Sword and Scale Nightmares - Protector

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

On the bleak day following Thanksgiving in 2022, the tranquility of La Sierra South, a Riverside, California neighborhood, was shattered. Within the confines of a close-knit cul-de-sac, panic ensued. A series of frantic 911 calls echoed through the air, detailing a mysterious vehicle, an active kidnapping, and ultimately, a raging house fire. The community stood at the precipice of chaos, gripped by a chain of events that would forever alter their lives.

Cha-ching. That's my impression of a sexy cash register. It's also the sound of yet another sale on your online Shopify store. But did you know that Shopify powers selling in person, too? That's right. Shopify is the sound of selling everywhere. Online, in-store, on social media, and beyond. Cha-ching.

Shopify POS is your command center for your retail store. From accepting payments to managing inventory, Shopify has everything you need to sell in person. With Shopify, you get a powerhouse selling partner that effortlessly unites your in-person and online sales into one source of truth. Track every sale across your business in one place and know exactly what's in stock.

Connect with customers in line and online. Shopify helps you drive store traffic with plug and play tools built for marketing campaigns from TikTok to Instagram and beyond. Get hardware that fits your business. Take payments by smartphone, transform your tablet into a point of sale system, or use Shopify's POS GoMobile device for a battle-tested solution. Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way. Do retail right with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash sword and scale, all lower

case. Go to Shopify.com slash sword and scale to take your retail business to the next level today. Shopify.com slash sword and scale. It was Friday, November 25th, 2022, the day after Thanksgiving. Most people were in their homes eating leftovers and still enjoying time off of work. In La Sierra South, a sizable neighborhood in Riverside, California, the weather was beautiful. Temperatures peaked at almost exactly 70 degrees by lunchtime. The light breeze wafted through the pencil pines and there was no forecast of rain.

One particular street in this neighborhood, Price Court, is an L-shaped road ending in a cul-de-sac. The street lined with modest Spanish revival homes all share the same distinguishing barrel tile roofs. Many of the families living in these homes, namely toward the end of the cul-de-sac, have been there for years and have grown quite close. You could say they've organically developed a type of neighborhood watch. That peaceful morning in autumn 2022 would soon turn into chaos, as one of the homeowners on the cul-de-sac, we'll call her Jane, peered through the curtains out onto the driveway

below. She saw something alarming. At first, it didn't even register in her brain what was going on. Jane knew the family next door and she knew they had a teenage daughter. As she nervously peeked out the window, she saw the girl being ushered into a red Kia Soul by an unfamiliar young man who'd parked in Rose's driveway. Thankfully, his poor parking gave Jane a better view of what was going on. As she looked closer, she saw that the girl had no shoes on, and a look of fear in her eyes.

Then, she can't be sure, but she thinks she saw the girl mouth the words, Help me, as she sat in the back passenger seat of the vehicle. She didn't recognize the man, so Jane did what any good neighbor would do. She called 911. Welcome to Sword and Scale Nightmares. True crime for bedtime. Where Nightmare begins now. Though Jane admits that she initially contacted police because of the unfamiliar vehicle parked in her driveway

She was glad to have called so quickly given what she witnessed shortly thereafter as Jane is talking to a 911 dispatcher about what she's seeing other homeowners on the same cul-de-sac also begin phoning in call after after call pours into dispatch, and people aren't reporting the same thing Jane called about. They're calling in because a house is on fire. So deputies are not only rushing to the scene to address the report of what seems to be a kidnapping, but they're also sending additional units to address this

house fire. Of course, by the time any help arrives, the Red Kia Soul is gone, and the cream-colored two-story home is now fully ablaze. Firefighters find three adult bodies in the entryway of the house, and they pull them outside. Pretty quickly rescue personnel figure out that these three are murder victims. Upon a brief investigation they can also see that the house fire was set intentionally, but it wasn't fire or smoke that killed these people.

