Family members of three slain Riverside residents two grandparents and a single mom implored parents to protect their children after a Virginia cop catfished and "groomed" a 15-year-old daughter of one of the victims, killed her family and set fire to their home.
Austin Lee Edwards, 28, a sheriff’s deputy in Virginia, posed online as a 17-year-old, asked for nude photos and drove across the country to California, where he killed the girl’s mother and grandparents.
Authorities are investigating whether a Virginia sheriff’s deputy posed as a 17-year-old boy online to groom and sexually extort a teenage girl in California before driving across the country and killing her mother and grandparents and setting fire to their home.
The Chesterfield man met the girl online and obtained her personal information by deceiving her with a false identity, known as “catfishing,” police said.