Rakesh Kamal shot wife, teen daughter before killing himself

A wealthy Indian American couple and their teenage daughter, all of whom were found dead inside their sprawling mansion in Dover, Massachusetts, just days after Christmas, died in a murder-suicide, according to officials.

Rakesh Kamal, 57, first shot his wife Teena Kamal, 54, and their daughter Arianna Kamal, 18, before turning the gun on himself, Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey’s office suggested based on autopsy results.

“Preliminary [autopsy] results provided to investigators confirm that Teena Kamal, 54, and her daughter Arianna Kamal, 18, were victims of homicide by gunshot,” Morrissey’s office stated to the Boston Globe Tuesday.

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“Rakesh Kamal, 57, their husband and father respectively, died by gunshot wound consistent with being self-inflicted.”

According to Morrisey’s office, a .40-caliber Glock 22 was used to carry out the slayings, though it had not been registered to Rakesh Kamal. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been asked to assist in tracking the gun’s history, prosecutors added.

The bodies of all three family members were discovered on Dec 28 inside their residence in Dover, an affluent town located about 15 miles outside of Boston.

Police were called to the home by a visiting relative, identified as Rakesh’s brother, who arrived to find the front door open and the emergency alarm blaring. Inside, he discovered bloody sheets in Arianna’s room before he ultimately decided to call 911, according to dispatch logs obtained by the Globe.

“We hadn’t been able to get in touch with them, and when I got to the house, the alarm was going off,” he told authorities. “I found a door that was open, and I was able to get in, and in one of the bedrooms I see his daughter is dead. It looks like she was murdered or something,” he said. He then “went in another bedroom, but I didn’t lift up the sheets to see who was there.”

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Investigators at the time said there was no sign of a break-in and attributed the grisly killings to a domestic violence incident. Police previously said they were not aware of any problems with the family and that they did not have any prior interactions with them.

A motive for the deadly violence remained under investigation on Wednesday.

Last year, the scene of the alleged murder-suicide, a 27-room house and sprawling estate, went into foreclosure and was sold to the Massachusetts-based Wilsondale Associates LLC for $3 million. It’s current assessed value is estimated to stand around $6.79 million, according to New York Daily News.

The family had also seemingly struggled with their finances in the past. According to legal filings obtained by the Globe, Teena Kamal filed for bankruptcy in September 2022, listing her debts in the range of $1 million to $10 million.

A month later, her case was dismissed because she failed to file the necessary paperwork or pay the filing fee. The matter was closed by December the same year.

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Rakesh Kamal, also known as Rick, was a graduate of Boston University, MIT Sloan School of Management, and Stanford University. Along with his wife, he launched EduNova, an Ed-tech company that introduced a “student success system” aimed at enhancing students’ academic performance from middle school to college.

The company is no longer operational. It was established in 2016 and dissolved in December 2021. Before joining EduNova, Rakesh Kamal held numerous executive positions in the education-consulting field.

Teena Kamal was an alumna of Harvard University and Delhi University. Their daughter Arianna was a student of Vermont’s Middlebury College and had graduated from Milton Academy. In a statement, school said, “Aria was a sweet, smart, kind young woman who was just beginning to realize her full potential.”