Following a law enforcement chase, the Virginia state trooper accused of “catfishing” a 15-year-old girl and then killing three members of her family fatally shot himself with his own service weapon.
Austin Lee Edwards, who posed as a 17-year-old boy online to solicit nude photographs from the teen, killed himself in late November during a shootout with San Bernardino sheriff’s deputies.
“Detectives determined the gun used was Edwards’ department-issued semi-automatic service pistol,” the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said Friday in an email to the Los Angeles Times.
Edwards traveled across the country from Virginia to the teen’s Riverside home. Authorities claim that after killing the girl’s mother and grandparents, he set fire to her home and fled with the girl, eventually killing himself.
After it was revealed that Edward had been detained in 2016 for a psychiatric evaluation for threats to kill his father and himself, Virginia State Police said this week that his hiring was the result of “human error.”
source:summarybio.com
