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This story initially aired on April 2, 2022. It was up to date on Aug. 19, 2023.
Tushar Atre, a profitable tech-executive-turned-cannabis-entrepreneur had a multimillion-dollar dwelling on the California coast, the place he spent his free time browsing. His dream home changed into against the law scene in October 2019 – grainy surveillance video from that point reveals he was attacked and kidnapped close to his dwelling. He was later discovered stabbed and fatally shot on his hashish farm within the Santa Cruz mountains.
The 2 crime scenes supplied few clues, although company inside Tushar’s dwelling instructed detectives they heard the intruders demanding to know the placement and mixture of his protected.
Investigators from the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Workplace did have that grainy surveillance video, which captured what occurred on Tushar’s road from the second three shadowy figures entered the neighborhood and walked towards his home. Minutes later, Tushar is seen operating after which is tackled. He’s repeatedly stabbed and ultimately pushed right into a BMW the suspects stole from his driveway, earlier than all of them drive away.
Who had been these figures, and why would they need Tushar Atre lifeless? As “48 Hours” contributor Tracy Smith studies, it is a thriller that investigators would spend greater than seven months unraveling.
WHAT HAPPENED ON PLEASURE POINT DRIVE?
Within the hours after Tushar Atre went lacking on October 1, 2019, his tight-knit Pleasure Level neighborhood was on edge.
Reporter Maria Cid Medina lined the story for the Bay Space’s native CBS station KPIX.
Maria Cid Medina: We began knocking on his neighbors’ doorways. … Everybody was spooked. You would actually see the worry in individuals’s eyes while you talked to them.
Who would goal the 50-year-old tech exec-turned-cannabis entrepreneur, and would they be again for anybody else? The crime scene supplied few clues.
Tracy Smith: You have received a lacking businessman, a pool of blood, lacking automobile, what are you considering?
Steve Cercone: What I’d be considering … is that … This can be a very uncommon case, and doubtlessly a really, very critical felony has simply occurred.
Steve Cercone is a former California police chief and a “48 Hours” marketing consultant who’s reviewed the case.
Tracy Smith: Was there anybody else in the home on the time when he was kidnapped?
Steve Cercone: There have been a number of individuals in the home.
Amongst them one among Tushar’s staff who heard a commotion round 3 a.m.
Mary Fulginiti: One witness … hears three completely different voices, one among them is Tushar’s and the opposite are two unidentified males.
Lawyer Mary Fulginiti is a former federal prosecutor and in addition a “48 Hours” marketing consultant.
Mary Fulginiti: He hears Tushar screaming at occasions.
Steve Cercone: He heard the suspects inform him to get on the bottom …
Mary Fulginiti: “Put your fingers behind your again.” “The place is the protected and what is the mixture?”
Steve Cercone: Tushar pleading with them … “how can we make this proper?”
Tracy Smith: Tushar knew these guys?
Steve Cercone: It looks as if … he knew these guys.
The worker in Tushar’s home known as 911 at 3:34 a.m., half an hour after the attackers had pushed off with Tushar in a white BMW belonging to his girlfriend Rachael Emerlye.
Tracy Smith: So, Rachael’s BMW’s lacking, the place’s Rachael?
Steve Cercone: Apparently Rachael was again east in … Massachusetts when this occurred.
Rachael says she realized about Tushar’s kidnapping when investigators known as her.
Rachael Emerlye: I used to be attempting to piece collectively what this all meant over the telephone. “I used to be simply there. What do you imply? He did not look like he was in peril.”
Investigators realized Rachael wasn’t simply Tushar’s girlfriend, she was additionally his associate within the hashish enterprise, which that they had began collectively after they met in 2017.
Rachael Emerlye: They requested me straightaway “The place’s the pot farm?”
The “pot farm” was 60 acres of open land nestled within the Santa Cruz mountains often known as the Summit property, the place Tushar may legally develop hashish for analysis. He was planning to fabricate medicinal hashish merchandise.
Claire Machado: Who would kidnap him? … You recognize, who would take this man?
Claire Machado, Tushar’s proper hand in numerous enterprise ventures, realized the information in regards to the disappearance from Rachael.
Claire Machado: I known as his telephone. I mentioned, “wherever you might be, we’ll discover you.”
Rachael Emerlye: I had such hope. Each (crying) second I held on to that, for hours and hours.
