2 men who brought dying man to hospital charged with his murder

FRESNO, Calif. -- Two years after a home invasion, kidnapping, and double homicide in Fresno County, two men who may have never fired a shot are facing murder charges.

Chi Tang left Community Regional Medical Center in handcuffs back in August 2014. Along with Sergio Hernandez, he had driven a dying man to the hospital. The man had been shot about seven miles away, when a home invasion ended in a shootout.

One of the residents told a sheriff's deputy there were seven suspects who broke in looking for marijuana and money. And then it all went crazy.

"All the male subjects, the suspects, left the trailer where he was at and then he heard several minutes worth, according to him, of consistent gunfire," said deputy Robert Mehling.

Deputies testified the gunfire didn't end the ordeal for a 15-year-old girl who lived on the property. She was tied up inside the house and after the suspects left and the gunfire started, one of them came back to get her.

"He walked out of the room and then quickly came back in the room and then escorted her out to the front yard," said detective Mark Chapman.

She was loaded into a car with three suspects and rode along as sheriff's deputies chased them at speeds above 100 miles per hour. And she saw the suspects try to get rid of evidence.

"She said that the front passenger threw a handgun, a black handgun out the window," Chapman said.

Highway workers found the gun a week later, and prosecutors say testing proved it killed a second man who was left behind as the other suspects escaped.

"I just saw him covered with blood," Mehling said. "Later on, I discovered that he had a wound consistent with a gunshot on the left side of his head near the ear."

The suspects let the girl go in southeast Fresno and they've never been caught. But deputies tracked down Tang and Hernandez at the hospital in a second car. They also found three ski masks, marijuana and a woman's purse.

Their defense attorneys say they never took part in the robbery, they just sat in one of the cars. But prosecutors charged them under the felony murder rule, accusing them of taking part in a dangerous felony that led to the deaths of two of the home invaders. A judge will decide Friday whether there's enough evidence for them to stand trial for murder.