Austin Lee Edwards: Disturbing new details show 'catfishing' cop had history of 'grooming' teens online
RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA: The Virginia trooper, who catfished a 15-year-old southern California girl and kidnapped her before murdering her three family members and ending his own life had a history of grooming children, as per Daily Mail. Austin Lee Edwards, 28, posed as a 17-year-old and drove across the country to the girl's Riverside home where he murdered Mark Winek, 69, his wife, Sharie Winek, 65, and their 38-year-old daughter, Brooke Winek, on November 25, 2022. He then allegedly set the house on fire before kidnapping Brooke's 15-year-old daughter.
Moreover, Edwards shot himself during a high-speed chase followed by a shootout with a SWAT team. However, the 15-year-old girl was unharmed during the shootout. New insights into Edwards' past life revealed he had reportedly groomed an underage girl he met online almost a decade ago while threatening her with violence to share explicit photos when she was 13 and he was 20. The woman even showed over 4000 deeply disturbing messages sent by Edwards, before she decided to cut him off.
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The unnamed woman and Edwards reportedly met on the platform Omegle, which randomly pairs users to communicate. Edwards once even suggested meeting up with the girl claiming he found a round-trip ticket to her unnamed state for $263, according to The Los Angeles Times. In one text, when the young girl told Edwards she could not talk on Skype because her mother was present, he reportedly replied, "Kill her." The girl claimed that Edwards would self-harm and tell her she was his only reason for living. However, the woman blocked him in September of that year, but he repeatedly tried to contact her again until 2020.
The woman further added that she was shocked to learn he had been accepted as a state trooper considering his long history of mental instability. "This guy stalked me and groomed me when I was a child," she said. "I felt so sick seeing his face because I hadn't seen it in years. I read the whole story and it made me feel disgusting," reported Daily Mail. "It's just crazy that he was able to become a cop with me knowing his mental health issues." "I don't understand how he got past everything because it was so prominent to me that he had so many issues just from talking to him in that time period," she added.
The woman went on to say that she wasn't "surprised at all" when he told Brooke Winek's daughter he was 17 years old. "I knew how scary he was," she said, recalling how he would threaten violence if she refused to share nude pictures. "That's when I realised he was not mentally stable," she said. She further added, "Austin was really good at manipulating people." She later learned that Edwards had killed the Riverside family because she "knew how scary he was." "I'm sure that the people who knew him in person had no idea how old [the Riverside teenager] actually was."
A GoFundMe has been opened for the Winek family and has raised over $88,000 as of December 11, dedicated to supporting the two surviving teenage girls. "Mark Winek was a loving Father, Grandfather, Uncle, Brother, and Coach at Arlington High School. Sharie Winek was a sweet and caring Mother, Grandmother, Sister, and Aunt who cherished spending time with her family," the page read. "Brooke Winek was a beloved single mother with the biggest heart and found her most immense joy in following her daughter in the Color Guard at Arlington High School." "The proceeds from this GoFundMe will help cover the ongoing support of the two teenage daughters, who lost their mother and need future care."