Round 9:30 that morning — six hours after Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputies had responded to the 911 name from Tushar’s Pleasure Level tackle — investigators positioned the white BMW 14 miles away at his Summit property. There was blood on the inside and outside of the automobile. And 20 to 30 yards away, they discovered the bloody physique of Tushar Atre.
Steve Cercone: Face down, and his fingers had been handcuffed within the again with flex-ties … An obvious gunshot wound to the again of the pinnacle … He had been stabbed a number of occasions. … and close by in addition they discovered 5 shell casings from a .223 rifle. … That is an assault rifle.
Tracy Smith: Did it appear to be an inside job?
Steve Cercone: That is what … I am certain was operating by means of … the investigators’ minds … how would they know the place to go? They discovered him at his home … introduced him as much as his secondary property. So … they knew Mr. Atre.
Nothing in regards to the kidnapping or the homicide indicated this was a random act, says Cercone.
Tracy Smith: It needed to have been somebody near him?
Steve Cercone: It seems that it was undoubtedly somebody near him.
Rachael was on her strategy to catch a flight again to Santa Cruz when she received the information that Tushar was lifeless.
Rachael Emerlye: Worst telephone name of my life (crying) … If you’re in your automobile you may simply scream.
However detectives had extra questions for Rachael as quickly as she received to Santa Cruz.
Tracy Smith: Fairly commonplace to speak to the girlfriend?
Mary Fulginiti: Oh, completely.
Rachael Emerlye: I feel they wished to know … “are you proud of this individual?”
It was difficult.
Rachael Emerlye: It is undoubtedly laborious to be in a relationship and run a enterprise collectively.
For the previous six months, Rachael and Tushar had been residing on reverse coasts whereas Rachael says she was engaged on increasing their medicinal hashish enterprise. They had been targeted on getting the Meals and Drug Administration to approve their hashish product.
Rachael Emerlye: We might gotten it to the purpose the place we felt like that is the product we had been attempting to make.
The couple had met two years earlier whereas she was renting one among his many Santa Cruz properties.
Rachael Emerlye: He … got here in and requested, “do you wanna log on?” … and newbie’s luck, caught a wave … and he was like, “yeah, yeah! Superb, you are superb.”
And Tushar was intrigued by Rachael’s background on this planet of hashish, the place her experience was in agriculture and enterprise growth.
Rachael Emerlye: It simply appeared pure that he would decide my mind about my trade.
They in the end moved in collectively into his multimillion-dollar waterfront home. And Rachael says she invested her complete inheritance — about $300,000 — of their new hashish enterprise.
Rachael Emerlye: Tushar helped by means of my mother passing. If you see that aspect of any person, you could be certain they love you.
However mixing love and enterprise got here with some dangers. Rachael’s contributions to the enterprise weren’t documented on paper, and that, says Claire, turn into a supply of friction within the relationship.
Claire Machado: She did not have something to point out the extent of funding, and he acknowledged that with me.
And Claire says having casual agreements wasn’t uncommon for Tushar.
Claire Machado: He performed laborious and quick and wasn’t actually good at documenting it in writing.
Nonetheless, Claire and Rachael say Tushar was engaged on including Rachael’s identify to the enterprise, and that issues had been going nicely.
Rachael Emerlye: Tushar all the time had the intentions for us to have written agreements. He was very sort to me in enterprise.
Claire Machado: Rachael was nonetheless in love with him, she wasn’t that pissed off. She wished to work it out with him.
Now each ladies had been attempting to determine why anybody would need Tushar lifeless.
Claire Machado: Everybody beloved Tushar … most everybody beloved Tushar.
Claire Machado: Rachael had expressed to me … that Tushar was receiving threatening telephone calls.
Steve Cercone: This was a whodunit from the beginning.
Maria Cid Medina: There weren’t quick suspects …. you bought a way that investigators didn’t have any leads on this case.
However there was one lead — grainy surveillance video of three figures approaching Tushar’s dwelling.
A LONG LIST OF POTENTIAL SUSPECTS
Maria Cid Medina: What set the tone about this story is that there have been a whole lot of rumors … We needed to sift what was reality and what was rumor.
Whereas investigators weren’t naming any suspects in Tushar’s case, rumors endured about Rachael.
