They were looking for a bride for him. But that was not to be. Just days after he left his home in Andhra Pradesh, mechanical engineer Rudraraju Sudheer Kumar was found shot dead in his Atlanta home leaving his family in India numb with grief.

A pall of gloom has descended on the house of Kumar’s parents in his native village in Gudimalla.

Kumar, 31, an engineer with Toyota Motors, was found murdered in his flat in Atlanta last week. He is the third techie from the state to die in less than a month in the U.S.

Kumar, the only son of Srirama Raju and Padmavathi, had returned to the U.S. on Jan 17 after spending nearly a month with his parents. He had also visited his native village and celebrated the festival of Makar Sankranthi with his grandparents.

"The boy was full of life. . . it is unbelievable that he is no more," said K. Pallam Raju, Kumar’s maternal grandfather in Myfa village.

"What is more tragic is that his end came at a time when we were looking for a suitable bride for him," he added.

The murder came to light when Kumar’s friend Madhukar went to his flat after he did not turn up at a local tennis club during the weekend and also did not return his calls.

Srirama Raju received no information either about the identity of the killers or the motive for the crime. He said he was not aware of the reports that unidentified people shot him dead over some money.

"Someone might have attacked him when he opened the door," the grieving father said while trying to control his tears, regretting that he had not called his son during the weekend.

Family members said Kumar left for the U.S. seven years ago after doing his engineering in Bangalore. He did his Masters in the U.S. and got a job with Toyota.

Kumar’s murder is the ninth case of students and professionals from Andhra Pradesh being killed in the U.S. in the last 14 months.

Muthyala Purushottam, 27, a software engineer, was found dead in his flat in Indianapolis Jan 20. Akshay Vishal, 26, another software engineer, was shot dead by unidentified people in Little Rock in Arkansas Jan 13.

Arpana B. Jinaga, 24, a software engineer in Seattle, was found murdered in her apartment Nov 3 last year.

T. Soumya Reddy, a 23-year-old pursuing a Master’s in electrical engineering at the Southern Illinois University, was found dead in a car near Chicago lake in September. Her cousin Vikram Reddy, 27, also a software engineer, was found shot dead nearby.

Srinivas, a postgraduate medical student from Karimnagar, was found murdered in Pennsylvania in March.

A. Kirankumar and K. Chandrasekhar Reddy, both PhD students, were shot dead in their apartment at Louisiana University in December 2007.