Man held in 4 killings at Oklahoma pot farm
The suspect in the weekend killings of four people at a marijuana farm in Oklahoma was arrested in the afternoon by officers in South Florida, police announced late Tuesday.
Wu Chen was taken into custody without incident just before 4 p.m. by Miami Beach police and taken to the Miami-Dade County jail, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation stated on Facebook.
The arrest came “after a car tag reader flagged vehicle he was driving,” it added. The suspect will be charged with murder and shooting with intent to kill and faces extradition to Oklahoma.
The agency also posted a photo provided by U.S. marshals of the man sitting on a curb with his hands cuffed behind his back.
Authorities said the three men and one woman, who were Chinese citizens, were “executed” on the 10-acre property about 55 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. A fifth victim who was wounded and who is also a Chinese citizen was taken to an Oklahoma City hospital.
Next-of-kin notification was still pending “because of a significant language barrier,” police said.
“The suspect was inside that building for a significant amount of time before the executions began,” the agency said Tuesday in a news release. “Based on the investigation thus far, this does not appear to be a random incident.”
Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation Capt. Stan Florence said the previous day that authorities believe the suspect knew the victims, who were found dead Sunday night.
Authorities have not identified the victims or said how they died. The case is being investigated as a quadruple homicide.
The Kingfisher County sheriff’s office initially responded to a reported hostage situation at the farm and requested help from state authorities, Florence said.
“There’s a lot to unravel with this case,” he said.
The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control is also investigating.
That agency has targeted criminal growing and trafficking of marijuana for the black market in recent years. But agency spokesman Mark Woodward said Tuesday that it was too soon to say that was a focus of this investigation.
“One of the things we’re looking at is — is [the license] obtained legally or was it obtained by fraud? So that’ll be part of our investigation,” Woodward said.
Porsha Riley, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, said there is an active license for a medical marijuana grow business at the location.