The suspect in a quadruple murder in Oklahoma has been arrested in Florida, according to police.
Wu Chen, 45, was arrested in Miami Beach at about 4 p.m. Tuesday after a car tag reader, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said, according to the New York Post. He will be extradited to Oklahoma to face murder charges.
Chen is accused of killing four people on Nov. 20, at a 10-acre marijuana farm near Hennessey, which is about 55 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. The four slain victims, as well as one person who was wounded, are all Chinese nationals.
Capt. Stan Florence of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said Monday that Chen knew the victims, according to The New York Times.
“They all know each other,” he said. “Don’t know if they’re related, don’t know if they’re co-workers, but certainly, we believe they were all familiar with each other.”
The Kingfisher County Sheriff’s Office was initially summoned to the farm to respond to a hostage situation.
Brook Arbeitman, a representative of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, said the suspect entered a building on the farm at about 5:45 p.m. Sunday and was inside “for a significant amount of time” before shots were fired.
Arbeitman said the three men and one woman had been shot and killed in a “violent, execution-style manner.”
“It was clearly an execution and not just a random firing,” she said.
Mark Woodward, a spokesman with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control, said violence and marijuana have been linked.
“We’ve had several homicides tied to medical marijuana businesses in Oklahoma,” he said.
The farm was heavily guarded, according to The Associated Press.
People delivering the mail were “met with guns pretty much all the time,” Jack Quirk, the owner of the local paper, All About Hennessey, said Wednesday. “Why are there guards anyway? You know, if it’s a legit farm, what’s the deal?”
Quirk said some residents dislike how the state is regulating the marijuana industry.
“They weren’t prepared for what comes along with this stuff,” he said. “This particular facility is a great example of that … they were doing questionable things that the neighbors feel weren’t checked on.”
Oklahoma voters legalized medical marijuana back in 2018.
In March, voters will decide if the state will legalize the recreational use of marijuana.
