So when the millionaire developer was found bound and stabbed to death Monday in the basement of his $2.5 million rented home, investigators in one of America's richest communities had a lot of directions in which to look.

"It certainly makes it more complicated," Connecticut prosecutor David I. Cohen said of Kissel's extensive troubles.

So far, however, investigators will not discuss a possible motive or suspects. (Watch police try to unravel a murder mystery -- 1:55)

News reports have quoted unidentified sources as speculating that Kissel -- facing possible prison time for real estate fraud -- hired someone to kill him so his children could collect millions in insurance. Police would not comment on the theory. Kissel's father, William, rejected the notion as preposterous.

Police Chief James Walters said there was no sign of forced entry into the home. Investigators have drained a pool and combed through the couple's house to look for clues.

Police said Kissel's wife, Hayley, who had been seeking a divorce, has been cooperative. Her attorney, Joseph Martini, would not comment directly on the case. "Her primary focus is on the kids," Martini said. "This is another terrible ordeal the kids are going through."

Famous murder cases

Greenwich has been the scene of a number of sensational crimes. Financier Martin Frankel plotted a $200 million insurance fraud while living a life of luxury in Greenwich; and Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel was convicted in 2002 of bludgeoning a neighbor girl to death with a golf club in 1975.

It is the second time that one of William Kissel's sons met a violent end.

Robert Kissel, 40, died three years ago in Hong Kong when his wife fed him a strawberry milkshake laced with poison and bludgeoned him to death with a statue. She was sentenced to life in prison last year in Hong Kong in a case that became known as the "milkshake murder."

"The enormity of the loss that this family has sustained and the reversal of their destiny over the past three years is incomprehensible and heartbreaking," said Philip Russell, Andrew Kissel's lawyer. Asked what might explain the fall, Russell replied: "Greed."

While Robert was a top investment banker for Merrill Lynch, Andrew, 46, was accused of expanding his fortune by ripping off millions of dollars from tenants and real estate bankers. He was found dead just a few days before he scheduled to plead guilty in federal court in a multimillion-dollar real estate fraud case.

Kissel also was being sued by a former business partner, who accused him of misappropriating millions through fraudulent mortgage loans. Attorneys for his business partner declined to comment.

"Andrew has one thing that was driving him," said his 78-year-old father, William, who lives in Florida. "Andrew wanted to be top of the heap. I think Andrew was under a lot of pressure, probably self-imposed, to be top of the heap."

Taste for finer things

William Kissel saw the differences in his sons as teenagers when he gave them credit cards. Robert bought plastic shoes from Sears, his father recalled. Andrew bought a fur coat.

Andrew would later enjoy a yacht, a Vermont mountain getaway, sports cars and household help in Greenwich. His wife, a stock analyst and a competitive skier, shared his taste for the finer things, Kissel's father said.

"Putting the two together was like a snowball running downhill," Kissel's father said. "It got bigger and bigger."

But as Kissel's wealth grew, so did suspicions.

He was skiing in Vermont in 2003 when an attorney for his Upper East Side co-op called and confronted him about millions of dollars missing from the building's accounts.

"Very matter-of-factly he admitted it," the attorney, Aaron Shmulewitz, recalled.

Though Kissel moved out of his co-op and paid more than $4 million to settle the dispute with his neighbors, state prosecutors charged him with larceny. Those charges were still pending against him when he was killed.

Last year, federal prosecutors charged Kissel in a huge real estate fraud, and his bankers sued him, saying they lost millions lending him money.

Robert Kissel was murdered in 2003. He and his wife, Nancy, were going through a bitter divorce -- he accused her of having an affair; she called him a cocaine-snorting, whiskey-swilling, abusive workaholic.

Andrew Kissel's divorce was also heating up before he was killed, court records show. In divorce paperwork filed in February, his wife accused her husband of being a belligerent alcoholic.