Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? (18 page)

I can’t tell you how impressed I was by Tom’s willingness to make a command decision and retreat from the front of the battle for a short period of time. Boulder Police had been continually berated and hounded by the press, and they risked being followed whenever they left the building. His decision served to lift up the spirits of his fellow investigators and gave them the hope of starting anew the next day.

Having secured a sympathetic ear in the prosecutor’s office, John Ramsey took the next step to further distance the Boulder Police Department from the lead role they held in the investigation of the murder of his daughter. He crafted a personal handwritten letter to Alex Hunter on April 11, 1998, that purportedly bypassed his team of attorneys.

It was one of the documents that I would eventually review during my participation in the case, and it had been forwarded to the Boulder Police Department on May 4, 1998.
²⁴

Mark Beckner, then a commander with the department, had assembled the investigators assigned to the murder case and explained some of the exchanges that had apparently been taking place between the Ramsey team and District Attorney’s Office.

A copy of Ramsey’s letter, unknown to the team prior to that time, was effectively entered into the record.

The correspondence reads as follows:

4/11/98

Dear Mr. Hunter,

I am writing this letter because it seems difficult at times to
communicate through attorneys who are focused on protecting my rights as a citizen.

I want to be very clear on our family’s position.

1.) We have no trust or confidence in the Boulder Police. They tried, from the moment they walked in our home on December 26, 1996, to convince others that Patsy or I, or Burke killed JonBenét. I will hold them accountable forever for one thing – not accepting help from people who offered it in the beginning and who could have brought a wealth of experience to bear on this crime.

2.) We (myself, Patsy, Burke, John Andrew, Melinda) will meet anytime, anywhere, for as long as you want, with investigators from your office. If the purpose of a grand jury is to be able to talk to us, that is not necessary. We want to find the killer of our daughter and sister and work with you 24 hours a day to find “it.”

3.) If we are subpoenaed by a grand jury, we will testify regardless of any previous meeting with your investigators. I’m living my life for two purposes now: to find the killer of JonBenét and bring “it” to the maximum justice our society can impose. While there is a rage within me that says, give me a few minutes alone with this creature and there won’t be a need for a trial, I would then succumb to the behavior which the killer did. Secondly, my living children must not have to live under the legacy that our entertainment industry has given them based on false information and a frenzy created on our family’s misery to achieve substantial profit.

It’s time to rise above all this pettiness and politics and get down to the most important mission – finding JonBenét’s killer. That’s all we care about. The police cannot do it. I hope it's not too late to investigate this crime properly at last.

Finally, I am willing and able to put up a substantial reward, one million dollars, through the help of friends if this will help derive information. I know this would be used against us by the media dimwits. But I don’t care.

Please, let’s all do what is right to get this worst of all killer in our midst.

Sincerely,

John Ramsey

This letter was effectively signaling the end of the Boulder Police Department’s primary and statutory role in the murder investigation of JonBenét Ramsey.

The following year, in May 1999, Hunter would publically announce that Burke Ramsey was not a suspect in his sister’s death. It was reported in the Denver media that he was prompted to make this announcement after supermarket tabloids had pointed the finger at Burke as being responsible for the murder of JonBenét.

In this same time frame, it was announced that the Ramsey family had hired civil attorney L. Lin Wood, of Atlanta, Georgia, to represent their interests in pursuing legal action against the media outlets who were slandering the family.

Wood eventually filed a number of lawsuits on the behalf of the family in the years that followed.

“If I could speak to John and Patsy Ramsey I’d tell them to quit hiding behind their attorneys, quit hiding behind their PR firm, come back to Colorado; work with us to find the killers in this case, no matter where the trail may lead.”

—Colorado Governor Bill Owens, quoted during a Barbara Walters interview aired on
ABC News
, March 17, 2000

L
ead investigators in the case had begun to contemplate the use of a grand jury as early as January, 1997, when members of the immediate family and many other potential witnesses began to
lawyer up,
as it is sometimes called in the street-language of police officers. They also began to experience this phenomenon with those who were refusing to speak on the official record due to the publicity the case was attracting. No witness with credible information wanted to be subjected to the experience of a news crew being stationed outside their home or business for days on end.

After many debates and arguments over the issue, BPD investigators were belatedly granted their wish on March 12, 1998, when the City of Boulder issued the following press release:

Boulder Police Chief Tom Koby and Commander Mark Beckner today requested and recommended that the Boulder District Attorney convene a grand jury investigation into the homicide of JonBenét Ramsey. While there is still some investigation left to be done, both Chief Koby and Commander Beckner believe the investigation has progressed to the point at which the authority of a grand jury is necessary in order to have a complete investigation. A grand jury can be utilized to obtain sworn testimony, to obtain other items of evidentiary value not otherwise available through routine investigative methods, and to review the case for purposes of seeking an indictment after the person or persons responsible for the death of JonBenét.

