Deputy sought to extort underage girl
Edwards asked for nude photos, killed her family
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A Virginia sheriff ’s deputy posed as a 17-yearold boy online and asked a teenage California girl for nude photos before he drove across the country and killed her mother and grandparents and set fire to their home, authorities said Wednesday.
Austin Lee Edwards, 28, was killed Friday in a shootout with San Bernardino sheriff ’s deputies. The 15-year-old girl from Riverside, California, was rescued and is in counseling for trauma, family members and police said at a news conference Wednesday.
Edwards, a resident of North Chesterfield, Virginia, appears to have posed as a teenager online to engage in a romantic relationship with the girl and obtain her personal information by deceiving her with a false identity, known as “catfishing,” police said.
Authorities did not provide additional details about their communications and said they are still combing through online accounts. Officials are looking into whether he victimized other minors across the country.
It’s also unclear whether this was the girl’s first in-person encounter with Edwards or whether she was aware that he was coming to California, officials said.
Riverside Police Chief Larry Gonzalez said that because of the girl’s young age and trauma it will take time to complete their interviews with her and get answers to the many questions surrounding the case, such as whether she was coerced or threatened into leaving with him.
“We don’t believe at this point she had anything to do with the murders,” he said.
At some point, Edwards asked the girl for sexual photos and she stopped communicating with him, Gonzalez said, but detectives don’t yet know when that happened or whether Edwards killed her family in retaliation.
Authorities believe Edwards parked his vehicle in a neighbor’s driveway, walked to the home and killed the family members before leaving with the girl on Friday.
Officials have not yet determined how he entered the home, killed the victims or set the fire.
The bodies found in the Riverside home — about 50 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles in a suburban neighborhood of single-family homes — were identified as the girl’s grandparents and mother: Mark Winek, 69; Sharie Winek, 65; and their 38-year-old daughter, Brooke Winek.
“Nobody could imagine this crime happening to my family, to our family,” said Michelle Blandin, Mark and Sharie’s daughter and Brooke’s sister.
A tearful Blandin said her parents and sister “lived and loved selflessly.” The killing of Brooke, a single parent, means that her daughters — the 15-year-old girl and her 13-yearold sister — are now motherless, Blandin said.
Edwards is a former Virginia state trooper and was a sheriff ’s deputy in Washington County, Virginia, at the time of the killings.