Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - CATFISH Drives Cross-Country to Murder Family of Teen Girl: FAMILY SUES

Episode Date: December 23, 2023

Austin Lee Edwards poses as a 17-year-old boy to talk online with a 15-year-old girl. He then drives across the country to her Riverside home when she stops responding. Edwards parks in a neighbor's driveway and goes inside the Winek home. Edwards kills the girl's mother and grandparents, sets the home on fire, and leaves with the girl. A neighbor calls police after noticing Edwards leading the girl, who "appeared distressed," into his car. Another neighbor also calls 911 after seeing flames coming from the home. When police arrive, Edwards and the girl are gone. Brooke, Sherie, and Mark Winek's bodies are found inside the home; Brooke Winek's other daughter is not home. Police get Edward's license plate from cameras in Winek's neighborhood and track him into the Mojave Desert. A helicopter spots the car and cops pursue Edwards, who fires at the officers. Edwards turns the gun on himself and crashes the car. Now relatives of the Riverside family have filed a lawsuit  against the Virginia sheriff’s office that hired Austin Edwards. Edwards was employed by the Washington County  sheriff’s office.  The teen’s aunt, Mychelle Blandin, claiming the agency did not do its due diligence in hiring Edwards.  . Joining Nancy Grace Today: Darryl Cohen - Former Assistant District Attorney, Fulton County, Georgia, Defense Attorney, Cohen, Cooper, Estep, & Allen, LLC, CCEAlaw.com  Dr. Scott A. Johnson - Forensic Psychologist (Minnesota), 32 years specializing in addressing sexual predators, Author: "When “I Love You” Turns Violent" and "Physical Abusers & Sexual Offenders" Dr. Tim Gallagher - Medical Examiner State of Florida; Lecturer: University of Florida Medical School Forensic Medicine; Founder/Host: International Forensic Medicine Death Investigation Conference  Detective Rich Wistocki: Child crime expert, president of BeSure Consulting for 30 years, decorated member of Law Enforcement, 23-year SWAT team member; Formed the Will County Illinois States Attorney’s High Technology Crimes Unit that made over 90 sexual predator arrests in its first 3 ½ years.   Titania Jordan  - Chief Parenting/Marketing Officer, Bark Technologies, Author: "Parenting In A Tech World;" Instagram/Twitter: @TitaniaJordan, @BarkTechnologies  Kristen Quon - reporter WCYB, @WCYB_Quon   Dave Mack - CrimeOnline Investigative Reporter See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last days, a California family sues the sheriff's office. Why? Because an ex-state trooper, Austin Edwards, catfished a little girl just 15 years old, crossed the country to find her and to get her, murdered the little girl's mother and grandparents. Oh my goodness. You couldn't even make this story up. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories and Sirius XM 111. Austin Lee Edwards, 28, no question about it, murdered Mark Winnick, 69, his wife Cherie, 65, and their 38-year-old daughter, that's the little girl's mom, Brooke Winnick.

Now, he let the little girl, the 15-year-old girl he was catfishing, live, but now she's living without her mother and grandparents. Now, we know a bombshell lawsuit just filed. The little girl's family demanding $100 million. You think that's a lot? Well, listen to these facts. How did the whole thing start? First of all, take a listen to this.

The details will make your heart sink. And the lady next door says she was more like family than a next door neighbor. She had actually just gotten the turkey out of the refrigerator and walked outside for a second, saw the smoke and the flames coming out of the front of the house, mortified and horrified. She called 911. This son of a bitch that did this, he just has no clue what he took away from this world. For more than 20 years, they were next door neighbors and the best kind. Every neighborhood needs a Winnick family because they just were the all-American, loving, caring, supporting family that you can ever ask for. You're hearing our friends at Fox 11 and what she just said, every lead I've got,

every person that's been spoken to agrees. It's the all-American family, the kind on the front of the Hallmark card, scrubbed in sunshine. So why are they all dead in their homes? And to go another step, the home is set on fire. There's a lot of reasons that a home can be set on fire. To Daryl Cohen joining me, high profile lawyer in the Atlanta jurisdiction, former felony prosecutor and one of the biggest murder capitals in the country, now private lawyer, Daryl Cohen, you and I have dealt with a lot of homicides. Many. I don't know how many homicides I either investigated, as we would do before we would ever dream of entering a guilty plea,