Maria Cid Medina: That was our first query, was Rachael linked to his homicide?
Claire Machado: I really feel essentially the most sorry for Rachael. She’s needed to grieve … in addition to defend herself.
MARIA MEDINA | KPIX NEWS REPORT: Investigators didn’t say what connection, if any, the suspects had with Atre. They did say, nonetheless, that his girlfriend isn’t a suspect.
Tracy Smith: So, it was straightforward to rule her out fairly early on.
Mary Fulginiti: I feel so.
Mary Fulginiti: If something, she loses extra with him being deceased than she does with him being alive.
Maria Cid Medina: You bought this sense that investigators didn’t have any thought who his killers had been. Three weeks later … investigators introduced that there could be a $25,000 reward for info resulting in an arrest.
However because the weeks changed into months, and after a number of appeals by Sheriff Jim Hart for the general public’s assist, the investigation appeared to stall.
Maria Medina: There was a determined plea to the general public to seek out these killers.
In mid-November, practically a month-and-a-half after Tushar was murdered, the sheriff’s workplace raised the reward to $150,000, and this time they requested for assist in figuring out three suspects seen within the eerie surveillance video as they approached Tushar’s home moments earlier than the assault.
Maria Cid Medina: It was the primary time that we ever heard investigators had … any type of proof from that scene.
One of many three shadowy figures, investigators say, is carrying an assault rifle.
Tracy Smith: What sort of criminals stroll by means of a residential neighborhood with an assault rifle in plain sight?
Steve Cercone: Yeah, not actual smart. … at any second they may have been noticed.
Maria Cid Medina: You felt goosebumps, since you knew what was going to occur subsequent.
However the video did not generate any new leads, deepening the thriller across the homicide, Tushar, his enterprise dealings and the individuals who labored for him. Reporter Maria Cid Medina dug deeper into his background.
Maria Cid Medina: Tushar had a distinct aspect to him, a darker aspect. I began to go looking on-line after his neighbor mentioned that he had made enemies … linked to his enterprise dealings.
There have been accusations from Tushar’s buyers that he was dealing within the hashish black market, although Claire insists he was doing every little thing by the e book.
Claire Machado He wasn’t a gang-related mafia-related drug lord form of a man.
Even when Tushar wasn’t a mob boss, he had fairly a repute as a foul boss – and never simply within the hashish enterprise, in accordance with on-line critiques by ex-employees.
Maria Cid Medina: I found on Glassdoor.com, his firm, AtreNet. … One worker wrote, “The CEO, Tushar Atre, would not worth anybody however himself.” … One other … wrote, “Complete abusive nightmare. The worst employment expertise of my life. You have been warned. Run away now.”
Even pals instructed investigators the charismatic businessman loved being confrontational.
Claire Machado: He challenged his staff to attempt to all the time do their finest. And though that was powerful, I appreciated that about him loads.
However not everybody appreciated it.
Mary Fulginiti: He had a lotta individuals apparently in his previous that had it out for him … folks that had rammed into his automobile, folks that had taken his property and … destroyed it.
Steve Cercone: Lots of it needed to do with cash. Cash that was not paid.
Investigators realized Tushar was infamous for withholding individuals’s pay. When he did it to Claire, she give up.
Claire Machado: He got here and located me and employed me again. And at that time, he was loads nicer to me.
Claire says she was serving to him change his administration type.
Claire Machado: He wished loyalty, and also you may get loyalty by means of worry, however not the identical form of loyalty that you just get by means of love … I consider he realized that ultimately, and he was attempting to make numerous issues proper.
Rachael Emerlye: He would provide you with these challenges for himself … and he mentioned, “I am on day 13 of no yelling” (giggles).
Because the checklist of Tushar’s disgruntled staff and associates grew, so did the potential suspects. From buyers who’d poured over $4 million into his hashish firm and had been sad with the way in which Tushar was managing the funds to a subcontractor with whom he’d had a heated argument the night time of the homicide, Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s detectives must discuss to all of them.
Tracy Smith: As investigators began digging and speaking to individuals, had been there any names that saved arising?
Steve Cercone: Two of the names that saved popping up had been Stephen Lindsay and Kaleb Charters. …who did not work for him very lengthy.
Tracy Smith: As a result of that they had a beef with him?
Steve Cercone: They’d a major beef with him over a fee.
