The teen suspect in a shocking Oklahoma murder case was not motivated by race, because “he has a lot of Caucasian friends with whom he hangs with,” according to a family member.
Rachel Padilla, the older sister of 15-year-old James Edwards Jr., appeared on CNN’s Out Front with Erin Burnett to discuss the allegations against her brother in the murder of Australian baseball player Christopher Lane.
“I knew he had a Facebook page, but I never looked at it, and it’s hard to believe that he would even put things on there like that,” Padilla said when shown social media posts from Edwards that espoused “hate” toward whites.
Host Burnett asked, “Have you ever heard your brother say awful things about white people?” Padilla responded that he was not racist because he has a number of white friends. “The only way that I would feel that he would say anything racist about anybody is because we have felt racism from some of the people here in the community,” she stated.