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

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
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Speaker 2: In the last days, the California family sues the Sheriff's office.
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Speaker 2: Why because an ex state trooper, Austin Edwards, catfished a
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Speaker 2: little girl just fifteen years old, crossed the country to
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Speaker 2: find her and to get her murdered the little girl's
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Speaker 2: mother and grandparents. Oh my goodness, you couldn't even make
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Speaker 2: this story up. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.
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Speaker 2: Thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories
0:46
Speaker 2: and Serious xem one eleven. Austin Lee Edwards, twenty eight,
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Speaker 2: no question about it, murdered Mark Winnick sixty nine, his wife,
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Speaker 2: Cherie sixty five, and their thirty eight year old daughter.
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Speaker 1: That's the little.
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Speaker 2: Girl's mom, Brooke Winnock. Now he let the little girl,
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Speaker 2: the fifteen year old girl he was catfishing, live, but
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Speaker 2: now she's living without her mother and grandparents. Now we
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Speaker 2: know a bombshell lawsuit just filed the little girl's family
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Speaker 2: demanding one hundred million dollars. You think that's a lot, Well,
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Speaker 2: listen to these facts. How did the whole thing start?
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Speaker 2: First of all, take a listen to this.
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Speaker 3: The details will make your heart sink. And the lady
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Speaker 3: next door says she was more like family than a
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Speaker 3: next door neighbor. She had actually just gotten the turkey
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Speaker 3: out of refrigerator and walked outside for a second, saw
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Speaker 3: the smoke and the flames coming out of the front
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Speaker 3: of the house. Mortified and horrified, she called nine one one.
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Speaker 4: This son of a this he just has no clue
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Speaker 4: what he took away from this world.
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Speaker 3: For more than twenty years, they were next door neighbors
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Speaker 3: and the best kind.
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Speaker 4: Every neighborhood needs a winning family because they just were
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Speaker 4: the all American, loving, caring, supporting family that you can
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Speaker 4: ever ask for.
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Speaker 2: You're hearing our friends at Fox eleven and what she
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Speaker 2: just said. Every lead I've got, every person that's been
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Speaker 2: spoken to, agrees it's the all American family, the kind
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Speaker 2: on the front of the Hallmark card, scrubbed and sunshine.
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Speaker 2: So why are they all dead in their homes? And
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Speaker 2: to go another step, the home is set on fire.
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Speaker 2: There's a lot of reasons that a home can be
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Speaker 2: set on fire. To Daryl Cohen joining me, high profile
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Speaker 2: lawyer in the Atlanta jurisdiction, former felony prosecutor and one
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Speaker 2: of the biggest murder capitals in the country. Now private
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Speaker 2: lawyer Gerald Cohen, you and I have dealt with a
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Speaker 2: lot of homicides, Minnie. I don't know how many homicides
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Speaker 2: I either investigated as we would do before we would
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Speaker 2: ever dream of entering and guilty plea took to trial
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Speaker 2: much less covered. But when you see a murder and
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Speaker 2: the scene is set on fire, that tells me something
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Speaker 2: that this purp is different from every other killer. When
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Speaker 2: you find out, Daryl Cohen, that the purpose set the
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Speaker 2: home on fire in a lovely residential area, what does
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Speaker 2: that tell you before you even open the case file.
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Speaker 5: Two words Nancy up, cover it up. Hope that the
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Speaker 5: fire and the ashes take all of the evidence and
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Speaker 5: put it away where it's not going to be seen
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Speaker 5: by law enforcement, by arson investigators exactly.
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Speaker 2: So you know immediately when somebody sets the murder scene
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Speaker 2: on fire, they are also staging. Now, staging doesn't have
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Speaker 2: to mean like in BTK, buying torture killed Dennis Raider.
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Speaker 2: He was the dogcatcher. Okay, straight one. He's a dog catcher.
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Speaker 2: He would see his victims women girls on his dog
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Speaker 2: catching route, would go back, rape, torture, murder them, and
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Speaker 2: then he would hang around the house because he knew
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Speaker 2: who would be coming home and when when with the
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Speaker 2: husband or the dad be coming home from work. He
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Speaker 2: would stay in there and pose the victims. He'd put
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Speaker 2: makeup on them, he'd dress them up and weird outfits.
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Speaker 2: He'd position their bodies. You know, Ted Bundy did that too.
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Speaker 2: He would bathe the dead victims and then do their
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Speaker 2: hair and makeup. That said, that's elaborate stage, but setting
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Speaker 2: the home on fire is also staging. Anything a purp
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Speaker 2: does to the scene post mortem is staging, and it
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Speaker 2: gives us a window into who the purp might be.
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Speaker 2: I mean, think about it. Detective rich Ward Stocky joining me,
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Speaker 2: President of be Sure Consulting thirty years in law enforcement,
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Speaker 2: including swat detective. Typically, when you kill somebody, you want
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Speaker 2: to get out of there. You don't want to be
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Speaker 2: near the dead body, you don't want to be the scene,
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Speaker 2: near the scene, you don't want to be seen, you
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Speaker 2: don't want to leave your fingerprints. But some perps stay
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Speaker 2: to stage the scene. Have you ever seen that? What
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Speaker 2: does that say to you? Detective?
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Speaker 6: Yeah?
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Speaker 7: Absolutely.
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Speaker 8: A lot of times professional hitmen will use this, but
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Speaker 8: they'll do a lot better job than this guy did.
