Diana Penner

diana.penner@indystar.com

This is an occasional series highlighting some of the area's unsolved crimes. Longtime Star reporterDiana Pennerrecounts details of the crime, the victim and where the case stands with hopes of generating new information.

The crime:

About 12:25 a.m. Oct. 30, 2000, Indianapolis police were called to a home in the 2900 block of Station Street on the Eastside, on a report of a "disturbance." Neighbors had heard some glass break and a shot fired. On the front porch of a neighboring residence, they found Kenneth Palmore, 38. He had been shot in the thigh.

Because the bullet hit a vital artery, Palmore lost too much blood too quickly to be saved.

Witnesses told police two men had confronted Palmore on the enclosed porch of his own home. After a struggle, he dove through a window to escape and he managed to run across the street on to the neighbor's porch, where he collapsed.

As police investigated, they learned the 911 call summoning help came not from one of Palmore's neighbor's homes, but from outside the immediate area. It turned out a woman, who had witnessed the shooting, drove to Palmore's brother's home to tell him Kenneth Palmore had been shot. The brother, who did not know the woman, called police. The woman then took off. Police were able to track her down, but she was elusive and not cooperative.

However, witnesses said the two men, wearing hooded sweatshirts, were seen running east toward Sherman Drive.

The victim:

Kenneth Palmore — always Kenny to his family — was part of a large family who lived mostly on the city's Eastside.

Bobbi Smith, one of Palmore's nieces, is just 10 years younger than her uncle. She recalls him patiently teaching her to play cards when she was a young child and he a teenager.

Palmore attended Arlington High School and would have been part of the Class of 1981, but left school in about 1979. He worked from then on.

Palmore's children, Jaquanda, now 29, and Ken Jr., 28, remember a father with boundless energy. He always seemed to be working at least two jobs, hurrying from one to the other. Although he and their mother split up when they were young, Palmore was a constant presence in his children's lives. Ken recalls that his father constantly exhorted him to "excel" in whatever he did. Jaquanda said her father didn't lecture her quite as much, but of the two said she probably was more self-motivated than her brother and Palmore adjusted his parenting to match their needs.

He also worked on his strength, lifting weights — and refrigerators, cars and nieces and nephews, just to impress.

"He was really strong," Bobbi Smith recalled. "He would try to lift everything."

In addition to his regular jobs, Palmore supplemented his income reselling alcohol on Sundays, when retail liquor sales are illegal. That sideline, cash-only business as a bootlegger was known throughout the neighbhorhood, and police and his family think that might have been connected to his murder. Palmore was shot early on a Sunday, just after midnight, and the men who attacked him might correctly have figured he would have a considerable amount of cash.

They were right — but they didn't get it. After Palmore was killed, the family found his cash hidden in his clothes.

Where does the case stand?

Detective Sgt. David Ellison, head of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department's Cold Case Unit, said a strong case is building against two suspects. However, he said, additional information from anyone in the public who might have witnessed the shooting or learned about information later will help solidify the case so that arrests can be made.

If you know something:

Call Ellison at (317) 327-3426.

Star researcher Cathy Knapp contributed to this story.

You can reach me at (317) 444-6249, by email at diana.penner@indystar.com com or on Twitter, @dianapenner.