took to trial, much less covered. But when you see a murder and the scene is set on fire, that tells me something that this perp is different from every other killer. When you find out, Daryl Cohen, that the perp has set the home on fire in a lovely residential area, what does that tell you before you even open the case file? Two words, Nancy. Cover up. Cover it up. Hope that the fire and the ashes take all of the evidence and put it away where it's not going to be seen by law enforcement, by arson investigators. Exactly. So, you know, immediately when somebody sets the murder scene on fire, they are also staging.

Now, staging doesn't have to mean like in BTK, buying, torture, kill Dennis Rader. He was the dog catcher. OK, strike one. He's a dog catcher. Okay, strike one, he's a dog catcher. He would see his victims, women, girls, on his dog catching route, would go back, rape, torture, murder them. And then he would hang around the house because he knew who would be coming home and when. When would the husband or the dad be coming home from work? He would stay in there and pose the victims. He'd put makeup on them. He'd dress them up in weird outfits. He'd position their bodies. You know, Ted Bundy did that too. He would bathe the dead victims and then do their hair and makeup. That said, that's elaborate staging, but setting the home on fire is also staging.

Anything a perp does to the scene post-mortem is staging, and it gives us a window into who the perp might be. I mean, think about it. Detective Rich Vistocchi joining me, president of Be Sure Consulting, 30 years in law enforcement, including SWAT. Detective, typically when you kill somebody, you want to get out of there. You don't want to be near the dead body. You don't want to be near the scene. You don't want to be seen. You don't want to leave your fingerprints.

But some perps stay to stage the scene. Have you ever seen that? What does that say to you, detective? Yeah, absolutely. A lot of times professional hitmen will use this, but they'll do a lot better job than this guy did. So three dead bodies, the house going up in flames. Take a listen to our friends at NBC4 LA. Nobody could imagine this crime happening to Take a listen to our friends at NBC4 LA.

Nobody could imagine this crime happening to my family, to our family. But the unthinkable did happen to Michelle Blandon's family, her father, Mark Winnick, mother, Sherry, and younger sister, Brooke. The last time she saw them was on Thanksgiving. One day later, Mark, Sherry, and Brooke were found dead inside the Riverside home on Price Court that Michelle grew up in. She was at a store when a longtime friend and neighbor urgently called her in a panic. She called to tell us that we needed to get there as soon as we could because my parents' house was on fire. Riverside police say inside, her father, mother and younger sister had been murdered.

So this girl gets a call to rush home that the home is on fire. I've spoken to a lot of arson victims and there's something about the burning of your home. Thank heaven I have not experienced that. I hope I never do. But there's some feeling that goes through the victim's hearts and minds and soul when they see everything they own in the world and all their memories just going up in flames. Little does this girl know that when she gets back, it's not just the home that she has lost.

She has lost her family as well. So why burn the place up to eradicate the evidence? So why is it so important to get rid of the dead bodies? What do we know about the victims? What do we know about this family? Is there something nefarious going on with them? Is there something that neighbors of 20 years somehow missed? Well, take a listen to this. My sister Brooke was a loving single mom who did her best to raise her two teenage daughters in a loving way. My dad Mark, the silly old man that I referenced him, always referenced him to be, was a soft spoken and humble man who would go out of his way to help a friend or stranger in need. My mom, Sherry, the matriarch of our family, with the biggest giving heart imaginable, did anything and everything for everyone. So you've got the daughter speaking out about each one of her family members.

There's nothing to see. You know, in our line of business, we always think that there's another side to the story. How could the seemingly normal family be the target of a mass killing? What are we missing? Let me go straight out to special guests joining us. Kristen Kwan, WCYB, joining us from Bristol. Kristen, question. What do we know about the area where the fire occurred and the murders. It's my understanding that it's a beautiful residential area. Yes. So it happened in Riverside, Blanfaira South neighborhood, just after 11 a.m. And yeah, it's described as a very, very beautiful area and a nice neighborhood. Kristen Kwan joining me, WCYB Bristol. I heard her say something very interesting to me.