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Speaker 2: So three dead bodies, the house going up in flames.
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Speaker 2: Take a listener our friends at NBC four.
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Speaker 9: Nobody could imagine this crime happening to my.
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Speaker 10: Family, to our family, But the unthinkable did happen to
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Speaker 10: Michelle Blanden's family. Her father, Mark Winnick, mother Sherry, and
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Speaker 10: younger sister Brooke. The last time she saw them was
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Speaker 10: on Thanksgiving. One day later, Mark, Sherry, and Brooke were
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Speaker 10: found dead inside the Riverside home on Price Court that
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Speaker 10: Michelle grew up in. She was at a store when
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Speaker 10: a longtime friend and neighbor urgently called her in a panic.
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Speaker 2: She called to tell.
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Speaker 9: Us that we needed to get there as soon as
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Speaker 9: we could because my parents' house was on fire.
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Speaker 10: Riverside police say inside her father, mother, and younger sister
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Speaker 10: had been murdered.
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Speaker 2: So this girl gets a call to rush home that
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Speaker 2: the home is on fire. I've spoken to a lot
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Speaker 2: of arson victims, and there's something about the burning of
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Speaker 2: your home. Thank Heaven, I have not experienced that. I
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Speaker 2: hope I never do. But there's some feeling that goes
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Speaker 2: through the victims' hearts and minds and soul when they
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Speaker 2: see everything they own in the world and all their
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Speaker 2: memories just going up in flames. Little does this girl
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Speaker 2: know that when she gets back, it's not just the
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Speaker 2: home that she has lost, she has lost her family
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Speaker 2: as well. So why burn the place up to eradicate
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Speaker 2: the evidence? So why is it so important to get
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Speaker 2: rid of the dead bodies? What do we know about
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Speaker 2: the victims? What do we know about this family? Is
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Speaker 2: there something the fary is going on with them? Is
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Speaker 2: there something that neighbors of twenty years somehow missed? Well,
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Speaker 2: take a listen to this.
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Speaker 9: My sister Brooke was a loving single mom who did
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Speaker 9: her best to raise her two teenage daughters in a
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Speaker 9: loving way. My dad, Mark, the silly old man that
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Speaker 9: I referenced him, always reference him to be, was a
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Speaker 9: soft spoken and humble man who would go out of
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Speaker 9: his way to help a friend or stranger in need.
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Speaker 9: My mom, Sherry, the matriarch of our family, with the
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Speaker 9: biggest giving heart imaginable, did anything and everything for everyone.
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Speaker 2: So you've got the daughter speaking out about each one
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Speaker 2: of her family members. There's nothing to see, you know.
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Speaker 2: In our line of business, we always think that there's
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Speaker 2: another side to the story. How could this seemingly normal
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Speaker 2: family be the target of a mass killing. What are
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Speaker 2: we missing? Let me go straight out to special guests
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Speaker 2: joining us Kristin Kwan, do we see YB joining us
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Speaker 2: from Bristol. Kristin question, what do we know about the
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Speaker 2: area where the fire occurred and the murders. It's my
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Speaker 2: understanding that it's a beautiful residential area.
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Speaker 11: Yes, so it happened in Riverside Blosser, a South neighborhood,
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Speaker 11: just after eleven am. And yeah, it's described as a
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Speaker 11: very very beautiful area in a nice neighborhood.
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Speaker 2: Kristen Kwan joining me WCYB, Bristol. I heard her say
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Speaker 2: something very interesting to me, Daryl Cohen, you prosecuted a
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Speaker 2: lot of inner city crimes. I learned after my first
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Speaker 2: jury trial to try to find witnesses after three pm
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Speaker 2: because all the dopers and all the Narra duels, all
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Speaker 2: the bad guys typically are up all night and then
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Speaker 2: they sleep. So if I need to find a no
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Speaker 2: good witness, don't even try till after three o'clock. On
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Speaker 2: the other hand, if I want to go find the
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Speaker 2: lady school bus driver or a that may have witnessed
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Speaker 2: something in the neighborhood, you can go anytime from seven
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Speaker 2: am on. But if you want to get a bad guy,
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Speaker 2: they're like vampires. They are up all night and they
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Speaker 2: sleep all day. My point is eleven a m triple
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Speaker 2: murder and arson. That is a little out of the
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Speaker 2: stereotypical pattern of crime.
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Speaker 5: Very different and so than the normal crime, very unusual
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Speaker 5: during the middle of the morning or late morning. Too
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Speaker 5: many people can see it, too many people are driving
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Speaker 5: by haphazardly. It's highly unusual and highly unlikely it would happen. Sadly,
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Speaker 5: it did, and it was Henus.
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Speaker 2: Dave Matt Crime online dot Com investigative reporter. Riverside, California
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Speaker 2: has many, many facets to it. What can you tell
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Speaker 2: me about Riverside.
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Speaker 6: Riverside is about an hour and a half west southwest
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Speaker 6: of Los Angele List, So it's an area that is
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Speaker 6: very middle class. It's got a lot of neighborhoods, you know,
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Speaker 6: just as we see with this particular one. There's nothing
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Speaker 6: extraordinary about Riverside. Him not knocking it. It's just another
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Speaker 6: typical southern California community.
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Speaker 2: But wait a minute. Three dead bodies in the home.
