JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation (46 page)

Have taken the time to close JonBenét’s bedroom door, which Patsy said had been found closed?

Have taken the time to relatch the obscure cellar door peg that police and Fleet White found in the locked position?

Have placed JonBenét beneath a blanket and taken the care to place her favorite pink nightgown with her?

Have tied the wrists so loosely that a live child would have hardly been restrained?

Have wiped and/or re-dressed JonBenét after the assault and murder?

Have fed her pineapple, then kept her alive in the house for a couple of hours while she digested it? (That same fresh-cut pineapple that was consistent, right down to the rind, with a bowl on the breakfast table that had the print of Patsy Ramsey’s right middle finger on it.)

Have known the dog was not at home that night?

Have been able to navigate silently through a dark, confusing, and occupied house without a sound in the quiet of Christmas night?

Have been so careless as to forget some of the materials required to commit the kidnapping but remembered to wear gloves to foil fingerprint impressions on the ransom note?

Be a stranger who could write a note with characteristics so similar to those of Patsy Ramsey’s writing that numerous experts would be unable to eliminate her as the author?

Have been able to enter the home, confront the child, assault and commit a murder, place the body in an obscure, concealed basement room, remember to latch the peg, then take the time to find the required writing materials inside the house to create the note without disturbing or alerting any other occupants?

Have been so unprepared for this most high-risk of crimes that the individuals representing a “small foreign faction” failed to bring the necessary equipment to facilitate the crime?

Have been able to murder the child in such a violent fashion but so quietly that her parents and brother slept through the event, despite a scream loud enough to be heard by a neighbor across the street?

Have taken the pains to compliment John Ramsey’s business in the rambling, sometimes irrelevant three-page ransom note, all while in the home and vulnerable to discovery?

And, Wickman pointed out, given the medical opinions of prior vaginal trauma, the night of the murder must not have been the intruder’s first visit, unless the vaginal abuse and the murder were done by different people.

I followed Wickman by listing twenty-seven reasons that a grand jury was needed to continue the investigation, from questioning the parents, family members, friends, and other players to obtaining records ranging from movie rentals to complete health documents. We had yet to obtain complete phone, banking, and credit records, and still needed items of Ramsey clothing. We didn’t have records from the security alarm company, nor had we been able to interview JonBenét’s doctor and nurses. This was basic investigative procedure, and we needed those subpoenas.

“We feel that the unanswered questions that remain, the witnesses that have stonewalled us, the evidence that has been unavailable to us otherwise would now be best addressed through a grand jury,” I concluded.

When I finished my last sentence, it felt as if a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. We had made a strong argument on behalf of JonBenét and left no doubt about where the detectives stood and what we were asking to be done.

During a question-and-answer period, DA Bob Grant asked us to speculate about who killed JonBenét. Commander Beckner, at the podium, said unequivocally, “I think Patsy did.”

I felt we had exceeded our goal of establishing probable cause, and others agreed. One police commander commented, “The hell with a grand jury. Write an arrest warrant.”

Beckner and the detectives gave a brief parking lot press conference, and the commander said in public for the first time that we had “an idea” who killed JonBenét. Then we filed back inside.

The politeness of the past two days disappeared after the presentation when everyone gathered in another conference room, where Alex Hunter wanted to discuss an “interview strategy for the Ramseys.”

It was the first we had heard that an interview had been agreed to, and our friends from the FBI and the Dream Team attorneys tried to convince the DA’s office that it was a bad idea.

It’s a foolish move, said one of the FBI agents. They’ve been dicking you around for a year and a half and now want interviews under conditions that relieve them from the pressure of going before the grand jury. Don’t do it, they warned.

Tension was thick in the room, and voices were raised as the meeting veered close to going out of control.

Hunter himself was all over the map. He propped his chin on his fist and asked aloud, “I wonder if Burke [Ramsey] is involved in this?” We looked at each other in disbelief. It sounded as if he had not attended our presentation. The next moment he talked tough, declaring that the Ramseys had “to fish or cut bait” now. His message, if there was one, was very mixed.

