Grisly new details emerged this week in the murder-suicide of a seemingly wealthy Massachussetts family who were all found shot to death late last year in their sprawling $4 million mansion, according to a new report.
Rakesh “Rick” Kamal, 57, fatally shot his wife, Teena, 54, and their 18-year-old daughter, Arianna, as they slept in their beds three days after Christmas. He then climbed into a bathtub and turned the gun on himself, the Boston Globe reported.
While appearing affluent to outsiders, the Kamals were hopelessly buried in debt – and were scheduled for eviction from their 11-bedroom Dover mansion nestled on five acres the day of the slayings.
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Rakesh Kamal, 57, (right) shot his wife, Teena, 54, and their 18-year-old daughter, Arianna, before turning the gun on himself in their Dover, Massachusetts, mansion. (Paula Swift Photography/ USA TODAY NETWORK)
Responding to a 911 call, police entered the residence on Dec. 28 and found a typed note addressed to the person who was scheduled to pick up the keys, according to the local newspaper’s account of a 63-page police report.
“Please note,” it read. “Before entering call the Police to first check three bedrooms on the second floor. Each room will be marked by a white sheet of paper.”
Police found each of the bodies behind those demarcated doors.
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Rakesh Kamal, 57, (right) shot his wife, Teena, 54, and their 18-year-old daughter, Arianna, before turning the gun on himself in their Dover, Massachusetts, mansion. (Paula Swift Photography)
The calculated killings shocked relatives and convulsed the wealthy local community.
Neighbors in Dover – a suburb of Boston – knew Rick Kamal as a wealthy entrepreneur and dedicated father.
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But beneath their veneer of wealth, the family were drowning in debt and stress.
Rick – who had filed for bankruptcy and been served with a foreclosure notice three months before the killings – owed his brother Manoj $150,000. The sibling had given his brother the loans in a string of $5,000 increments, according to the Globe.
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Police investigating the murder-suicide of the Kamal family. (Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
The broke businessman was also given money by his mother, and he eventually sank her bank account to nearly nothing.
Aware of their mounting financial pressures, Teena recently told Manoj that she wanted to “drive their family off a cliff due to the recent stress they were under,” according to the report.
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Manoj – who found the bodies and called police – told investigators that his brother had spun a web of deceit for years on end.
“[Manoj] thinks every conversation he has had with Rakesh the past five years was a lie,” his wife’s sister told police.
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Rakesh “Rick” Kamal fatally shot his daughter Arianna, 18, and his wife, Teena, before turning the gun on himself Dec. 28.
Marybeth Bisson, the developer of the Kamals’ enormous home, also financed its sale to the family.
She told investigators that Rick had begun concocting excuses for missing mortgage payments and pleaded with her not to discuss the situation with his wife.
On Dec. 23, five days before the killings, a fax was sent to the company holding Teena’s $1.25 million life insurance policy to add Manoj as a beneficiary.
The Globe reported that the Kamals FaceTimed with relatives in India on Christmas Day and that there was nothing out of the ordinary about the exchange.
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Aerial view of the Kamal family’s Dover, Massachusetts mansion, where the father killed his wife and daughter before turning the gun on himself. (Google Street View)
Rick texted his brother the following day to cancel a scheduled get-together. He also texted Arianna’s boyfriend to nix his upcoming visit to the family.
The boyfriend told police that Arianna had confided some of her family’s troubles to him, hinting at one point that Teena wanted to leave her father but that they seemed to be on the mend.
At the same time, Rick was in regular communication with his home’s developer to discuss his departure.
After not hearing from his brother for several days, Manoj went to the home, known as “Enchanted Acres,” and called 911.
The Kamals bought the mansion for just under $4 million, according to records. The Zillow estimate for the 20,000-square-foot compound is nearly $7 million.
Rebecca Rosenberg is a veteran journalist and book author with a focus on crime and criminal justice. Email tips to rebecca.rosenberg@fox.com and @ReRosenberg.