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Speaker 2: That would be the single mom of two teen girls,
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Speaker 2: the grandparents, her parents. But there's someone missing. Where's the girl?
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Speaker 2: Take a listen to our friends at chacl nine. He
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Speaker 2: knew what he was doing. He knew what he was
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Speaker 2: doing exactly, but thank goodness, he made a lot of
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Speaker 2: mistakes parking in the driveway having somebody see him.
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Speaker 12: A neighbor took this photo out of a window of
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Speaker 12: the suspect's red carn or driveway, thinking it might have
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Speaker 12: been stolen and dumped her. It was ten thirty in
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Speaker 12: the morning last Friday, minutes before the Winnock's home started burning.
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Speaker 12: The neighbor, who asked not to be named, told me
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Speaker 12: that she saw dressed in a black trench coat and
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Speaker 12: face mask walking with the fifteen year old who lives
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Speaker 12: in the house. They were getting into the red car.
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Speaker 12: She was trying to mouth the words to me, but
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Speaker 12: nothing came out. The neighbor said, I looked down and
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Speaker 12: saw she was barefoot. She was crying a little bit.
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Speaker 12: She didn't try to make a run for it. There's
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Speaker 12: a girl, the fifteen year old teen girl being forced
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Speaker 12: out of the home by guy wearing a black trench
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Speaker 12: coat and a face mask, crying and barefoot.
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Speaker 1: Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
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Speaker 2: In the last days, a family suing the Sheriff's office
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Speaker 2: after an ex state trooper, Austin Edwards, lures a little
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Speaker 2: girl just turned fifteen online. When he crosses the country
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Speaker 2: to go kidnap the little girl, he ends up murdering
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Speaker 2: her mother and both of her grandparents. The victim's family
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Speaker 2: now accuses the Washington County Sheriff's Office a failing to
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Speaker 2: properly investigate Edwards before they hired him. What a mess?
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Speaker 2: How did this whole thing unfold?
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Speaker 4: Out?
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Speaker 2: To Kristin Kwan, do you cyb Bristol? Kristin, what exactly
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Speaker 2: did the neighbors see?
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Speaker 7: So the neighbors saw him, saw a man with a
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Speaker 7: trench pot on and he had the schol in her hand,
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Speaker 7: and she appeared really really distressed, and that was the
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Speaker 7: reason that she called nine one one, she called police.
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Speaker 2: Now, interesting, Daves mac the same woman had noticed a
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Speaker 2: red vehicle and even took a picture of it. What
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Speaker 2: do you know about that? What happened with that? Dave?
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Speaker 6: Well, that actually is what got her.
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Speaker 5: Really.
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Speaker 6: Thank God for a neighbor that's paying attention, Okay, because
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Speaker 6: without her, Nancy, we don't have the answers to this story.
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Speaker 6: Without her, we don't know who.
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Speaker 7: Let the house.
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Speaker 6: We don't know anything actually without this neighbor and not
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Speaker 6: directly next door, a little a couple of houses away,
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Speaker 6: she seesed this red car and she mentioned she thought
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Speaker 6: maybe somebody had stole it and they just dumped it
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Speaker 6: right there in that driveway. That's why she took the picture.
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Speaker 6: That was her thought. But she paid close enough attention
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Speaker 6: so that they could get the picture of the car.
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Speaker 6: They had a license plate, They had all the information
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Speaker 6: they needed because it didn't belong to there. When she
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Speaker 6: sees bill girl, Okay, the girl was barefoot, and she
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Speaker 6: the woman could tell that it looked like she had
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Speaker 6: been crying. So while she says that she didn't make
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Speaker 6: a run for it, well there was enough other you know,
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Speaker 6: the way she was acting that the woman who this
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Speaker 6: is not right. There is something wrong. So red cards
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Speaker 6: should not be parked in my driveway. A girl shouldn't
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Speaker 6: be barefoot walking with another man where she looks like
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Speaker 6: she's frightened.
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Speaker 2: You know, it's amazing to me. Joining me Scott Johnson,
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Speaker 2: forensic Psychologists, joining us out of Minnesota, thirty two years
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Speaker 2: in the business, author of When I Love You Turns
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Speaker 2: Violent and physical abusers and sex offenders. You can find
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Speaker 2: them at Forensic Consultation dot org. Scott Johnson. Isn't it
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Speaker 2: the human mind? Amazing? And that is why I always
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Speaker 2: wanted to question witnesses myself, of course before you put
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Speaker 2: them on the stand, but in depth in a casual setting,
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Speaker 2: like in their home where they're comfyar their apartment, and
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Speaker 2: go through the story very slowly, and you ask questions
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Speaker 2: that may really be irrelevant, like what exactly did you see?
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Speaker 2: What were they wearing, did you see their face? What
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Speaker 2: was their demeanor? Did they have anything in their hands?
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Speaker 2: Did you see a car nearby? Was anybody else around?
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Speaker 2: Just a million questions. And this woman remembers the teen
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Speaker 2: girl was barefoot and it struck her as odd. Isn't
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Speaker 2: that amazing that she sees a man and a girl
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Speaker 2: walking out of the house and that one thing struck
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Speaker 2: her as odd?
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Speaker 13: Absolutely, And it's the thing that sensory wise her brain
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Speaker 13: picked up on that it just didn't look right, the
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Speaker 13: man's dress the way he is, the girl's looking scared,
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Speaker 13: and she has no shoes on, and so those things
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Speaker 13: kind of get tattooed in the brain.
