Police had initially declared his death ‘non suspicious’. But last night, officers revealed that the 64-year-old – once dubbed Britain’s richest criminal – had been blasted several times in the chest and have launched a murder probe.
One line of inquiry will be whether the shooting was a revenge hit by one of the many villains linked to career criminal Palmer, who was once ranked 105th in the Sunday Times Rich List.
He has been linked to a string of gangsters, notably Kenny Noye, who remains in prison for the 1996 road rage murder of Stephen Cameron.
Many will also suspect Palmer is another victim of the ‘Brinks-Mat’ curse, which has claimed the lives of more than 20 people.
Emergency services were called at about 6.30pm last Wednesday after he was discovered by his family in the grounds of his luxury detached home in South Weald, near Brentwood.
Paramedics said Palmer was unconscious and not breathing when they arrived and he was declared dead at the scene.
Last night, Essex Police appealed for witnesses as they attempted to explain how they missed the shotgun wounds to Palmer’s chest.
It is understood that officers and paramedics thought there was no foul play because of ‘pre-existing injuries’ following recent major heart surgery.
A force spokesman said: ‘Closer inspection raised doubt and a post-mortem examination was conducted to establish the cause of death.’
Palmer earned his nickname, taken from the James Bond villain, because of his suspected links to the dramatic Brink’s-Mat raid. Gold bullion, travellers cheques and cash worth more than £80million at today’s prices were stolen at gunpoint from the firm’s high security Heathrow depot.
Palmer, a scrap metal dealer turned jeweller and gold trader, kept a smelter at his former home near Bath and it was here that police long suspected some of the gold was melted down for resale. But he was acquitted of dishonestly handling stolen goods at the Old Bailey after telling the jury he did not know where the gold had come from.
By this time he was already a notorious fraudster who had made huge sums through a network of 13 timeshare resorts on the island of Tenerife.
He swindled more than 17,000 holidaymakers and was jailed for eight years in 2001, but served only half that time.
In 2005, the High Court declared Palmer bankrupt and ordered him to pay £3.25million after he was sued by 350 of his victims.
Just days before his death Palmer was warned he faces up to 15 years in a Spanish prison over charges including fraud.
He had been arrested on Tenerife in 2007 but spent eight years on bail, dividing his time between Essex and his luxury yacht on the Canary Islands.
Spanish prosecutors claim Palmer had been running a criminal enterprise there from behind the bars of his jail cell at HMP Long Lartin, in Worcestershire.
They charged ten people, including his long-term partner Christine Ketley and two of his nephews. Spanish authorities were also probing Palmer over the killings of expats Billy and Flo Robinson, who once worked in his timeshare empire, in Tenerife in 2006.
One family friend recently said Palmer ‘desperately does not want to go back to prison’ and now ‘just wants to live the quiet life’. Tributes posted online after Palmer’s death last week described him as a ‘gentleman’ and ‘special person’. Yesterday a uniformed officer was standing guard at Palmer’s secluded and gated Essex home, which lies at the end of a 500-yard bridleway more than a quarter of a mile away from his nearest neighbours.
At nearby South Weald Cricket Club one parent said: ‘I think choosing that house in the middle of nowhere shows you that he wanted to keep a low-profile but clearly he had upset someone.’
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