A ‘hero’ father-of-three who was shot to death in his Long Island mansion tried to protect his girlfriend before they tragically met the same gruesome fate.
Kenneth Pohlman, 53, and his partner Kelly Coppola were gunned down by her ex-husband Daniel Coppola last Wednesday night, according to police.
At St. Elizabeth’s church in Melville on Tuesday, Kenneth’s father, Kenneth Sr., told funeral attendees his son was selfless until the very end.
‘And my son – and anybody who played football or baseball [with] Kenny [knows] – his last act in his life was selfless, trying to protect the woman he loved … my son was a hero,’ Kenneth Sr. said, the New York Post reported.
Daniel Coppola, 50, was arrested last Thursday on two murder charges after Kelly, also 50, and Kenneth were found dead in their St. James home.
Kenneth Pohlman and his new partner, Kelly Coppola, were murdered shortly before midnight in their Long Island home. The perpetrator was allegedly Kelly’s ex-husband Daniel Coppola
Daniel Coppola, pictured, shot the happy couple in a fit of rage, according to prosecutors
The couple shared a six-bedroom, four-bathroom home worth $1.1 million in affluent Suffolk County. They’d been dating for more than a year, friends said.
Dorothy, Kenneth’s mother, detailed her son’s life before he met Kelly.
She said he loved sports and met his childhood sweetheart and future wife, Kim, when his family moved to Brentwood, California.
The couple had two children together – Brianna and Tyler – before Kim died of cancer in 2006.
Kenneth Sr. said his son dated other women after his wife died, even having another daughter in 2009. But his relationships never got off on the right foot until he met Kelly, according to him.
‘They were soulmates,’ Kenneth said. ‘People kept calling them boyfriend and girlfriend. They weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. You’d go in their house, they were in love.’
Kenneth, pictured, was ‘soulmates’ with Kelly, his father said at his funeral
Kelly, too, found great happiness when she met Kenneth, according to her father John Patton.
‘The joy radiated around her, she was smiling all the time and to have this happen is such a tragedy,’ he said. ‘I cannot even speak – my whole family, his family, the sorrow we are feeling is overwhelming. I just can’t get over this.’
Their murders have have shocked the residents of this normally quiet community on the north shore of Long Island.
Police say Daniel Coppola barged into the couple’s home, shooting his ex and her new partner in a hallway.
‘While they were in a state of undress, he fired on them with a semiautomatic handgun, taking their lives,’ Assistant District Attorney Eric Aboulafia said in court.
Coppola and Kelly had recently gone through a bitter divorce, and at his arraignment Friday, prosecutors revealed evidence that Coppola had pent-up murderous rage.
Daniel Coppola is pictured with his ex-wife Kelly, whom police say he murdered
Aboulafia said investigators found a typewritten letter in Coppola’s home blaming his ex-wife for his financial woes. The letter also allegedly contained plans to kill the attorney involved in their divorce, including his own
Aboulafia said investigators found a typewritten letter in Coppola’s home laying out his plan in ‘excruciating detail’ that clearly showed his ‘homicidal rage.’
In the letter, he blamed his ex-wife for his financial woes and said he also planned to kill the attorneys involved in their divorce, including his own – with bullets marked for each.
Coppola’s daughter was in the house when the double murder allegedly went down.
Authorities say he gave her advanced warning and lured her out of the house so he could commit the heinous act unimpeded.
‘The daughter was in the house and he reached out to her and told her to get out of the house,’ Detective Lt. Kevin Breyer said.
‘He picked the girl up, put her in his car, committed the murders, drove her from there to Harbor Road. As he’s driving her, she’s communicating with friends via text saying, “I don’t know what my father did. I don’t know how my mother is.”‘
Coppola was later arrested and was reportedly being held for mental evaluation after making suicidal statements.
Kenneth and Kelly lived in this six-bedroom, four-bathroom home worth $1.1 million in affluent Suffolk County
The couple had been dating for about a year, according to friends
Brianna, Kenneth’s older daughter, said her father would ‘give you the shirt off of his back even if he never knew you’
The victims’ devastated families left the courthouse in tears on Friday
Kenneth’s heartbroken parents and brother, Tom, were among those in the courtroom during Friday’s hearing.
Tom shouted at Coppola as he was brought into the courtroom wearing prison scrubs. Other relatives burst into tears.
‘My dad would give you the shirt off of his back even if he never knew you,’ Kenneth’s eldest daughter, Brianna, told DailyMail.com outside the courthouse.
The 25-year-old explained that her father ‘did everything’ for her and her siblings, after their mother died of cancer when Brianna was seven.
‘Now me and my brother and sister are parentless,’ she wept.
Brianna also explained that Kelly’s daughter had been living with her and her father. Kelly ‘came in and made that house a home for us,’ she said.
She thinks of Kelly’s daughter as her sister and said she ‘immediately loved’ both her and Kelly.