The meeting deteriorated as a lot of people shouted at each other, and Pete Hofstrom came out of his chair, waved his arms, and defended the Ramseys’ “unlimited and unconditional cooperation.” I sat in the back, said nothing, and just leaned against the cinder block wall. I had done all I could.

Bob Miller of the Dream Team said the time had come for Hunter to target the Ramseys officially as suspects. “You can’t just wander through the grand jury,” he said. “Call a spade a spade and do the right thing.” When he tried to continue, Trip DeMuth loudly interrupted, and Miller barked, “Shut up and let me finish my sentence.”

Bill Hagmaier, head of the FBI’s Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit, broke in with a question for the district attorney. “No disrespect intended, Mister Hunter, but is this grand jury your call?”

Hunter replied that he would work with his “trusted advisers” to reach a decision, but Hagmaier pushed until Hunter admitted that the final decision would indeed be his.

Weary of Boulder’s crawl toward justice, the FBI official told the district attorney, “A little girl is moldering in the ground, and she shouldn’t be. If the parents are involved, Mister Hunter, something needs to be done.”

“This is a political decision,” Hunter said. “I have to get with my people.”

It was an astonishing assertion. I wondered how a murder charge could be a political decision. Was he really weighing votes in a criminal case?

“Our involvement in this case has become an issue at the FBI,” said Hagmaier. “We want to see the right thing done, and we will continue to support this investigation. But we feel our suggestions are being ignored and our advice is not taken.” The entire CASKU team was on an early flight back to Washington the next morning. Their decision to pull out of the active investigation should have been viewed as a shattering criticism of the DA’s office.

The Dream Team threesome—Rich Baer, Dan Hoffman, and Bob Miller—were soon told in no uncertain terms that their services would not be needed by the DA’s office, and they too were gone. Instead of being welcomed by the DA, the voices of these experienced trial attorneys were also disregarded.

The office of the district attorney was calling the plays from here on in and wasted no time exerting its strength. The police would also soon be abruptly dismissed.

When the shouting was done, the district attorney met the press and gave the reporters another serving of doublespeak. “This is all about finding the killer of JonBenét and justice,” said the law-and-order DA, who immediately flipped and issued a warning of caution.

“We do not have enough to file a case, and we do have a lot of work to do,” Hunter said. “I will go back to my people and analyze what we heard over a number of hours and make sure it is sensible to spend the time it takes to run a grand jury.” He said he would not do anything “premature.”

I put together a thank-you dinner that night at a steak house in Denver for the FBI agents from CASKU and our Dream Team advisers. Neither Tom Koby nor Mark Beckner chose to attend. “What’s going on in that DA’s office is a disgrace,” one of the FBI agents observed during our last supper. “This case has become an embarrassment to law enforcement.” We were all in agreement.

“It is terribly discouraging how the DA is handling this,” said one Dream Team attorney. “Hunter is going to outsmart himself on this one.”

The next day, Wednesday, June 3, I slept late for the first time in many months.

33

The detectives were suddenly adrift. After working on the case so hard and for so long, giving it up so abruptly dislocated our lives. We still talked about it all the time and were ready to do more investigating—lord knows there was more to be done—but we had no assigned role anymore. Even Commander Beckner and Sergeant Wickman were totally in the dark. “You’ve had this case for seventeen months. It’s our turn, and it’s time to get it done,” District Attorney Alex Hunter told them. He confirmed that his office would proceed with the Ramsey interviews.

At the insistence of the Dream Team and the detectives, Commander Beckner drafted a letter to the district attorney to advocate that we conduct the upcoming interviews, with two detectives, the suspect, and one lawyer in the room; that the interviews be taped both by audio and video; that no lab results or other evidence or information be given up in exchange for the interviews; that a DNA adviser be consulted and testing begun; and any questions be carefully worded so as not to educate the Ramseys about what we knew. Do not forget, we warned, “At this time, it is clear the Ramseys are the prime suspects.”

