JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation (36 page)

Dr. Werner Spitz, the forensic pathologist, even ran macabre tests to see if the heavy flashlight could have inflicted the kind of massive skull fracture that was found on JonBenét. To do so, a child’s cadaver was obtained so he could strike the skull with a similar flashlight and examine the resulting injury pattern. He said the results were consistent, that the damage could have been caused by the flashlight—but it could also have been caused by other things.

There were three theories about the origin of the flashlight.

First, that it belonged to the family. John Andrew Ramsey had given to his father as a gift a flashlight that was consistent in color, make, and model to the one found in the house. The Ramseys could not account for it but hedged away from saying that the one discovered by police belonged to them.

The second possibility was that the flashlight was brought in by the intruder, used in the crime, then left behind in his haste to escape. To me, this was not consistent, for he had not hurried about anything else and, according to the intruder theorists, had carefully taken away other pieces of evidence such as the duct tape and cord. Since the flashlight held no fingerprints, did the intruder carefully wipe it down, inside and out, even the batteries, then just forget it? It didn’t fit.

Besides its being the Ramseys’, what also made sense was the third option, that some cop brought the heavy flashlight inside and left it on the counter by mistake. It was the Mag-Lite type preferred by policemen. That it bore no fingerprints was consistent with a piece of equipment being handled in cold weather by a cop wearing gloves. But we were unable to trace the serial number. And, like the palm print and Hi-Tec boot print, once the case blew up, no one wanted to claim ownership.

The internal resistance reached a pinnacle of absurdity when Detective Linda Arndt and Detective Sergeant Larry Mason claimed they had been stricken with amnesia about the Ramsey case. That introduced an unbelievable element of chaos and left us unsure about what our own people would say in sworn testimony.

I couldn’t understand how they could break faith with their responsibilities like that. I wanted to yell at them, “This is a murder investigation. Cooperate, for God’s sake, and be done with it.”

Arndt told Commander Beckner that she “couldn’t remember anything about December 26th. The 26th and the next several months are a total loss.” The only detective inside the home when the body was found went silent, and her threat of a lawsuit froze the department brass into immobility, so they declined to pressure her. When I asked her directly, she repeated her memory loss: “You know, I don’t remember a lot of stuff from last year. Whatever is in my reports, just go with that.”

That was just the point. She had submitted reports that contained amended words and phrases that left me with no idea how she would testify about the ransom note, comments by the parents, and finding the body.

A few months later, Detective Jane Harmer came into the SitRoom with a strange, disbelieving look on her face and announced in an empty voice, “We have another Linda Arndt.”

Following a line of inquiry about who did what on that first morning, she had gone to see Sergeant Larry Mason. The detective said the sergeant told her, “I don’t remember a thing about the Ramsey case.”

I never knew amnesia was contagious.

25

The detectives hoped a news conference in early December would be an opportunity to exert pressure on the Ramseys and force new interviews. Commander Beckner, who as the Internal Affairs boss had wanted to root out any cops who talked to
Vanity Fair
, was now advocating a campaign of “strategic press leaks.” But even such a routine tactic as spinning the press seemed beyond our grasp. Commander Beckner apparently had another agenda, and I thought he wanted to appear before the media as the savior of the case, which would give him an edge in his bid to become chief of police. It drove another wedge between him and us, just when we needed to present a unified front.

Beckner proposed that he alone should address the media, and we were told it would be “awkward” for us to share the stage with him, although we were welcome to stand along the walls of the auditorium. After much bickering, the investigative team was instructed to line up behind the commander, who would handle the formal message and the questions.

We critiqued Beckner’s proposed statement line by line because we wanted the primary message to be very clear—that we were asking for new interviews with the Ramseys. Secondly, we wanted to show police solidarity and indicate that Alex Hunter’s people had an advisory status only.

