Suicide pact may have fueled Virginia couple’s 2017 slaying

FAIRFAX, Va, — The shooting death of a northern Virginia couple in 2017 may have been connected to a suicide pact between the couple’s daughter and her boyfriend, according to newly unsealed court papers.

Nicholas Giampa, 22, of Lorton, is charged with murder in the deaths of Scott Fricker and his wife, Buckley Kuhn-Fricker.

In court papers, prosecutors say the Frickers forbade their daughter from dating Giampa after learning that he associated with neo-Nazis online, as well as the fact that he had been charged as a juvenile with possessing child pornography.

Police reports in the court file indicate that the daughter told detectives she and Giampa had entered a suicide pact after her parents ordered her to end the relationship.

Giampa and the daughter “discussed wounding her parents if they tried to intervene or stop their suicide attempt,” according to the report.

Fricker and Kuhn-Fricker were fatally shot in the head in December 2017 in their Reston home when they discovered Giampa in their daughter’s bedroom. The daughter told police she had given Giampa a security code that allowed him to enter the home after her parents had gone to bed.

According to police, Giampa reached for a handgun and shot Fricker and Kuhn-Fricker after the daughter unlocked her bedroom door.

It was at that point, according to the police report, that the daughter and Giampa planned to follow through on their suicide pact. The daughter told police that Giampa put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger, but it did not fire. Giampa then turned the gun on himself and shot himself in the forehead.

Giampa was hospitalized for weeks and placed in a medically induced coma but survived. He has been awaiting trial since then.

Prosecutors made clear in court papers that they have no plans to bring any kind of criminal charges against the daughter, who is expected to testify for them.

Though the case has drawn intense interest, details of what happened have been hidden from public view. Because Giampa was a few months shy of his 18th birthday when the shootings took place, he was charged initially in juvenile court, where records and hearings were not made public.

Giampa is now being tried as an adult, but nearly the entire case file had been sealed from the public at the request of prosecutors and the defense. A judge unsealed most of the file earlier this month after The Associated Press and The Washington Post filed a motion seeking access.

Giampa was scheduled to go on…