Sikh Family Including 8 Month Baby Allegedly Kidnapped In California Found Dead

Four members of a Sikh family who were recently kidnapped were found dead Wednesday night in Merced County, California. The victims were abducted Monday at a gunpoint from the family business off South Highway 59.

A farmworker called the authorities at around 5:30 p.m. to report the dead bodies. Responding officers arrived at the scene shortly and confirmed the bodies were of 8-month-old Aroohi Dheri, her mother, Jasleen Kaur, 27, her father, Jasdeep Singh, 36, and her uncle, Amandeep Singh, 39, Fox News reported.

Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said in a statement, “Tonight our worst fears have been confirmed. We found the four people from the kidnapping and they are deceased. There are no words right now to describe the anger I feel and the senselessness of this incident. I said it earlier, there’s a special place in hell for this guy.”

Meanwhile, the investigators recovered a surveillance photo from the ATM in Atwater and the person in the surveillance photo looked similar to the one from the kidnapping scene. The sheriff’s office then released two still images of a potential suspect in surveillance footage and asked for the public’s help in identifying him, Los Angeles Times reported.

The suspect in kidnapping of the family tried to kill himself Tuesday and has been confined in a hospital in critical condition, Yahoo! News reported.

The Merced County Sheriff’s deputies identified the suspect as Jesus Salgado, 48, after using one of the victim's ATM card.

The sheriff's office said Tuesday that firefighters on Monday located a pickup truck belonging to Amandeep Singh that was on fire. The Merced Police Department officers proceeded to his residence while a family member tried to reach him. The family members called the Merced County Sheriff’s Office to report the four people missing when they were not able to contact them.

The sheriff's office said the FBI, the California Department of Justice, along with other local law enforcement agencies are helping with the investigation of this case, ABC News reported.

Merced is a city of 86,000 people about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco in the San Joaquin Valley.