Man sought in daughter-in-law's murder reportedly threatened to kill DEC officer in 1985

A New York man wanted in the murder of his daughter-in-law threatened to kill a state Department of Environmental Conservation officer in 1985.

Eugene Palmer was arrested and charged with second-degree aggravated harassment after he made repeated “life threatening” calls to Kenneth Didion’s home over a period of months, according to The Journal News, citing a report at the time by the Rockland Journal.

The arrest of Palmer in that case ended a DEC investigation into numerous phone calls threatening Didion’s life and home that the officer had received since December 1984, the paper reported.

Palmer, working as a truck driver at the time, pleaded guilty in April 1986 and the next month was sentenced to one year probation and fined $750. He also was ordered to avoid any contact with Didion for a year.

No motive for the threats was ever established.

"He’s a woodsman and he has plenty of guns.”

- John Pannirello

Palmer, 73, is the subject of a police manhunt after he allegedly shot his daughter-in-law early last Monday.

Palmer, who lives in Haverstraw, N.Y., admitted to relatives that he killed Tammy Palmer, 39, after shooting her at about 7:40 a.m. Monday, minutes after the woman put her two children on a school bus, according to Tammy Palmer’s father, John Pannirello.

“He admitted it, he admitted it to his sister,” Pannirello told FoxNews.com. “He said, ‘I just shot Tammy.’”

Palmer reportedly then told his sister, Elaine Babcock, who could not be reached for comment, to “give [him] an hour to get away” before calling police to report the crime. Babcock told The Journal News she then called 911 and went to Palmer’s home, where police investigators had already found her body.

Palmer, a seasoned outdoorsman, is now being sought by police and may be hiding out in the woods near Willow Grove Road or in Harriman State Park, a vast wooded area, police and relatives told FoxNews.com.

“They think he’s up in Harriman, they’re all out looking for him,” Pannirello said. “But he’s a woodsman and he has plenty of guns.”

Police discovered Palmer’s green 1995 Dodge Ram pickup truck on Tuesday afternoon during a search of Harriman State Park. The vehicle was found on a trail about a half-mile from his home, the Times Herald-Record reported. Bloodhounds on loan by Westchester County police then picked up a scent and traveled up steep ridges before growing too tired.

Haverstraw Police Chief Charles Miller told the newspaper that authorities were waiting for a search warrant before entering the vehicle, the newspaper reports.

Babcock, meanwhile, has said her brother, who left money to pay property taxes before fleeing, was caught in the middle of domestic problems between Tammy Palmer and his son, John, who had been estranged after 17 years of marriage.

Police are maintaining a road patrol around the border of Harriman State Park in hopes that Palmer will surrender.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Police search woods for New York man, 73, wanted in murder of daughter-in-law

A search is ongoing for an elderly New York man wanted for allegedly shooting his daughter-in-law to death early Monday, relatives and police told FoxNews.com.

Eugene Palmer, 73, of Haverstraw, admitted to relatives that he killed Tammy Palmer, 39, after shooting her at about 7:40 a.m. Monday, minutes after putting her two children on a school bus, according to Tammy Palmer’s father, John Pannirello.

“He admitted it, he admitted it to his sister,” Pannirello told FoxNews.com. “He said, ‘I just shot Tammy.’”

Palmer reportedly then told his sister, Elaine Babcock, who could not be reached for comment, to “give [him] an hour to get away” before calling police to report the crime. Babcock told The Journal News she then called 911 and went to Palmer’s home, where police investigators had already found her body.

“He admitted it, he admitted it to his sister. He said, ‘I just shot Tammy.’”

- John Pannirello

Palmer, a retired truck driver and seasoned outdoorsman, is now being sought by police and may be hiding out in the woods near Willow Grove Road or in nearby Harriman State Park, a vast wooded area, police and relatives told FoxNews.com.

“They think he’s up in Harriman, they’re all out looking for him,” Pannirello said. “But he’s a woodsman and he has plenty of guns.”

Babcock said her brother, who left money to pay property taxes before fleeing, was caught in the middle of domestic problems between Tammy Palmer and his son, John, who had been estranged after 17 years of marriage.

“She was aggravating the crap out of him, tormenting him,” Babcock told The Journal News. “They were pushing each other’s buttons. One or the other is going to snap. He’s the one that obviously snapped.”

Haverstraw Police Chief Charles Miller, who did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday, has said Miller fled in his green 1996 Dodge Ram pickup truck — likely toward the 46,000-acre state park — and has been labeled as possibly armed and dangerous in an arrest bulletin.

Tammy Palmer’s cause of death had not yet been determined of as midday Tuesday, according to the Rockland Medical Examiner’s Office. Calls seeking additional comment from the district attorney’s office were not immediately returned.