The biggest internal debate was about whether the Ramseys should finally be called suspects. A year into the investigation and still nobody would utter “The S-Word.” Sergeant Wickman pointed out they had done nothing to remove themselves from beneath the “umbrella of suspicion” and that using such a phrase would avoid the forbidden word while making it clear that they were our primary focus.

At nine o’clock sharp on the morning of December 5, we filed into the city council chambers, and the lights of the television cameras hit us. We took our places on stage, shoulder to shoulder, and Mark Beckner stepped to the podium and introduced us individually.

Beckner handled his script smoothly, announcing that seventy-two tasks had needed to be done when he took over nine weeks ago and that the list had been pared by twenty-eight, with another dozen items nearing completion. We were making progress, he said. The detectives knew his statistics were worthless, for our actual workload was as heavy as ever, and the to-do list was constantly being revised as new information came in.

“I can tell you that we are going to be focused and aggressive in moving this investigation forward,” Beckner said, and called for the Ramseys to grant new interviews.

I looked away when the commander complimented the DA’s office for its support and “positive and professional” assistance. That was brown-nosing bullshit, and I would have no part of it.

Then he skirted the truth by stating that no arrest warrant had ever been prepared, although he had read the Master Affidavit I carried everywhere. I recall his words, “But it’s not
really
a warrant,” and I replied that that was
exactly
what it was. Today he did not return my questioning look.

“I am confident we will solve this case,” Beckner told the press and added that the Ramseys remained beneath “an umbrella of suspicion.” Everybody left the room happy. The press had its sound bite, we had tightened the screws a bit, and Mark Beckner had become a media darling.

Only a few hours later a letter arrived from Patsy Ramsey, written in flowing script, dated almost two weeks before, and delivered to the police department by a Team Ramsey lawyer. The contents would have been startling had we not been so familiar with her empty promises.

They were ready to work closely with Beckner “in
any
way,” the letter said, and meet anytime “in the spirit of cooperation to achieve a common goal.” But the letter contained the large caveat that they would speak with the “capable professionals” in the district attorney’s office. It was bogus. How could they pledge to help a police commander in any way while simultaneously refusing to meet with his detectives? We warned Beckner to be wary.

“Don’t let Patsy fool you with that letter,” Wickman said. Detective Harmer added, “Patsy is in total denial. She’s rationalized this in her mind and can probably even visualize an intruder.”

Team Ramsey followed up a few days later to let us know they weren’t happy that we had stirred up the coals. They moaned to Beckner that the media were again bothering their clients, then added the usual double-talk, putting Patsy’s letter promising open cooperation in a more familiar light. The Ramseys would now help if they were allowed to first “assess our intentions” by reviewing any new evidence and questions. They didn’t trust the police, the lawyers wrote, but had been meeting with DA investigator Lou Smit. That was the first we had heard about it.

We got Beckner to respond in the same harsh tone. We would no longer share investigative information with potential suspects or witnesses. We wanted open access to the Ramseys at any time and would not participate in prolonged negotiations every time we needed a question answered.

Again, what looked pretty good on paper wasn’t even close to the truth. Evidence and information continued to flow to Team Ramsey, and we never had access to John and Patsy. And instead of living up to his refusal to enter into prolonged negotiations, Commander Beckner himself ended up making deals with the Ramsey lawyers.

A group of our Dream Team attorneys and detectives walked into an ambush during a visit to the Fifteenth Street Ramsey home, after receiving permission and being let in by a Realtor. As they spent two hours going from room to room, discussing how the case facts fit with the geographic layout of the house, Team Ramsey was secretly videotaping our moves.

Police discovered four tiny cameras hidden inside motion detectors and followed the wires to a videotape recorder and monitor locked in a basement closet The cameras covered the basement, JonBenét’s bedroom, and part of the main floor—precisely the areas where our team had stopped and talked about the case. A tape was retrieved showing our team on the site.

The videotape recorder did not record continuously but required a physical act to switch it on. Someone had activated it only an hour and fifteen minutes before our people arrived.

