When his accountant hadn’t had a response to emails and texts for two weeks, he called the police. They broke into his house on May 14th and found his body on his bedroom floor. He had died of a stab wound to the heart.
His two dogs were in the house when he died, and had no way to get out. And apparently weren’t sufficiently annoying to cause the neighbors to take any action. The dogs were in terrible shape. The police turned them over to a vet who said they were within a couple days of death.
Here is the police report describing their response:
Police Constable Vines GRAPHIC_CONTENT
The police contacted Rose in St Davids on the 16th and informed her of Scott’s death and the condition of the dogs. Rose immediately sent me email and I called to talk to her about what was happening. I called Nigel and Roy, who had also just gotten the news.
The next day Rose went to Bath to pick up the dogs. She nursed them back to health, and when I saw them a few months later they seemed fully recovered and quite happy. Guess that is what comes from living in the Now.
On the morning of the 17th (my time) one of the detectives sent me email asking for contact info for Scott’s family. I gave him the phone number for Scott’s sister Kelly. Half an hour later she called me, totally distraught and barely able to talk. We were both stunned, but I had the additional nagging concern that perhaps my dismissal as paranoia of Scott’s fear that someone was trying to kill him was wrong and what I assumed was his murder was related to that. If I had believed him perhaps he wouldn’t have been killed.
The police secured the house, declared it a questionable death, and started an investigation that lasted over two months. During that time they interviewed (in person, on the phone, or via email) everyone they could find who had been involved in any way with Scott during the last hear of his life. In the end, since they could find no evidence that anyone else was in the house at that time, they ruled his death as suicide. Initially, none of us who knew him really believed that. I suppose we understood that he could have killed himself, but nobody who knew about his love for his dogs could believe that he wouldn’t have arranged for their care before he took his life.
Here are some news articles that came out during the investigation:
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- Appeal for information following unexplained death of man in Bath
- Friend reveals how he raised alarm about ‘incredibly intellectual’ man found dead with stab wound in Bath
- IT executive Scott Lafferty stabbed to death in flat
- Dogs doing ‘fantastically’ a month on from being trapped with body at Bath home after unexplained death of owner
- Police finish investigation into dog lover Scott Lafferty’s stab wound death
- Man, 61, ‘most likely’ stabbed himself to death in Bath flat, inquest concludes
- Malnourished dogs who survived weeks trapped with dead body doing well 9 months later
After the investigation was done and the police allowed access to Scott’s house, I flew to the UK, at the request of Kelly, to try to clean things up, sort things out, and help decide how we would carry on from that point.