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Speaker 2: And thank God that they did notice these things. So
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Speaker 2: for right now. Oh, we've got is red car to
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Speaker 2: go on. That's not helping us a lot to Doctor
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Speaker 2: Tim Gallagher joining US Medical Examiner for the entire state
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Speaker 2: of Florida. You can find him at pathcaremed dot com.
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Speaker 2: Lecturer University of Florida Medical School and founder of the
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Speaker 2: International Forensic Medicine Death Investigation Conference. I would be in
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Speaker 2: hog Heaven at that conference, doctor Gallagher. It's a misconception
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Speaker 2: that you can burn bodies to the extent there will
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Speaker 2: be no evidence left explain, all right, that's a common misnomer.
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Speaker 14: Actually, sometimes burning the body you would actually create more evidence.
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Speaker 14: One of the things that we need to know in
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Speaker 14: cases of victims who are in fires is were they
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Speaker 14: killed before the fire was set or did they die
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Speaker 14: as a result of the fire. And by then we
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Speaker 14: can establish a timeline, you know, for a certain acts
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Speaker 14: the suspect may have committed.
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Speaker 2: You know what you're making me think ofsted off the
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Speaker 2: top of my head. The Teresa Halbach case. She a
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Speaker 2: twenty meter amateur photographer. She was taking photos for the
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Speaker 2: Penny Pincher type. It was auto trader. That was you
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Speaker 2: know those free little newspapers you get when you go
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Speaker 2: into the grocery store. They're right there at the doors,
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Speaker 2: like Peeni Pincher auto trader. She went to the home.
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Speaker 2: You're gonna remember this making a murderer on one of
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Speaker 2: the streaming was an HBO or Netflix thank you, trying
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Speaker 2: to pretend that Stephen Avery was innocent. Well, let me
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Speaker 2: tell you. Her teeth and the studs off the back
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Speaker 2: of her Daisy f. Wintess blue jeans were found in
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Speaker 2: a fire pit in his backyard. Anyway, by burning her
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Speaker 2: in the fire pit, he thought he got rid of
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Speaker 2: all the evidence. But the teeth state, what's different about
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Speaker 2: the teeth and the bones?
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Speaker 15: Dr Gallagher, Well, the teeth and bones are created mostly
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Speaker 15: by calcium, and calcium is not flammable, so everything around
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Speaker 15: it would be incentive leaving the calcium behind. So teeth, bones,
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Speaker 15: and a lot of the even if the person had
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Speaker 15: a medical device within them, for instance a pacemaker or
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Speaker 15: a breast implant or some kind of other medical device,
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Speaker 15: that would stay behind with the serial number on it,
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Speaker 15: and then we can use that serial number to identify
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Speaker 15: whose remains those are.
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Speaker 2: A lawsuit just filed by a little girl's aunt, Michelle
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Speaker 2: Blanden and her younger sister claims Austin Edwards was quote
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Speaker 2: unfit to be a sheriff's deputy given his mental health
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Speaker 2: background when he was hired. He's accused of threatening to
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Speaker 2: kill his father during a mental health crisis. He had
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Speaker 2: a psychiatric evaluation, he was put into a treatment facility.
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Speaker 2: The little girl's family says that should have stopped him
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Speaker 2: from buying or possessing a firearm under Virginia law, But
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Speaker 2: the claim and response is he never informed Virginia State
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Speaker 2: Police about the ordeal.
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Speaker 1: Well, will that protect them?
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Speaker 2: All? I know right now three people are dead. Let
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Speaker 2: me query you with another question. One of the three
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Speaker 2: dead bodies and a missing girl have to do with
20:33
Speaker 2: the sale of a home all the way across the
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Speaker 2: country from Riverside, California and Virginia. Take a listen to
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Speaker 2: Ashley Hope, wc ybe.
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Speaker 16: According to Smith County, Virginia records, Edwards also recently purchased
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Speaker 16: a home in Saltville from Jacob Gordon.
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Speaker 17: I had the house on the market for just a
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Speaker 17: few hours, and you know, I got a full price offer,
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Speaker 17: and you know, was told it was a Virginia State
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Speaker 17: trooper and we went from there.
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Speaker 16: Deed for the property on Alison Gap Road was recorded
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Speaker 16: on November fourteenth.
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Speaker 17: He was only behind me for about eight days. You know,
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Speaker 17: he was actually very nice, accommodating. He offered to help
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Speaker 17: me on my home.
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Speaker 16: After purchasing the home, it appears he blacked out windows
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Speaker 16: and put up dark curtains.
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Speaker 2: Thought it was really weird.
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Speaker 18: And then, of course the owner told me also that
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Speaker 18: he required that they sent the video of the basement.
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Speaker 18: I mean, he didn't see the property before he purchased it,
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Speaker 18: but he required a video of the basement, which seems
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Speaker 18: really weird to us.
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Speaker 2: Okay, let me understand what I just heard. Joining me,
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Speaker 2: Kristen Kwan, do you see y b First of all,
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Speaker 2: where is Smith County, Virginia?
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Speaker 7: Smith Junny, Virginia is in the southwestern area of Virginia,
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Speaker 7: close to northeast Tennessee.