Palmer lived with her two children, John, 12, and Rosemarie, 16, in separate homes on the same parcel of land as her father-in-law. She had obtained an order of protection against Palmer’s son, barring him from the property, Pannirello said.

Palmer endured the imperfect living situation to best provide for her children and the family’s dog, her father said.

“She had nowhere else to go,” he said. “It was a mess; it was so bad. Thank god she put the kids on the bus that morning. After that, she went to hang some clothes and he came down with a gun.”

Palmer’s mother, Violet Pannirello, said her daughter suffered through an “abusive” marriage and painfully tried to save the relationship by losing nearly 200 pounds.

“She wasn’t happy for a long, long time,” Violet Pannirello told FoxNews.com. “She had been abused and knocked down by his family.”

Pannirello said her daughter had feared the worst but knew no way out of her living situation.

“She was afraid for her life,” she said. “He was always a very difficult man to get along with. I don’t think any woman was good enough for his son.”

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Student-tracking system at Texas schools prompts privacy concerns

A Texas school district's plan to track students with microchips implanted in mandatory IDs has at least one parent charging it's an invasion of his daughter's privacy.

Beginning in the middle of October, roughly 4,200 students at John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School in San Antonio will be required to wear the ID cards that utilize radio frequency identification. The card, which will be worn on a lanyard around each student’s neck, will transmit location information via microchip to electronic readers throughout the campuses, Northside Independent School District spokesman Pascual Gonzalez told FoxNews.com.

“It is like GPS in the school,” Gonzalez said. “As administrators, we are charged with the safety of students in our schools. So within the four walls of Jay High School and Jones Middle School during the school day, we will always know where those kids are.”

The one-year pilot program, which will cost the district $261,000, is also expected to increase attendance, and could bring an additional $2 million to the district in state funding as a result, said Gonzalez, adding that the program will be reevaluated next summer.

“This allows us to quickly identify if any of those students reported absent are, in fact, in the school,” Gonzalez said in reference to students who may be elsewhere in the building during roll call. “And if they are, we find them, get them to class and report them present.”

“This is non-threatening technology. This is not surveillance.”

- NISD spokesman Pascual Gonzalez

Parents have been “supportive” of the new program, Gonzalez said, with the exception of one parent, Steven Hernandez, and his daughter Andrea, both of whom participated in a protest against the technology.

“He is the lone protester,” Gonzalez said. “For us, this technology represents an efficient way to locate a student and to always know where our students are in our care.”

Attempts to reach Andrea Hernandez on Wednesday were unsuccessful, but the John Jay sophomore told KSN.com she thinks many students will rebel against the new policy by stashing the ID cards in their lockers.

“It makes me uncomfortable,” she told the website. “It’s an invasion of my privacy.”

Hernandez believes the system isn’t necessary because the district already employs digital cameras in all high schools and middle schools. She’s also worried what might happen if the technology gets hacked or misused.

"With a smart phone you can use the option to use your locator, but this I can't turn it off," Hernandez said.

Other parents, meanwhile, have indicated they support the new program.

"You never know when a disaster is going to happen and to know where your child is at least you have that card to know where your kid's at all times," Michelle Esquivel told FOX 29.

Another parent, Ernest Castro, said the safety of his child is the utmost importance.

"I'm always worried about my daughter being at school," he told FOX 29.

In a letter to parents, John Jay High School administrators assured them that the ID cards will store no personal information and that they’ll work only on school grounds.

“Think how important this will be in the case of an emergency,” the letter reads. “In addition, the ‘smart’ student ID card will be used in the breakfast and lunch lines in the cafeteria and to check out books from the library. Because all students will be required to wear their ‘smart’ ID, staff will be able to quickly identify Jay students inside the school.”

Despite those assurances, a coalition of privacy and civil liberties organizations and experts have called for a moratorium on the technology, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Liz McIntyre, author of "Spy Chips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track your Every Purchase and Watch Your Every Move."

"These tags are always on," McIntyre told FoxNews.com. "There's no off switch on these things."

McIntyre, who began studying the technology in 2002, said she's primarily concerned with the electronic readers getting into the wrong hands or for students to attempt to use them fraudulently, perhaps by leaving them at school while being elsewhere.

"We're concerned that students could leave the tags in school and then leave," she said.

In a statement released last month, Dr. Katherine Albrecht, director of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, warned against an impending backlash against the technology, which is currently in use only in two public school districts in Texas.

“Schools, of all places, should be teaching children how to participate in a free democratic society, not conditioning them to be tracked like cattle," Albrecht's statement read. "Districts planning to use RFID should brace themselves for a parent backlash, protests and lawsuits.”

Gonzalez rejected that criticism, saying the pilot program and the “smart” ID cards have been used successfully in Houston’s Spring Independent School District for at least the past five years.

“This is non-threatening technology,” he said. “This is not surveillance.”

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