Daryl Cohen, you prosecuted a lot of inner city crimes. I learned after my first jury trial to try to find witnesses after 3 p.m. because all the dopers and all the ne'er-do-wells, all the bad guys typically are up all night and then they sleep. So if I need to find a no good witness, don't even try till after three o'clock. On the other hand, if I want to go find the lady school bus driver or a mom that may have witnessed something in the neighborhood, you can go anytime from 7 a.m. on. But if you want to get a bad guy, they're like vampires. They are up all night and they sleep all day. My point is 11 a.m. triple murder and arson.

That is a little out of the stereotypical pattern of crime. Very different, Nancy, than the normal crime. Very unusual during the middle of the morning or late morning. Too many people can see it. Too many people are driving by haphazardly. It's highly unusual and highly unlikely it would happen. Sadly, it did, and it was heinous. Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Riverside, California has many, many facets to it. What can you tell me about Riverside? All right. Riverside is about an hour and a half southwest of los angeles so it's an area that is very middle class it's got a lot of neighborhoods you know just as we see with this particular one there's nothing uh

extraordinary about riverside i'm not knocking it it's uh just another typical southern california California community. But wait a minute. Three dead bodies in the home. That would be the single mom of two teen girls, the grandparents, her parents. But there's someone missing. Where's the girl? Take a listen to our friends at KCAL 9. He knew what he was doing. He knew what he was doing. Exactly. But thank goodness he made a lot of mistakes. Parking in the driveway.

Having somebody see him. A neighbor took this photo out of her window of the suspect's red car in her driveway, thinking it might have been stolen and dumped here. It was 10.30 in the morning last Friday, minutes before the Winnick's home started burning. The neighbor, who asked not to be named, told me that she saw dressed in a black trench coat and face mask walking with the 15-year-old who lives in the house. They were getting into the red car. She was trying to mouth the words to me, but nothing came girl, the 15-year-old teen girl, being forced out of the home by a guy

wearing a black trench coat and a face mask, crying and barefoot. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last days, a family suing the sheriff's office after an ex-state trooper, Austin Edwards, lures a little girl just turned 15 online. When he crosses the country to go kidnap the little girl, he ends up murdering her mother and both of her grandparents. The victim's family now accuses the Washington County Sheriff's Office of failing to properly investigate Edwards before they hired him. What a mess. How did this whole thing unfold? Out to Kristen Kwan, WCYB Bristol. Kristen, what exactly did the neighbor see? So the neighbor saw him, saw a man with a trench coat on, and he had this girl holding her hand, and he appeared really, really distressed. And that was the reason that she called 911 and she called police.

Now, interesting, Dave Mack, the same woman had noticed a red vehicle and even took a picture of it. What do you know about that? What happened with that, Dave? Well, that actually is what got her really, thank God for a neighbor that's paying attention, okay? Because without her, Nancy, we don't have the answers to this story. Without her, we don't know who lit the house. We don't know anything, actually, without this neighbor.

And not directly next door, a little, a couple houses away. She sees this red car and she mentions she thought maybe somebody had stole it and they just dumped it right there in that driveway. That's why she took the picture. That was her thought. But she paid close enough attention so that they could get the picture of the car. They had a license plate. They had all the information they needed because it didn't belong there. When she sees the girl, okay, the girl was barefoot. And the woman could tell that it looked like she had been crying. So while she says that she didn't make a run for it, well, there was enough other, you know, the way she was acting that the woman knew this is not right.

There is something wrong. So red card should not be parked in my driveway. A girl shouldn't be barefoot walking with another man where she looks like she's frightened. You know what's amazing to me? Joining me is Scott Johnson, forensic psychologist. Joining us out of Minnesota, 32 years in the business, author of When I Love You Turns Violent and Physical Abusers and Sex Offenders. You can find them at ForensicConsultation.org. Scott Johnson, isn't the human mind amazing?

And that is why I always wanted to question witnesses myself, of course, before you put them on the stand, but in depth in a casual setting like in their home or their comfy or their apartment and go through the story very slowly. And you ask questions that may really be irrelevant. Like, what exactly did you see? What were they wearing? Did you see their face?