The one final piece that puts this whole chaotic scene into perspective turns out to be the identities of these victims. Officials identify 69-year-old Mark Wynick, his wife 65-year-old Sherry Wynick, and their 38-year-old daughter, Brooke Wynick. The 15-year-old trapped in the Key of Soul now traveling far away from the scene of the crime is Brooke Wynick's daughter. The neighborhood of La Sierra South is about 50 miles southeast of downtown LA. This unknown perpetrator could be sitting in standstill traffic somewhere in the city with his 15-year-old

abductee. So the police decide to call up all the nearby agencies and give them a description of the girl and the vehicle. Even without a full-blown amber alert, officers locate the car just a few hours after the manhunt begins. So the guy has made it nearly three hours northeast by this point when police catch up with the Red Kia in a California ghost town called Kelso, a defunct railroad depot in the Mojave Desert. They try to pull him over, but the guy starts shooting rounds at them, turning what could

have been a peaceful surrender into a deadly shootout. As the cards are stacking up against him, the perpetrator, who is later identified as 28-year-old Austin Lee Edwards, turns the gun on himself and pulls the trigger. Edwards kills himself before the police can get any of their questions answered. Thankfully, the young girl he's just kidnapped is safe. She's alive and ready to help police unravel this horrible nightmare. 69-year-old Mark Wynick and his 65-year-old wife Sherry were not only important members of their community and neighborhood, they were the best set of parents and grandparents anyone could ask for. Mark worked as the softball and baseball coach at Arlington High School.

He looked young for his age and got around like someone much younger than 69. He always had a friendly grin on his face, often sported various funny hats, and was the kind of parent and grandparent who would do anything to cheer up his family. Mark's wife Sherry was just as loving and just as sweet. When one of their two adult daughters, 38-year-old Brooke, became a single mother of two girls, Mark and Sherry were more than happy to open their home back up and take them in. Their arrangement worked well. With her parents' support, Brooke had more time to

do things like attend her oldest daughter's high school color guard competitions. That and both girls would have ample time around their grandparents. Because she's a minor, we'll call Brooke's eldest daughter, Emily. Now, Emily was like any other 15-year-old. In this day and age, it's not all that uncommon for kids to make friends through social media. Every single minute of every day, teens all over the world are effortlessly making friends from every corner of the globe using social media. We even have new terms for these words, like we call them our mutuals, if we have friends in common on social media. And I use the word friends in quotes. This phenomenon is so

common nowadays it's almost become a normal part of growing up. With a vast array of platforms at their fingertips, teens are connecting with like-minded individuals from diverse backgrounds all over the world and they're bonding with these people over shared interests, hobbies, passions, even specific video games. All from the comfort of their homes, or their bedrooms, or their parents' basement, or whatever you want to label their abode. But in at least this way, the internet's promise of making the world an even smaller place seems to have actually worked, to some extent.

Whether it's good or not, we won't know for decades. But it is true that the world has become a much smaller place with each advancement in technology, allowing people to make international friends with the click of a button. This all seems like a great thing, though, until it's not. So 15-year-old Emily starts talking to this guy she meets online. He says he's 17, and she's like, cool, an older high school boy.

It's no big deal for her, just someone with shared interests she chats with when she's bored. The more she talks to this guy, the cooler she thinks he is. So Emily starts to open up, talking about her friends, her family, and her school. What Emily doesn't realize is that this guy is asking very specific questions, with the goal of getting identifying information about Emily. If you've ever seen the show Undercover Underage, you'll know exactly what this grooming process looks like. A 15-year-old would never stand a chance. Once Emily's new friend gets enough information

to determine exactly where her house is, he takes note. When he ups the ante and begins asking Emily for explicit photos. Emily being the smart teen she is, decides to cut off contact with this teenage boy as soon as it escalates to these kinds of requests. She gets a bad feeling and says, I'm done with this. But the teenage boy isn't a real person. He's a facade, a character created by a 28 year old man named Austin Lee Edwards in order to conceal his true identity. And Austin isn't done with this relationship. You see, Austin has a job working as a Virginia State Trooper of all careers but he doesn't have many friends or much of a social

circle in his life. This makes it very easy for him to pick up and jump into his red key a soul to make the long drive to California. Emily is not expecting him. Before driving to Riverside, Austin makes a pit stop in San Diego to another woman's house. Someone else he has been catfishing for quite some time. It's the first time they're meeting in person, and despite the years-long catfishing ruse, the woman allows Austin to stay with her for a few days before he mysteriously vanishes. Austin is driving to Riverside.

He makes it to the neighborhood of La Sierra South, just before seven in the morning, on November 25th, and drives to Emily's neighborhood. He gets out of his Kia and walks up to Emily's front door, then retreats back to his car. Then he gets back out of the car and approaches the door again. He's too nervous. He just can't do it yet. So he again scurries back to his car before driving away like a scared little mouse. Anyway, by 9 a.m. he's back and he's ready to carry out his plan. He's psyched out this time. He's ready to go. He knocks on the front door. At the same exact time, Brooke Wynick's sister, Michelle Blandon, picks up the phone to call

her mother, Sherry Wynick. Her mom's voice sounds strange. Sherry nervously explains that a detective is at the door asking to speak with their 15-year year old granddaughter. He says it's urgent and Sherry doesn't know what to make of it. What would one single detective want with a teenager? And of all the teens, why would he need to speak with her well-behaved, happy, smart granddaughter? At this time, Brooke and her two daughters are out of the house, and Sherry and her husband Mark are the only two inside the home with this detective.

