The deaths of a wealthy Indian-origin couple and their daughter in the United States’ Massachusetts last week have been ruled a murder-suicide by medical authorities after the autopsies.
Mr Rakesh Kamal, 57, his wife Teena, 54, and their daughter Arianna, 18, were found dead in their US$5 million ($6.65 million) mansion in Dover, a suburb of Boston, on Dec 28. A firearm was found near Mr Kamal.
Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey said autopsy results confirm that Ms Teena and Miss Arianna were victims of homicide by gunshot.
Mr Rakesh died from a “gunshot wound consistent with being self-inflicted”. The final autopsy report is likely to be completed in the coming weeks.
A statement further said that while full forensic and ballistics testing of the gun has not been done, the firearm is consistent with a .40 calibre Glock 22. However, it was not registered in Mr Rakesh’s name and “he was not licensed to possess it”.
Last week, Mr Morrissey said the initial investigation indicated it was a case of domestic violence and did not indicate the involvement of outside parties.
Dover Police received an emergency call from a relative who had stopped by to check on the family on Dec 28, after not hearing from them for two days.
The police found the Kamal family dead when they arrived at the scene. Mr Morrissey said there had been no previous police reports or domestic incidents tied to the home.
The slain family members were the only ones living in the mansion, the DA said, adding that the area, one of the richest in the state, was a “safe community”.
The family’s sprawling mansion went into foreclosure a year ago and was sold for US$3 million, according to a report in The New York Post.
The Kamals purchased the 19,000 sq ft estate, which boasts 11 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms, for US$4 million in 2019, according to media reports.
“That foreclosure occurred after the parties had already attempted some sort of modification of their mortgage, which suggests they were having financial difficulty for quite some time,” legal analyst Jennifer Roman told CBS Boston.
“It’s not unusual that they were still in the home, but the property was definitely no longer in their names.
“Unfortunately, it’s quite common where a family is having financial distress and one of the family members ends up taking the lives of their family and then themselves.”
The couple had previously run an education systems company called EduNova, which was launched in 2016 and was dissolved in December 2021.
Online records show that the family appeared to have faced financial problems in recent years.
Ms Teena filed for bankruptcy in September 2022, listing between US$1 million and US$10 million in liabilities.
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.
The couple’s daughter was a student at Middlebury College, a US64,800-a-year private liberal arts school in Vermont, where she was studying neuroscience, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Indo-Asian News Service
