A Virginia sheriff’s deputy who killed the family members of a 15-year-old California girl he tried to sexually extort online had been detained in 2016 for a psychiatric evaluation over threats to kill himself and his father, years before he joined law enforcement, according to a police report.
That raises new questions about how the man was hired by the Virginia State Police and later by a Virginia sheriff’s office without any red flags. The mental health episode, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, is described in a police report released by the Abingdon Police Department in response to a public records request.