Brooke and the girls are alone, and Austin tells them if the younger teen comes home along with the other two, she would need to be questioned as well. Apparently during the course of this phone call, Sherry and Michelle make quick arrangements for the youngest daughter to go to her aunt Michelle's house instead of back to this uncertain scenario. Soon Brooke and her daughter Emily arrive home. Things are getting scary. Something seems off, but people who have never dealt with law enforcement tend to avoid confrontation with police officers.

Sherry tells her daughter the detective has photos of the inside of their home. He must be legit. Austin demands that the adults hand over Emily's cell phone and the phone Sherry is holding, the one with Michelle on the other line. Austin holds the phone to his ear and says to Michelle, I am here with your mom. She is kind of being wants to be cooperative. Austin says in response, everything is going to be okay, and hands the phone back to Sherry.

Michelle hangs up her end of the call. Then Austin asks if he can go see Emily's room. When he returns he plans to put Emily in his vehicle outside while he questions the adults. With Emily waiting in the car Austin binds the limbs of Mark, Sherry, and Brooke. He slits Brooke's throat. He asphyxiates Mark and Sherry. A few minutes pass and Emily gets out of the car and goes back into the house. She sees the dead bodies of her mother and grandparents. They're hogtied and they have bags over their heads. Austin sets the house ablaze before speeding away with the terrified teenager in tow. Cha-ching.

That's my impression of a sexy cash register. It's also the sound of yet another sale on your online Shopify store. But did you know that Shopify powers selling in person, too? That's right. Shopify is the sound of selling everywhere. Online, in-store store on social media and Beyond to Ching Shopify POS is your command center for your retail store from accepting payments to managing inventory

Shopify has everything you need to sell in person with Shopify you get a powerhouse selling partner that effortlessly Unites your in-person and online sales into one source of truth. Track every sale across your business in one place and know exactly what's in stock. Connect with customers inline and online. Shopify helps you drive store traffic with plug and play tools built for marketing campaigns from TikTok to Instagram and beyond. Get hardware that fits your business.

Take payments by smartphone, transform your tablet into a point of sale system, or use Shopify's POS GoMobile device for a battle-tested solution. Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way. Do retail right with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period

at Shopify.com slash sword and scale. All lower case. Go to shopify.com slash sword and scale to take your retail business to the next level today. shopify.com slash sword and scale. Because 28-year-old Virginia State Trooper Austin Lee Edwards committed suicide using his own service weapon during a shootout with California police, the case doesn't have the same kind of closure that many others do. Maybe in a way it's better that Austin killed himself.

In the end, it did save the Wynick family from having to deal with the judicial proceedings and perpetual parole hearings. But it left many questions without answers. The first question coming to everyone's mind upon hearing the reports of this story was, how on earth did this guy make it through the police academy and ultimately become a police officer? Austin's career trajectory went like this. He was hired by the Virginia State Police and entered the police academy in July of 2021.

He graduated as a state trooper in January 21, 2022 and was assigned to cover Enrico County within the agency's Richmond division. For unrelated reasons, he resigned on Octoberth of that same year. Around this same time, Austin purchased a home in Saltville, Virginia, in Washington County. The seller of the home remembers that Austin didn't see the property in person before purchasing it, but he did specifically ask for a video of the basement. Neighbors remember that shortly after moving in,

he blacked out all the windows and put up thick curtains. He kept to himself even declining a dinner invitation extended by one of his new neighbors. He walked around town wearing a trench coat on the rare occasions that he did leave his house and he just gave people an overall strange feeling. On November 16th, he was hired as a deputy in Washington County, Virginia, and began his orientation, ultimately being assigned to the patrol division. His neighbors thought, great, we will all feel so much safer knowing we have a cop living nearby."

