According to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, a suspect was detained in Florida after four Chinese nationals were slain at a marijuana field in Oklahoma.
According to a Facebook post by the bureau, the suspect, Wu Chen, 45, was apprehended in Miami Beach when a car tag reader highlighted the vehicle he was driving. Chen was subsequently sent to a correctional institution in Miami-Dade County.
Chen, who is now awaiting extradition to Oklahoma, will face murder and shooting with intent to kill charges. Oklahoma officials shared a picture of him sitting shoeless on a sidewalk, his wrists presumably bound behind his back.
Oklahoma officials, US marshals, and other agencies launched a murder investigation after four persons, all Chinese nationals, were found dead on a 10-acre marijuana plantation near Hennessey on Sunday.
The local sheriff’s office “got an initial report of a hostage scenario at a location on North 2760 Road in Kingfisher County,” according to an earlier Facebook post by the state bureau of investigation.
According to officials, a male suspect entered “a facility on a marijuana grow business” with six workers about 5.45 p.m. on Sunday. Authorities stated the suspect was “within that facility for a lengthy period of time before the executions occurred.”
“When deputies arrived, they discovered four people dead and one wounded.” The wounded person was taken to the hospital, according to the agency. The wounded person was a Chinese national as well.
“Because of a significant language barrier, next of kin notification is pending,” authorities said, adding that “based on the investigation thus far, this does not appear to be a random incident”.
An Oklahoma state bureau of investigation captain, Stan Florence, said authorities believed the suspect knew the victims.
“They all know each other … Don’t know if they’re related, or if they’re co-workers, but certainly these individuals were, we believe, all familiar with each other,” he told KFOR.
According to Mark Woodward, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control, it is too early to declare that illegal marijuana cultivation and trafficking will be a focus of the investigation.
“It being a marijuana farm, obviously Oklahoma state law requires that they have a license from the Oklahoma medical marijuana authority and from us,” he said, adding: “One of the things we’re looking at is, is it obtained legally or was it obtained by fraud? So that’ll be part of our investigation.”