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Speaker 2: Very rural area of Virginia, very rural area. Now you know,
21:54
Speaker 2: I'm not a realtor. Darryl Cohen never been interested in
21:59
Speaker 2: realis state law, although my real estate professor, James Rayberg,
22:03
Speaker 2: scared everybody stiff. But how typical is it? I mean,
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Speaker 2: you've got people within your practice not you, that deal
22:13
Speaker 2: with real estate closings. To buy a home site and
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Speaker 2: seeing yet you insist on seeing a video of the
22:20
Speaker 2: basement first, Nancy, I've.
22:22
Speaker 5: Been around a long time. But by the way, Professor
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Speaker 5: Rayburg scared that, you know what out of me is?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, nickname was death ray.
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Speaker 5: May.
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Speaker 2: Can't even call him here. I have eye contact, so.
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Speaker 5: That should have been his real name, not his nickname.
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Speaker 5: But for someone to buy a home unseen is at
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Speaker 5: best unlikely. For someone to buy a home unseen and
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Speaker 5: want to see a picture of the basement video, what
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Speaker 5: does that tell you? They're up to something that's absolutely bad.
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Speaker 5: It's nefarious, it's unbelievable, and it's got to be on
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Speaker 5: every real estate agent's radar.
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Speaker 3: This ain't right.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes me think of, oh, my son has
23:02
Speaker 2: just gotten into breaking bad where the high school teacher
23:07
Speaker 2: has a meth lab, but it's not in his home,
23:09
Speaker 2: but he has the secret places he doesn't. That would
23:12
Speaker 2: be my first thought. They're putting a meth lab down there.
23:15
Speaker 2: But what about this? So it's a very rural area
23:19
Speaker 2: and as soon as he buys a home he blacks
23:22
Speaker 2: out the windows and puts up dark curtains. Is that
23:26
Speaker 2: not ring any bells of alarm? In your minds, because
23:31
Speaker 2: it sure is mine. So who is this guy? Take
23:35
Speaker 2: a listen again to Ashley Hoak.
23:37
Speaker 16: I asked Gordon if he had many interactions with Edwards.
23:40
Speaker 2: He kept to his salef. He really didn't have a
23:42
Speaker 2: lot to say.
23:44
Speaker 17: I actually invited him to have dinner with me and
23:47
Speaker 17: my family one night, and you know he politely declined.
23:50
Speaker 16: And others in the area saying Edward's reportedly visited places
23:53
Speaker 16: in town wearing a trench coat.
23:55
Speaker 18: Yes, he had a strange presence about in my wife
23:57
Speaker 18: sets of course the guy who lived in front of
24:01
Speaker 18: him that I know, he said that he had a
24:03
Speaker 18: very strange presence, that the guy was very weird, creepy,
24:07
Speaker 18: kept in his house. He didn't get out a lot.
24:09
Speaker 18: Short time here he'd already set off alarms to detected.
24:12
Speaker 2: Rich wasstock joining us thirty years in the business now
24:17
Speaker 2: an expert detective. Was Stocky questioned to you, how many
24:21
Speaker 2: times has a victim or witness said, I don't know
24:24
Speaker 2: what it was, it was just something weird about him
24:27
Speaker 2: many times.
24:28
Speaker 8: Is unbelievable to me that, especially when we talk about
24:33
Speaker 8: in my presentations with moms, moms are never wrong. God
24:37
Speaker 8: has given moms a sense of protecting their children. And
24:43
Speaker 8: sometimes the mistakes that troll officers make when they're going
24:47
Speaker 8: to these calls and taking the report is that they
24:51
Speaker 8: doubt what the feeling is of people around the area,
24:55
Speaker 8: and especially moms. So I always make it a point
24:58
Speaker 8: when I trained my police officers in cybercrime that never
25:03
Speaker 8: discount what the mom says, or somebody that's been out
25:07
Speaker 8: in the neighborhood is retired and watches everything that goes on,
25:10
Speaker 8: because they're a great wealth of information because they know
25:14
Speaker 8: when something's out of place, and.
25:15
Speaker 2: You're hearing the voice of a seasoned detective, so you
25:18
Speaker 2: know that these witnesses are talking about an individual that
25:23
Speaker 2: ultimately ends up to be a perpetrator. So Scott Johnson
25:27
Speaker 2: joining me, forensic psychologists shorting us out of Minnesota and
25:30
Speaker 2: author Scott, I've theorized about this many many times that
25:35
Speaker 2: I'm just a JD. You're the shrink, and I mean
25:39
Speaker 2: that in a loving and caring way. There's something, and
25:43
Speaker 2: I really believe it's not just a hunch. It's something
25:46
Speaker 2: born over thousands and thousands of years of evolution, possibly
25:52
Speaker 2: something we ourselves don't realize that we're picking up on
25:56
Speaker 2: maybe a look in the eye, maybe I'm a wrong word,
26:01
Speaker 2: a demeanor, But very often I get a sense about someone,
26:09
Speaker 2: as do the majority of my witnesses that I have
26:13
Speaker 2: dealt with. They get a vibe, as my daughter calls.
26:17
Speaker 5: It, what is that right?
26:19
Speaker 13: And it's noticing again, something that's just out of the ordinary,
26:22
Speaker 13: and therefore it stands out of the brain. We expect
26:25
Speaker 13: a certain person to act a certain way in a
26:27
Speaker 13: certain situation, and yet.
26:30
Speaker 5: We don't see that.
26:31
Speaker 13: We see something different, and so it stands out as
26:34
Speaker 13: odd and it kind of bothers us. But we're not
26:37
Speaker 13: always sure what.
