A former employee of Unison Trucking, a nationwide general freight hauler in Merced, CA, has been arrested and charged with murdering the family that owned the company.
The bodies of 8-month-old Aroohi Dheri; her mother, Jasleen Kaur, 27; father, Jasdeep Singh, 36; and uncle, Amandeep Singh, 39, were found in an almond orchard in Dos Palos, California, about 30 miles south of Merced, California.
The four had been kidnapped from their business at gunpoint on Monday. Surveillance video showed Jasdeep Singh contacting a masked robber who pulled out a firearm. Shortly after, he and Amandeep Singh were led out of the facility with their hands zip-tied behind their backs. The assailant forced both into a pickup truck and drove away. The truck returned to the facility with the suspect entering a part of the building that wasn’t video monitored. It is presumed that he came back for the baby and his mother. The pickup truck is eventually seen leaving via South Highway 59.
Jesus Manuel Salgado, 48, is in custody and charged with four counts of kidnapping and four counts of murder. Family members told officials that about a year ago, Salgado had sent angry emails or texts to the business owners after working for them. He was identified as a person of interest after detectives had been notified that someone attempted to use an ATM card belonging to one of the deceased. They used the surveillance video from the ATM and matched it with the video from the crime scene.
This is not Salgado’s first brush with the law. He was convicted on a methamphetamine possession charge in 2001, witness intimidation, and a residential robbery with gun enhancements on Nov. 7, 2006. The details of that crime are eerily like the most recent charges.
Family members of the 2006 crime told case investigators that Salgado dressed in a black ski mask and robbed them at gunpoint at home. The incident was reported on Dec. 19, 2005. A family member said he had parked in his garage when Salgado opened the driver’s side door and pointed a gun. Other family members were in the house while the crime was happening. Salgado tied the man’s hands behind his back, took his wallet, and demanded the PIN for his credit card. “Better tell me the truth because I’m taking your daughter with me,” Salgado told the victim, according to the sheriff’s report.
The victim provided Salgado with the PIN. He then proceeded into the house and ordered the victim’s wife at gunpoint to bring a safe out to the garage and open it. She opened the safe, and Salgado took out a large amount of money and a bag of jewelry and ordered the family into their swimming pool, instructing them not to call the police, or he’d be back to kill them. Upon his departure, the family called 911, and Salgado was taken into custody a short while later. He was released from prison on parole in 2015.
Salgado attempted to take his own life before law officials brought him in as a person of interest in this crime. He is currently in a local hospital in critical condition.
