U.S. deputy who catfished teen, killed her family was on psych hold in 2016
CTV
A Virginia sheriff's deputy who killed the family members of a 15-year-old California girl he tried to sexually extort online had been detained in 2016 for a psychiatric evaluation over threats to kill himself and his father, years before he joined law enforcement, according to a police report.
A Virginia sheriff's deputy who killed the family members of a 15-year-old California girl he tried to sexually extort online had been detained in 2016 for a psychiatric evaluation over threats to kill himself and his father, years before he joined law enforcement, according to a police report.
That raises new questions about how the man was hired by the Virginia State Police and later by a Virginia sheriff's office without any red flags. The mental health episode, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, is described in a police report released by the Abingdon Police Department in response to a public records request.
Both law enforcement agencies have said they found no warning signs about Austin Lee Edwards, 28, before he was hired. But the Virginia State Police said Thursday that a recently completed review shows "human error" resulted in an incomplete database query during the hiring process.
Authorities in California have said Edwards posed online as a 17-year-old boy while communicating with the girl, a form of deception known as "catfishing." He asked her to send nude photos of herself, and she stopped communicating with him.
He drove across the country and on Nov. 25 killed the girl's mother and grandparents, then set fire to their home in Riverside, a city about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
Edwards died by suicide during a shootout with San Bernardino sheriff's deputies the same day. The girl was rescued. Family members and police said last week that she is in counseling for trauma.
A report written by police in Abingdon, Virginia, near the Tennessee border, describes a mental health episode in February 2016, when Edwards was 21.
