Texas authorities have arrested a man they allege murdered a family of four execution-style in their home in 2014.
A statement from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office confirms Feng Lu, 58, was arrested in San Francisco on Sunday.
Officials took Lu into custody at the airport soon after he arrived on a plane from China. Lu remains in California, where he’s currently awaiting extradition to Texas.
Lu is charged with four counts of capital murder in connection with the deaths of the Sun family, who were found fatally shot on Jan. 30, 2014, inside their home in the Houston neighborhood of Cypress.
The killings made news both in the United States and in China.
No motive for the killings has been discussed, but authorities have confirmed Lu and Maoye Sun once worked together,KHOU reports.
Maoye Sun, his wife Mei Xie, and their two small children, Timothy and Titus.
Early on, there was some speculation the killings were a targeted hate crime. According to KHOU, Chinese reports on the killings alleged the crime was connected to a high-ranking Chinese government official, who was being investigated for corruption. Others theorized a professional hitman was hired to murder the family.
For years, local authorities faced criticism from Houston’s Chinese American community, who felt police were not doing enough to solve the case.
Rogene Gee Calvert, the director of Outreach Strategies, where she works on the Texas Asian American Redistricting Initiative, told PEOPLE on Wednesday that “the community is just very gratified that the accused has been arrested.”
Calvert tells PEOPLE that police had not “been real open” with local leaders about the progress of the investigation, and “were quiet” about the case.
Feng Lu.Harris County Sheriff’s Office
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“It was a surprise — and a good surprise,” says Calvert, who says she was personally “shocked” to learn of Lu’s arrest. “We know that law enforcement has its hands full in general, and that this was never a cold case. There was enough there that they could stay on this person and be waiting for him when he arrived on American soil.”
Now, Calvert says, the community is patiently awaiting word on why this tragedy happened.
It was unclear Wednesday how long Lu was in China, or why he returned to the states.
Lu does not yet have a lawyer of record, and will not be asked to enter pleas until he goes before a Texas judge following his extradition.
source: people.com