Beckner personally walked the strongly worded document over to Alex Hunter on June 8 and returned with his tail between his legs, explaining to me that he was sorry that he got “riled up” about the situation. Beckner said the DA really was on top of things, and he now agreed that it was best to interview the Ramseys prior to the grand jury being called. From then on, he sided with the DA’s office and discarded the advice of CASKU and the Dream Team. Hunter, he said, pledged to “work through any misunderstandings.”

The focus was now on the upcoming interviews with the Ramseys.

DA investigator Lou Smit was picked to question John Ramsey, even though on May 28, Smit had put in writing that the Ramseys “should be interviewed as victims.” It made no sense for Hunter to bet all his chips on Smit, who went in with an obvious bias, but at least he would be paired with Mike Kane, the new grand jury prosecutor.

Deputy DA Trip DeMuth, whom I considered a Team Ramsey ally, was assigned to interview Patsy. He would be teamed with retired Denver Police homicide captain Tom Haney, whom the detectives greatly respected.

Haney would do fine as an interviewer, as would Kane. I wasn’t at all sure about Smit and DeMuth.

Burke Ramsey would be questioned in Atlanta by Dan Schuller, a detective from the nearby Broomfield Police Department who held a degree in child development. Hunter told Beckner that the Boulder Police were not only to stay away from Atlanta, but the whole state of Georgia. Someone asked if we had to leave Boulder when John and Patsy came to Colorado. We had concerns about Schuller, who would soon be asking witnesses if they thought the Boulder Police had screwed up the investigation.

And John Ramsey’s pledge to Alex Hunter of “unlimited and unconditional cooperation” collapsed into a flurry of bargaining between the DA’s office and Team Ramsey attorneys. Smit would later tell me that Hofstrom was negotiating about whether the Ramseys could even be
asked
“the polygraph question.” They weren’t.

We spent a lot of time tearing down the SitRoom, cleaning off our walls and desks, boxing up papers, and just looking at each other. Commander Beckner told us, “We’ve done all we can. We gave it the best shot we could. It’s time to continue with your lives now.” That wasn’t acceptable to me.

The photo of JonBenét that had been a fixture on the SitRoom wall had come down, which was entirely appropriate, for this was no longer about her. It was about politics. I ate a tuna sandwich at my desk and realized that I was so fucking tired of eating tuna sandwiches in the SitRoom. Although I still wanted to do something to further this case, I began to wonder why I stayed at all.

I telephoned an FBI friend who was familiar with the case and told him that I was thinking of leaving the Boulder Police Department. He was surprised at that, but the FBI had been trying to recruit me for some time. He said he would send along the papers if I was interested.

Then he surprised me in return. The FBI was watching the Ramsey case, he said, and some had even discussed the possibility of investigating the district attorney’s office for obstruction of justice! I volunteered to be the first witness.

By the middle of the month we were officially informed that none of the line detectives would be sworn into the grand jury, over the objections of our legal adviser, Bob Keatley.

Mike Kane had said it would be impossible to move the case forward without the detectives who had done all the investigative work, and Tom Haney was even more forceful: “It would be insane to cut you detectives out of it.” They didn’t yet understand the hatred between the DA’s office and ourselves.

One reason cited for keeping us out of the grand jury was the possibility of press leaks. But when Mike Kane suggested putting subpoenas on people to ferret out all media leakers, Hunter responded, “We may not want to go there.” Probably because many of the leaks came from the district attorney himself and his top deputy. It was easier to paint the police department as the problem and leave it at that.

In a final insult, we were not to be told of the time or place of the Ramsey interviews. The DA’s office had said that was part of the deal with Team Ramsey.

Instead we would be allowed to watch the interviews on videotape hours after they took place, and we could give our thoughts on the questioning to the DA’s office. That would be too little, too late, in my opinion. The questioners needed immediate responses, not some late night roundtable discussion.