Authorities believe Alberto Salgado helped his older brother, Jesus Salgado, destroy evidence after he kidnapped and murdered a central California family.
The brother of the suspected kidnapper and murderer of a family was arrested as an accomplice.
Authorities believe Alberto Salgado helped his older brother, Jesus Salgado, destroy evidence after he kidnapped and murdered a central California family.
Alberto was charged with criminal conspiracy, accessory, and destroying evidence.
The Merced County Sheriff’s Office believes the older Salgado kidnapped and murdered Amandeep Singh, Jasdeep Singh, Jasleen Kaur, and Aroohi Dheri.
Jasdeep and Amandeep were brothers and owned a trucking business in Merced. Jasdeep was married to Jasleen, and Aroohi was their 8-month-old daughter.
Their bodies were found on Thursday by a farm worker in an almond orchard.
‘There’s no words right now to describe the anger I feel and the senselessness of this incident,’ said Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke.
Salgado had worked for the family’s trucking business, but had been feuding with the family for at least a year before their kidnapping, the sheriff said. Warnke did not go into further detail about Salgado’s relationship with the Singh family, but did note that text and email exchanges between them ‘got pretty nasty.’
The Singh family were kidnapped on Monday. Surveillance footage from their business in Merced shows a masked man escort the members of the family out to a pickup truck, later identified as belonging to Amandeep.
Deputies found Amandeep’s truck on fire later that day.
Salgado was eventually found on Wednesday when he tried to withdraw money using an ATM card belonging to a member of the family. When authorities tried to arrest him, Salgado attempted to take his own life.
He was hospitalized after the incident, then later arrested and charged with murder and kidnapping on Friday.
Warnke had previously warned that Salgado most likely had an accomplice, and the case was still under investigation. ‘We don’t have any evidence to say that he didn’t [act alone], but 43 years doing this – everything points to there was probably somebody else,’ he said.
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