What was their demeanor? Did they have anything in their hands? Did you see a car nearby? Was anybody else around? Just a million questions. And this woman remembers the teen girl was barefoot and it struck her as odd. Isn't that amazing that she sees a man and a girl walking out of the house and that one thing struck her as odd. Absolutely. And it's the thing that sensory wise her brain picked up on that it just didn't look right. The man's dressed the way he

is. The girl's looking scared and she has no shoes on. And so those things kind of get tattooed in the brain. And thank God that they did notice these things. So for right now, all we've got is red card to go on. That's not helping us a lot. To Dr. Tim Gallagher, joining us, medical examiner for the entire state of Florida. You can find him at PathCareMed.com, lecturer, University of Florida Medical School, and founder of the International Forensic Medicine Death Investigation Conference. I would be in hog heaven at that conference. Dr. Gallagher, it's a misconception that you can burn bodies to the extent there will be no evidence left. Explain.

All right, that's a common misnomer. Actually, sometimes burning the body, you would actually create more evidence. One of the things that we need to know in cases of victims who are in fires is were they killed before the fire was set or did they die as a result of the fire? And by then we can establish a timeline, you know, for certain acts that the suspect may have committed. You know what you're making me think of? Just off the top of my head.

The Teresa Halbach case. She, a 20-something amateur photographer, she was taking photos for the penny pincher type. It was auto, auto trader. That was, you know, there's free little newspapers you get when you go into the grocery store. They're right there at the doors, like penny pincher, auto trader.

She went to the home. You're going to remember this making a murderer. One of the streaming was HBO or Netflix. Thank you. Trying to pretend that Stephen Avery was innocent. Well, let me tell you, her teeth and the studs off the back of her Daisy Fuentes blue jeans were found in a fire pit in his backyard. Anyway, by burning her in the fire pit, he thought he got rid of all the evidence.

But the teeth stayed. What's different about the teeth and the bones dr gallagher well the teeth and bones are created mostly by calcium and calcium is not flammable so everything around it would be incinerated leaving the calcium behind so teeth bones and a lot of the uh even if the person had a medical device within them, for instance, a pacemaker or a breast implant or some kind of other medical device, that would stay behind with the serial number on it. And then we can use that serial number to identify whose remains those are. A lawsuit just filed by a little girl's aunt, Michelle Blandon, and her younger sister claims Austin Edwards was, quote,

unfit to be a sheriff's deputy given his mental health background when he was hired. He's accused of threatening to kill his father during a mental health crisis. He had a psychiatric evaluation. He was put into a treatment facility. The little girl's family says that should have stopped him from buying or possessing a firearm under Virginia law. But the claim in response is he never informed Virginia State Police about the ordeal. Well, will that protect them? All I know right now, three people are dead.

Let me query you with another question. What do three dead bodies and a missing girl have to do with the sale of a home all the way across the country from Riverside, California in Virginia? Take a listen to Ashley Hope, WCYB. According to Smith County Virginia Records, Edwards also recently purchased a home in Saltville from Jacob Gordon. I had the house on the market for just a few hours, and I got a full price offer and was told it was a Virginia State Trooper, and we went from there.

A deed for the property on Allison Gap Road was recorded on November 14th. He was only behind me for about eight days. He was actually very nice accommodating. He offered to help me on my home. After purchasing the home, it appears he blacked out windows and put up dark curtains. I thought it was really weird, and then, of course, the owner told me also that he required that they sent the video of the basement. I mean, he didn't see the property before he purchased it, but he required a video of the basement, which seemed really weird to us.

Okay, let me understand what I just heard. Joining me, Kristen Kwan, WCYB. First of all, where is Smith County, Virginia? Smith County, Virginia is in the southwestern area of Virginia, close to northeast Tennessee, very rural area of Virginia. Very rural area. Now, you know, I'm not a realtor. Daryl Cohen, never been interested in real estate law, although my real estate professor, James Rayburg, scared everybody stiff. But how typical is it? I mean, you've got people within your practice, not you, that deal with real estate closings.