Kaleb Charters, 19 and Stephen Lindsay, 21, could be seen in video engaged on Tushar’s Summit property in August of 2019, only a couple months earlier than Tushar’s homicide.
Tracy Smith: What did staff say about them?
Steve Cercone: They mentioned they weren’t very proud of Mr. Atre. … apparently, he’d made them do push-ups … in entrance of different individuals, which … if that had been the case, they had been most certainly humiliated.
Tracy Smith: Tushar really made them do push-ups as, like, a — punishment?
Mary Fulginiti: Yeah. … After which in the end would not pay ’em.
Steve Cercone: After they acquired the verify, the verify had been canceled.
In December 2019, Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s detectives traveled to Las Vegas the place Kaleb Charters and Stephen Lindsay had moved, to query them.
Mary Fulginiti: Throughout that interview … Lindsay did say … He wished to get right into a battle with this man … He wished the cash that Tushar owed him … And he really wished to get right into a bodily altercation, and he instructed the police this.
Steve Cercone: He lastly paid them once more. However this time, he paid them solely partially.
Lindsay was proven the grainy surveillance video of the three suspects and denied understanding them. Each males mentioned they hadn’t even been again to Santa Cruz since they stopped working for Tushar in late August.
Tracy Smith: Did they make it sound like, oh, the meat was throughout?
Steve Cercone: Yeah. They mentioned … that they had … settled it and so they weren’t gonna work for him anymore.
Detectives left Las Vegas with out arrests, and by January 29, 2020, the sheriff elevated the reward once more, to $200,000.
SHERIFF JIM HART: Somebody on the market is aware of one thing about this case, and we hope that the … info we’re releasing right now jogs their reminiscence …
Investigators additionally shared the abductors’ suspected route from Tushar’s dwelling to the Summit property.
Maria Cid Medina: It appeared that they had been determined for any clues from the general public.
However what police weren’t sharing with the general public was further surveillance video that captured what occurred on Pleasure Level Drive that night time.
Maria Cid Medina: Tushar did put up a battle. And sooner or later he was in a position to get away from his kidnappers.
FOLLOWING THE DIGITAL TRAIL
Whereas investigators had solely launched to the general public a small portion of the surveillance video displaying these shadowy figures approaching Tushar’s dwelling, there was much more video from that night time they had been analyzing for clues.
Steve Cercone [watching the surveillance video]: As you may see right here, Mr. Atre breaks from the driveway, and he runs. He is pursued by one of many suspects. He tackles him proper right here. After which as you may see … there is a battle.
A number of moments after his attackers depart him, Tushar by some means finds the power to drag himself up and make yet one more sprint for freedom – till one of many suspects stops him once more.
Moments later, the BMW seems and Tushar is pushed into the entrance seat earlier than the automobile speeds away.
For months, investigators analyzed the video and pictures from different cameras close to the crime scene and alongside the path to the Summit property the place Tushar’s physique was discovered.
Lastly, greater than seven months later, arrests.
MARIA CID MEDINA | KPIX NEWS REPORT: Breaking information out of Santa Cruz County, the place investigators simply introduced they’ve made a number of arrests within the kidnapping and homicide of a tech CEO.
On Could 19, 2020, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Workplace had 4 suspects in custody.
SHERIFF JIM HART [to reporters]: I have been on this job for 32 years. I can let you know there may be compelling proof towards these 4 individuals. We have now the proper individuals.
LT. BRIAN CLEVELAND [to reporters]: 23-year-old Joshua Camps … 22-year-old Kurtis Charters … 22-year-old Steven Lindsay … and 19-year-old Kaleb Charters.
That is proper – the identical Stephen Lindsay and Kaleb Charters who had labored for Tushar and admitted they as soon as had a bitter pay dispute with him. Bear in mind, detectives had interviewed the pair simply two months after the homicide.
LT. BRIAN CLEVELAND [to reporters]: Their names had come up early. After which as we went by means of the investigation, we gathered an increasing number of info on this group.
Suspects Kurtis and Kaleb Charters had been brothers and Lindsay was their brother-in-law. Joshua Camps was a pal.
Maria Cid Medina: These had been 4 younger guys.
All 4 suspects charged with homicide, kidnapping, and theft.
