LOS ANGELES — In a previously unreported letter obtained by The Times, the head of the Virginia State Police detailed errors in his agency’s hiring of Austin Lee Edwards, the now-deceased “catfish” cop who killed three people in Riverside in late November.
Although Edwards had told the agency about his 2016 visit to a psychiatric facility, the agency failed to search databases for his mental health history before hiring him as an officer, Col. Gary Settle, the state police superintendent, wrote in the letter, which was addressed to a post office box associated with Virginia’s inspector general.
Edwards left the state police after nine months and joined the Washington County Sheriff’s Office as a deputy. He was employed there in November, when he drove to Riverside and killed the mother and grandparents of a 15-year-old girl whom police say he had “catfished” online.
