Four family members who were kidnapped at gunpoint earlier this week in California, including an eight-month-old baby, have been found dead.
Aroohi Dheri, her mother Jasleen Kaur, 27, her father Jasdeep Singh, 36, and Dheri’s uncle Amandeep Singh, 39, were all named as the victims.
During his labor, a farmhand in rural Merced County, central California, discovered their dead in an orchard.
Although a suspect is in custody, no cause has been established.
Vern Warnke, the sheriff for Merced County, did not specify how the family was murdered but said it was likely done before they went missing.
On Monday morning outside their trucking company in the city of Merced, surveillance video shows a man speaking to the male victims while holding what looks to be a gun.
The guy then drives away after loading the victims into a pickup truck and tying their hands behind their backs. After the truck has been gone for a while, the suspect comes into the property and guides Kaur and her baby to the truck while carrying a gun.
Jesus Manuel Salgado, 48, was detained by police on Tuesday after the man’s relatives notified authorities that he had acknowledged taking part in the kidnapping.
Before being caught, the suspect tried to commit suicide, according to Sheriff Warnke, and had to be put under sedation because “every time he has been close awareness, he’s been violent.”
On Tuesday morning, one of the victim’s credit cards was used at an ATM in the county, but Salgado was not the person shown in the ATM’s security tape, according to the police.
He added that the crime seems to have been committed for financial gain even though the kidnapper did not appear to demand a ransom.
Salgado, according to the police, was paroled in 2015 despite having previously been convicted of an armed robbery in 2005.
The links between the suspect and his victims have not yet been established by investigators.
