A person accused of killing four people at an illegal Oklahoma marijuana farm final month opened hearth after demanding workers give him $300,000 as a return for his “investment” within the unlawful operation, prosecutors mentioned.
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 at the Kingfisher County farm.
He is accused of killing Chinese nationals Quirong Lin, Chen He Chun, Chen He Qiang and Fang Hui Lee and injuring Yi Fei Lin, in response to charging paperwork.
A submitting requesting Chen be held on no bond revealed how he demanded $300,000 from workers at the farm and “within minutes” opened hearth, killing the 4, wounding the fifth sufferer, and “took shots at, but missed, a sixth.”
“That fact that it could not be handed over on a moment’s notice was what precipitated the mass murder,” the submitting mentioned.
It’s not clear why Chen wished the cash at that point. The submitting recognized him as a Chinese nationwide “with no binding ties to Oklahoma outside of his criminal activity.”
Prosecutors mentioned 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, where he was found Nov. 22 when a license plate reader flagged his automobile. He was captured and extradited to Oklahoma.
Chen was booked into the Kingfisher County Justice Center on Thursday and stays in custody, on-line jail information present. It’s not instantly clear if he has an lawyer.
“His conduct shows him to be an intolerably dangerous criminal, ready to take human life at a moment’s notice, and the witnesses he has left alive would be in very real danger if he were allowed to be free on bond,” the request for no bond said.
He was allegedly concerned within the “illegal industrial-scale marijuana grow operation” at the farm, positioned west of Hennessey, a city about 50 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.
Prosecutors warned within the submitting that such enterprises “generate big sums of earnings,” largely in cash, which makes it unaccountable, and such money could aid Chen in fleeing the state and country.
The marijuana farm has since been seized by law enforcement, the filing stated.
NBC News has reached out Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs regarding the status of the farm.
A neighbor, Brandon Walker, said the property used to be a dairy farm but was sold in recent years to an investment company, which sold the land again before it was converted to a grow operation.
Since Oklahoma voters legalized medical marijuana in 2018, more than 10,000 businesses have been licensed and 1 in 10 residents have gotten playing cards permitting them to purchase the product.
In May, Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill briefly blocking new dispensary and processing licenses. The transfer got here after lawmakers said commercial operations that included out-of-state and foreign growers were exploiting in-state residency requirements and limited enforcement resources.
Law enforcement officers have reported a rise in black market operators utilizing suspected human trafficking victims, together with Chinese nationals, to develop and trim marijuana offered in authorized dispensaries.
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