Abbotsford police are investigating a fourth suspect following the convoluted kidnapping of a mom and two teenage males in Abbotsford last Friday.

The APD announced Monday that three suspects were no longer in custody after the evidence against them was deemed too circumstantial to proceed with charges.

The trio, who were arrested in a car on Highway 1 shortly after the kidnapping, had previous negative contacts with law enforcement and is still under investigation, according to police.

However, the Abbotsford-Mission Times has learned a fourth suspect also had charges dropped against him.

Jimi Sandhu, 21, Balwinder Narang, 20, Daniel Bajaj and Rajan Sharma, both aged 19, all had two counts of kidnapping and kidnapping with a firearm stayed against them on Monday in Abbotsford provincial court.

Abbotsford police spokesman Const. Ian MacDonald would not confirm whether one of the four suspects was one of the 19-year-old victims of the kidnapping.

Police are not releasing the names of any of the parties involved, said MacDonald.

"But this is still an active investigation and two aspects of the incident are very particular," he said.

"Those incidents are why did the two boys elect to walk down a path after 1 a.m. in the morning, and why did the suspects apparently abort their plan and abandon the abducted on the busiest roadway in B.C.?"

The abduction incident started around 1:30 a.m. last Friday when two 19-year-old men were heading home after a movie.

One victim was driving the family car, a black two-door Infiniti G37, on the way to his friend's house in west Abbotsford when the pair stopped and entered a path near a green belt off of Homestead Crescent.

Masked and armed suspects confronted the pair on the path and forced them back to the Infiniti and to drive to one of the victim's home in the 500 block of McCallum Road.

A 44-year-old woman, the mother of one of the victims, was at home when the suspects forced their way into the house.

They bound her, her other 17-year-old son and a 70-year-old uncle before abducting her and the other two young men in the waiting Infiniti.

Abbotsford police got a call at 2:15 a.m. from the younger son who had managed to free himself and dial 911.

Officers located the two teens and the mother a short time later after getting calls from passing motorists about a woman in distress beside a stopped car along Highway 1 near Clearbrook Road, said MacDonald.

Police arrived to find the Infiniti and all three victims abandoned but unhurt by the kidnappers, who had fled in what was described as a white Acura Integra.

Three men were arrested shortly after in Langley on Highway 1 by RCMP following an alert put out by Abbotsford police describing the car and suspect details.

The McCallum Road home where the kidnapping occurred is listed to Sukhwinder Dhillon.

The family owns the Quality Gold Jewelry Store in Abbotsford and investigators are looking into whether this was motive for the kidnapping.

Of the four suspects in the case only Jimi Sandhu, 21, has a criminal record.

He was convicted of theft under $5,000 in March 2009 and driving while prohibited in October 2008.

Sandhu is currently facing charges of break and enter, assault, assault with a weapon, and possessing a prohibited weapon without a licence and is scheduled for trial in Abbotsford provincial court on Feb. 2.

Crown Counsel has a year to re-instate charges when they have been stayed.

Investigators are following up on physical evidence from the kidnapping that has gone to the lab for forensic analysis, MacDonald said, adding investigators are still hopeful to lay charges.