None of them had a felony historical past. Actually, Stephen Lindsay and Kaleb Charters had been members of the Military Reserve. On the time of the arrest, Lindsay, who goes by Nick, was attending a metropolis school in Los Angeles, together with Kurtis, the place they had been producing scholar movies. Kaleb was in Michigan, and Josh Camps was about to get married.
But when Lindsay and Charters had been on Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s radar again in December, why had it taken one other 5 months to arrest them?
SHERIFF JIM HART [to reporters]: If you have a look at the proof that we had on October 1st and October 2nd, we had a homicide scene … we had a house invasion-kidnapping scene in Pleasure Level, and we had a very grainy video. That was it.
However at a preliminary listening to in October 2021, prosecutors would got down to show these shadowy figures within the grainy surveillance video had been their suspects. Cameras weren’t allowed on the proceedings.
The state needed to persuade a decide that they had sufficient proof to attempt Stephen Lindsay, Joshua Camps, and Kaleb and Kurtis Charters for robbing, kidnapping and in the end murdering Tushar Atre. The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Workplace laid out their monthslong, meticulous investigation, piece by piece.
Steve Cercone: I feel the … proof right here … could be very compelling. And the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Workplace, the investigators did an incredible job.
Tracy Smith: How essential was digital proof on this case?
Steve Cercone: Digital proof could make this case.
Early on, detectives had recognized a blue sedan. It was seen on a number of surveillance cameras on October 1, 2019, heading to Tushar’s dwelling earlier than the kidnapping after which minutes later heading in the direction of the Summit property. That piece appeared to fall into place after they realized Josh Camps owned a blue Camry. And certain sufficient, after they confirmed as much as arrest him …
Steve Cercone: The blue Camry was additionally there.
Tracy Smith: The automobile that received them to Santa Cruz.
Believing that they had the suspects’ experience parked in his driveway, investigators additionally had a search warrant for the remainder of Camps’ home — not understanding simply how a lot clearer the image was about to turn into.
Tracy Smith: What did investigators discover after they searched Josh Camps’ home?
Steve Cercone: Yeah. They discovered a whole lot of — lotta firearms. They discovered some flex-cuffs. … And so they had the identical … manufacture date that had been on the wrists of Mr. Atre.
Tracy Smith: Did any of those weapons match the homicide weapon?
Steve Cercone: They didn’t.
Although Camps did not have the homicide weapon, investigators say he did have ammunition that matched the spent rounds discovered close to Tushar’s physique.
And prosecutors revealed investigators had additionally discovered different forensic proof.
Mary Fulginiti: What we realized … from the preliminary listening to is that there have been two prints — palm prints of Kurtis Charters’ that had been discovered on the BMW.
Tracy Smith: And that is it?
Mary Fulginiti: That is all of the forensic … proof that was launched on the preliminary listening to.
Inserting Kurtis within the BMW was a begin. However needing extra, investigators turned to the suspects’ cell telephones.
They did not discover any information for Stephen Lindsay for the night time of the homicide.
Tracy Smith: So why do not we now have Stephen Lindsay’s cellular phone information?
Steve Cercone: Yeah. So, the investigators discovered that Stephen Lindsay — his telephone had been shut off from the twenty seventh of September until October fifth. In order that’s about eight days. And I do not know anyone … of their early 20s that may have their cellular phone off for eight days.
When detectives talked to Lindsey in Las Vegas again in December 2019, he instructed them he was dwelling the night time of the homicide. However in a gaggle textual content from that night time, Lindsay’s spouse suggests she did not know the place he was.
Steve Cercone: She was texting Stephen, her husband, and her two brothers, Kaleb and Kurtis, for hours, questioning the place they had been. … That reveals the three of them had been probably collectively as a result of she is reaching out to all of them collectively.
Investigators hoped cell tower information for Kaleb and Kurtis Charters, in addition to Josh Camps, would assist join the dots. They had been in a position to plot their places on a map, offering the routes every gadget took. And there it was.
Steve Cercone [pointing to map]: So, that is the surveillance digicam displaying … the Camry going in the direction of Mr. Atre’s home at Pleasure Level Drive.
Then, at round 2:48 a.m., their telephones ping off a tower masking Tushar’s neighborhood at precisely the purpose these figures had been caught on digicam rising from the alley heading in the direction of Tushar’s home.