26:38
Speaker 2: To do with it, Yeah, because we don't really understand
26:41
Speaker 2: where we're getting the information, why we feel that way.
26:44
Speaker 2: How many times, Jack, have you said, Okay, something's not right,
26:48
Speaker 2: there's something wrong with him? And it usually is a
26:50
Speaker 2: him sorry guys. Often So you've got this guy all
26:56
Speaker 2: the way over in Virginia, as our new friend christ
27:01
Speaker 2: And Kwan has told us, very rural area near the
27:04
Speaker 2: Virginia Tennessee line, blacking out his windows, getting a video
27:11
Speaker 2: of the basement, buying the house full price sight unseen.
27:17
Speaker 2: What does that have to do the three dead bodies
27:21
Speaker 2: and a house on fire. Take a listen to Tony
27:25
Speaker 2: Chen NBC four. Catfishing led to.
27:28
Speaker 9: The deaths of the three most important people in my life,
27:33
Speaker 9: my dad, my mom, and my sister.
27:35
Speaker 10: Which is why Michelle is pleading with parents to talk
27:38
Speaker 10: to their kids about this tragedy, so hopefully it won't
27:42
Speaker 10: happen to anyone else's family.
27:44
Speaker 19: He was a sheriff's deputy in Virginia, but he developed
27:48
Speaker 19: an inappropriate online relationship with a fifteen year old girl
27:51
Speaker 19: here in Riverside. Authority say he drove across the country
27:55
Speaker 19: to meet her and then eventually murdered three members of family.
28:00
Speaker 2: Cat fishing, cat fishing, You've got this guy all the
28:04
Speaker 2: way in Virginia. You've got three dead people and a
28:07
Speaker 2: missing teen girl in Riverside, California, cat fishing.
28:26
Speaker 1: Time Stories with Nancy Greace.
28:30
Speaker 2: What a tragedy. This little girl already living through hell,
28:35
Speaker 2: no longer has her mother or grandparents. In the last days,
28:41
Speaker 2: a multimillion dollar bombshell lawsuit, But on what is it based?
28:49
Speaker 2: Joining me right now? Special guest t Tanya Jordan, chief
28:53
Speaker 2: parenting and marketing officer at Bark Technology. I've got Bark.
28:58
Speaker 2: I'm not a pay spokes first, I'm not getting a
29:01
Speaker 2: dime out of it, but I've got it on my phone.
29:03
Speaker 2: It is my husband. She's the author of Parenting in
29:06
Speaker 2: a Tech World. To telling you what is cat fishing?
29:11
Speaker 20: It's a call for term for an activity that's been
29:14
Speaker 20: around as long as there's been an Internet, namely pretending
29:16
Speaker 20: to be somebody else online.
29:19
Speaker 21: And it's gut.
29:21
Speaker 20: Wrenching to hear this story, and even more gut wrenching
29:24
Speaker 20: to know that at BARK we're sending alerts daily around
29:29
Speaker 20: predatory behavior, risky contact, sextortion. In many cases we have
29:35
Speaker 20: to notify major entities like nick NICK, the National Center
29:39
Speaker 20: for Missing and Exploited Children.
29:41
Speaker 2: What exactly is it?
29:42
Speaker 20: What exactly is cat fishing? Yes, it's the act of
29:46
Speaker 20: creating a false identity and then interacting with somebody for
29:49
Speaker 20: a specific purpose, usually to lure them into some sort
29:53
Speaker 20: of relationship. It can include mild flirting all the way
29:56
Speaker 20: to years long partnerships. And the catch is that these
29:59
Speaker 20: people have never and we'll never meet them in real
30:01
Speaker 20: life except we're in rare, unfortunate circumstans. Was like the
30:05
Speaker 20: one we're talking about today.
30:06
Speaker 2: It happens so often. I've got twenty pages of similar
30:11
Speaker 2: transactions right in front of me, and we saw it
30:13
Speaker 2: most recently and the Delphi double murder of Libby and Abby,
30:18
Speaker 2: where you're a catfisher. A pudgy guy that lived in
30:22
Speaker 2: his mom's basement was using a Justin Bieber lookalike photo
30:27
Speaker 2: to lure young girls, including Libby and Abby, meet up
30:30
Speaker 2: with them, get naked photos of them. It was a
30:33
Speaker 2: monkey wrinch thrown in the entire double home side investigation.
30:37
Speaker 2: Cat fishing. It's happening all the time. And to Tanya,
30:41
Speaker 2: Jordan just told you what it is. But what does
30:44
Speaker 2: it have to do with this chase?
30:46
Speaker 21: Virginia Stave Police tell us the suspected shooter served as
30:49
Speaker 21: a trooper right here in met Richmond for about ten
30:52
Speaker 21: months before he resigned in October, and then he got
30:55
Speaker 21: a job in the Washington County Sheriff's office. They tell
30:57
Speaker 21: me they hired him on November sixteenth, ten days before
31:01
Speaker 21: this triple murder.
31:03
Speaker 5: Austin Lee Edward's Division.
31:05
Speaker 21: One RCO CBS six covered edwards graduation from the Virginia
31:09
Speaker 21: State Police Academy back in January. A spokesperson says he
31:13
Speaker 21: was hired and entered into the Academy in July twenty
31:15
Speaker 21: twenty one and was assigned to cover Henryko County when
31:18
Speaker 21: he graduated.