Commander Beckner has worked closely with the District Attorney’s Office in recent weeks in preparation of the commendation for a grand jury. According to Beckner, “We only make this request / recommendation after 14 grueling months of investigation, much consideration and thought, and after consultation with attorneys familiar with, and experienced in the use, of grand juries. We believe the investigation has reached the point at which a grand jury will be very helpful in completing the investigation, thus, our recommendation to the District Attorney.”

As the investigation progressed in recent weeks, the direction the investigation should take became very clear. As stated at the Dec. 5, 1997 news conference, the police were working one of three options:

• Seek an arrest warrant and prosecution
  
• Ask for a grand jury investigation, or
  
• Inactivate the case until such time that additional information becomes available
  

Out of a task list that has grown to 90 tasks, 64 tasks have been completed or worked on as thoroughly as possible. “The longer we worked on the case, the clearer it became that inactivating the case would not be appropriate,” said Beckner.

“The appropriate step at this time is to ask for a grand jury to assist us in gathering additional admissible evidence.”

The next step will be for the police to assist the District Attorney’s Office in the review of the case files and evidence. Given the volume of information gathered to date, it is expected that it will take some time for the District Attorney’s Office to complete its review of the case files prior to any decision being made. “We have worked well with the DA’s Office in the last five months and I expect to work even closer with in the months to follow,” added Beckner.

City of Boulder, Press Release #65

As noted in a previous chapter, District Attorney Alex Hunter responded to this public request by saying that he needed the Boulder Police Department to present the details of their investigation to his staff before he was willing to convene a grand jury in the matter. This presentation took place over the course of two days in early June 1998.

The Ramseys apparently decided it was time to get their story on the record as well, and agreed to participate in another round of interviews that the DA’s office arranged later that month. It would be the first formal law enforcement interview they had participated in since speaking to Boulder detectives in April 1997.

On August 12, 1998, Hunter announced that he was now ready to present the JonBenét murder case to a Boulder County Grand Jury. Fleet and Priscilla White responded to this news by authoring a second letter to the public, dated August 17, 1998.
²⁵
It called for the appointment of a special prosecutor in the case. Their first letter had been published in January, 1998, and had urged then-Governor Roy Romer to appoint the Colorado Attorney General as a special prosecutor in the case, citing malfeasance on the part of Hunter’s office.

Governor Romer declined to intervene in either instance, but prior to the publication of the White’s August letter, Hunter’s office had engaged the services of a former grand jury specialist from the Denver District Attorney’s Office to serve as lead attorney in his grand jury inquiry. Michael Kane, working as the deputy director of taxation in the Pennsylvania State Department of Revenue after leaving the Denver DA’s office, had returned to Colorado in time to observe Boulder PD’s two day presentation in early January. He would also personally participate in the Ramsey interviews that took place over three consecutive days at the end of June 1998.

Kane supplanted two of Hunter’s key prosecutors, Pete Hoffstrom and Trip DeMuth, when taking the lead role in the grand jury inquiry in the investigation. Veteran prosecutors from adjoining jurisdictions were selected to serve as advisory consul, and they included Mitch Morrissey of the Denver DA’s Office, and Bruce Levin of the Adams County DA’s Office.

A series of questions were posed to 60 potential jurors in open courtroom proceedings that took place during the summer of 1998. By September 16
^th
, a panel of 12 grand jurors and 4 alternates were seated, and they began to hear the first hours of testimony in the JonBenét murder investigation. Nearly eight hours of procedural briefings and introductory testimony consumed their first day on the case.

The news media was encamped in the parking lots fronting the Boulder County Justice Center, and their cameras would come to life every time a potential witness entered or exited the gray stone building. Their vigil would continue for longer than anyone expected.

Given the history of this case, it would not have been possible for the opening day of the grand jury murder inquiry to have passed without some type of controversy. In the first hour of its birth, a Boulder man summoned to the Justice Center as a potential juror in an unrelated case, reportedly walked past a retinue of Ramsey reporters and photographers with his middle finger raised in salute, muttering a slur of epithets.

After a couple of attempts, he apparently was successful at grabbing and smashing the camera of one of the photographers covering the scene. The man was subsequently charged with Harassment and Disorderly Conduct. It is unknown at this writing if he was ever chosen to serve as a juror on the case for which he had received a jury summons.

In additional “news,” the
Denver Post
reported that the newly impaneled grand jury was expected to review “fiber evidence” that linked clothing of Patsy Ramsey to the duct tape found on her daughter’s body. “The fiber was discovered in recent months, long after the killing, sources said.”
²⁶

The article proceeded to cover the legal complications involved in the late discovery of the evidence, and chastised the police for their inability to have uncovered the fiber earlier in the investigation.

