Calaveras County Sheriff's Office
San Andreas, CA — Officials have in custody one of two suspects who had escaped arrest after a marijuana robbery and torture incident near Murphys followed by a deadly multi-vehicle chase.
As reported here, the June 24 robbery of a U-Haul filled with marijuana from a location on French Gulch Road included torture-style attacks on multiple victims who were bound to chairs and robbery of other valuables. Following a multiple vehicle chase along Highway 12 near Valley Springs, four male suspects from Illinois, Roseville and San Diego were arrested.
Two more reportedly escaped from one of the vehicles and eluded capture by running from the scene. Another male perished in a crash that occurred during the course of the highway pursuit.
According to Calaveras County Sheriff’s spokesperson Sgt. Rachelle Whiting, 30-year-old Carlos Oshan Merkhai of Phoenix, Arizona, who had been identified by case investigators as one of the two runaway suspects, arrived in Calaveras County on Monday night. Arizona law authorities had picked him up on several related felony warrants for which the bail totaled $5 million and he was transported to San Andreas.
According to the custody log, he was booked into the Calaveras County Jail on the following charges: kidnapping for ransom as well as to commit robbery; torture; carjacking; also assault on a person with a semiautomatic firearm. As the case remains under investigation, Sgt. Whiting says no other details are available at this time.