31:19
Speaker 2: Guys, you were just here. He our friends at wtv R.
31:22
Speaker 2: Now take a listen to Tony Sin.
31:24
Speaker 10: Investigators say, this is the man who took their lives.
31:28
Speaker 10: Twenty eight year old Austin Lee Edwards, a law enforcement
31:31
Speaker 10: officer from Virginia who police say used a fake Internet
31:35
Speaker 10: profile to appear to be a seventeen year old boy
31:38
Speaker 10: so he could have an online relationship with Brooks's fifteen
31:42
Speaker 10: year old daughter. It's a method of internet deception called catfishing.
31:47
Speaker 9: He took an oath to protect, and yet he failed
31:50
Speaker 9: to do so.
31:52
Speaker 2: Instead, he prayed on the most vulnerable.
31:55
Speaker 10: Investigators say after killing the Winneck family, Edwards set the
31:58
Speaker 10: home on fire and took the teenage girl with him.
32:02
Speaker 2: Tatarni and Jordan joining us, chief parenting officer at Bart Technology.
32:06
Speaker 2: Once the catfisher starts talking to the girl, the girl
32:10
Speaker 2: the young girl thinks he's sixteen seventeen years old. He
32:13
Speaker 2: then befriends are enough online to get valuable information like
32:19
Speaker 2: phone number and home address. Of course, sometimes people post
32:24
Speaker 2: photos that have their home address. In the background, like
32:27
Speaker 2: they're in their front yard and you can see maybe
32:29
Speaker 2: their car or their home. Why is it important to
32:33
Speaker 2: never give out your home address or where you work,
32:36
Speaker 2: or any personal information like that to somebody you don't know.
32:39
Speaker 20: I mean, you outlined it clearly, But for everybody that
32:43
Speaker 20: has only been half listening, and you are listening right now,
32:46
Speaker 20: pay attention. Pay attention to this. Your children need to
32:51
Speaker 20: know that the people they're talking to online aren't necessarily
32:55
Speaker 20: who they say they are. They can be tricky people.
32:57
Speaker 20: These are adults who are highly skilled one thing, and
33:00
Speaker 20: that is tricking them. And they can be the smartest,
33:04
Speaker 20: most loved, brilliant children on the planet and they can
33:06
Speaker 20: still get tricked. Your children need to feel comfortable telling
33:10
Speaker 20: you about who they talk to online without ramification of
33:13
Speaker 20: doing so. You need to stay calm and they need
33:15
Speaker 20: to know that this is out there and that you
33:18
Speaker 20: are the safe place.
33:18
Speaker 2: So you detected to rich with Stock, this is your
33:21
Speaker 2: belly wick. How do you tell your children without scaring them?
33:25
Speaker 2: What is cat fishing? I mean I just say to
33:27
Speaker 2: my son, who are you playing with? And he says
33:30
Speaker 2: so and so, like who else you know? Some other chid?
33:32
Speaker 2: I'm like how do you know it's not like a
33:33
Speaker 2: sixty five year old guy and is underwear in New
33:37
Speaker 2: Jersey and you're playing with them online. Don't give him
33:41
Speaker 2: your location on your real name. How do you tell
33:43
Speaker 2: them without scaring them? Detective?
33:44
Speaker 8: So I teach you about one hundred thousand kids a year,
33:47
Speaker 8: and we talk about this in depth. I give them
33:49
Speaker 8: a sure way how you can never be catfish. So
33:52
Speaker 8: we talk about five factors of authentication. If you can't
33:55
Speaker 8: tell me their first name, their last name, their phone number,
33:58
Speaker 8: where they go to school, and where they live, based
34:01
Speaker 8: on what you know to be true physically, everyone else
34:04
Speaker 8: online is a liar. So then I ask the kids
34:07
Speaker 8: how many webcams do you have at your disposal? They'll
34:12
Speaker 8: have a webcam on their chromebook, their iPad, their desktop,
34:19
Speaker 8: their tablet, and their phone. So if you are talking
34:23
Speaker 8: to someone that you really have not verified who they are,
34:26
Speaker 8: and they're asking for personal information with parent or guardian permission,
34:30
Speaker 8: tell them, hey, let's go to webcam. I just want
34:32
Speaker 8: to make sure you're not catfishing me, and I want
34:34
Speaker 8: to make sure you are who you say you are.
34:36
Speaker 2: Well, I tell Detective, I tell the children it's usually
34:40
Speaker 2: my son he can't play with anybody on line that
34:43
Speaker 2: he doesn't know in real life he's never met, and
34:47
Speaker 2: I think it's working. So that leads me to detective
34:51
Speaker 2: where's the girl? The last we heard of her, she's
34:55
Speaker 2: being taken out of the house by the guy wearing
34:58
Speaker 2: a strench coat and barefoot. The search is on for
35:03
Speaker 2: a red car. Take a listen to Rick Chambers KTLA.
35:07
Speaker 22: He murdered the girl's mother, Brooke, and the girl's grandparents,
35:11
Speaker 22: Mark and Cherry Winnick, and then set the fire as
35:15
Speaker 22: he dragged the struggling team to his car. Neighbors noticed
35:18
Speaker 22: that commotion and called police, but by the time they arrived,
35:22
Speaker 22: the home was burning and Edwards was already driving back east.
