By Jordan Bule From The Tennessean

Edward Netherland moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands to get away, his landlord said, to leave stress behind.

Tuesday morning it found him.

Netherland, a Nashville-based insurance executive, was found dead in his secluded rental home on the island of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands by his housekeeper, according to Bob Carney, the St. John contractor and real estate businessman who had a lease-purchase agreement with Netherland for a house Carney owned.

The U.S. Virgin Islands Police Department confirmed that Netherland, 60, was found at about 9:15 a.m. Tuesday. A press release sent out by the department said an autopsy revealed that Netherland died as a result of blunt force trauma.

Carney said Netherland enjoyed the islands because it was a place where he could get away.

“I don’t think we really understand it,” he said. “It appears to be a burglary that surprised him. There was a scuffle, he hit his head and ultimately succumbed. The burglars seemed to have panicked and left. They took his wallet.”

Carney said Netherland was found in his bedroom.

The U.S. Virgin Islands Police Department had not confirmed the specifics of Carney’s account as of The Tennessean’s deadline Thursday night.

Carney said the area where Netherland lived was on the remote, sparsely populated but beautiful east end of St. John. A photograph taken by a reporter for the St. John Tradewinds newspaper showed that Netherland’s house literally hung over a hillside by the ocean.

Carney said Netherland stayed there for most of the year and that he’d been in Nashville a few weeks, but had been back on the island for a month.

He said Netherland had been involved with setting up some businesses on the island involving insurance and premium financing.

Netherland’s business

Netherland was a life insurance broker who ran several companies in Nashville and Murfreesboro.

And he faced a number of lawsuits related to those companies.

One investment company sued Netherland in 2010 claiming Netherland took at least $1 million of their money after lying about commitments from other creditors.

He and former Tennessee state treasurer hopeful Ira Brody were named in another lawsuit alleging they collaborated in a complex life insurance scheme for their own benefit.

And in April of this year, Netherland pitched an insurance plan to a Florida school district that officials there feared was too good to be true, according to media reports. In that deal, Netherland proposed an investment of $400 million that would provide school workers and the district payments of $50,000 when an employee died. Employees would not pay anything for the plan. Netherland would not say how that initial purse would be invested to generate the returns, according to The Tampa Bay Times newspaper.

Carney said an elderly housekeeper found Netherland on Tuesday morning, called Carney startled and that he called the Virgin Islands Police Department. He said the woman who found Netherland first thought Netherland was sick or had fallen.

“Crime is so rare down here that people don’t really lock their doors,” Carney said. “This is like a thunderbolt out of the clear blue sky.”

Carney said Netherland’s death “does not look like something somebody had planned out.”

“He had a very quiet lifestyle to make up for all the running around he does in the states,” Carney said of Netherland. “He keeps to himself.”

The U.S. Virgin Islands Police Department said major crimes unit detectives there are investigating Netherland’s death.

Police urge anyone who has any information to call Crime Stoppers USVI at 1-800-222-TIPS.

IMAGE: Netherland’s house is seen here at the end of a gravel driveway. Tortola, British Virgin Islands is seen in background. (Photo: Photo submitted by Thomas Oat of the St. John Tradewinds)

For more on this story go to: http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2014/11/20/local-insurance-broker-found-dead-caribbean/70021640/