E-Paper
Abducted Sikh family found dead in orchard
Kidnapped at gunpoint on Monday, a Sikh family of four, including an eight-month-old child, were found dead in an orchard in an “extremely remote” farm area in central California late on Wednesday night, local authorities said, describing the crime as “horribly senseless”.
Kidnapped at gunpoint on Monday, a Sikh family of four, including an eight-month-old child, were found dead in an orchard in an “extremely remote” farm area in central California late on Wednesday night, local authorities said, describing the crime as “horribly senseless”.
The Merced sheriff’s office said that a local farmer found the bodies of 36-year-old Jasdeep Singh, 27-year-old Jasleen Kaur, their eight-month-old child Aroohi Dheri, and the baby’s uncle and Jasdeep’s brother, 39-year-old Amandeep Singh, in an orchard in “an extremely rural area”.
The family was in the trucking business and is originally from Hoshiarpur district in Punjab.
“Tonight, our worst fears have been confirmed. We found the four people from the kidnapping and they are, in fact, deceased,” Sheriff Vern Warnke of Merced County said on Wednesday night Pacific time, adding that investigators were attempting to determine a motive.
The police have a suspect, 48-year-old Jesus Manuel Salgado, in custody. Salgado attempted to kill himself and is in a critical condition receiving medical attention in a hospital. He was picked up after he used an ATM card of one of the victims on October 4. Salgado’s family, too, confirmed to the authorities that he had admitted to being involved in the kidnapping.
“There are no words to describe the anger I feel and the senselessness of this incident. I have said this earlier. There is a special place in hell for this guy and I mean it,” the sheriff said.
Salgado was convicted of armed robbery in 2005 and spent 11 years in a state prison.
The Indian consulate in California is in touch with the Sheriff’s office. Initial information indicates that Jasdeep, Amandeep and the child were all American citizens; information on Jasleen’s citizenship was awaited at the time of going to print. The consulate reached out to the local community and offered to extend all possible help, according to people familiar with the development.
Merced is located in the northern San Joaquin Valley section of the Central Valley in California. The region is home to a large Sikh population, primarily farmers.
Warnke said that a farm worker in the area, during the course of his work on Wednesday evening, found the bodies “in an extremely rural area”. He said the bodies were found relatively close-by, the motivation was still unknown, a determination would be made, and the investigation would pursue a full conviction. “I am hoping that our district attorney’s office files for the death penalty.”
The sheriff said that the suspect was talking to authorities and added they had a lot of “circumstantial evidence” and were gathering direct evidence. But he said he did not wish to disclose any further information at this point.
Warnke said he was “livid” and added that the family had been notified. “It is not the closure they were hoping for. It is not the closure we were hoping for.”
In an earlier press conference, Warnke and investigators had offered the details of the case.
On October 3, around noon local time, authorities got a report of a vehicle fire. After they responded to the fire, highway patrol determined that the registered owner lived in Merced and requested the city’s police department to contact the owner. When the police got to the house, no one responded but they established contact with a family member. Police were then able to determine that a kidnapping had taken place.
Investigators then spread out on Highway 59 and were able to get into the surveillance system; the sheriff’s office released a video that captured the moment when the family was kidnapped from a store. The video showed Jasdeep Singh coming out around 9am on Monday and making contact with the suspect in the parking lot; the suspect was carrying a trash bag. The camera caught the suspect putting down the trash bag and taking out a firearm.
The suspect then entered the business store, but in the absence of cameras inside, what transpired is not known. At about 9.10am, the suspect came out of the back door with his gun, with Jasdeep and Amandeep Singh, whose hands were zip-tied behind their backs, following right after him. Both were put in the back-seat of a pickup van, but six minutes later, the van once again approached the back door of the business store and the suspect abducted the child.
Jasdeep Singh’s elderly parents, Randhir Singh and Kirpal Kaur, were on a spiritual tour back in India but returned to California when the news of the kidnapping broke.
The killing sparked outrage in India.
Punjab’s chief minister Bhagwant Singh Mann said he was deeply saddened to hear the news and appealed to external affairs minister S Jaishankar to conduct a high-level probe.
Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri, who kicked off a five-day visit to the United States on Thursday for bilateral engagements on energy, tweeted, “Deeply shocked and saddened to learn of the dastardly kidnapping & murder of four members of the Sikh Sangat, including a toddler and her mother in Merced County, California…I hope the culprit is brought to justice soon.”
Back in Punjab, families of the victims struggled to come to terms with the loss. Narinder Singh, Jasleen’s uncle, said she married Jasdeep in January 2019 and left for the US in October 2020. “My niece had informed us recently that they are planning to visit us in January 2023. We were eagerly waiting to see them and celebrate Aroohi’s first birthday on January 27. but destiny had something else in store,” he said.
