9:45am Thursday 2nd November 2006
By Charis Mastris
A DAD-of-two shot repeatedly on the driveway of his Virgin Islands home taught karate in Poole, where he lived for more than a decade.
Vincent Connolly, 51, moved from Salford to Poole 18 years ago as part of a company relocation deal with his wife Janet, his son Jak, now 23, and his school teacher daughter Lauren, now 21.
A former British "Kata" champion who retired from karate competition in 1985, he taught beginners' lessons at the Sea Scout Hall on West Quay.
He moved on to the Caribbean Virgin Islands five years ago, where he took a job managing the renovation of an exclusive resort on Virgin Gorda, and his family remained in Poole but would visit him frequently.
His landlady found him on Sunday morning in the driveway of the home he rented. Police said he had been shot four times, and they are trying to establish a motive for the killing.
Yesterday, there was a "for sale" sign outside the family home in Oakdale, and Mrs Connolly, who owns a mobile hairdressing business in Poole, was too distressed to talk to reporters. Mr Connolly worked as a project manager in the Little Dix Bay resort for 18 months, overseeing the final phase of a renovation.
The resort's managing director, Martein van Wagenberg, said: "It is shocking to lose a colleague in this way, but it is doubly ironic that this happened in Virgin Gorda, because it is known as such a peaceful community."
Mr Connolly had spent the night before his death drinking with friends at a local bar called Mad Dog.
His friend Dave Donnelly, who lives on the island, told the Manchester Evening News the scheme he was in charge of involved houses worth £4m to £5m, and he was expecting to be working on it for the next few years.
"He was a nice guy," he said. "He rented a lovely house on the edge of the main town of the island. Except when I was in town, he would only ever drink at the Mad Dog bar, which was just a little wooden shack.
"He did not socialise with local people at all.
"I never knew him to have any enemies. He was easy-going, his work was his life."
As well as being a 6th dan black belt in Shotokan Karate, Mr Connolly played the saxophone professionally and led a modern jazz quartet on tenor sax.
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