A policeman groomed a minor online, killed three of her family members, then set fire to their house and escaped with the girl, before being fatally shot in a firefight with his colleagues. The US media write it, referring to the investigative hypothesis that the investigators in California are working on.
The suspected perpetrator of this criminal action is Austin Lee Edwards, 28, a Virginia agent until last month and recently hired as a deputy sheriff in the same state. According to the reconstruction of the investigators, the policeman met the teenager online and obtained her personal information by deceiving her with a false identity, a device known as ‘catfishing’. Then he would have crossed the country by car, from Virginia to California, killing the grandparents and the mother of the girl and then fleeing with her. But first he probably set fire to their house. A few hours later the police identified his car in the county of San Bernardino, with the minor and Edwards on board. The latter fired a few shots but was killed in the collision with the agents.
