Jason Stetz – who runs a local butcher and meat processing shop called Heart O’ Lakes meats – is one of the people who have been invited into Palmer’s ‘shrine’.
Jason said: ‘He has an old schoolhouse on his land that he remodelled into a hunting shrine. He’s got all his kills in there.
‘He’s got so many head mounts in that thing… he’s got everything in there, I mean bears, elks, deer, moose – animals from all over the United States and all his African kills are in there.
‘I’m sure a leopard was in there. All these things you see when you Google him are there. There’s bear blankets on the walls. It’s like a museum of dead animals.’
Jason has had an uneasy relationship with Palmer since the dentist bought the huge plot of land in 2001. Describing how he was invited into the kill-trophy compound, he said: ‘We were kind of on the outs for a while and then one night he was trying to have a bunch of neighbours over and bury the hatchet. It didn’t last very long.
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‘He was really showing them off, he was in his element. He’s just an avid hunter, when you’ve money like that you can afford to do it.’
Jason, 43, who runs his meat business with his wife Nicki, said Palmer has brought in the ‘biggest buck’ he’s processed in the area for the last four years in a row.
He said: ‘We process probably 300 deer a year on average, for the past four years he’s brought in the biggest buck of the year. Probably upwards of 250 to 260 pounds, always huge deer. He brings it in and we process the meat for him. I capered it for him so he can mount them. He’s got more deer heads then I’ve ever seen.’
Jason and a group of other locals share a deer-hunting stand on about 40 acres of land next door to Palmer’s property.
Bryan Stetz, one of the group of deer-hunters, told how Palmer has kitted his land out with CCTV cameras and private property signs and when he is at the property he monitors it closely for trespassers.
.He claimed his brother Keith was once walked off their hunting stand at gunpoint by Palmer and feared the furious dentist might kill him.Bryan said: ‘It was the last day of hunting season. My brother’s sitting up there and Palmer walked out there with a gun and started hollering at him, just chewing him out.
‘My brother’s scared because he had a gun with him and Palmer doesn’t hunt with guns, he only hunts with bows, so why he had a gun I don’t know. It must have been to intimidate him.
‘He kicked him out of the stand, walked him out all the way to the highway right behind him and said, “You’re trespassing.” Keith said to him “It’s my brother’s land” and he said, “Ignorance is not acceptable.” ’
Bryan, 52, who runs a local restaurant, also once got a glimpse inside Palmer’s shrine. ‘I just hated it,’ he said. ‘He’s got all of his heads lined up in that schoolhouse there.
‘I just looked in and he was in there, all I remember is big heads. There’s a bar in the middle of it – it’s just a little rich guy’s pad. I would guess he goes there to escape and admire his kills. I saw the African stuff, the deer stuff.’
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Bryan thinks Walter may even have been specifically targeting Cecil for his trophy room.
He said: ‘I think he actually wanted to kill a famous lion because of his ego. I think he’s just hugely arrogant and has a huge ego.
‘He wanted a famous lion and it would have been mounted in his schoolhouse. I know him, I have had to put up with him.
‘I think he’s just dumb and thinks he can do what he wants.’
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