To buy a home, sight unseen, yet you insist on seeing a video of the basement first. Nancy, I've been around a long time. And by the way, Professor Rayburg scared the you-know-what out of me as well. Yeah, his nickname was Death Ray. I would always just look him down. I think he wouldn't call on me. I have eye contact. That should have been his real name, not his nickname.

But for someone to buy a home unseen is at best unlikely. For someone to buy a home unseen and want to see a picture of the basement. Video. What does that tell you? They're up to something that's absolutely bad. It's nefarious. It's unbelievable. And it's got to be on every real estate agent's radar. This ain't right. Yeah, it makes me think of, oh, my son has just gotten into Breaking Bad, where the high school teacher has a meth lab, but it's not in his home, but he has a secret place as he does it. That would be my first thought. They're putting a meth lab down there.

But what about this? So it's a very rural area, and as soon as he buys a home, he blacks out the windows and puts up dark curtains. Is that not ringing any bells of alarm in your minds? Because it sure is mine. So who is this guy? Take a listen again to Ashley Hoke. I asked Gordon if he had many interactions with Edwards. He kept to himself.

He really didn't have a lot to say. I actually invited him to have dinner with me and my family one night and you know he politely declined. Others in the area saying Edwards reportedly visited places in town wearing a trench coat. I guess he had a strange presence about him my wife said so and of course the guy who lived in front of him that I know he said that he had a strange presence about him, my wife said. And, of course, the guy who lived in front of him that I know, he said that he had a very strange presence, that the guy was very weird, creepy, kept in his house, he didn't get out a lot. Short time here, he'd already set off alarms. To Detective Rich Wistocki, joining us 30 years in the business, now an expert, Detective Wistocki, question to you.

How many times has the victim or witness said i don't know what it was it was just something weird about him many times is unbelievable to me that especially when we talk about in my presentations with moms moms are never wrong god has given moms a sense of protecting their children. And sometimes the mistakes that patrol officers make when they're going to these calls and taking the report is that they doubt what the feeling is of people around the area and especially moms. So I always make it a point when I train my police officers in cyber crime that never discount what the mom says or somebody that's been out in the neighborhood is

retired and watches everything that goes on because they're a great wealth of information because they know when something's out of place. And you're hearing the voice of a seasoned detective. So you know that these witnesses are talking about an individual that ultimately ends up to be a perpetrator. So Scott Johnson joining me, forensic psychologist joining us out of Minnesota and author. Scott, I've theorized about this many, many times that I'm just a JD. You're the shrink. And I mean that in a loving and caring way. There's something, and I really believe it's not just a hunch. It's something born over thousands and thousands of

years of evolution. Possibly something we ourselves don't realize that we're picking up on. Maybe a look in the eye, maybe a wrong word, a demeanor. But very often I get a sense about someone as do the majority of my witnesses that I have dealt with. They get a vibe, as my daughter calls it. What is that? Right. And it's noticing, again, something that's just out of the ordinary and therefore it stands out in the brain. We expect a certain person to act a certain way in a certain situation. And yet we don't see that we see something different.

And so it stands out as odd and it kind of bothers us. But we're not always sure what to do with it. Yeah, because we don't really understand where we're getting the information, why we feel that way. How many times, Jack, have you said, okay, something's not right. There's something wrong with him. And it usually is a him. Sorry, guys. Often. So you've got this guy all the way over in Virginia, as our new friend Kristen Kwan has told us, very rural area near the Virginia-Tennessee line, blacking out his windows, getting a video of the basement, buying the house full price, sight unseen. What does that have to do with three dead bodies and a house on fire?

Take a listen to Tony Shin, NBC4. Catfishing led to the deaths of the three most important people in my life. My dad, my mom, and my sister. Which is why Michelle is pleading with parents to talk to their kids about this tragedy. So hopefully it won't happen to anyone else's family. He was a sheriff's deputy in Virginia but he developed an inappropriate online relationship with a 15 year old girl here in Riverside. Authorities say he drove across the country to meet her and then eventually murdered three members of family. Catfishing. Catfishing. You got this guy all the way in Virginia. You got three dead people and a missing teen girl in Riverside, California.

