Now Andrew Kissel has been found dead, bound and gagged and lying in a pool of blood in the basement of his mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The American property tycoon, who was involved in a bitter divorce, was killed days before he was due to plead guilty to multimillion-dollar fraud charges for which he faced up to 10 years in jail.

One theory being considered by investigators is that he may have hired hit-men to murder him so that his children could receive his $10 million (£5.7 million) life insurance.

Mr Kissel’s younger brother, Robert, a Hong Kong-based investment banker, died in the 2003 milkshake murder when his wife beat him with a metal statue after giving him a drink spiked with sedatives and the drug Rohypnol.

Nancy Kissel said that her husband beat and sodomised her, but admitted committing adultery with a handyman who worked at the couple’s holiday home in Vermont.

The trial, which gripped the former British colony with revelations of Robert Kissel’s cocaine use and online searches for gay bondage sex, ended with his wife being jailed for life.

Andrew Kissel, 46, and his wife, Hayley, 43, a widely quoted stock analyst and former mogul-skiing world champion, took in the couple’s three children until their relationship also collapsed, amid legal woes.

Mr Kissel, a property developer who built million-dollar homes across America’s Northeast, once owned a $3 million yacht, a jet, a ski chalet in Vermont and a fleet of classic Aston Martins, Ferraris and Porsches.

But he fell from grace when he was accused of stealing $3.9 million from the Park Avenue building where he lived. As treasurer of the exclusive apartment house, he allegedly faked bills for renovation projects and doctored bank statements to funnel money into his own accounts.

He was also charged with fraud for repeatedly mortgaging the same two-acre plot in Greenwich to raise loans of $6.4 million. Mrs Kissel filed for divorce and custody of their two children, Ruth, 8, and Dara, 6.

In court statements she said that her husband had a serious drinking problem for which he had sought treatment and had been “belligerent and argumentative, especially when intoxicated”. She also tried to get him evicted from their former home in the rented red-brick mansion on Dairy Lane in Greenwich. He was being evicted by the landlord anyway for not paying the rent.

Mr Kissel’s body was discovered on Monday morning by movers who had begun to clear the house at the weekend. His hands had been bound behind his back, his mouth was gagged and his T-shirt was pulled over his head.

According to the moving company’s manager, Mrs Kissel had summoned the movers to the house on Saturday to put their belongings in storage, and the couple were heard arguing.

Police said that Mr Kissel was last seen alive by an acquaintance late on Sunday afternoon and there was no sign of forced entry to the house.

“This was not a random act. We do believe that Mr Kissel was the intended target of this assault,” James Walters, the Greenwich police chief, said.

He said that Mrs Kissel had been interviewed by detectives and was co-operating with the inquiry.

Mr Kissel’s lawyer said that he had planned to enter a guilty plea today in the mortgage fraud case. “Andrew did bad things,” his father, William, said. “He took money from a lot of people. He was killed in a vengeful, angry way. Someone got in there in a very narrow timeline,” he said. “Someone had to know something.”

Mr Kissel’s two children will now join his brother’s three offspring in the care of their sister.

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