Seven charged in fatal shooting, robbery at Oklahoma medical marijuana grow

The heist crew descended on the medical marijuana grow near Castle around sunrise Jan. 7.

The bandits were dressed in all black, with masks on their faces and gloves on their hands. They forced their way through the front door of a residence and ordered those inside to get on the ground.

One occupant, Harry Dam, was shot, twice, and dragged still alive to the living room, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation reported

The other two were ordered to crawl to the same room on their hands and knees. The crew then zip-tied the victims' hands behind their backs, took 138 pounds of processed marijuana and left.

Dam, 53, died before help arrived.

OSBI agents have been looking for months into the deadly robbery at the Yao Qian Shu pot farm 70 miles east of Oklahoma City. They concluded the same man, Yi Mun Lee, was behind it and another pot farm robbery by a different crew in Stephens County Jan. 27. Murder charges against Lee and six others were filed Wednesday.

The armed robberies are the latest examples of the violence surrounding Oklahoma's medical marijuana industry. The worst example is the 2022 mass shooting at a pot farm 15 miles west of Hennessey. A former worker, Wu Chen, was sentenced in February to life in prison without the possibility of parole for four murders.

More: He was the accountant for an Oklahoma pot farm that became a massacre site. Now he's charged

How a rental of a yellow van led to murder charges

Investigators suspected the robberies were related because the crew that hit Harvest Paradise in Stephens County also wore all black.

The break that led to this week's murder charges came because that crew made a mistake. They had rented a yellow Penske van.

Neighbors of the grow remembered seeing the van and thinking it was strange, according to court affidavits. A Stephens County sheriff's investigator contacted Penske. He found out the van had been rented in Waco, Texas, and had a GPS tracker. Penske provided records on its locations.

Those GPS records showed the van had been driven from Waco on Jan. 25 to a strip club in Oklahoma City and then to an Airbnb in Norman. It was driven early Jan. 27 to the grow in Stephens County and then back to Waco.

The OSBI contacted the owner of the home in Norman and found out Lee rented the Airbnb from Jan. 25 to Jan. 28. The OSBI then used cellphone tracking records to place Lee around both grows at the time of the robberies, according to the affidavits.

Agents used interviews, surveillance video recordings, Cash App data, court filings and more cellphone records to identify the other murder suspects, according to the affidavits.

Lee, 50, is charged in Okfuskee County District Court with first-degree murder, conspiracy and robbery with a dangerous weapon.

Also charged are Dillon Alexander Brown, 24, Isavier Dawkins, 18, Holland Mason, 38, Kayla Green, 23, Demarcus Tyre Williams, 31, and Jianhua Wu, 46.

The OSBI said Friday the investigation is ongoing and more charges could be filed.

Lee also faces a robbery charge over the Stephens County heist. He was arrested March 7 at an airport in Dallas. Five others are charged with robbery in that heist.

His attorney in the Stephens County case declined comment Friday. No attorneys are listed on online records for the other murder defendants.

Lee is listed in court records as having an address in Oklahoma City. The OSBI reported in affidavits that he spent most of his time, though, in Brooklyn, New York.

He is a U.S. citizen and works in the nail salon/manicure business, his defense attorney told a judge Tuesday.

The grow near Castle was operating legally and is still in operation, authorities said.

"It devastated them, of course. But they picked up and they're still going," Okfuskee County Sheriff R.L. Wilbourn said.

The sheriff called the Jan. 7 heist brutal and tactical.

Dam was still in his blue pajama pants and a T-shirt when the robbers broke in. He was shot in the back and left shoulder, according to his autopsy report.

Also in the house was his girlfriend, Linda Chen, and his brother, Vihn Dam. The brother reported the robbers were armed with a pistol.

Stephens County has had a number of armed robberies at grows since August, Undersheriff Rick Lang said Friday.

"I kind of lost track but I believe ... about six. Some of them we believe are connected. Some of them are not," the undersheriff said. "Some of them were very violent."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Seven charged in fatal shooting at an Oklahoma medical marijuana grow