Mary Fulginiti: That was essential. That really places these people, or not less than their telephones, in the proper location, in the proper place to have the ability to begin to corroborate this video that basically reveals a big chunk of the crime.
On the identical time, Kaleb Charters’ telephone and the blue sedan are seen touring away from Tushar’s home in the direction of the Summit property.
Tracy Smith: So now we’re in a distinct location. That is on the way in which as much as Summit?
Steve Cercone: Yeah … now the detectives … have positioned Kaleb’s telephone — on the way in which to the Summit proper right here … off of Freeway 17— within the Santa Cruz mountains.
Adopted 17 minutes later by Kurtis Charters’ and Joshua Camps’ telephones and the white BMW carrying the stabbed and gravely injured Tushar.
Tracy Smith: What can we see right here?
Steve Cercone: So now you’ve gotten all three cell telephones of the suspects positioned in an space … across the Summit property. That is fairly clear. At 3:36, 3:35, 3:36 within the morning on the day of — the homicide.
The cellular phone information bolstered the investigation idea that Kaleb Charters had dropped off his codefendants and waited for them on the Summit property. And that Kurtis Charters and Joshua Camps had participated within the kidnapping at Pleasure Level Drive. However there was no direct proof putting Lindsay at both crime scene.
Mary Fulginiti: There is no eyewitnesses, there is no fingerprints, there is no DNA, there is no bodily proof linking him to the crime.
However investigators believed that video confirmed what Stephen Lindsay had accomplished.
A PERFECT TARGET?
Rachael Emerlye: He had a very shiny flame … I do not know why anyone would need to uninteresting that.
Tushar’s flame may nonetheless be burning brightly, if not for an opportunity encounter lower than two months earlier than his homicide that had led Stephen Lindsay and Kaleb Charters on to the profitable CEO’s waterfront doorstep.
Claire Machado: He had the dream seashore home, he was a surfer, he was driving a Porsche … anyone that life-style who did not have it might be simply jealous of it.
Tushar had employed Lindsay and Charters after one among them had made a telemarketing name to one among Tushar’s associates.
Steve Cercone: It was very random. … And so they got here as much as Santa Cruz. And … he allow them to … into his dwelling.
That is when former police chief Steve Cercone says they received a glimpse of Tushar’s lavish life-style.
Steve Cercone: They received shut sufficient to him to be taught loads about his operation, about his wealth.
And in Tushar Atre, the suspects had discovered an ideal goal.
Tracy Smith: He really gave them a tour of his dwelling?
Steve Cercone: Yeah … and confirmed ’em the place his bed room was.
The bed room was the place Tushar saved his protected, and in it, say investigators, greater than $80,0000 in money.
Steve Cercone: That is very uncommon. And really dangerous.
Tracy Smith: What does that say about Tushar Atre?
Steve Cercone: I feel Tushar was fairly naïve at occasions.
Was that protected one of many causes they focused Tushar that night time?
Steve Cercone: That is the alleyway that they got here down …
If the thought was to rob the millionaire, the plan had gone horribly awry. On the preliminary listening to, the prosecution would lay out their case, enjoying that stunning surveillance video. Investigators say the three shadowy figures strolling in the direction of Tushar’s dwelling that night time had been Stephen Lindsay, Kurtis Charters, and Joshua Camps – seen within the video, they are saying, carrying an assault rifle. Cameras had been rolling from the second they entered Tushar’s neighborhood on Pleasure Level Drive.
Tracy Smith [walking with Cercone on Pleasant Point Drive and pointing to a security camera]: Down this manner … So, the primary digicam … that captures them is true over there?
Steve Cercone: Proper. Proper.
What occurs subsequent is chilling.
Steve Cercone [pointing to monitor with surveillance video]: Proper right here is 70 yards from there to there.
Steve Cercone: Mr. Atre is gonna dash from his driveway … he is gonna run down Pleasure Level … as quick as he can go together with his fingers tied behind his again. And he will get tackled.
Tracy Smith: Who’s that?
Steve Cercone: That proper there may be … Stephen Lindsay … This can be a brutal, brutal assault.
In line with the investigators, Lindsay is the primary to assault Tushar.
Steve Cercone: And when you watch the suspect’s fingers, it seems like he is stabbing him repeatedly.
Tracy Smith: Yikes.
