Perfect Murder, Perfect Town (18 page)

When the photos appeared, the DA’s staff saw them for the first time. One prosecutor joked that “it was as tasteful as you can get with stolen property. The only part of the body shown was a hand hanging down.” Hunter’s office would not receive a complete set of photos until mid-April.

Within hours the other tabloids had called police headquarters and the DA’s office for reactions to the
Globe
’s publication of the photos. Don Gentile of the
National Enquirer
was first. Two other tabloid reporters offered Bill Wise money to answer their questions. “They’re naive,” Wise said. “Boulder’s a city that as public officials go is virtually bribery-free.”

The tabloids used their money. Reporters like Marilyn Robinson of
The Denver Post
, and Mike Gudgell of ABC found themselves without a story most of the time. “I’m going to lose my job,” Wise kept hearing from some reporters. At the time he felt sorry for them. Then he started getting calls from private investigators who claimed they were looking for work. In all, twenty-six PIs called. What they really wanted, Wise knew, was information for their clients—the tabloids and even some members of the mainstream media, who were employing the same methods.

No one could stop the tabloids from using money to get information. Sometimes it worked—even in Boulder. More often, however, it didn’t, and by the end of April, there were three criminal investigations into the tabloids’ business
practices. After the
Globe
published the autopsy and crime scene photos, a police investigation and litigation by the county of Boulder stopped the publication of additional pictures. One tabloid offered a handwriting expert $30,000 for a copy of the ransom note, which resulted in an investigation by the Jefferson County DA’s office, to which the offer had been made. When the
Globe
purchased photographs taken inside the Ramsey house by the Ramseys’ own investigators and published six of them, another police investigation and an imminent court proceeding halted publication of the rest of the pictures.

THIS MURDER IS OURS, CHIEF

ON THE POLICE, THE MEDIA AND THE DEATH OF A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG GIRL

Meanwhile, Bryan Morgan, who had just received Eller’s response to his proposal for the Ramseys’ interviews, wrote to the commander about requests he’d made of Pete Hofstrom. The police scheduled the testing of evidence, and Morgan wanted it on record that no physical evidence should be destroyed during the testing process. In addition, he reminded Eller that care should be taken in conducting DNA tests so that they didn’t consume all the DNA and leave none for the defense to test independently. Morgan also objected to the use of RFLP DNA testing and wanted to know which PCR DNA systems were being used.
*

More important, he made a formal request that representatives of the Ramseys be present when the swabs that contained the substances to be tested were split. The vials or other packaging should be preserved with the swabs themselves, Morgan wrote. In addition, he asked for the names of all the labs being used.

Hofstrom and Bob Keatley, the Boulder Police Department’s legal adviser, could see a legal battle looming. The Ramseys’ attorneys were raising many of the same points concerning the preservation and contamination of DNA that had come up in the Simpson criminal case.
**
The battle on the horizon was made even more obvious on January 15, when Patrick Burke, Patsy’s attorney, advised Keatley that JonBenét’s death did not void her physician-patient privilege.

On January 13, the day Morgan wrote to Eller, Detectives Thomas and Gosage continued their investigation of ex-employees of Access Graphics. They interviewed Kathy and Jeff Merrick for a second time at their home. Merrick confirmed Don Paugh’s story about his having dinner at Pasta Jay’s with current Access Grphics employee Tom Carson and his anger toward John Ramsey. He said he’d remained friendly with several people from the company—
what was so unusual about that? He restated his alibi, and his wife corroborated his story. On Christmas night he had been at home all evening, and she had been sick. When the detectives asked him to take a polygraph test, Merrick refused. The next day, Thomas and Detective Harmer interviewed Don Paugh again. He confirmed that his son-in-law and Merrick were no longer friends. Merrick remained a suspect.

Thomas and Gosage then interviewed Access Graphics employees David Harrington, Susan Richart, and Jim Hudson and a former sales representative, James Marino. Detective Thomas told Marino, “I know you didn’t have anything to do with this. I just need for you to answer a few questions so we can cross your name off the list.” The detectives found nothing out of the ordinary about any of them. For the time being they were cleared.

Several days later, Thomas and Gosage returned to Access Graphics and interviewed Gary Merriman again. A month later, Merriman would be asked by police to write the figure
118,000
over and over again, although he was never asked if he knew the amount of John Ramsey’s bonus for the year. He did. It was within pennies of $118,000. After his seventh handwriting sample, Merriman felt he’d written enough to fill the Library of Congress. “If you need more, come back with handcuffs,” Merriman told the detectives.

That was when they said they didn’t think he’d killed JonBenét but that he might have written the note.

Appalled, Merriman said, “I want you to repeat to me what you just said.”

The detective repeated it.

“The next time you come into my office,” Merriman said, “I’m having my attorney here.”