An Atlanta TV station was also cited as reporting that Boulder authorities had been considering the exhumation of JonBenét’s body for further forensic testing. Boulder city officials denied the report, indicating that police “knew of no court order, or court order in progress” that would direct the exhumation of JonBenét’s body.

The article pointed out, however, that Alex Hunter had stated in January 1998, that he would consider exhuming JonBenet’s body “if that is what is necessary in the search for the truth.”
²⁷

The details surrounding this report were not fully disclosed, but there had been some discussion amongst investigators and prosecutors at the time as to whether the body should be exhumed to conduct microscopic examination of the skin cells at the site of the suspected stun gun injuries. It was eventually determined that the forensic examination of these injuries would not have been probative to the inquiry.

The grand jury met twice a week in the early stages of their investigation. At times, witnesses would enter and exit through the front doors of the Justice Center in plain view of anyone present.

On other occasions, witnesses were driven to the building in the rear of unmarked vehicles with tinted windows. Their entry and exit to the proceedings took place through the underground parking garage of the building, and the back hallways of the secured interior of the Criminal Justice Center complex.

It was a game of
cat and mouse
for the journalists attempting to cover the progress of the case. They were frequently attempting to determine the identity of the person(s) who had appeared before the grand jury that day, and what relevant facts they had to offer in the inquiry into the murder of an innocent 6-year-old child.

Speculation and rumor often led the headlines of the day.

It only took 15 minutes for the media to arrive at 755 15
^th
street on the morning of October 30, 1998, after grand jurors had been delivered to the Ramsey home to inspect the scene of the crime. Prosecutors lingered in the yard, as reporters and photographers observed from an approved distance of 100 feet, the
finders of fact
meander through the curtilage and premises of JonBenet’s last abode.

Nearly two hours and twenty minutes (2:20 hours) had elapsed as the men and women of the Boulder County Grand Jury explored the scene where a brutal murder had taken place 22 months previous. Concluding their individual inspection of the home, the jurors silently boarded the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department transport vans, and departed the scene with a different perspective.

The media reported on two different aspects of this visit to the crime scene. The
Rocky Mountain News
quoted the views of two separate “legal experts” on the matter.
²⁸
One expert thought the visit to the crime scene “very unusual,” and went on to proclaim that if the jury had ‘enough to indict, you don’t need to tour the house.’

A contrasting opinion was offered by a local University of Colorado Law School instructor, who opined that there was “nothing startling about the visit.”

“This gives them an idea how isolated the various rooms are from each other, that it would be easy for noises to happen in the vicinity of JonBenet’s room that the parents wouldn’t necessarily hear. And it’s good for them to get a feel for that.”
²⁹

On December 28, 1998, Boulder’s
Daily Camera
reported that the grand jury would be taking a month-long break until January. Ramsey attorney Hal Haddon expressed disappointment at the pace of the investigation. “We were hopeful it would move faster…but, I have no idea why they have recessed. So, I’m not critical of it.”
³⁰

Haddon went on to state that no member of the Ramsey family had received a subpoena to testify before the grand jury.

It wouldn’t become public information until more than a year later, but in February 1999, Alex Hunter obtained a court order seeking to prohibit Lou Smit’s request to testify before the grand jury about his intruder theory. With the assistance of former El Paso County District Attorney Bob Russel, and former Public Defender Greg Walta, Smit overturned the court order that prevented him from voicing his opinion on the matter.

The Rocky Mountain News
reported on the matter: “Smit’s attorney accused Hunter of not wanting to give the grand jury all of the facts in the case, according to court documents. Authorities have named only JonBenet’s parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, as suspects in the case.”

“The prosecution is either intentionally or unintentionally emphasizing and focusing upon evidence which points to involvement of the Ramsey family and is not presenting clear evidence of involvement of an intruder in the murder of JonBenet Ramsey,” attorney Greg Walta argued in court documents.”
³¹

A source close to the investigation explained Hunter’s reasoning for seeking the prohibition of his former investigator’s testimony: he was concerned that Smit would only offer his
theories
about the case, and no
factual
evidence to the grand jury.
³²

Smit eventually presented his intruder theory to the grand jury in March 1999. He later stated that he quit the DA’s office in part, because “he believed Boulder Police and prosecutors had developed tunnel vision and were focusing only on the Ramsey family and not on other suspects.”
³³

The Boulder Grand Jury was reported to have ended their spring session of 1999 not long after hearing the testimony of Burke Ramsey, JonBenét’s brother, who was 9 years old at the time of the murder. Jurors took a summer hiatus of nearly four months after their May 25
^th
meeting.

Late in September 1999,
Rocky Mountain News
staff writer Charlie Brennan reported that the 18-month term of the grand jury was due to expire on October 20
^th
, and that it was unclear who would be next testifying before the panel.
³⁴