“Tonight, our worst fears have been confirmed,” Sheriff Vernon Warnke said at theconference that was shared on MCSO’s Facebook page. “We found the four people from the kidnapping, and they are in fact deceased.”
Warnke did not detail how the family was killed, though he said it appears as though they were killed before they were reported missing on Monday. He added that the family of the victims has been notified of their deaths.
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Merced County Sheriff’s Office
In a second video shown at the press conference, the suspect was seen marching Jasdeep and Amandeep out through the back entrance of the business. Police said the victims appeared to be tied up with zip ties before they were placed into the backseat of a pickup truck.
The suspect drove the truck away at 9:13 a.m. local time before returning to the business moments later to take Jasleen and Aroohi out of the business “unrestrained” and into the truck, according to an MCSO official at the briefing.
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Detectives from MCSOidentified the suspect as 48-year-old Jesus Manuel Salgadoon Tuesday after receiving information from a bank in the city of Atwater, where he had used one of the victims' ATM cards, the officials said.
At a prior news conference, Sheriff Warnke shared that Salgado was convicted in 2005 of a crime involving armed robbery and false imprisonment. He was released on parole in 2015.
During the Wednesday evening press conference, Warnke detailed that the suspect has now been supplying information to authorities, and they are working to identify a motive for the killings. He later said that police believe others may have been involved in the slayings as well.
The investigation currently remains ongoing. It was not immediately clear if the suspect had obtained a lawyer to provide a comment to PEOPLE on his behalf.
source: people.com
