UPDATE: San Francisco Private Detective Jack Palladino Dies From Injuries Sustained In Attack
SAN FRANCISCO (AP/CBS SF) -- Famed San Francisco private investigator Jack Palladino, who was seriously injured sustained during a violent Jan. 28 robbery in front of his home, has died, according to San Francisco police.
The San Francisco Police Department confirmed on Monday afternoon that Palladino had passed away after being placed on life support due to the injuries he suffered in the attack.
On Sunday, police said that two men had been arrested in connection with an attempted robbery that left Palladino critically injured.
Palladino himself may have inadvertently helped detectives make the arrests after photographs were recovered from a camera the suspects unsuccessfully tried to steal, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Palladino, who worked on high-profile cases ranging from the Jonestown mass suicides to celebrity and political scandals, suffered a head injury in the violent attack Jan. 28.
Police said 24-year-old Pittsburg resident Lawrence Thomas was taken into custody without incident last Friday in the area of Middle Point Road and Hare Street. 23-year-old San Francisco resident Tyjone Flournoy was taken into custody without incident on Saturday on the 2500 block of East 2nd Street in Reno, Nevada.
Thomas and Flournoy were both booked at the San Francisco County Jail on charges of attempted robbery, aggravated kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy, false imprisonment and elder abuse with a great bodily injury enhancement.
RELATED: Famed San Francisco Private Eye Jack Palladino Gravely Injured in Robbery
While still unconscious, the 76-year-old Palladino received news of the arrests from his wife and fellow private detective Sandra Sutherland on Saturday night.
"I said, 'Guess what Jack, they got the bastards, and it was all your doing,'" Sutherland told the Chronicle on Sunday.
Palladino had just stepped outside his San Francisco home to try out his new camera when a car pulled up and a man jumped out to grab it from him, police and the detective's stepson Nick Chapman told the newspaper.
As the suspect grabbed the camera, Palladino fell and hit his head on the pavement. Palladino was not expected to survive after undergoing surgery to stop the massive bleeding, the Chronicle said.
Palladino was wrapping up one final case before joining his wife in retirement. Since the 1980s, the two conducted investigations out of their Victorian home in the city's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, on behalf of the famous and powerful as well as the underdogs.
Their clients included Bill Clinton, whose 1992 presidential campaign hired Palladino to quell rumors of his extramarital affairs, and Courtney Love, who hired Palladino to talk to journalists investigating whether she played a role in the 1994 death of her husband, rock star Kurt Cobain.
In the 1990s, he ran a counter-investigation to the tobacco industry's campaign to smear whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand.
Palladino's career began even before he graduated from University of California, Berkeley's law school when the family of Patty Hearst hired him to assist in investigating her 1974 kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Party.
Despite the two arrests, police said the case remains an open investigation. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the SFPD 24-hour tip line at 1-415-575-4444 or Text a Tip to TIP411 and begin the text message with SFPD.
© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
