Father-in-law suspected in murder near Haverstraw

HAVERSTRAW (WABC) -- Police in Rockland County are searching for a man they believe killed his daughter-in-law.

"I just shot Tammy. And give me about an hour to get away and then do what you have to do," Elaine Babcock said.

Babcock relayed to us the words of her brother, Eugene Palmer, who in a fit of rage allegedly shot his daughter-in-law.

Tammy Palmer, 39, lived in a neighboring house on the Palmer property in the town of Haverstraw.

"That's who the victim is...my daughter. She is thirty something years old! She doesn't deserve to be dead! Oh, oh, oh," her mother, Violet Pannirello, said.

The victims' parents told us the shooting stemmed from a long simmering marital dispute between Tammy Palmer and her estranged husband, john, who no longer lives on the family property.

"We've been telling the husband that he has to take care of her. He didn't want to take care of her. And then I guess this morning they had an argument outside and he killed my daughter," John Pannirello, the victim's father, said.

Police say Tammy Palmer's body was found behind her house about 7:40 on Monday morning. Investigators say she was shot with a rifle or shotgun. Her two teenage children were in school at the time of the shooting.

Local and state police are now scouring the area for the 73-year-old Palmer, last seen leaving the property in a 1995 green dodge pickup truck.

"He's lived here all his life so he knows the woods better than any of us. So he could be in the woods but he left in his truck, so he has relatives upstate, he could be headed upstate, he could be anywhere," Chief Charles Miller, Haverstraw Police Dept., said.

Police have issued a bulletin for him, saying he could be armed and dangerous.

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haverstraw, murder, shooting, rockland county, northern suburbs news, joe torres

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