Geoffrey Harding, a former gynecologist working in British Columbia, was killed Wednesday night by an intruder in his house in the Bahamas.
After decades delivering babies across small town British Columbia, retiree Geoffrey Harding oversaw the construction of his dream home last year in a sleepy corner of the Bahamas where he had been escaping sub-zero winters to sail the clear waters of the Caribbean.
On Wednesday night, a man broke into the 88-year-old former gynecologist's house in the hamlet of Clarence Town on Long Island and stabbed him to death, his son-in-law Thor Pruckl said.
"We're not getting a lot of details on the exact issues from police, but it seems to be a robbery," Mr. Pruckl said on Monday from Clarence Town. He, his wife, and three other members of the family flew down on Friday from B.C. "He got stabbed in the process of that five times to the chest and the head.
"It's totally unnecessary. I'm sure if the guy would have said, 'Can I borrow a hundred bucks, or two hundred bucks?' or whatever it was … he probably would have just given it to him out of goodwill, he was that type of person."
Stephen Dean, a spokesman with the Royal Bahamas Police Force, said a 43-year-old local man was arrested in connection with the attack around 11 p.m. on Saturday and is expected to be formally charged with murder later this week. Assistant Commissioner Dean could not confirm media reports from the island nation that the suspect had served about 15 years in prison for a manslaughter charge dating back to the 1990s.
He called the incident rare.
"Someone took the opportunity and risked it," he said on Monday, declining to provide further details about what happened. "You don't have those types of incidents on that island."
Mr. Pruckl and his brother-in-law are clearing up Dr. Harding's effects at his home while their wives and a sister are in Nassau waiting to identify their father's body on Tuesday morning.
"He's had the property here since the sixties," Mr. Pruckl said of the lot his father-in-law owned, but did not build a home on or occupy until last year. "It was always sort of his dream to build a place down here and live here on a longer-term basis.
"He got to know a lot of people, and people knew him. That was important to him."
The family hopes the media attention will keep the pressure on authorities to complete a thorough investigation and fair trial, Mr. Pruckl said.
Dr. Harding was a permanent resident of Canada, but held a British passport at the time of his death. He was educated as an obstetrician gynecologist, but also performed a general practitioner's duties in rural Saskatchewan and then communities across B.C., including Creston, Dawson Creek, New Westminster, Gabriola Island and Chetwynd, Mr. Pruckl said.
Chetwynd Mayor Merlin Nichols said Dr. Harding helped build the community's first medical clinic before he retired well into his 70s, and was a "well-respected physician here for many years."
Mr. Pruckl called Dr. Harding's death a "despicable crime."
"He was very spry, very active," Mr. Pruckl said. "If you ran into him on the street, you probably would have thought he was in his mid-60s."
With a report from The Canadian Press
Mike Hager