The covert surveillance could have been a crime if a listening device had also been found. I was willing to bet there was a miniaturized bug planted in there somewhere, but FBI technicians said they would be unable to find it without tearing the house apart. Beckner declared it a crime scene, had the locks changed, and seized all the video equipment as evidence.

The Ramsey lawyers and private investigators later admitted that the video equipment belonged to them and claimed it was installed because of concerns about trespassing. If that were true, why didn’t they tell us before, and why did they have the cameras running? I didn’t believe them, but although the incident screamed for a thorough investigation, it went away, just like Computergate.

I returned to Atlanta for one more grave-site surveillance try with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation at Christmas 1997 and again came up short in the quest to eavesdrop on a confession.

Chief Koby didn’t think the trip was a good idea, and Sergeant Wickman told me he was worried about the operation, but GBI Agent John Lang supported going ahead with the hundred-to-one shot anyway. Pray for a break, for without a confession, this case was going nowhere. “You guys, in the end, may simply look back and agree it was a hell of a ride,” he said. “But you were home-cooked from the beginning. This was a no-win.”

With a warrant from the Cobb County District Attorney, we once again set up a command post in Marietta High School. This time our recording equipment was hidden in a fake but realistic tombstone constructed by a movie special effects company. It appeared to be made of granite but was actually a converted decorative mantelpiece from Home Depot. The family name THOMAS was inscribed in large letters over “John Thomas 1936—1992.” It was a combination of my name and that of Agent John Lang.

The gates of St. James Episcopal Cemetery were open on the night of December 20 as our little convoy of undercover cars entered to plant our fake tombstone. When our headlights swept across JonBenét’s grave, we were surprised to find a marble headstone:

JONBENÉT PATRICIA RAMSEY
AUGUST 6, 1990—DECEMBER 25, 1996

It was a clue from nowhere.

I knew that the Ramseys had returned from the Whites’ Christmas party at 10 P.M., and the day ended two hours later. The dates on the grave marker were another argument for establishing a time of death. For some reason, the parents were stating that JonBenét had died before midnight.

Fresh flowers were on the graves of both JonBenét and Beth Ramsey, Christmas ornaments hung in a nearby tree, there was a photo in a little framed heart, and a six-foot-long strip of Astroturf covered the ground. A stuffed bunny and a ceramic angel, a box with a Nativity scene, and other mementos surrounded the grave.

“We missed them,” I told Lang dejectedly. “That headstone didn’t get here by itself. They came early and held some sort of memorial service.” As I kicked myself, Lang said it didn’t matter because our warrant didn’t begin for another three days anyway. Even had we been here, we would only have been able to watch from a distance without any recording equipment.

We installed our high-tech headstone on a plot forty-five feet west of the child’s grave, feeling like ghouls, then departed the cemetery as inconspicuously as one can at two o’clock in the morning while carrying a shovel, flashlight, and sledgehammer.

For the surveillance, the GBI gave us everything we had before and more, and we began at dawn on December 24, as a slashing rain stopped and the sun rose on the drenched cemetery. Over the next eighty-eight hours, tourists looked at the grave, the press looked at the tourists, and we looked at them all.

Burgers and Cokes fueled us while we recorded the gamut of people—women with babies in strollers, self-appointed experts explaining the case, families, kids, dog walkers, and Rollerbladers. It was a tourist mecca.

A white Corvette pulled in, and a blonde with an inch of dark roots emerged, wearing a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt, stirrup stretch pants, and dark glasses. Detective Gosage and I thought we recognized her. “That looks like Pam Paugh,” he said. She sat on the little bench and wept as the merciless photographers stalked nearer. She knelt for a moment on the grave and whispered a few words we couldn’t hear through all the media noise.
Speak louder!
we urged from the command post. She gave the headstone a kiss and escaped after only four minutes. We never figured out who she really was.