A murderous ‘catfish’ police officer ordered a teenager to pose as his daughter after brutally murdering her mother and grandparents, a shock lawsuit claims.
Chilling new details have emerged about the gruesome 2022 triple murder of a California family in which Virginia sheriff’s deputy Austin Lee Edwards murdered the family of a teenage girl he met online before turning the gun on himself .
The victims, Brooke Winek, 38, the unnamed girl’s mother, and her grandparents Mark and Sharie Winek, 69 and 65 respectively, were stabbed and suffocated by the officer before he doused their home with gasoline.
According to a new lawsuit filed by the teen, he then kidnapped his ex-online “girlfriend” and ordered her to pose as his daughter during a cross-country flight, according to the LA times.
The officer also allegedly admitted to lying about his troubling criminal history when he became a cop, saying they “needed to have a better background.”
The lawsuit seeks more than $50 million, claiming the tragedy could have been avoided if Edwards’ hiring process had been properly conducted.
Former Virginia State Trooper Austin Lee Edwards, 28, (pictured) who caught a 15-year-old girl and then killed three members of her family by gaining access to their California home by pretending to be a detective
After the teenage girl ended their online relationship, Edwards drove to her home and killed her grandparents Mark Winek, 69, and Sharie Winek, 65, (left), as well as the girl’s mother, Brooke Winek, 38 (right).
The teen’s lawsuit is being filed against Edwards’ former employer, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, as well as the sheriff and the investigator who reviewed his application.
It is the second such lawsuit in as many months, after a member of the Winek family filed a lawsuit in December also alleging negligent hiring practices and seeking more than $100 million in damages.
The twisted saga began in the summer of 2022, when Edwards, 28, who lived in Virginia, started talking to the 15-year-old Californian online.
He claimed he was 17, showered her with gifts, money, jewelry and food deliveries, and the two dated online for several months — until the arrangement turned ugly.
Edwards pressured her to send him nude photos, and she broke up with him shortly after Halloween. Despite blocking the creepy catfish on Instagram, he found her address and sent a twisted suicide note.
He had previously been arrested in February 2016 after cutting himself and threatening to kill his father, who told investigators the episode was caused by problems with his then-girlfriend.
Although he received two custody orders, a stay in a mental institution and the revocation of his gun rights, the arrest did not stop the Washington County Sheriff’s Office from hiring him three years later.
The teen’s attorney, Scott Perry, told the LA Times that Edwards’ past went unnoticed because hiring officials reportedly failed to interview most of his references or conduct proper background checks.
One of those references was Edwards’ father, who was never called about his son because he was reportedly too close to the applicant to give an honest assessment.
Edwards traveled more than 2,000 miles from his home in Virginia to meet the unnamed teenage girl at her home in Riverside, California
The house where the Wineks lived was set on fire. Emergency services found the three bodies lying in the front entrance, with stab wounds and bags tied around their heads
Part of the roof of the parental home burned down during the fire
Edwards, 28, posed as a 17-year-old online to lure the teenager. He had previously threatened to kill his father and spent time in a mental institution, problems that reportedly should have prevented him from being hired
If they had, the mental health orders and revocation of his gun rights would have immediately prevented him from becoming a cop, the lawsuit alleges.
“The Washington County Sheriff’s Office gave Austin Lee Edwards a gun and a badge and enveloped him in the authority of the law,” Perry said in a statement.
“He used these things to gain access to the Winek house and commit these atrocities. We will prove that an adequate investigation into Edwards’ background could have prevented this tragedy.”
After the teen broke up with Edwards, he soon after drove from his home in Virginia to track her down in Riverside, California, with sickening new details in the lawsuit alleging he used his law enforcement status to carry out the crime .
The teen had spent the night before with her younger sister, mother and mother’s boyfriend at his apartment, and was not home when Edwards pulled up to the home they shared with her grandparents.
He allegedly told the grandparents that he was investigating a case involving the girl and told them to call the teen’s mother, Brooke, and bring her back home quickly.
Brooke went inside leaving her daughter in the car, before the teen became suspicious when she didn’t see her mother’s dog in the window, where he always sat when someone was in the house.
Brooke was described as a loving single mother of two teenage daughters
Mark Winek (photo) was the girls softball coach at Arlington High School for many years
She finally decided to enter the house, but was quickly grabbed by the hair by Edwards as soon as she opened the door – before she saw the horror inside.
The girl’s mother had her throat slit and died of a stab wound to her spinal cord, and both grandparents were bound with bags over their heads, the lawsuit said.
According to their coroner’s report, they died of asphyxiation. One of them was still moving when the ex-trooper set the house on fire, the kidnapped girl said.
As she started screaming, the deputy barked at her to stop — and that’s when she says she recognized his voice as the man who had attacked her months ago.
“Are you going to hurt me?” she asked.
“I will if you keep shouting,” he replied.
With a gun pointed at her, he dragged the girl through her house while wielding a gas canister. Edwards systematically doused each room with gasoline and set them on fire, opening windows and doors to spread the flames.
He dragged her to his red Kia Soul and put it in the backseat, which was seen by a neighbor who reported it to 911. Another neighbor also called emergency services after seeing the house go up in flames.
The new lawsuit alleges that when they fled, Edwards ordered her to pose as his daughter if anyone asked, and said he would take her back to Virginia.
He drove with a gun pointed at her and told her that her family should die because they “would have reported it,” preventing him from making a quick escape.
The lawsuit against the girl alleges that he told her in the car that he was a police officer, but that agencies “need to do better background work” because he “lied” on his application.
Edwards explained his plan to drive her through a number of states before keeping her in his recently purchased home in Virginia, which he had customized with blacked-out windows.
Records show that Austin Lee Edwards bought this home in Saltville, Virginia, 11 days before he murdered three people in Southern California, which he had customized with blacked-out windows.
At the same time, Riverside police tracked Edwards through surveillance footage and discovered he was in the Mojave Desert, prompting San Bernadino County officers to run after him.
The kidnapping turned into a frantic chase by desert police, with Edwards firing his gun past the girl in the backseat as she was doused with gasoline by the gas canister on the seat next to her.
At one point during the chase, Edwards’ Kia Soul went off the road and became stuck on rocks under a bridge, allowing police to quickly catch up with him and the teen.
As police approached, Edwards grabbed his police-issued weapon and shot himself in the head.
Although the girl was physically unharmed, the harrowing experience alleged in the lawsuit eventually led her to file a complaint with the police Edwards hired.
Perry said the lawsuit will seek at least $50 million in damages, arguing that the ordeal could have easily been avoided if his references had been checked or a background check conducted.
It alleged, among other things, violation of her Fourth Amendment rights, false imprisonment, negligent hiring, assault and battery.