Secret Witness founder Palmer dies

Tuesday, March 20, 2001 | 10:35 a.m.

Longtime Las Vegas law enforcement officer Nage Palmer loved to pull a good joke on fellow cops, and not even the sheriff was immune to his pranks.

Once, Palmer received a call from the late Sheriff John Moran seeking a golfer for a tournament foursome. Palmer told Moran of a great golfer on the force and then told the sheriff that there was no way the man's supervisor would let him take the day off to play golf, which he knew would get Moran riled up.

What followed was a string of calls down the chain of command ending with a bewildered supervisor wondering why Moran was angry at him, especially since he could not recall ever telling one of his officers not to play golf with the sheriff.

Nagel "Nage" Palmer, a highly regarded street cop and detective who in 1979 founded and nurtured the Secret Witness program into one of the best in the nation, died Thursday of cancer at his Las Vegas home. He was 78.

On Monday Metro Police representatives -- from young patrolmen to Sheriff Jerry Keller -- attended a 45-minute service at Palm Mortuary Downtown to say goodbye to the Las Vegas resident of 47 years who served 30 years on the old Las Vegas Police Department and Metro.

"Nage could truly be called a pioneer on the force," said Undersheriff Richard Winget, who as a young supervisor was the victim of Palmer's golf prank. "He was a highly respected investigator who built Secret Witness into what it is today."

In October 1999, at the 20th anniversary of Secret Witness at the MGM Grand, Palmer was given an award for starting and -- for seven years until his retirement in 1987 -- running the nonprofit program that offers cash awards of up to $1,000 to citizens who anonymously offer tips on crimes that lead to the arrest and indictment of suspects.

Secret Witness, which Palmer developed from a similar program in Arizona, helped lead to the arrests of more than 8,700 criminal suspects, the recovery of $58 million in stolen property and the doling out of $1.2 million in rewards.

"Nage was a man of great ethics and a mentor to many of us," said Keller, a longtime friend. "He was Mr. Secret Witness because he not only started the program but maintained its integrity. He exemplified all that was good about being a police officer."

Deputy Sheriff Mike Zagorski, who was the golfer in the prank Palmer pulled on Moran, called his longtime friend "a calming influence."

"When I was a young sergeant I took myself too seriously and thought that if I didn't show up for work one day the place would shut down," Zagorski said. "But Nage taught me how to get from point A to point B in a calm, stable way, and that helped me a lot in both my career and in my personal life.

"As a cop, Nage was doing community policing long before it was known as that."

Born Jan. 2. 1923, in Logan, Utah, Palmer was a Marine Corps veteran of World War II. After the war, he got into serious bodybuilding and won the 1950 Mr. Utah title. Palmer came to Las Vegas in 1954 and three years later joined the old LVPD, where he patrolled the downtown area, developing a reputation as a tough but fair cop.

In the early 1960s Palmer was appointed head of the Intelligence Bureau and also investigated homicide cases. In 1966 he was injured in an on-duty car accident and while recuperating took up doll-house making, which he continued during retirement.

In 1973, when the Las Vegas Police Department and the Clark County Sheriff's Office merged to form Metro, Palmer was issued badge No. 48. Today Metro badge numbers run in the 7,200s.

In 1979 then-Sheriff John McCarthy selected Palmer to start Secret Witness. In the program's early years Palmer testified at a number of trials in which the program was held up to constitutional scrutiny by defense attorneys. Each time it stood the test.

Palmer was a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity and the Las Vegas Corvette Club.

He is survived by his wife, Emily Palmer of Las Vegas; two daughters, Yolanda Stroud of Las Vegas and Sylvia Palmer of St. George, Utah; five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.