Days after a wealthy Indian-origin couple and their daughter were found dead in their $5 million Massachusetts mansion, authorities after autopsy have ruled it a murder-suicide.
Rakesh Kamal, 57, his wife Teena Kamal, 54 and their college-going 18-year-old daughter Arianna Kamal were found dead in mansion in Dover in the US state of Massachusetts on December 28, 2023. A firearm was found near Rakesh Kamal.
A press release issued by the office of Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey on Tuesday said that autopsy results confirm that Teena and her daughter Arianna were victims of homicide by gunshot. The final autopsy report is likely to be completed in the coming weeks.
Rakesh died from a “gunshot wound consistent with being self-inflicted”.
Sprawling Mansion in Richest Neighbourhood
Dover Police received a 911 call requesting a response to the Kamal residence at approximately 7:24 pm on December 28 by a family member who had stopped by to check on the family. When police arrived, they found the Kamal family dead.
Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey said that there had been no prior police reports or domestic incidents tied to the home.
The family's sprawling mansion, estimated to be worth $5.45 million, went into foreclosure a year ago and was sold for $3 million, according to a report in The New York Post.
As per records and media reports, the Kamals in 2019 purchased the 19,000-square-foot estate, which had 11 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms, for $4 million. The area is said to be one of the richest in the state.
Rakesh, Teena and their daughter Arianna were the only ones living in the mansion at the time, the DA said, adding that it was a nice neighbourhood and a safe community.
Teena and her husband, who also went by Rick, had previously run an education systems company called EduNova which was launched in 2016 but was dissolved in December 2021. The couple appeared to have faced financial problems in recent years, online records show. EduNova marketed a student success system designed to improve the grades of students in middle school, high school and college, The Boston Globe newspaper reported.
Teena was listed on EduNova's website as the chief operating officer of the company, describing her as an alum of Harvard University and Delhi University in India.
According to his biography on the EduNova website, Kamal was an alumnus of Boston University and MIT Sloan School of Management, as well as Stanford University. Before working at EduNova, he held many executive-level positions in the education-consulting field, the biography added.
Teena filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in September 2022 listing between $1 million and $10 million in liabilities, filings show. The case, however, was dismissed two months later due to insufficient documentation. She was listed as one of the board of directors for the American Red Cross of Massachusetts.
Teena's online bio mentions her more than three decades of working in the education and technology industries. She was a student at Middlebury College, a USD 64,800-a-year private liberal arts school in Vermont, where she was studying neuroscience, as mentioned in her LinkedIn profile.
'Very Rare' Case For Dover
Issuing the press release on the family's death, Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey also said that a homicide had not been reported in Dover since 2020, and that he has never worked a homicide case from that neighbourhood since he started his position as District Attorney 12 years ago.
Morrissey had said that it was very rare to have this kind of a violent situation almost in any community in Norfolk County, particularly Dover. It's a small, well-run community, but like everybody else, there are problems out there that can affect no matter where one lives, he had said.
The press release further said that while full forensic and ballistics testing of the gun has not been finalised, the firearm found with Rakesh is consistent with a .40 calibre Glock 22. The firearm was not registered in Rakesh's name and “he was not licensed to possess it,” the release added.
(with PTI inputs)
