Man charged with 2017 double murder found dead in Virginia prison

A man charged with two counts of premeditated murder of his girlfriend's parents was found dead in a Virginia prison on Thursday, authorities said.

Fairfax County police said 24-year-old Nicholas Giampa was pronounced dead around 2 a.m. in his cell at the county jail, where he had been incarcerated since 2018. Police said they were investigating Giampa's death but do not initially believe foul play was involved.

Giampa was arrested in December 2017 in connection with the fatal shooting of Scott Fricker, 48, and Buckley Kuhn-Fricker, 43, in their Virginia home.

The case attracted national attention because there was evidence that Giampa held neo-Nazi views. Neighbors said the then-teenager also mowed a swastika in a public square.

At the time of the murders, Kuhn-Fricker's 16-year-old daughter told police she and Giampa had made a suicide pact after her family forbade their relationship. They had talked about “hurting her parents if they tried to intervene,” according to court records. Officials said the Frickers objected to the relationship after learning that Giampa was socializing with neo-Nazis online and that he had been charged with possessing child sexual abuse images as a minor.

Fricker and Kuhn-Fricker were shot after finding Giampa in their daughter's bedroom. The daughter told police she had given Giampa a security code that allowed him to enter the house after her parents went to bed.

According to police, Giampa grabbed a gun and shot Fricker and Kuhn-Fricker after the daughter unlocked her bedroom door. The daughter told police Giampa put a gun to her head, but she did not fire. Giampa, then 17, then shot himself in the forehead. He was hospitalized for weeks but survived the injury.

At a 2018 hearing, psychologists testified that Giampa was unable to fully understand the proceedings due to brain damage from the self-inflicted gunshot wound. At least one psychologist testified that Giampa would eventually recover sufficiently to participate in his defense.

Giampa's jury trial has been postponed three times and was originally scheduled to take place in January, according to online court records.

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Olivia Diaz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.