Catfishing. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. What a tragedy. This little girl, already living through hell, no longer has her mother or grandparents. In the last days, a multimillion dollar bombshell lawsuit. But on what is it based? Joining me right now, special guest to Tanya Jordan, chief parenting and marketing officer at Bark Technology. I've got Bark. I'm not a paid spokesperson, not getting a dime out of it, but I've got it on my phone and so does my husband. She's the author of Parenting in a Tech World. To Tanya, what is catfishing? It's a call for term for an activity that's been around as

long as there's been an internet, namely pretending to be somebody else online. And it's gut-wrenching to hear this story and even more gut-wrenching to know that at BARC, we're sending alerts daily around predatory behavior, risky contact, sextortion. In many cases, we have to notify major entities like NCMEC, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. What exactly is it?

What exactly is catfishing? Yes. It's the act of creating a false identity and then interacting with somebody for a specific purpose, usually to lure them into some sort of relationship. It can include mild flirting all the way to years-long partnerships. And the catch is that these people have never and will never meet them in real life except for in rare unfortunate circumstances like the one we're talking about today. It happens so often.

I've got 20 pages of similar transactions right in front of me. And we saw it most recently in the Delphi double murder of Libby and Abby where a catfisher, a pudgy guy that lived in his mom's basement, was using a Justin Bieber lookalike photo to lure young girls, including Libby and Abby, meet up with them, get naked photos of them. It was a monkey wrench thrown in the entire double homicide investigation. Catfishing is happening all the time. And Titania Jordan just told you what it is. But what does it have to do with this case? Virginia State Police tell us the suspected shooter served as a trooper right here in Metro Richmond for about 10 months

before he resigned in October. And then he got a job in the Washington County Sheriff's Office. They tell me they hired him on November 16th, just 10 days before this triple murder. Austin Lee Edwards, Division One, Henrico. CBS 6 covered Edwards' graduation from the Virginia State Police Academy back in January. A spokesperson says he was hired and entered into the academy in July 2021 and was assigned to cover Henrico County when he graduated. And guys, you were just hearing our friends at WTVR. Now, take a listen to Tony Shin. Investigators say this is the man who took their lives,

28-year-old Austin Lee Edwards, a law enforcement officer from Virginia, who police say used a fake Internet profile to appear to be a 17-year-old boy so he could have an online relationship with Brooke's 15-year-old daughter. It's a method of Internet deception called catfishing. He took an oath to protect, and yet he failed to do so. Instead, he preyed on the most vulnerable. Investigators say after killing the Winnick family, Edwards set the home on fire and took the teenage girl with him. To Tanya Jordan joining us, Chief Parenting Officer at Bark Technology.

Once the catfisher starts talking to the girl, the girl, the young girl thinks he's 16, 17 years old. He then befriends her enough online to get valuable information like phone number and home address. Of course, sometimes people post photos that have their home address in the background, like they're in their front yard, and you can see maybe their car or their home. Why is it important to never give out your home address or where you work or any personal information like that to somebody you don't know. I mean, you outlined it clearly, but for everybody that has only been half listening and you are listening right now, pay attention. Pay attention to this. Your children need to know that the people they're talking to online aren't necessarily

who they say they are. They can be tricky people. These are adults who are highly skilled in one thing, and that is tricking them. And they can be the smartest, most loved, brilliant children on the planet, and they can still get tricked. Your children need to feel comfortable telling you about who they talk to online. Without ramification of doing so, you need to stay calm, and they need to know that this is out there and that you are the safe place. To Detective Rich Ristocki, this is your belly wick.

How do you tell your children without scaring them, what is catfishing? I mean, I just say to my son, who are you playing with? And he says, so-and-so. I'm like, who else? He goes, some other kid. I'm like, how do you know it's not like a 65-year-old guy in his underwear in New Jersey? And you're playing with him online. Don't give him your location or your real name.

How do you tell them without scaring them, detective? So I teach about 100,000 kids a year and we talk about this in depth. I give them a sure way how you can never be catfished. So we talk about five factors of authentication. If you can't tell me their first name, their last name, their phone number, where they go to school and where they live, based on what you know to be true physically, everyone else online is a liar. So then I asked the kids, how many webcams do you have at your disposal? They'll have a webcam on their Chromebook, their iPad, their desktop, their tablet, and their phone.

