A typed note. A blaring alarm. Police report details final weeks, hours, of Kamal family in Dover murder-suicide. - The Boston Globe (2024)

That note was among the numerous details about the shocking murder-suicide that emerged in a Massachusetts State Police report released to the Globe through a public records request. The timeline laid out by the 63-page document captures the family’s dire financial circ*mstances in the years, days, and even hours before Rick Kamal’s final act — including confirmation that they were due to be evicted the same day their bodies were found.

Reinforced by interviews with a dozen people who knew the Kamals, the report outlines the grisly crime scene police found in the $4 million home of the seemingly picture-perfect family, who presented themselves as part of an affluent and well-respected orbit.

One of these interviewees was Rick Kamal’s younger brother, Manoj Kamal, who was the one to call 911 after entering the house to discover the gruesome scene. He later told police he’d lent Rick Kamal approximately $150,000, in roughly $5,000 increments, in the nine months before his death. He claimed Rick Kamal drained the bank account of their mother, Usha Kamal, who had directed Rick Kamal to transfer some of her money to his brother.

“[Manoj] thinks every conversation he has had with Rakesh the past five years was a lie,” Manoj Kamal’s wife’s sister later told investigators.

Police have said they believe Teena Kamal didn’t know the extent of her husband’s financial turmoil. But the report suggests that the 54-year-old matriarch was, at the very least, under substantial pressure.

“In a recent conversation between Teena Kamal and Manoj’s wife, Teena made a troubling statement suggesting that she wanted to drive their family car off a cliff due to the recent stress they were under,” Manoj Kamal told police, according to the report.

Her husband’s deception continued as the Kamals fell behind on mortgage payments for their enormous home. Marybeth Bisson, who along with her husband, Stephen, developed the house at 8 Wilson’s Way and financed the sale to the Kamals, told investigators that Rick Kamal “would tell them to not include Teena in the discussions about finances.”

“Marybeth stated that Rakesh gave various wild excuses as to why he was unable to pay them,” the police report said. “One excuse he gave was that he was in India this past summer and his father in-law had a heart attack and died. That was determined to be untrue as Teena’s father is alive.”

The realtor for the sellers of 8 Wilson’s Way told police that by the time of the killings, “the Kamal family was essentially squatting in the home.” He also noted that when Teena Kamal was head of the homeowners association for their exclusive sub-development, she collected fees from her neighbors for services such as landscaping and snow removal.

But the couple “never [actually] paid for the services,” the realtor said, according to the report. “They kept the money.”

On Dec. 23, the Saturday before the bodies were found, Manoj Kamal saw his brother for the last time, he told investigators. Rick Kamal visited him to “to give him life insurance beneficiary information, which Manoj thought was unusual,” the police report said.

The next day, Dec. 24, a fax was sent to the life insurance company that held Teena Kamal’s $1.25 million policy, requesting to add Manoj Kamal as a backup beneficiary. That switch-up became the focus of a federal court case between Manoj Kamal and Teena’s family in India over the rightful recipient of the payout. (According to court papers filed Aug. 2, the parties have agreed to settle, though it’s unclear to whom the money will be paid.)

On Christmas Day, just after midnight, the Kamal family spoke by FaceTime with Teena’s family in India. “They described the conversation as happy and loving, nothing out of the ordinary,” the police report said.

On Dec. 26, two days before the family’s bodies were found, Rick Kamal texted his brother to cancel a scheduled get-together for the following day, claiming Teena and Arianna Kamal had been hospitalized from an allergic reaction to eating shrimp.

He told a similar story to Arianna Kamal’s college boyfriend, Owen (whose last name was redacted in the police report), who had been set to visit the family for several days over the holidays. During Owen’s drive there, Rick Kamal asked him to delay his trip, later claiming his daughter, 18, couldn’t text him herself as she had left her phone at home.

“Sorry she hasn’t been able to directly communicate with you,” Rick Kamal wrote. “Hopefully she will be much better very soon.”

Owen told police the couple seemed like “incredible people,” and said that “Arianna loved her dad,” but he, too, hinted at troubles. He said his girlfriend had confided in him about her mother’s “mental health issues,” and indicated that her parents had gone through a rocky patch.

“Arianna told Owen that Teena wanted to separate from Rakesh and that Teena was being mean to both Arianna and Rakesh,” the police report said. “Owen explained that as of late, Rakesh and Teena seemed to be doing better.”

The same day Rick Kamal sent these texts, he was in near-constant communication with Stephen Bisson about the impending eviction, which Rick Kamal had been fighting for over a year. Even as he agreed to leave the keys on the kitchen table, Rick Kamal opined that he would “know better by the start of the new year” whether he would have the funds to one day move back in.

“By then I can determine if repurchase is an option,” Rick Kamal wrote.

Then, an abrupt quiet.

Texts to Manoj Kamal and Owen stopped, as did emails to Bisson. When police searched the pond in the backyard of the sprawling estate after the killings, they would find a slew of electronics — cellphones, laptops, an iPad, and a surveillance DVR box — submerged at the bottom.

On Dec. 28, at 4 p.m., the time Rick Kamal had agreed to vacate the premises, the realtor for the house, who worked on behalf of the Bissons, stopped by, he told police. The alarm was going off, so he left.

Later that evening, Manoj Kamal, worried after he hadn’t heard from his brother for two days, went to check on the family. He entered the house to hear the alarm system blaring. Behind a door with a piece of white paper taped to it, he discovered his niece’s body in her bedroom, covered by bloody sheets. He called 911.

None of the interviews summarized in the police report indicated that Rick Kamal ever let on that his prosperous life was a façade. Rather than relinquish the house, which police described as “immaculate and meticulously maintained,” he died in it.

But when those authorities walked in, they found keys to the house left — as promised — on the kitchen island.

Dana Gerber can be reached at dana.gerber@globe.com. Follow her @danagerber6.