LOS ANGELES — The 28-year-old Virginia cop who killed three family members of a Riverside teenager had posed online as a teen to “groom” the 15-year-old girl, the Riverside Police Department said Wednesday.
Austin Lee Edwards portrayed himself as a 17-year-old while communicating online with the girl, using “grooming” methods such as asking for or trading sexually explicit images, providing gifts such as drugs, alcohol or gift cards and giving out compliments, Riverside Police Chief Larry Gonzalez said Wednesday at a news conference. He said it is still under investigation how long the digital relationship between Edwards and the teen girl transpired and on what platform they used to meet or communicate.
“This is a broad category of online exploitation,” Gonzalez said. “This type of victimization takes place across every platform, social media, messaging apps, gaming platforms, etc.