So if you are talking to someone that you really have not verified who they are and they're asking for personal information, with parent or guardian permission, tell them, hey, let's go to webcam. I just want to make sure you're not catfishing me and I want to make sure you are who you say you are. Well, I tell, Detective, I tell the children, it's usually my son, he can't play with anybody online that he doesn't know in real life. He's never met.

And I think it's working. So that leads me to, Detective, where's the girl? The last we heard of her, she's being taken out of the house by the guy wearing a trench coat. And she's barefoot. The search is on for a red car. Take a listen to Rick Chambers, KTLA. He murdered the girl's mother, Brooke, and the girl's grandparents,

Mark and Sherry Winnick, and then set the fire. As he dragged the struggling teen to his car, neighbors noticed that commotion and called police. But by the time they arrived, the home was burning and Edwards was already driving back east. But about two hours after the murders, police spotted Edwards' red car on Highway 247. SWAT units were called in and a pursuit began. Along Route 62 in Kelso, though, Edwards began shooting at the SWAT vehicle. OK, so this guy not only has taken the girl, murdered her entire family, but now he's shooting at cops.

Take a listen to Fox 11. Parked in another neighbor's driveway, they left. That woman who described the girl as in distress gave police his license plate. Officers tracked them down halfway to Vegas and say during the pursuit, Edwards lost control while shooting at police and their chopper. The girl managed to escape to safety and police returned fire. Edwards had worked for two law enforcement departments in Virginia with no priors or marks against his name. So this guy has a gun and is brazen enough to shoot at cops. Scott Johnson, that tells me he's willing to kill again, even shooting at cops. He's already killed three people in order to get this girl back to his lair in Virginia

with the blacked out windows and the heavy curtains. He's willing to kill to have sex with a 15 year old girl. Right. And, you know, this psychopathic traits, you know, the minimal, if any, anxiety or fear. You know, they really just don't care about tomorrow. They care about today. And so, you know, to take the risk of being shot and killed, it just it didn't matter to him. And he just didn't care. It was about the power, the control, the fantasy of having this victim back in isolation in Virginia. And the rest just didn't matter to him. Detective Rich Wistocki joining us. And this is a guy that's in law enforcement.

He's been in a jail before. You know, the first time I ever went in Fulton County Jail, when I walked out into the parking lot, and it was a very bleak asphalt parking lot, it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Just to get out of that jail. This guy knows the consequences. Wistocki?

Absolutely. So I've arrested over 300 of these internet predators. And it's Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker. It can be firefighters, police, attorneys, doctors. It is always a secret life that nobody knows about. And until we hit that door with a search warrant, then the cat's out of the bag. Or in this case, when he goes so far and does these unbelievable, horrible acts, now he knows he's found out. I mean, Titania Jordan joining us from

Bark. You can find her at Bark.us. Titania, children, and I think their parents, have no idea what the children are up against. The level of deceit, the level of cunning, the brazen character of these online predators. This guy has already killed three that we know of and willing to kill cops to get this girl alone in that blacked out basement. It's disgusting. It's angering. You know, the catfish knowingly uses flattery and emotional manipulation as an adult against children to kickstart a connection and then nurtures it steadily. It can happen to any one of us. You know, Detective Rich Wistocki says so many times, not my kid, not my kid. It absolutely can be your kid. It could be my kid. Daryl Cohen joining me, former felony

prosecutor, now civil attorney. Daryl, you and I spent way too much time in the Fulton County Jail. Once you've been in that place, you never, you never want to go to jail ever. But this guy is so driven by his demons, he'll do anything to get this girl. Nancy, once you've spent one minute in the Fulton County Jail, that's one minute too long. It's horrible. And it is indicative of so many jails. This guy, yes, he is crazed. Yes, he is evil. Yes, he is wrong. And it's hard to look into his mind. Well, you may be happy to know that when he opened fire on the cops, they shot him dead. But this girl has a lifetime sentence of pain.

Nancy Grace Crum Story signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.