A 17-year-old boy will be charged with killing a husband and wife inside their home in Reston, Virginia, on Friday after he recovers from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Buckley Kuhn-Fricker and her husband Scott Fricker died after they were shot by the teen early Friday, three days before Christmas, police said. Kuhn-Fricker was 43, Fricker was 48, and they had three children between them.
The teen suspect was the boyfriend of Kuhn-Fricker's 16-year-old daughter, and the mother had just learned the 17-year-old was a Nazi supporter, Kuhn-Fricker's mother said. Just two days before the shooting, the family staged an intervention with the teen girl to try to convince her to stay away from the boyfriend.
Fairfax County police declined to confirm these details and only said the suspect, who they did not name because he is a juvenile, knew the couple.
A close relative of the teen suspect said the family knew nothing about reports that the teen repeatedly expressed admiration for Nazis. She said he struggled with mental illness.
At the family's house in Lorton, Virginia, on Wednesday, the woman sobbed as she told News4's David Culver she felt horrible for the victims. She asked News4 to withhold her identity to protect her privacy.
Fricker and Kuhn-Fricker found the teen boy in their home on the 2600 block of Black Fir Court in Reston about 5 a.m. Friday and confronted him, police said.
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He shot them and then turned the gun on himself.
Kuhn-Fricker's daughter called 911, dispatch calls reveal.
"Caller advising her mother and father were shot," a 911 dispatcher told police.
When officers arrived at the home, they heard shots inside the home. The officers then found on the second floor of the home three people who had been shot.
Four family members who were home at the time of the shooting were not hurt.
The teen boy suffered life-threatening injuries and remains in a hospital under police guard. Because of his injuries, police have not been able to serve charges against him.
Janet Kuhn, Buckley Kuhn-Fricker's mother, said that days before the killings, Kuhn-Fricker had been consumed with concern about her teen daughter's boyfriend. Kuhn-Fricker had discovered the 17-year-old was a Nazi supporter.
"My daughter and her husband found out about a lot of the Nazi stuff just this past week, and they forbid their daughter to see him again," Kuhn said.
Neighbors told The Washington Post that the teen boy mowed a swastika about 40 feet across into the grass of a community field about two months before the shooting. The neighbors opted to talk to the youth's parents instead of going to police, Penny Potter said.
Buckley Kuhn-Fricker had a law practice and specialized in estate planning and elder law, according to her website. Scott Fricker worked for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"They were a wonderful couple," said Janet Kuhn, Buckley Kuhn-Fricker's mother.
On Saturday, neighbors and friends brought candles and flowers to place at the end of the family's driveway and held a quiet vigil across the street.
Some were thinking of the Frickers' young son, whom they often saw playing basketball outside the house.
"It's hard to imagine that he doesn't have parents anymore, and I can't imagine that Christmas will ever be the same for him again," a neighbor told News4.
