Between 1950 and 1957, Edwards resided in the cities of Pico Rivera, El Monte and Azusa in Los Angeles County.

[5][1][8] In the 1960s, Edwards moved to Ralston Avenue in Sylmar, Los Angeles, with his wife and two children, both adopted.

[1] After forcing the girls to write a note to their parents saying that they were running away from home, Edwards and his accomplice then took them by car to remote Bouquet Canyon in Angeles National Forest north of Newhall, California.

[10][2][4][1] He handed them a loaded handgun, told them that he had planned to molest and kill the three girls, and confessed to having murdered six other children.

During a preliminary hearing on March 17, 1970, Edwards tried to plead guilty, but the judge refused to accept the plea.

Edwards agreed and requested the death penalty, indicating that he wanted to pay the ultimate price for his crimes and that he was willing to trade places with the next man in line for the gas chamber.

[10][12][2] He was transferred to San Quentin State Prison on June 11, 1970, where he occupied a cell next to an inmate who neighbored Charles Manson on the other side.

[2] On October 30, 1971, Edwards killed himself by hanging using an electrical television cord in his cell in San Quentin State Prison.

Before he was transferred to San Quentin State Prison, he claimed to both a Los Angeles County jail guard and another inmate that he had killed between eighteen and twenty-two children.

[12] Edwards told the guard that he refused to repeat his jailhouse confession about the other killings to the police at the time because the authorities had disparaged him and said "bad things about me in court.

"[2] The twelve-year interval between the disappearance of Baker and Howell and the shooting of Rochet has led investigators to suspect Edwards may have committed similar crimes during that time.