A paramedic called to treat a notorious criminal gunned down in his garden in Essex raised doubts about the cause of his fatal injuries, a report said.
John “Goldfinger” Palmer was initially thought to have died from natural causes in 2015. It took a week to establish he had been shot six times.

A case review revealed a paramedic told police he doubted the conman’s wounds were from recent keyhole chest surgery.

But police officers at the scene were “not concerned”, the report said.

Essex Police said the two officers had been disciplined “for failing to fully comply with Essex Police policy on dealing with sudden deaths” but their actions had not amounted to gross misconduct.

Police and paramedics were called to John “Goldfinger” Palmer’s home in South Weald, near Brentwood, in June 2015.

An inquest concluded Mr Palmer was shot six times with 8mm 0.32 calibre rounds outside his home in South Weald, near Brentwood, in a “contract-style” killing in June 2015.

The first paramedic at the scene found him on the ground “with large amounts of blood around the top of his shirt” and his son trying to save his life, the ambulance service review said.

According to the report, there was not one single wound but a number of “small wounds in various stages of coagulation” on Mr Palmer’s chest and abdomen.

Mr Palmer’s son said he was “unsure” if they were related to the surgery.

BBC, December 20, 2016

The longer you look at this man’s story, the stranger it gets. In just about every way.

According to a Crimewatch program–UK version–his family was at home while Palmer strolled the nearby grounds of the estate. An intruder appeared and assassinated him with several shots from a revolver. Soon his family came running and found him lying on the ground, apparently not all that far from the house.

You hear their live testimony in the program, family say they came to his side, saw extensive wounds and bleeding, and of course tried to save him by calling for medical help.

Here’s where things become a bit confusing. The family says they did not hear and thus did not report, gunfire, but wouldn’t several fresh wounds indicate the obvious? And if medical help was called to the scene, how could they not have treated the matter as death by gunshot wound, instead of death by natural causes?

For what it’s worth, the law enforcement community in Britain stands appalled that gunshot wounds were only confirmed on autopsy. The officers who missed death-by-gangland-bullet will forever be laughingstocks in the profession.

But that’s an aside from the larger questions: just who was this guy within the criminal underworld, and who would have arranged his untimely end?

His infamous career unfolded gradually, long tracked in the press as these old excerpts remind us. This article from the Telegraph recounted his ignominious resume, then the fact that he finally did some time for his many frauds…

Until now, he had escaped jail. He was acquitted in 1987 of handling gold bullion from the £26 million Brink’s-Mat raid – a case which earned him the nickname Goldfinger – and has twice been given suspended jail sentences for minor frauds.
Yesterday, however, he was jailed for eight years for masterminding a huge timeshare fraud. Palmer rose from a deprived childhood in Birmingham to enjoy a life of yachts – including the £6 million Brave Goose – executive jets, helicopters, fast cars and personal security guards.

The Telegraph, telegraph.co.uk, May 24, 2001

But he never quit seeing himself as the master of the razzle-dazzle, and in fact, he was. You don’t rise from uneducated obscurity to one of the wealthiest men in the U.K by having a low level of street smarts.

In 1994, The Cook Report television programme secretly recorded Palmer offering to launder up to £60 million a year for an investigator posing as a heroin trafficker. Palmer demanded a 25 per cent commission, saying: “I’m not cheap, but I’m good.”
The Telegraph, telegraph.co.uk, May 24, 2001

Just whom would have had the means, motive, and opportunity to kill this guy?

At first blush, your suspect list includes tens of thousands. His operation employed thousands at its peak, and some employee is always convinced they’ve been mistreated or betrayed in some way.  So, all those thousands, and their relatives, would be on the suspect list.

As would the people his organization had taken in some con game or other.  But…would they truly be likely suspects?  How probable is it, really, that someone who once lost money on a time-share scheme they traced back to Palmer’s organization would be behind this kind of murder?  That they would scale walls and use a firearm expertly and then disappear without a trace?  Or would an old employee who thought they were laid off unjustly be likely to pull off this sort of a hit?

 For investigators, it screamed professional hit.

But given how much of the underworld Palmer dealt with, over so many years, that’s still a large field to work from….

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