LOS ANGELES — Austin Lee Edwards, the now-deceased cop who “catfished” a 15-year-old Riverside girl and killed her grandparents and mother last month, disclosed during his application to become a Virginia state trooper that he had voluntarily checked himself into a mental health facility several years earlier, according to records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.
The Virginia State Police hired him anyway.
Corinne Geller, a Virginia State Police spokeswoman, said last month that there weren’t “any indicators of concern” that surfaced during Edwards’ “extensive” hiring process. But the records reviewed by The Times show the agency had at least some indication of Edwards’ mental health struggles.