And that seemed to explain some of Austin's odd behavior. It was just a few weeks after he landed a job that Austin would drive to Riverside, California and murder three people under the false narrative of being a detective. Austin's employers maintained that there were no troubles whatsoever during the hiring process, and none of his former employers gave them any tip-offs about reprimands or internal investigations. And that's because there were none. There were, however, numerous red flags ignored before Austin Edwards ever entered the police academy. Get this, in January of 2023, attorneys representing the surviving teenage victim

and her family announced their plan to file a lawsuit alleging gross negligence on the part of Austin Lee Edwards' former employers. They asked for in excess of a hundred million in damages and for good reason. Apparently Austin told the Virginia State Police that he went to a mental health facility back in 2016. This incident wasn't just a little bout of depression. It was kind of a big deal. It was the evening of the Super Bowl and Austin was watching it with his dad. They both drank a couple beers and retired to their rooms. Later that same night Austin's dad heard weird noises coming from the bathroom. He knew his son was inside, but he had locked the door, so Austin's dad used a screwdriver

to get it open. Inside he saw Austin bleeding from a cut on his hand. Nearby sat multiple knives and a hatchet. He had to keep Austin inside the house long enough for paramedics to get to him and have him committed. Austin fought with EMS and police enough that they had to threaten to tase him. Finally they got him strapped to a stretcher and on his way. In front of all of the police officers he said that the moment he was free from the handcuffs he would kill his father and try to kill himself

Ultimately an emergency custody order was issued Until they had Austin at the hospital and that was followed by a temporary detention order which basically allows police to take someone into custody and In for a mental health evaluation or mental health care. 5150 Baker Act. It has so many different names depending on what state we're talking about. Anyway, this stint in a mental institution resulted in a judge revoking Austin's right to own a handgun. Or a gun of any kind, really. Doesn't that sound like it might preclude someone from joining, I don't know, the police force? Well, it didn't hold Austin back, for some reason.

What a system we have. Anyway, two different police agencies knew about this stay prior to allowing him into the academy and subsequently hiring him, which is pretty amazing. You see, it doesn't matter how many laws we have on our books taking away our rights if nobody actually enforces them. To add insult to injury, those girlfriend problems he was having back in 2016 were likely with an underage girl. It seems Austin had quite the propensity for luring young girls into online relationships with him, an adult man. Another victim has come out since the news of Austin's crimes hit the media, remembering

that Austin groomed her back in late 2014 when she was just 13 years old. For example, 20-year-old Austin Edwards sent this message to a girl. Yo, what the fuck? I said I wanted tits waiting for me when I got back. Many of his messages indicate that Austin was also racist. I mean, who would have seen that coming with this cornucopia of character? Austin repeatedly used the N-word and told the young girl he was talking to that he had quote jungle fever, thinking

the girl was black. All that class and a gun, too. Austin knew that this girl was 13, and yet he continued. He showed her his knife and his gun collection, and threatened to kill himself if she ever stopped talking to him. They talked for years, and Austin even referred to this girl as his girlfriend to friends and family. It was in 2016 that she broke things off for good, resulting in Austin's mental health

emergency. Austin's red flags were numerous, and he was not someone who should have ever been given a badge and especially not a gun. As of October 2023, the Virginia State Police have declined to comment on this case, given that it's still pending. All that they've offered to the media is that Austin was hired due to human error. This story just goes to show that it can be anyone.

A scary monster who wants to steal your children isn't always a scary looking person. It isn't always a stereotype. Sometimes it's a family friend, or even a relative. Sometimes it's even the type of character that you'd see in an after-school special. Sometimes it's a teacher, or a coach. And yes, sometimes it's even a police officer. If you enjoyed the show, please consider joining PLUS at sword and scale.com slash PLUS. But if you can't consider leaving us a positive review on your preferred

listening platform. Sweet dreams and good night. Ch-ching. That's my impression of a sexy cash register. It's also the sound of yet another sale on your online Shopify store. But did you know that Shopify powers selling in person too? That's right. Shopify is the sound of selling everywhere online, in store, on social media and beyond.

To Ching. Shopify POS is your command center for your retail store. From accepting payments to managing inventory, Shopify has everything you need to sell in person. With Shopify, you get a powerhouse selling partner that effortlessly unites your in-person and online sales into one source of truth. Track every sale across your business in one place

and know exactly what's in stock. Connect with customers in line and online. Shopify helps you drive store traffic with plug and play tools built for marketing campaigns from TikTok to Instagram and beyond. Get hardware that fits your business. Take payments by smartphone, transform your tablet into a point of sale system, or use Shopify's POS GoMobile device for a battle-tested solution.

Plus Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way. Do retail right with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash sword and scale, all lower case. Go to Shopify.com slash sword and scale to take your retail business to the next level today. Shopify.com slash sword and scale.