John Palmer: police thought top villain shot dead in his garden had died from natural causes
John Palmer is dead. He was dubbed the ‘Goldfinger’ due to his alleged links to the £26 million Brink’s-Mat bullion raid on a Heathrow security warehouse in 1983. Most of the stolen booty has never been located.
Mr Palmer was shot dead in his garden.
The Times:
Essex police have launched a murder investigation after initially treating the death of John “Goldfinger” Palmer as non-suspicious.
He was shot dead in his garden. Would it be suspicious had Mr Palmer been stabbed in the library or beaten to death with a candlestick in the observatory?
Palmer, who was once dubbed Britain’s richest criminal, was found dead in the garden of his home in South Weald, Brentwood, last Wednesday. A spokeswoman for the force said that police and paramedics apparently missed the gunshot wounds in his chest because Palmer had “pre-existing injuries due to recent surgery”.
Eh? Police mistook a fatal gunshot wound for a surgical scar?
“Closer inspection raised doubt and a post-mortem examination was conducted to establish the cause of death,” she added.
The BBC:
Paramedics were called to John “Goldfinger” Palmer’s Essex home to reports of a cardiac arrest on 24 June. But a post-mortem examination on 30 June revealed the 64-year-old convicted conman had been shot in the chest.
The killer(s) had a mere six days to make good their escape and cover their tracks.
When asked if the crime scene had been compromised because of the delay in starting the murder investigation, Det Ch Insp Werrett said it was “challenging”.
This is a gun. This is a knife wound. Discuss.
The police officer added:
“However, we do have a crime scene and we’re deploying our specialist forensic and search officers around that crime scene,” he said.
What do we know of the dead man?
In 2001 he was convicted of running a £30 million timeshare fraud from his base in the Canary Islands. He conned thousands of British and European tourists who thought they were buying into Spanish holiday homes. At time of his conviction, he was said to have been worth £300 million, putting him on a par with the Queen at 105 on The Sunday Times Rich List.
Where was she on the night of…
Posted: 2nd, July 2015 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
