By Sara Jean Green / The Seattle Times
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed Tuesday what sheriff’s detectives had come to suspect: A 23-year-old Sammamish man fatally shot his mother and father before killing himself.
Ricardo Nicolini, 58, and Mary Ellen Nicolini, 65, each died from a gunshot wound to the head and their deaths were ruled homicides, according to death investigators. Richard Nicolini, 23, also died from a gunshot wound to the head and his death was ruled a suicide, the medical examiner determined. All three died on Friday.
On Monday, a spokeswoman for the King County Sheriff’s Office said detectives believed the couple was killed in their home by their adult son, who then took his own life.
The three bodies were discovered just after 7 p.m. Saturday, when deputies went to the home in the 24000 block of Northeast 30th Place in Sammamish. A family member had asked deputies to check on Ricardo Nicolini after he failed to show up for an appointment earlier in the day.
Deputies found the house locked but through a window saw three bodies on the floor, the sheriff’s spokeswoman said at the times. A gun was found near the bodies, she said.
According to public records and Ricardo “Rick” Nicolini’s LinkedIn profile, he was originally from Chicago and moved with his family to Seattle in 1992. Nicolini was a dentist who owned Sound Dentistry Seattle, practicing out of an office building on Olive Way in downtown Seattle.
He and his wife had “3 grown children and 3 dogs,” and he wrote that outside of dentistry, he enjoys traveling, golfing, snowboarding, cooking, and gardening, his profile says.
It appears Mary Ellen Nicolini was the office manager at her husband’s dental practice, according to the Sound Dentistry Seattle website. A phone call to the dental office on Tuesday went unanswered.
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