JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation (49 page)

On Friday morning, June 26, I found the SitRoom empty when I came in to clean up some loose ends and write the last of about 250 police reports I had filed on the JonBenét Ramsey case.

There was nothing more I could do on the case. I just wanted to leave quietly, and I did so by citing my health problem, although it had stabilized. I could pass any physical examination. With a couple of months’ worth of accumulated leave, I would take time off to think about things, cool down, and write a brief letter of resignation at some point down the road.

I found Mark Beckner in his office, exploring the Beckner Fan Club Web site. He thanked me for all my work on the case, hardly looking away from the computer.

Detectives Jane Harmer and Ron Gosage came into the SitRoom, looking whipped after another meeting with the DA’s staff. “This case is going nowhere,” Gosage concluded. Harmer said the meeting was “horrible” and that I was lucky to have missed it. “It would have just made you scream,” she said.

No it wouldn’t. I was tired of screaming. Harmer left, and when I wrapped up my paperwork, I gave Gosage a firm handshake. We said nothing, but my partner already knew my decision. It’s hard for cops to say good-bye.

Down the hall, I walked past the office of legal adviser Bob Keatley, through the corridor, and out into the parking lot. The door opened behind me, and Keatley walked with me to my car. We were a couple of battle-weary veterans who knew the war was lost. The Ramsey case would eventually cost Keatley his marriage of twenty-five years.

“You’re never coming back, are you?” he asked.

“No.”

“It’s the best decision ever.”

He shook my hand, and I got into my car and drove off, heading south, with the Flatiron Mountains on my right, leaving behind my life as a cop. I unclipped my detective shield and dropped it on the seat beside me, never to wear it again.

35

The telephone kept ringing as various cops called to keep me updated on what was happening beneath the circus tent, and I found it discouraging. The DA’s office had decided to go fullout after Santa Bill McReynolds and to put him under a microscope.

A tentative plan was being drafted to assign three detectives to prosecutor Mike Kane to pursue the “Ramsey theory” and three more to Deputy DA Mary Keenan to go after the “Intruder Theory.” Keenan, my sources said, was intent on entering the case by breaking it wide open and arresting the real killer. Deputy DA Trip DeMuth would be the “case manager,” and Deputy DA Pete Hofstrom would be the “field general.”

They had gone all the way back to square one instead of following the evidence. I wondered what part of our June presentation they didn’t understand. And my sources said that the grand jury idea was looking less like an option. Even if one were called, it would play by Hofstrom’s lenient, no-charge plan.

“No one will be indicted. It’s going to just go away,” other detectives told me. When I was in the middle of the case, I had felt that what was happening was very wrong. Now that I had left, I felt much stronger.
Goddamn, this is wrong!

I was going to resign, and it was best to keep my profile low, but my determination to keep my temper in check eroded as I watched the continuation of what I believed to be outrageous and unprofessional conduct.

DA investigator Lou Smit tried but failed to “break” Patrol Officer Rick French from his story of what happened on the first day of the murder.

Fleet and Priscilla White were being hauled over the coals because they wanted to see their previous statements, pointing out that they were being denied the same privilege given to the Ramseys. Chief Mark Beckner declared that the Whites, who had supported another candidate for his new job, were “morally empty” and again suggested putting Fleet White in jail. “For what?” I had asked Beckner, incredulously. Beckner later asked me if Fleet could possibly be the murderer. The Whites, both of whom were crucial prosecution witnesses, had somehow maintained their dignity even while standing up to John Ramsey, being fingered repeatedly for the murder, and being mistreated by the district attorney, a couple of police chiefs, state elected officials, and the media. As one detective put it, “I’ve never seen two people so fucked over in my life.” The Whites were thrown to the wolves because they wanted a special prosecutor to look into the murder of a little girl.

Then at the end of July Don Foster, the Vassar linguist who had helped make our case, telephoned to tell me that the DA’s office had just dismissed him. Not only did they fire Foster but they informed him that he was through doing this kind of work. Citing his Internet comments to Jameson when he knew nothing about the case, they declared that his later conclusions, when he knew everything, were unreliable.

