Forty-four-year-old Peter Rasini lived in Palmers Green, North London, and had run a stall buying and selling antiques at Alfie’s Antique Market in Paddington for more than twenty years.
On Sunday, March 24th, 1991, a friend and colleague of Peter’s went to his house at around six-thirty p.m. to negotiate an antique sale. At this time, the friend perceived that Peter might be troubled about something, but gave no indication as to what it might be.
An hour later, after the friend had left, Peter left his daughter and niece at home while he went to see another friend in Kentish Town. Upon returning from this trip at approximately nine p.m., he parked his car around the corner from his residence, as he usually did, and began walking toward his front door. Suddenly, four gunshots rang out, and Peter collapsed to the pavement.
His daughter ran out of the house, and saw her father lying in a pool of blood on the ground. She also spotted the possible perpetrator fleeing the scene, describing him to police as a six-foot, heavily built white man in his forties, wearing a bomber jacket and a woolly cap.
Other witnesses in the area also saw the same man, and further noted to authorities that he was panting as he ran, as though he was out of shape. He was seen getting into a blue van, possibly a Bedford Midi, that was parked on Oak Tree Road; the van immediately drove away with its headlights off.
As the investigation commenced, several neighbors reported seeing different suspicious vans parked near Peter Rasini’s house at various times over the previous two days. It wasn’t clear if the occupants of these vehicles had anything to do with the murder, however.
Forensic examination showed that Peter had been shot with a .45 caliber automatic pistol, an unusual firearm choice for gun crimes in the UK. Because of its relative rarity, authorities hoped that a suspect would soon be tracked down, but unfortunately, they had no such luck.
The motive for the shooting was equally nebulous, as the victim appeared to have no enemies, though detectives pursued two promising lines of inquiry. One of these was related to Peter’s addiction to cocaine, which may have put him on the wrong side of drug dealers. The other concerned his reported lack of diligence when purchasing antiques, which perhaps got him embroiled in a dispute over stolen property.
Whatever the reason behind the murder, police were soon left with no leads, and the case very quickly went cold. As of this writing in May of 2024, the baffling crime is still unsolved.
Crime Immemorial 