Five men arrested in killings of 6 people found slain in California desert

Los Angeles: Five men have been arrested on suspicion of murdering six people last week in a remote patch of California's Mojave Desert, a mass killing investigators believe stemmed from the illicit marijuana trade, local law enforcement officials said on Monday.

The six victims, all men, were shot to death, and four of them also were burned, their bodies left strewn in a grisly crime scene discovered last Tuesday night at the junction of two dirt roads about 60 miles (97 km) northeast of Los Angeles, officials said.

Authorities said some of the victims may have been involved in criminal activity that led to the killings.

"It looks like illicit marijuana was the driving force behind these murders," Sheriff Shannon Dicus told reporters at a news briefing in San Bernardino on Monday evening.

Dicus said the November 2016 voter-approved ballot measure that legalized the use, sale and cultivation of recreational cannabis for adults in California also lowered penalties for illicit marijuana offenses from felonies to misdemeanors.

"By allowing that, we've unleashed a plague in California and the plague is the black market of marijuana, and certainly cartel activity, and a number of victims that are out there," Dicus said.

Deputies who located the bodies in an area of desert scrub near the community of El Mirage off Highway 395 last Tuesday responded to a 911-emergency phone call from a man speaking Spanish who said he had been shot and did not know his own whereabouts, according to sheriff's Sergeant Michael Warrick.

That man was among the six found dead a short time later after police tracked the phone call to the scene of the killings.

Some of the victims are believed to be of Honduran origin, officials said. The five men arrested are believed to be the only suspects involved in the killings. They were taken into custody at an illegal cannabis cultivation site under development and were jailed without bond, the sheriff said.

Los Angeles television station KTLA-TV reported last week that aerial footage from the scene showed bloodied bodies on the ground with dozens of evidence markers and bullet casings surrounding them.

Two vehicles— an SUV and a van were also left at the scene. KTLA said the SUV was riddled with bullet holes and appeared to have some of its windows blown out. One of the bodies was found in one of the vehicles.