Labradoodle owner dead ‘for days’, say police
A FATHER at the centre of a dognapping riddle lay dead for several days before his body was discovered by police, it emerged yesterday.
Officers were called to the home of Donald Patience, 45, on Tuesday amid reports that someone was stealing his £1,000 labradoodle. They found his body inside the house in Radcliffe, Manchester, and his pet, called Layla, at a grooming parlour over the road.
Three men were arrested and, yesterday, one was charged with Mr Patience’s murder.
Neighbours said that Mr Patience, who was known as Prentice, was last seen last Saturday – three days before he was found dead.
One told The Mail on Sunday: ‘He was walking up the road towards his house with a man I’d never seen before. He generally kept himself to himself, but he didn’t seem distressed. It’s an awful, tragic mystery.’
Yesterday police said Mr Patience had been ‘dead for several days’ when he was
‘A much-loved son, brother and father’
found, but his cause of death had yet to be established.
Ian Gary Connell, 39, of Bolton, was charged with murder. The two other men arrested, aged 27 and 41, were released pending further inquiries.
Mr Patience, a keen Rangers fan, was born in Inverness and grew up in Alness, Ross-shire, before moving to England in around 2008. His loved ones said he was ‘a much-loved son, brother and father’ who ‘will be sorely missed by many’.
His ex-wife, Kirsty, mother of his three children, wrote on social media: ‘This breaks my heart to have to write this. As a lot of you may have already seen, this week we lost an extremely incredible man.’
She added: ‘Prentice was an amazing father and adored his children. We are all truly heartbroken at this news and we are all struggling to come to terms with his death.’
Police said Layla was being cared for.