Army officer who ran game reserve where Prince William was a guest killed by gang in Kenya The couple are good friends with the estate's owner, Ian Craig, and the Duke was once said to have dated his daughter, Jecca, with whom he remains very close. A Kensington Palace spokesman confirmed that the Duke had met Lt Col Parkinson during his travels and was "saddened by his death." The Parkinson's daughters, Renate, 20, and Anna, 23, both live in Sussex, where they grew up. David Parkinson with daughters Anna, left, and Renate Eoghan McHugh, Renate's boyfriend, speaking from the family home in Hassocks, West Sussex, declined to comment, adding: "You can appreciate the gravity of the situation." Lt Col Parkinson served with the Parachute Regiment for 30 years and was Chief Instructor at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, in the early 1990s. He retired in 2003 and had recently been working as the manager of Lolldaiga Hills, a 49,000-acre cattle ranch and conservancy in the foothills of Mount Kenya, more than 125 miles from the capital Nairobi. He was well-known for his commitment to conservation initiatives and community development. The region's tight-knit expatriate community was said to be deeply shaken by the news, describing Lt Col Parkinson as very popular and likeable. Lolldaiga Hills Anthony Mutahi Kimaru, a local MP, told The Daily Telegraph: "We are devastated by the incident. I knew him personally and he was developing very important community programmes. Police said the armed assailants demanded valuables before attacking the couple with machetes. A laptop, phone and some ornaments were reportedly missing from the house, although friends said that little of value had been stolen. Marius Tum, the local police chief, said: "The wife - who had been tied up - managed to escape into a strongroom, only to return to find that her husband had been fatally wounded in some kind of scuffle." He said a post mortem would be conducted to determine the cause of death. A suspect was arrested from a nearby village following a police search with sniffer dogs. A number of private conservancies surround snow-capped Mount Kenya and the Laikipia area, which is popular with Kenyans of British descent and expatriates. The British Army maintains a training support base in the town of Nanyuki, which Lt Col Parkinson had commanded before he retired in 2003 at the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. A British High Commission spokesperson in Nairobi said: "We are aware of the death of a British national and we are offering consular assistance."