Rather than fight to use his testimony, they declared that he would be open to impeachment on that one issue. Furthermore, Foster was given the plain message that if he didn’t contact the FBI and other law enforcement agencies he’d worked for and admit that he was compromised and damaged goods, then the Boulder DA’s office might make the call. “He’s cooked here,” said one detective.

It was a ridiculous attack on the man’s sterling reputation. Without Don Foster the case against Patsy Ramsey was much more difficult, but the DA’s office threw him overboard. Not only did they want him off the case but it appeared they wanted to ruin his life. It was so like them, I thought, to go after the dissenters, those who didn’t agree with them. The DA’s office wouldn’t stand up to Team Ramsey but had no hesitation about burning good people who stood in their way.

I hate bullies. A main reason I got into police work was to protect those who could not protect themselves. But how do you do that when the law itself is the bully?

Because of what was going on in secret, I was toying with the idea of blowing the whistle and letting the public see how the non-investigation of the JonBenét Ramsey murder had become, among other things, a search-and-destroy mission against those who opposed the DA’s office.

All America wanted to know why we had not solved this case, and the Boulder Police remained a national joke. What would America say if it knew the truth?

In most communities the local media would investigate and inform the public, but in Boulder the lone significant media voice was the
Daily Camera,
a small-town newspaper that befriended and defended the district attorney. The newspaper also focused its rage against critics of the system rather than examining the power elite within its own community.

“HUNTER GIVES US HOPE,” the
Camera
cried in an editorial.

District Attorney Alex Hunter has stepped up to the plate carrying a big bat and swinging it with the determination of a home run hitter. I expect justice for JonBenét Ramsey, he says firmly. And the way he says that, and the manner in which he intends to bring it about cause us to regain some of our long lost hope.

It has been apparent from the get-go that Hunter is not about to make the same mistake that Boulder police chief Tom Koby and his detective force have made throughout the case. He won’t let his ego—or anybody else’s—stop him from getting outside help as he evaluates and readies a case for presentation to a grand jury … .

The JonBenét Ramsey case is an exhausting 16 months old. Maybe, just maybe, our district attorney can bring closure to the Christmas Day murder of a 6-year-old beauty queen, a death and mystery that continues to captivate the curiosity and imaginations of people around the world. Now, let’s give Hunter the space he needs to do the job right.

Even as the
Camera
lauded Hunter for bringing in outside help, his top outside hire was considering leaving. There was severe fighting within the DA’s grand jury team, and I learned that Mike Kane was so frustrated he was about to walk away after a heated argument with Trip DeMuth. He reportedly gave Alex Hunter the ultimatum to choose between him and the Hofstrom-DeMuth team. I believed that if Kane left there would be no chance for a grand jury.

Things hit bottom for me with a telephone call from another detective, who gave me the news that “they’re trying to hang Santa Bill.”

DeMuth was on the trail of Bill McReynolds, even using undercover cops to tail him. The Dynamic Duo of DeMuth and his new investigator, Dan Schuller, pulled the trigger when they saw McReynolds loading his pickup truck at a storage locker. DeMuth confronted Santa Bill, convinced that the cord being used to lash down a tarpaulin was like the cord used in the murder garrote. McReynolds got angry, and that only fed the paranoia of the DA’s people. They thought his standing up to DeMuth proved that the elderly man was not weak and frail after all, just as John Ramsey had said.

The DA’s office called in a specialist from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and a convoy of police cars headed up the mountain to Santa Bill’s house. They parked at a gas station down the road and sent my old partner, Detective Ron Gosage, up to talk because he was the only one with whom McReynolds would speak.

Gosage was met by an irate Jesse McReynolds, who said he was “sick of you guys trying to frame my dad.” Bill McReynolds, distraught, weeping, and saying, “I didn’t do anything,” refused to come to the door. His wife, Janet McReynolds, eventually gave Gosage the cord, and Ron knew instantly that it wasn’t the same type used by the killer of JonBenét.

