A person accused of killing 4 individuals at an unlawful Oklahoma marijuana farm final month opened fireplace after demanding workers give him $300,000 as a return for his “funding” within the unlawful operation, prosecutors stated.
Wu Chen, 45, was formally charged Friday with 4 counts of first-degree felony homicide and one depend of assault and battery with a lethal weapon within the Nov. 20 assault on the Kingfisher County farm.
He’s accused of killing Chinese language nationals Quirong Lin, Chen He Chun, Chen He Qiang and Fang Hui Lee and injuring Yi Fei Lin, in keeping with charging paperwork.
A submitting requesting Chen be held on no bond revealed how he demanded $300,000 from workers on the farm and “inside minutes” opened fireplace, killing the 4, wounding the fifth sufferer, and “took pictures at, however missed, a sixth.”
“That undeniable fact that it couldn’t be handed over on a second’s discover was what precipitated the mass homicide,” the submitting stated.
It’s not clear why Chen needed the cash at the moment. The submitting recognized him as a Chinese language nationwide “with no binding ties to Oklahoma exterior of his prison exercise.”
Prosecutors stated among the crime was caught on video footage, and eyewitnesses who knew Chen recognized him because the shooter.
After the killings, Chen then fled by automobile to Miami, the place he was discovered Nov. 22 when a license plate reader flagged his car. He was captured and extradited to Oklahoma.
Chen was booked into the Kingfisher County Justice Heart on Thursday and stays in custody, on-line jail information present. It is not instantly clear if he has an lawyer.
“His conduct reveals him to be an intolerably harmful prison, able to take human life at a second’s discover, and the witnesses he has left alive can be in very actual hazard if he have been allowed to be free on bond,” the request for no bond said.
He was allegedly concerned within the “unlawful industrial-scale marijuana develop operation” on the farm, situated west of Hennessey, a city about 50 miles northwest of Oklahoma Metropolis.
Prosecutors warned within the submitting that such enterprises “generate big sums of earnings,” largely in money, which makes it unaccountable, and such cash may assist Chen in fleeing the state and nation.
The marijuana farm has since been seized by legislation enforcement, the submitting said.
NBC Information has reached out Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Harmful Medicine relating to the standing of the farm.
A neighbor, Brandon Walker, stated the property was a dairy farm however was offered in recent times to an funding firm, which offered the land once more earlier than it was transformed to a develop operation.
Since Oklahoma voters legalized medical marijuana in 2018, greater than 10,000 companies have been licensed and 1 in 10 residents have gotten playing cards permitting them to purchase the product.
In Might, Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a invoice briefly blocking new dispensary and processing licenses. The transfer got here after lawmakers stated industrial operations that included out-of-state and overseas growers have been exploiting in-state residency necessities and restricted enforcement sources.
Regulation enforcement officers have reported an increase in black market operators utilizing suspected human trafficking victims, together with Chinese language nationals, to develop and trim marijuana offered in authorized dispensaries.
