California family sues sheriff’s office after deputy kidnapped girl, killed her mother, grandparents

By STEFANIE DAZIO
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California family is suing a Virginia sheriff’s department for hiring a deputy who sexually extorted and kidnapped a 15-year-old girl at gunpoint and killed her mother and her grandparents before setting fire to their home. Austin Lee Edwards died by suicide during a shootout with law enforcement on Nov. 25, hours after the violence in Riverside, California. The teenager was rescued. Edwards had been hired as a Washington County sheriff’s deputy in Virginia just nine days before the killings, even though a 2016 court order prohibited him from buying, possessing and transporting a firearm. The teen’s aunt and younger sister are suing the department, saying his hiring was negligent.