Armed guards a fixture outside pot farm before 4 were slain

Armed guards were a fixture outside the marijuana growing operation in rural Oklahoma where four people were slain execution-style.

The mail carrier “was met with guns pretty much all the time,” Jack Quirk, the owner of the local paper, All About Hennessey, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “Why are there guards anyway? You know, if it’s a legit farm, what’s the deal?”

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation announced Tuesday that the suspect in the weekend killings, Wu Chen, was taken into custody by Miami Beach police and brought to the Miami-Dade County Detention Center.

He was arrested “after a car tag reader flagged (the) vehicle he was driving,” the bureau said. The suspect will be charged with murder and shooting with intent to kill and faces extradition to Oklahoma. No attorney has been assigned to him yet.

Authorities said the victims — three men and one woman, all Chinese citizens — were shot dead, “executed” on the 10-acre (4-hectare) property west of Hennessey, a town about 55 miles (90 kilometers) northwest of Oklahoma City. A fifth victim who is also a Chinese citizen was wounded and taken to an Oklahoma City hospital.

The survivor had been shot twice, said Quirk, who showed up when crews were setting up a landing zone for a medical helicopter and watched them load up the man.

The victims had not yet been identified publicly, and officials were still working to notify next of kin, police said.

“The suspect was inside that building for a significant amount of time before the executions began,” OSBI said in a news release earlier Tuesday. “Based on the investigation thus far, this does not appear to be a random incident.”

Oklahoma voters legalized medical marijuana in 2018, and the industry quickly boomed thanks to an open-ended law that put in place fewer restrictions than in other states.

In March, voters will decide whether to legalize recreational use of the drug.

Maryland and Missouri approved recreational marijuana in this month’s midterm elections, bringing the total number states that allow recreational use to 21. Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota voters rejected legalization proposals in the midterms.

Quirk said he’s heard from residents who think the marijuana farms in Oklahoma are poorly regulated.

“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…