On a crisp autumn morning in Stony Point, New York, the life of 39-year-old Tammy Pannirello Palmer, a female, came to a violent and tragic end. On September 24, 2012, after seeing her two children off to the school bus, she was ambushed on the property where she lived. It is believed her father-in-law, Eugene Palmer, lay in wait in the woods and then opened fire with a shotgun as she walked back toward her home.
The first shot struck her arm, the second missed, but a third, fired at close range, was fatal, hitting her in the chest. The brutal act was the culmination of escalating family tensions. Tammy and her husband, John Palmer, were estranged, and she had recently secured a restraining order against him, which reportedly enraged Eugene.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Eugene Palmer fled the scene in his pickup truck. Before vanishing, he allegedly visited his sister, confessed to the killing, gave her money to pay his taxes, and asked for a one-hour head start before she contacted the authorities. His truck was later discovered abandoned near the entrance to Harriman State Park in Rockland County, sparking a massive manhunt in the sprawling, dense woodland. Despite extensive searches involving police dogs that initially picked up his scent leading to a campground, Palmer, an experienced hunter and outdoorsman intimately familiar with the park, was never found.
A local arrest warrant for second-degree murder was issued for Eugene Palmer shortly after the killing, followed by a federal warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution in June 2013. In May 2019, at the age of 80, he was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, with a reward of up to $100,000 offered for information leading to his capture. Although he was removed from the top ten list in July 2022 because he no longer met the criteria, he remains an active and wanted fugitive, considered armed and dangerous. While his family has expressed belief that he may have died in the park years ago, authorities have received tips suggesting he could be alive, possibly living under an alias in another state. In 2014, a New York Supreme Court judge awarded Tammy's children a multimillion-dollar judgment from Eugene Palmer's estate, having determined by a preponderance of evidence that he was responsible for their mother's death. The case remains a painful open wound for Tammy's family, who are still awaiting justice as Eugene Palmer's whereabouts continue to be a mystery.
