This was the worst case of mass murder in California history at that time, surpassing the killing of six persons each by James Dunham on a farm in Santa Clara County in 1896, and by John Goins in Stockton and Galt in 1926.

In the spring of 1928, he was employed for about three months as a cook and fruit picker at the Bryan ranch in unincorporated Solano County, near Rockville,[5] five miles from Fairfield.

[6][7] Leung was eventually dismissed in June for attacking and attempting to rape Wong Gee's daughter Nellie, though he would later claim that it was a consensual affair.

[8] On September 15, 1927, eleven months prior to Leung Ying's attack, another Chinese worker, 38-year-old Jung Lee Fong, had run amok on the Bryan ranch with an axe and set fire to two buildings, before he was shot by Wong Gee.

[10][11] In the morning hours of August 22, 1928, Leung, armed with a rifle (also described as a sawn-off shotgun)[12] a hatchet, and under the influence of opium,[11] returned to the ranch and attacked the residents and workers there.

Johnnie was shot through the head at close range while Willie died of cranial injuries when Leung crushed his skull with either his axe or a cleaver from the kitchen.

[2] During his interrogation Leung readily admitted to having committed the murders, and stated that he had seen the two police officers trailing him during the night, and, although he had had the opportunity to shoot them at any time, he had refrained from doing so, because he feared he would be hanged, if he killed a white man.

[29][30] In interviews with the press, however, he instead stated that incessant teasing about his lack of intelligence and physical appearance (Leung was of below average height and had deep pockmark scars on his face, likely from smallpox) had pushed him to commit the murders.

"[8] Initial media speculated that the murders were gang violence related to the Tong Wars, which was dismissed by police, who instead blamed Leung's drug use resulting in mental instability.

[33] The next day, on August 24, Leung was arraigned at the Superior Court in Suisun City, where again he admitted committing the murders, stating he wished he had the opportunity to kill half a dozen more.

[34] While in Solano County jail, Leung attempted to convince a guard to temporarily release him, stating that his only regret was that he had not yet killed "a certain elderly Chinese woman" and would return should he be allowed to commit the deed.

[35] Although the killings were widely publicized in its immediate aftermath, the event became disregarded as its effects were confined to the Chinese community, which faced considerable ostracization.

[12] The December 1985 issue of the Solano Historian magazine published a June 2, 1981 speech to the California Historical Society by journalist Evelyn Lockie, who was a resident of Rockville and involved with its Chinatown community in the 1920s.

Lockie was familiar with the family of Wong Gee, who was a friend of her father and traveled to the scene of the Bryan ranch murders as part of job at The Sacramento Bee, unaware of who the victims were until the deputy in charge mentioned their names.

Lockie wrote a speech to commemorate the killings over fifty years after the murders to call for a memorial to the victims as well as Rockville's now-largely abandoned Chinatown.