Indian American Tech Millionaire Shot Dead After Kidnapped

SANTA CRUZ, CA- Kidnapped tech-entrepreneur Tushar Atre died from a gunshot wound, authorities said Monday.An autopsy found 50-year-old Atre was fatally shot, with the medical examiner ruling the death a homicide, according to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office.

The body of the tech entrepreneur was found in a parked car in the Santa Cruz Mountains on Oct. 1, hours after authorities said Atre was kidnapped from his oceanfront Pleasure Point home.

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff and Coroner’s office released a statement Oct. 7, which read in part: “Following an autopsy, our pathologist determined the cause of death is a gunshot wound and has confirmed this to be a homicide.” Officials have not released the type of weapon involved nor where on his body Atre was shot.

Atre, 50, the founder and CEO of AtreNet and co-founder of Interstitial Systems – a licensed cannabis dispensary and delivery service — was reportedly kidnapped from his ocean-front home on the Northern California coast at 3 a.m. Oct. 1. Interstitial Systems is headquartered just a short distance from Atre’s home

He was seen leaving in a 2008 white BMW SUV, which belongs to his girlfriend Rachel Emerlye, who lives in Massachusetts, but was apparently visiting Atre that week, according to various news reports.

At 10 a.m. that morning, Atre’s body was found by police about 10 miles away from his home, along with the stolen vehicle.

An investigation of the kidnapping led to another of Atre’s properties on 24000 block of Soquel San Jose Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Atre’s body was recovered from the BMW, which was found parked on the property according to Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Ashley Keehn.

Multiple suspects are believed to be involved in the kidnapping and homicide, according to law enforcement reports. No suspects have been taken into custody, said Keehn. She confirmed that Atre was involved in a cannabis-related industry and that investigators are looking into whether his involvement in the marijuana business played a role in his kidnapping and murder.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Atre, who was born in New York, earned his B.A. in English Literature from New York University in 1992. He founded AtreNet, a web marketing and design firm, in 1996. AtreNet served some of the San Francisco Bay Area’s largest corporations, including Hewlett Packard, VMWare, Marvell, Verisign, LSI Logic, Seagate, and dozens of others, according to the company’s Web site.

Anyone with additional information about the case is encouraged to call the Sheriff’s Office tip line at 831-454-7631.