Police fatally shoot man accused of killing family of teen he ‘catfished’
Police in Riverside, Calif., were responding to a call about a teenage girl who “appeared distressed” while getting into a car with a man Friday morning when reports began rolling in about a house fire on the same street.
By the time firefighters arrived, the teenager and the red Kia Soul she had gotten into were gone. Meanwhile, a blaze was raging on the first floor of the home, where the firefighters soon found three adults lying dead in the entryway, according to a news release from the Riverside Police Department.
Police are investigating the case as a triple homicide. The victims — 65-year-old Sharie Winek; her husband, 69-year-old Mark Winek; and their daughter, 38-year-old Brooke Winek — were the grandparents and mother of the teen, who also lived in the home. Law enforcement officials identified the suspect as 28-year-old Austin Lee Edwards, a former Virginia State Police trooper who lived in North Chesterfield, Va.
Hours after firefighters discovered the bodies, Edwards was killed in a shootout with officers. The teenage girl, who had been inside Edwards’s vehicle, was not physically harmed. Read more