Gosage took it back down the hill to the gas station and handed it to the technician from the CBI. She looked at it for about three seconds and agreed that it was not the same cord. Gosage took the good news back to the house, but Janet McReynolds told him, “Stay out of our lives.”

The embarrassed cops got into their cars, and the official convoy slunk back down the mountain. Trip DeMuth stood at the gas station with his arms crossed, watching them drive away.

Things were falling apart. My mind made up, I spent the weekend composing what would become known as “The Letter.” No longer willing to go gently into the night, I decided to leave with a thunderbolt, although it meant I would never be a cop again. I no longer cared.

I called a florist and had flowers delivered to a little cemetery in Marietta, Georgia. Then I dated my letter of resignation to mark what would have been JonBenét’s eighth birthday.

Aug. 6

Chief Beckner,

On June 22, I submitted a letter to Chief Koby, requesting a leave of absence from the Boulder Police Department. In response to persistent speculation as to why I chose to leave the Ramsey investigation, this letter explains more fully those reasons. Although my concerns were well known for some time, I tried to be gracious in my departure, addressing only health concerns. However, after a month of soul searching and reflection, I feel I must now set the record straight.

The primary reason I chose to leave is my belief that the district attorney’s office continues to mishandle the Ramsey case. I had been troubled for many months with many aspects of the investigation. Albeit an uphill battle of a case to begin with, it became a nearly impossible investigation because of the political alliances, philosophical differences, and professional egos that blocked progress in more ways, and on more occasions, than I can detail in this memorandum. I and others voiced these concerns repeatedly. In the interest of hoping justice would be served, we tolerated it, except for those closed door sessions when detectives protested in frustration, where fists hit the table, where detectives demanded that the right thing be done. The wrong things were done, and made it a matter of simple principle that I could not continue to participate as it stood with the district attorney’s office. As an organization, we remained silent, when we should have shouted.

The Boulder Police Department took a handful of detectives days after the murder, and handed us this case. As one of those five primary detectives, we tackled it for a year and a half. We conducted an exhaustive investigation, followed the evidence where it led us, and were faithfully and professionally committed to this case. Although not perfect, cases rarely are. During eighteen months on the Ramsey investigation, my colleagues and I worked the case night and day, and in spite of tied hands. On June 1-2, 1998, we crunched thirty thousand pages of investigation to its essence, and put our cards on the table, delivering the case in a formal presentation to the district attorney’s office. We stood confident in our work. Very shortly thereafter, though, the detectives who know this case better than anyone were advised by the district attorney’s office that we would not be participating as grand jury advisory witnesses.

The very entity with whom we shared our investigative case file to see justice sought, I felt, was betraying this case. We were never afforded true prosecutorial support. There was never a consolidation of resources. All legal opportunities were not made available. How were we expected to “solve” this case when the district attorney’s office was crippling us with their positions? I believe they were, literally, facilitating the escape of justice. During this investigation, consider the following:

• During the investigation detectives would discover, collect, and bring evidence to the district attorney’s office, only to have it summarily dismissed or rationalized as insignificant. The most elementary of investigative efforts, such as obtaining telephone and credit card records, were met without support, search warrants denied. The significant opinions of national experts were casually dismissed or ignored by the district attorney’s office, even the experienced FBI were waved aside.

• Those who chose not to cooperate were never compelled before a grand jury early in this case, as detectives suggested only weeks after the murder, while information and memories were fresh.

• An informant, for reasons of his own, came to detectives about conduct occurring inside the district attorney’s office, including allegations of a plan intended only to destroy a man’s career. We carefully listened. With that knowledge, the department did nothing. Other than to alert the accused, and in the process burn two detectives (who captured that exchange on an undercover wire, incidentally) who came forth with this information. One of the results of that internal whistleblowing was witnessing Detective Commander John Eller, who also could not tolerate what was occurring, lose his career and reputation undeservedly; scapegoated in a manner which only heightened my concerns. It did not take much inferential reasoning to realize that any dissidents were readily silenced.