Steve Cercone: With a poking movement.
Mary Fulginiti: And then you definately begin to see … somewhat little bit of a darkish substance, which … later they had been in a position to decide was blood.
Subsequent, say investigators, comes Josh Camps.
Mary Fulginiti: You see Josh Camps operating, dealing with one thing to Stephen Lindsay. Stephen Lindsay runs again to the home.
Tracy Smith: What do you suppose was handed off between Stephen and Josh?
Mary Fulginiti: If I needed to guess I’d say … keys to the white BMW.
Seconds later, investigators say, after Lindsay runs again towards the home, the BMW headlights come on as Camps continues the assault.
Steve Cercone: [describing the surveillance video]: Camps then holds him down and … Now he seems like he is stabbing him immediately, viciously
Mary Fulginiti: Jabbing him and jabbing him. … After which Stephen Lindsay comes driving automobile, which we find yourself studying was the white BMW.
Because the glistening pool of blood will get larger, the BMW pulls up.
Steve Cercone: Now, watch what Mr. Atre does. That is —in a survival mode proper right here. In actually fine condition.
Tracy Smith: Oh my gosh —
Steve Cercone: He will get up. He is handcuffed, pool of blood there, and he runs.
Wounded and bleeding, Tushar makes an attempt to get away a second time, however investigators say Kurtis Charters goes after him.
Tracy Smith [pointing to surveillance video]: And that is Kurtis?
Steve Cercone: That is … Kurtis, yeah, operating after him.
Tracy Smith: Tushar was preventing for his life.
Steve Cercone: Yeah … I am certain he was doing every little thing he may to get away from these guys.
Mary Fulginiti: They go after him with the automobile this time. …And … Kurtis is the one which in the end grabs him and places him within the automobile. After which all of them drive away.
About six hours later, Tushar’s physique could be discovered 14 miles away at his Summit property, riddled with stab wounds and a deadly wound gunshot wound to the pinnacle.
On the time of the arrests, Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s investigators introduced that Tushar’s kidnapping and homicide was a theft gone unsuitable.
LT. BRIAN CLEVELAND [to reporters]: These individuals wished financial achieve and took benefit of the state of affairs.
However the brutality of the case suggests there could also be extra to the motive.
Steve Cercone: This can be a very, very curious case … a whole lot of it would not make a lotta sense.
Tracy Smith: If this was a theft, why chase him, sort out him, and take him away?
Mary Fulginiti: If that is actually only a easy theft and all you care about is the cash in the home and nothing else, as soon as he runs away you let him go. You seize the cash then you definately get out of dodge.
However as investigators would later be taught, what set in movement the assault that night time was something however easy.
Tracy Smith: That is about extra than simply cash.
Mary Fulginiti: It is undoubtedly about extra than simply cash.
WHO SHOT TUSHAR ATRE — AND WHY?
The harrowing surveillance video of Tushar Atre preventing for his life gave investigators compelling proof – a report of what occurred on the street.
However what occurred off digicam? The largest questions: Who shot Tushar? And why?
The solutions could come from Kaleb Charters, Kurtis Charters and Josh Camps. They began speaking the day they had been arrested. However Stephen Lindsay by no means mentioned a phrase.
Tracy Smith: What was Kaleb’s function on this?
Steve Cercone: His function, he admitted was to drop them off … and he went as much as the Summit property.
Kaleb Charters’ admission he was the driving force matches his cell information and that surveillance video of the blue automobile heading within the path of the Summit property. With their experience 14 miles away, Steve Cercone suggests the group had deliberate to steal a automobile all alongside.
Tracy Smith: That they knew … they may take that BMW.
Steve Cercone: That they knew that they may take that BMW.
Kaleb Charters’ interview supplied investigators his model of how the theft was purported to play out.
Mary Fulginiti: Kaleb’s interview really talks in regards to the plan. And he has two plans, a Plan A and a Plan B. So, Plan A … they did not anticipate … Tushar to be there.
Plan A concerned utilizing the entrance door code to Tushar’s home that Kaleb mentioned he remembered after working for him months earlier and gathering all cash and valuables they may discover. Plan B, if Tushar was there, concerned forcing their manner into his bed room protected — the one investigators later discovered held over $80,000 in money. Kaleb Charters additionally revealed how they might open that protected.
