Police: Deputy posed as teen online to lure California girl

By AMY TAXIN and STEFANIE DAZIO
Associated Press

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — 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 country and killing her mother and grandparents and setting fire to their home. Police say 28-year-old Austin Lee Edwards left with the teenager Friday and was killed in a shootout with law enforcement hours later. Family members and authorities said Wednesday that the girl is now in trauma counseling. The bodies were identified as Mark and Sharie Winek and their daughter Brooke Winek. Police say Edwards met the girl online and obtained her information by deceiving her with a false identity, known as “catfishing.”