Wednesday.
Edwards, a resident of North Chesterfield, Virginia, seems to have posed as an adolescent on-line to have interaction in a romantic relationship with the lady and acquire her private info by deceiving her with a false id, generally known as “catfishing,” police stated.
Officers are trying into whether or not he victimised different minors throughout the nation. Detectives try to find out precisely how they met on-line and the way lengthy they corresponded.
It’s additionally unclear whether or not this was the lady’s first in-person encounter with Edwards or whether or not she was conscious that he was coming to California, officers stated.
Riverside Police Chief Larry Gonzalez stated that due to the lady’s younger age and trauma it is going to take time to finish their interviews along with her and get solutions to the numerous questions surrounding the case, resembling whether or not she was coerced or threatened into leaving with him.
"We don’t consider at this level she had something to do with the murders,” he stated.
In some unspecified time in the future, Edwards requested the lady for sexual images and she or he stopped speaking with him, Gonzalez stated, however detectives don’t but know when that occurred or whether or not Edwards killed her household in retaliation.
Authorities consider Edwards parked his car in a neighbour’s driveway, walked to the house and killed the relations earlier than leaving with the lady on Friday. Officers haven't but decided how the victims had been killed or how the fireplace was set.
The our bodies discovered within the Riverside house, about 80km southeast of downtown Los Angeles, had been recognized because the lady’s grandparents and mom: Mark Winek, 69; Sharie Winek, 65; and their 38-year-old daughter, Brooke Winek.
“No one may think about this crime taking place to my household, to our household," stated Michelle Blandin, Mark and Sharie's daughter and Brooke's sister.
A tearful Blandin stated her dad and mom and sister “lived and beloved selflessly.” The killing of Brooke, a single mother or father, signifies that her daughters — the 15-year-old lady and her 13-year-old sister — are actually motherless, Blandin stated.
A entrance window of the charred house within the Riverside cul-de-sac was boarded up Wednesday with a picket cross. Dozens of candles had been laid on the sidewalk, together with bouquets of flowers and stuffed animals.
Edwards is a former Virginia state trooper and was a sheriff's deputy in Washington County, Virginia, on the time of the killings. The regulation enforcement companies there stated he didn't present any regarding behaviors and no different employers disclosed any points throughout background checks.
Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback, the division's spokesperson, referred to as it “disgusting actually” to see somebody in regulation enforcement concerned in such heinous crimes and questioned how he had been employed at two Virginia companies.
“How did this particular person get previous a background investigation? How this particular person get previous a polygraph investigation?” Railsback stated. "From what we perceive thus far about him, there’s actually not a giant rap sheet on this particular person or something that will point out that they will see that end result.”
Police are additionally trying into whether or not Edwards used his regulation enforcement weapon or government-issued laptop computer within the crimes.
An alert neighbour reported Edwards' crimson Kia Soul to police as a suspicious automotive and stated the lady seemed to be in misery and concerned in a disturbance with a person, Gonzalez stated.
Police had been capable of run the car's license plate and found that Edwards had filed a police report earlier this yr concerning vandalism to the Kia, the chief stated. The police report had Edwards' cellphone quantity in it, which allowed investigators to ping his telephone and shortly find him in Southern California.
He bought right into a gun battle with San Bernardino sheriff's deputies and the coroner's workplace is doing an post-mortem to find out whether or not he was killed by the deputies or a self-inflicted wound.
Blandin stated she final noticed her dad and mom and sister on Thanksgiving, the day earlier than they had been slain.
“We had a household debate, and it bought heated, on if the brownies my mother made needs to be frosted with sprinkles or simply left plain,” she stated. “Little did I do know, on that day, that will be the final time that my husband and I might see my dad and mom and my sister once more.”
Blandin begged dad and mom and guardians to make use of her household's tragedy to start out conversations about web security.
“When you find yourself speaking to your kids concerning the risks of their on-line actions, please use us as a reference,” she stated. “Inform our story to assist your parenting. Not out of concern, however out of an instance of one thing that did occur.”