In fact, his lawyer was present when the police returned for another handwriting sample. Gary Merriman understood that if his son had been killed, he’d want the cops to
suspect everyone—his neighbors, the dog catcher, the milkman. Everybody. Nevertheless, he still felt he had to protect himself.

RAMSEYS HIRE FORMER FBI AGENT

6-YEAR-OLD BEAUTY QUEEN’S MURDER

HOW DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL REALLY DIED

UNTOLD STORY OF THE MURDER

Early in the afternoon of January 14, Joann Hanks, the office manager of McGuckin Hardware in Boulder, received a phone call from an anxious-sounding man who identified himself only as John. He said that looking over his American Express bill, he had discovered two charges made by his wife, Patsy Ramsey, on December 2 and December 9, for $46.31 and $99.88, and he wanted to know what they were for. Hanks recognized the name Ramsey. She told John that since the purchases were from more than thirty days ago, the records had been purged from her computer and she’d have to do a hand search. Ramsey said he’d call back on January 20. Hanks told McGuckin’s head of security, John Christie, about the call, and he notified the Boulder police. Late that day, Hanks found the receipts.

Two days later, Detectives Ron Gosage and Steve Thomas, responding to Christie’s call from the previous day, stopped in at McGuckin Hardware. They learned that Patsy Ramsey had used an American Express credit card on December 2 and December 9 for purchases of $46.31 and $99.88, respectively, and agreed that the person Joann Hanks had talked to was in fact John Ramsey, although the urgency in his voice that Hanks described seemed out of character from what the detectives knew of him. Hanks gave them the two credit card receipts, which they took to
police headquarters and booked as evidence.

The detectives theorized that Ramsey had discovered his wife’s December charges when he received his bill and might have suspected that she had purchased items used in the crime. The police contacted the FBI to help them set up a phone tap at McGuckin Hardware, awaiting Ramsey’s call on January 20.

The next day, January 17, Thomas and Gosage continued an interview at Access Graphics with comptroller Susan Richart, who told them about Sandra Henderson, a former employee, who was in trouble with the law, and her husband, Bud, each of whom owed the firm $18,000. Add $100,000 to either of them and you had the ransom amount, which gave the detectives cause for suspicion. They put Bud and Sandra high on the list of those to be interviewed.

Richart told the detectives that John Ramsey’s previous yearly net bonus, after taxes, was within a half dollar of $118,000. To her knowledge, the only other people who knew the exact amount were Lockheed Martin’s evaluators; Ramsey’s boss, Gary Mann; and Ramsey himself. She did not mention Gary Merriman. When asked if she had an alibi for the night of the murder, Richart said that she had been with her parents. Within four days of Richart’s interview with the police, CNN reported a possible link between Ramsey’s bonus and the amount of the ransom demanded.

The following day, Detective Thomas interviewed Mike Glynn, another former Access Graphics employee. He was cooperative. He told the detectives that he had been with his in-laws in Tucson, Arizona, the evening JonBenét died. Glynn had met Ramsey in 1991, while he was on the football coaching staff at the University of Colorado, and joined Access Graphics in 1992 as head of international business development, where his knowledge of several foreign languages would come in handy. Glynn and Tom Carson set up the company’s overseas sales and distribution center. By
1996, however, Glynn didn’t see room for advancement in the company and decided to leave. Ramsey offered him more money to stay, but on May 3, four days after Jeff Merrick left, Glynn went to work for CompuWare in Tucson, where his family preferred to live so that they could be closer to Glynn’s ailing mother-in-law. Gary Merriman had told the police that Mike Glynn had a personal relationship with the Ramseys and was one of the few Access Graphics employees to have been invited to the Ramseys’ home. In fact, the two families had often vacationed together.

Two weeks after his interview with the police, Glynn provided hair, blood, and handwriting samples.

John Ramsey seemed like an introvert. He was just nice and shy. He never wavered in what he was like, and you could tell he was a deep-thinking guy. I never saw him ruffled by any circumstances. Sometimes, internally, he must have been. One time we were negotiating with Sun Microsystems, our largest vendor, and the frustrations of dealing with the games played in the computer industry got to John. Yet he stayed level-headed. He steered away from confrontation.

Don Paugh was a real father figure around Access. He had the ear of everyone when he was human resources director. His job then wasn’t to hire or recruit anyone, but he sure solved a lot of difficulties that arose in the company. Everyone enjoyed Don. He was always around. He lived by himself, and every once in a while, Don and I would sit on his porch, have a beer, and talk. When someone new was hired, he would take them to his porch and have a beer with them.

While John was low-key, Patsy was off the scale as an extrovert. Once John made a mildly sarcastic remark: “Patsy spent more money renovating the house than I
did buying it.” As I got to know John better, I saw the impact of his older daughter’s death on him. Beth was her name. He was just eaten up inside. He read a lot to try to come to terms with it. It changed him.