Four family members who were kidnapped at gunpoint earlier this week in California, including an eight-month-old baby, have been found dead.

Aroohi Dheri, her mother Jasleen Kaur, 27, her father Jasdeep Singh, 36, and Dheri’s uncle Amandeep Singh, 39, were all named as the victims.

During the course of his labor, a farmhand in rural Merced County, central California, discovered their dead in an orchard.

Although a suspect is in custody, no cause has been established.

At a news conference on Wednesday night, Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke remarked, “An entire family wiped out, and we still don’t know why.”

Warnke did not say how the family was killed but said they were likely slain before they had been reported missing.

On Monday morning outside their trucking company in the city of Merced, surveillance video shows a man speaking to the male victims while holding what looks to be a gun.

The guy then drives away after loading the victims into a pickup truck and tying their hands behind their backs. After the truck has been gone for a while, the suspect comes into the property, guides Kaur and her baby to the truck while carrying a gun.

Jesus Manuel Salgado, 48, was detained by police on Tuesday after the man’s relatives notified authorities that he had acknowledged to taking part in the kidnapping.

Sheriff Warnke said the suspect attempted suicide before he was apprehended and had to be sedated because “every time he has come near consciousness, he’s been violent”.

“The circumstances around this, when we are able to release everything, should anger the hell out of you,” he added, visibly emotional. “There’s a special place in hell for this guy.”

A credit card belonging to one of the victims was used at an ATM within the county on Tuesday morning, but police have determined that Salgado was not the person seen in surveillance footage of the ATM.

“I fully believe that we will uncover and find out that there was more than just him involved,” the sheriff said.

He also said that, although the kidnapper did not appear to make any ransom demands, the crime appears to have been financially motivated.

Police said Salgado was previously convicted of armed robbery in 2005 but had been paroled in 2015.

Investigators are yet to establish any links between the suspect and his victims.