A man was found dead near Lake Berryessa in Napa County on Friday, three days after he was kidnapped from a Sikh temple about 100 miles away in the Central Valley, investigators said.
Avtar Singh, 57, was reported missing from the Gurdwara Gur Nanak Parkash in Tracy on Feb. 17, according to the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office. Surveillance footage showed three people dressed in dark clothing forcing him into a white SUV and speeding off, investigators said.
A fisherman found Singh’s body Friday afternoon near the lake and called police, authorities said. Sheriff’s officials declined to disclose the cause of his death but said they are investigating it as a homicide. The white SUV was found nearby, officials said.
Singh worked and lived at the temple with his wife and their 6-month-old triplets, said temple spokesperson Deep Singh, who is not related to the victim. Avtar’s wife became alarmed when she returned home from work on Feb. 17 and found the babies alone, Deep said. She asked other temple members for help but no one could find her husband, he said.
Deep then called the person who manages the cameras at the temple and reviewed surveillance footage from that afternoon, he said. It showed the white SUV parking in the parking lot and a man exiting, he said. The man first knocked on the door to the temple’s laundry, and when no one opened, he knocked on Avtar’s door, Deep said.
Avtar apparently had difficulty understanding the man and, by phone, called another man who lives at the temple to help translate, Deep said. The man on the phone happened to share a first name with the man the kidnapper was looking for, creating confusion, he said.
Avtar handed the phone over to the kidnapper, who demanded to know if the translator was the man he was looking for and whether he had his “stuff,” Deep said. The translator said no and asked what kind of “stuff,” to no reply, Deep said.
Avtar then walked with the man to the SUV, according to the surveillance footage Deep reviewed. As they neared the vehicle, the man tried to push him inside, but Avtar overpowered him and escaped, he said. Two other men then climbed out of the vehicle, hit Avtar, threw him to the ground and loaded him into the SUV, Deep said.
Preliminary investigation suggests that Avtar was not the intended target of the kidnapping, confirmed Heather Brent, a public information officer with the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office. “We believe a different individual was a target and that Mr. Singh was mistakenly taken,” she said.
Avtar had worked as the temple’s head cook for the last 23 years, and he was deeply involved in service to both the Sikh community and the Tracy area in general, Deep said. Once a month, he’d cook some 400 hot meals that the temple would send to a homeless shelter in Stockton, and he’d also prepared food for people displaced by wildfires, he said.
Community members had hoped the kidnappers would release Avtar once they realized their mistake, and the news of his death came as a shock, Deep said. “This evil just came into the temple and took him away,” he said.
An online fundraising page to cover Avtar’s funeral expenses and help support his widow and children has drawn several hundred thousand dollars in donations. “He was known for his humility, quiet dedication, and loving nature that made everyone feel like family,” its organizers wrote. “His seva, sincerity, and unwavering faith touched countless lives, and his absence leaves a profound void in our community.”
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