A cul-de-sac on the west end of Riverside now bears the name of three people who were murdered nearly a year ago when a mentally disturbed Virginia law enforcement officer traveled across the country to abduct a teenage member of the household.
Price Court was re-christened "Winek Court," with a new sign erected Thursday, to permanently remember the victims.
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"The Wineks were the neighbors everyone would love to have," Councilman Jim Perry, who represents the area and took the lead in renaming the street, said. "Everyone in the cul-de-sac loved them and were thrilled at the idea of remembering them forever through this effort."
Husband and wife Mark and Sharie Winek were the first to purchase property on Price Court when it was under development in the late 1980s.
"They knew a home on a cul-de-sac would be the perfect place for my sister and I to play with the other neighborhood children and create a close- knit camaraderie between our neighbors -- neighbors who became like family," the slain couple's surviving daughter, Mychelle Blandin, said Thursday.
"To say that my parents were the `pioneers of Price Court' is an understatement. We watched our home being built from the ground up, and it would be the home that held us together for 36 memorable years."
Mark Winek is further remembered by a commemorative plaque behind home plate on the field at Arlington High School, where he coached athletics for years.
The Lions dedicated their 2023 baseball season in his memory.
Mark Winek, 69, and Sharie Winek, 65, were fatally shot, along with their daughter, 38-year-old Brooke Winek, on the morning of Nov. 25, the day after Thanksgiving, 2022.
The perpetrator, 28-year-old Austin Lee Edwards of North Chesterfield, Virginia, was a sheriff's deputy in Washington County and a former Virginia state trooper.
He had driven roughly 2,500 miles to rendezvous with Brooke Winek's 15- year-old daughter at her grandparents' home at 11261 Price Court. According to Riverside police, Edwards was involved in a predatory "catfishing" relationship with the girl, convincing her via online chats that he was a 17- year-old boy.
Edwards gained access to the Winek residence in the early morning hours of Nov. 25, possibly with the help of the girl, whose identity was not released, and perpetrated the killings, police said, then set fire to the residence. As he was making his getaway with the teen, an alert neighbor called 911, concerned for her safety after sensing there was a problem.
Patrol officers were headed to the location when 911 dispatchers began receiving reports of a fire at the house. Crews quickly knocked down the blaze and discovered the victims' bodies placed near the front entrance, according to police.
Edwards' Kia Soul was quickly identified as the vehicle leaving the property, and a region-wide search was initiated, culminating in a pursuit by San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies, who spotted the car going northbound on highways 247 and then 62.
The off-duty lawman lost control of the car and drove off the road. The girl fled the vehicle, but Edwards got out and pointed a gun at a sheriff's helicopter, prompting deputies to open fire. It was at that point he fatally shot himself, according to investigators.
Evidence later surfaced that Edwards had previously engaged in online harassment of another girl years earlier, obsessing about her to the point of threatening suicide if she didn't respond to his messages.
According to published reports, Edwards was briefly committed to a mental hospital in 2016 after an altercation with his father in which he threatened to kill the elder man.
All of this occurred prior to his entering the field of law enforcement.
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