On October 17, 2013, the bodies of 51-year-old Jim Tat Kong and 38-year-old Cindy Bao Feng Chen were found in a minivan parked in a secluded area off Highway 20 near Fort Bragg, California. The vehicle had been positioned so it was not easily visible from the highway. Investigators determined both victims had been shot in the back of the head, an execution-style killing.

The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, assisted by the California Department of Justice Criminalists and the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office, expanded the inquiry into the Bay Area and worked with the FBI’s Asian Organized Crime unit. Authorities say Wing Wo Ma borrowed money from Kong for a failed marijuana grow and a real estate scheme; as his financial problems grew, Ma allegedly lured Kong and Chen to the secluded spot and shot them from the minivan’s back seat.

A federal indictment later charged Ma with causing death with a firearm and related offenses; the trial record describes the killings as deliberate and planned. Did anyone who knew Kong or Chen notice tensions around the grow operation or the real estate deal before October 2013?