He told her he was 17, just a few months shy of 18. In reality, the “boy” she had been talking to was a 28-year-old sheriff’s deputy from Virginia named Austin Lee Edwards. “The Washington County’s Sheriff’s office gave Austin Lee Edwards a gun, a badge and cloaked him with the authority of the law,” Perry said in a statement. …
Mychelle Blandin was getting ready to buy Christmas lights when her mother called in a panic. Blandin was still shopping when one of her parents’ neighbors saw a man walking down Price Court in a tan trench coat and black fedora. Around the same time the red Kia peeled out of Price Court, Blandin looked down at her phone and …
The burned Riverside home where the bodies of three people were found Friday. He said it wasn’t immediately clear whether she was threatened or coerced by Edwards, but investigators are reviewing the “digital crime scene” and conducting interviews. Corinne Geller, the state police spokesperson, said that during Edwards’ 15-month tenure at the agency, he “never exhibited any behaviors to trigger …
A woman looks at a memorial for three people whose bodies were found inside the burning Riverside home on Friday. “Detectives determined Edwards had met the female teenager through the common form of online deception known as ‘catfishing,’ where someone pretends to be a different person than they actually are,” authorities said in the release. Edwards completed training with the …