Mary Fulginiti: The muscle was Josh Camps. Josh got here armed with a weapon. Why? … Effectively, in accordance with Kaleb, Effectively, to scare him, in case he was there. Simply to scare him, in order that he may open the protected.
Tushar was dwelling – and Kurtis Charters admits he restrained him.
Mary Fulginiti: He admits, and he takes accountability for, you already know, placing the flex-cuffs on him, and gagging him.
However as soon as they took Tushar as much as the Summit property, Kaleb and Kurtis Charters made it clear taking pictures Tushar was by no means a part of the plan. In his interview, Josh Camps initially tried to pin the taking pictures on the others.
Steve Cercone: It’s extremely obvious that Josh, originally and for fairly some time, saved mendacity to them … Josh then decreased his mendacity … and ultimately he began to fess up.
He makes what quantities to essentially the most damning admission of all of them.
Mary Fulginiti: He in the end admits to taking pictures Tushar, and to killing him.
Tracy Smith: And he in the end tells investigators the place the weapon is?
Mary Fulginiti: Appropriate.
However he mentioned there was a purpose he pulled the set off — an act of mercy.
Mary Fulginiti: He says it was a mercy killing, although. He would not say it was an intentional killing. It was one which, you already know, they did as a result of they thought he was gonna die. …as a result of he was bleeding so closely.
Mary Fulginiti: A mercy killing isn’t a protection to homicide. And, you already know, he nonetheless pointed the gun at his head, and he killed him.
And on the preliminary listening to, the attorneys for Kaleb Charters, Kurtis Charters and Stephen Lindsay jumped on that assertion. They argued that their shoppers by no means meant to hurt Tushar throughout the theft — that all of it went horribly unsuitable when Tushar tried to run away, and that Joshua Camps acted alone. However Mary Fulginiti says, even with Camps admitting to being the shooter, the opposite defendants aren’t off the hook.
Mary Fulginiti: They’re charged with what they name felony homicide, which suggests if a homicide is dedicated throughout the fee of a felony, and right here we now have a few them — we have got theft and kidnapping, then beneath sure circumstances, all of these concerned may also be … held accountable for the homicide. And that is — that is essential right here.
And Kurtis Charters shared with investigators that this might need been greater than a theft from the beginning.
Mary Fulginiti: What he did say … is that he did suppose that Stephen Lindsay wished to kill Tushar, and that he thought Stephen Lindsay had a vendetta.
Tracy Smith: After we speak about motive, does this story of Tushar humiliating Stephen Lindsay and Kaleb Charters level to motive?
Mary Fulginiti: Sure. Undoubtedly.
Fulginiti speculates it goes again to Tushar making enemies of the 2 former army males.
Mary Fulginiti: With regard to Lindsay, he was fairly upset with the way in which Tushar handled him.
Mary Fulginiti: If you have a look at … the army … respect is a big element of how they lead their lives … Tushar humiliated them … he made them do push-ups … He paid them after which withdrew fee … he’s feeding into that disrespect … and mistreatment.
On the finish of the preliminary listening to, the decide determined all 4 suspects ought to face trial on all counts. “48 Hours” reached out to their attorneys; they declined to remark. All 4 suspects have pleaded not responsible.
If convicted they may face a most sentence of life in jail.
They did not get the $80,000 within the protected. Primarily based on their statements, they received a couple of thousand {dollars} that they present in the home, a digicam and a guitar … for allegedly taking a person’s life.
Maria Cid Medina: Persons are trying ahead to this trial beginning. And so they need to see justice served, particularly Tushar’s pals.
Justice, no matter that may appear to be, won’t ever be sufficient to make up for all Tushar Atre had left to offer.
Rachael Emerlye: His charisma was infectious. … It is insane. It is not meant to be understood.
An entrepreneur and an adventurer with so many mountain trails left to climb, waves nonetheless to surf, and melodies but to strum on his guitar.
Produced by Gayane Keshishyan Mendez and Richard Fetzer and Chuck Stevenson. Michelle Fanucci is the event producer. Lauren Turner Dunn is the affiliate producer. Ken Blum, Joan Adelman, Wini Dini, Grayce Arlotta-Berner and Diana Modica are the editors. Anthony Batson is the senior broadcast producer. Nancy Kramer is the manager story editor. Judy Tygard is the manager producer.
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