35:26
Speaker 22: But about two hours after the murder's police spotted Edward's
35:30
Speaker 22: red car on Highway two. Forty seven. SWAT units were
35:34
Speaker 22: called in and a pursuit began along Route sixty two
35:38
Speaker 22: in Kelso, though Edwards began shooting at the SWAT vehicle.
35:42
Speaker 2: Okay, so this guy not only has taken the girl,
35:45
Speaker 2: murdered her entire family, but now he's shooting at cops.
35:51
Speaker 2: Take a list to Fox eleven parked in another neighbor's driveway.
35:54
Speaker 2: They left.
35:55
Speaker 3: That woman, who described the girl as in distress, gave
35:57
Speaker 3: police his license plate. Officers tracked them down halfway to
36:00
Speaker 3: Vegas and say during the pursuit, Edwards lost control while
36:04
Speaker 3: shooting at police and their chopper. The girl managed to
36:07
Speaker 3: escape to safety and police return fire. Edwards had worked
36:11
Speaker 3: for two law enforcement departments in Virginia with no priors
36:15
Speaker 3: or marks against his name.
36:16
Speaker 2: So this guy has a gun and is brazen enough
36:20
Speaker 2: to shoot at cops. Two Scott Johnson. That tells me
36:27
Speaker 2: he's willing to kill again. Even shooting at cops. He's
36:31
Speaker 2: already killed three people in order to get this girl
36:35
Speaker 2: back to his layer in Virginia with the blacked out
36:39
Speaker 2: windows and the heavy curtains. He's willing to kill to
36:44
Speaker 2: have sex with a fifteen year old.
36:46
Speaker 13: Girl, right, and you know this psychopathic traits, you know,
36:50
Speaker 13: the minimum of any anxiety or fear. You know, they
36:53
Speaker 13: really just don't care about tomorrow. They care about today,
36:56
Speaker 13: and so you know, to take the risk of being
36:58
Speaker 13: shot and killed, it just it didn't matter to him, and.
37:03
Speaker 2: He just didn't care.
37:05
Speaker 13: It was about the power of the control, the fantasy
37:07
Speaker 13: of having this victim back in isolation in Virginia and
37:13
Speaker 13: the rest just didn't matter to him.
37:15
Speaker 2: You dete to Rich with Stocky joining us. And this
37:18
Speaker 2: is a guy that's in law enforcement. He's been in
37:20
Speaker 2: a jail before. You know, the first time I ever
37:23
Speaker 2: went in full to county jail when I walked out
37:25
Speaker 2: into the parking lot and it was a very blak
37:27
Speaker 2: asphalt parking lot, it was the most beautiful thing I've
37:30
Speaker 2: ever seen. Just to get out of that in jail.
37:32
Speaker 2: This guy knows the consequences, was Stocky absolutely so.
37:36
Speaker 8: I've arrested over three hundred of these Internet predators and
37:39
Speaker 8: it's butcher, Baker, camelstick maker. It can be firefighters, police attorneys, doctors.
37:44
Speaker 8: It is always a secret life that nobody knows about.
37:48
Speaker 8: And until we hit that door with a search warrant,
37:51
Speaker 8: then the cat's out of the bag. Or in this case,
37:53
Speaker 8: when he goes so far and does these unbelievable horrible acts,
37:57
Speaker 8: now he knows he's found out.
37:58
Speaker 2: I mean Datonia George joining us from Bark. You can
38:02
Speaker 2: find her at Bark dot us. Titania children and I
38:07
Speaker 2: think their parents have no idea what the children are
38:13
Speaker 2: up against. The level of deceit, the level of cunning,
38:18
Speaker 2: the brazen character of these online predators. This guy has
38:24
Speaker 2: already killed three that we know of, and willing to
38:26
Speaker 2: kill cops to get this girl alone in that blacked
38:31
Speaker 2: out basement.
38:32
Speaker 20: It's disgusting, it's angering.
38:36
Speaker 5: You know.
38:37
Speaker 20: The Capsish knowingly uses flattery and emotional manipulation as an
38:41
Speaker 20: adult against children to kick start a connection and then
38:44
Speaker 20: nurtures it steadily. It can happen to any one of us,
38:47
Speaker 20: you know. Detective Ritual Stockey says so many times, not
38:50
Speaker 20: my kid, not my kid. It absolutely can be your kid.
38:54
Speaker 20: It could be my kid.
38:55
Speaker 2: Daryl Cohen is joining me, former felony prosecutor now civil attorney, Cheryl.
39:00
Speaker 2: You and I have spent way too much time in
39:03
Speaker 2: the Fulton County jail. Once you've been in that place,
39:06
Speaker 2: you never you never want to go to jail ever.
39:11
Speaker 2: But this guy is so driven by his demons, he'll
39:15
Speaker 2: do anything to get this girl Nancy.
39:19
Speaker 5: Once you've spent one minute in the Fulton County jail,
39:22
Speaker 5: that's one minute too long. It's horrible, and it is
39:26
Speaker 5: indicative of so many jails. This guy, Yes he is crazed,
39:32
Speaker 5: Yes he is evil, Yes he is wrong and it's
39:36
Speaker 5: hard to look into his mind.
39:38
Speaker 2: Well, you may be happy to know that when he
39:41
Speaker 2: opened fire on the cops, they shot him dead. But
39:44
Speaker 2: this girl has a life time sentence of pain. Nancy
39:52
Speaker 2: Gray Scrum's story, signing off Goodbye sound