The sheriff of Merced County in California has confirmed that the India-origin family of four, including an 8-month-old girl, that was allegedly kidnapped on Monday, 3 October has been found dead. The bodies of the deceased were reportedly found in an orchard in the county.
#Chandigarh: A Punjab-origin Sikh family of four, including an eight-month-old child, who were kidnapped from Merced County in #California, was found dead, authorities said on Thursday. pic.twitter.com/whWcBPMuAe
— IANS (@ians_india) October 6, 2022
“It’s horribly, horribly senseless. We found the four people from the kidnapping and they are in fact deceased”, Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said.
The 8-month-old baby, Aroohi Dheri along with her mother Jasleen Kaur (27), her father Jasdeep Singh (36), and her uncle, Amandeep Singh (39) were abducted at gunpoint in central California’s city of Merced on Monday, 3 October.
Jasdeep Singh’s family, originally from Hoshiarpur in Punjab, had immigrated to the United States about 16 years ago and developed a transportation business there.
On Monday, when the family was kidnapped, the California police released surveillance video showing a man kidnapping them in Merced, in the San Joaquin Valley southeast of San Francisco.
#Breaking: Police found dead bodies of all four members of US-based, Hoshiarpur family who were kidnapped from a business at Merced County in California.
— Akashdeep Thind (@thind_akashdeep) October 6, 2022
CCTV of the kidnapping 👇#California #Punjab pic.twitter.com/p3Hkcq6uxP
The police were alerted about the crime after they found Amandeep Singh’s black pickup truck burning on the side of the county road on Monday. When officers could not contact the family while investigating the burning truck, they concluded that they had been kidnapped.
Meanwhile, according to authorities, a man wanted in connection with the kidnapping was arrested on Tuesday after attempting to commit suicide.
California police identified Jesus Manuel Salgado, 48, as “a person of interest” after CCTV footage showed a man resembling him using a bank ATM card belonging to one of the missing persons. The kidnapper made no ransom demands but the sheriff said he believes it was a financially motivated crime.
Merced County Sheriff’s Office in a statement on October 4 said, “investigators obtained the surveillance photo of a subject making a bank transaction where the person is similar in appearance to the surveillance photo from the original kidnapping scene. At approximately noon, working with our local law enforcement partners, the Sheriff’s Office received information that identified Jesus Manuel Salgado as a person of interest in this investigation. Prior to law enforcement’s involvement, Salgado attempted to take his own life. Salgado is in our custody, currently receiving medical attention, and in critical condition.”
Meanwhile, the deceased’s family and relatives are in shock back home in Punjab’s Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur districts. Jasdeep Singh’s father Randhir Singh’s neighbour, Charanjit Singh, said that Jasdeep’s parents were in shock and were unable to speak.
Randhir Singh and his wife Kirpal Kaur were government servants and had retired from the departments of health and education, respectively.
When Randhir Singh reached Rishikesh, he received a call from his daughter-in-law Jaspreet Kaur, wife of Amandeep Singh, telling him about the incident of kidnapping of her husband and other family members.
