Perfect Murder, Perfect Town (28 page)

Patsy was growing anxious about High Peaks, the school JonBenét and Burke were going to. There were children in some classes who would never be self-sufficient, physically handicapped, but they were being mainstreamed into the classroom. They have a right to be educated, but there were these other intelligent little boys and girls who were growing up to make a living, pay taxes, and they were sitting and waiting. The teacher told me her first obligation was to those handicapped children. And you just wonder how much time in the course of a day is spent on the children who need to be learning so that they can take their place in society. I know the teacher wanted to do more, but
there was only one of her and an aide.

JonBenét started to read when she was about three. At first she wanted to be a ballet dancer, then an ice-skater, and finally she told someone she might like to be a veterinarian. On her last trip to New York, in November ’96, she saw Grease, and the MC invited her to dance on stage before the show started. Nobody would ever pass her up. She just had that gleam in her eye. She and her partner didn’t win, but they were runner-ups.

I made several trips to Boulder that last month. One was for the Boulder Parade of Lights that JonBenét rode in. It was cold. I didn’t go to John and Patsy’s Christmas party, because I was in Roswell. Don, my husband, was there and flew back standby on the 24th so we could spend Christmas Eve together.

I spoke to JonBenét Christmas morning on the phone. She was excited.

“What do you like the most about Christmas?” I asked.

“Baking cookies.”

Like her mother, JonBenét loved to bake and decorate cookies. That afternoon she was supposed to make some plastic jewelry with her friend Daphne. My daughter Polly got her that gift for Christmas. And she was excited about going on the big red Disney boat after a few days in Charlevoix. Everything was packed.

I can tell you one thing. Whoever killed that child knew JonBenét’s dog wasn’t going to be in the house that evening. Sometimes Jacques would stay at the Barnhills’ for a few hours and then he’d come back. He was always going back and forth. The killer knew the dog had already been taken across the street to stay with the Barnhills since the family was leaving the next morning for their winter vacation.

There were so many beautiful and wonderful people in Boulder, like the Barnhills, but now I can’t tolerate even thinking of that place. It just makes me ill to even think that
someone killed JonBenét in that place.

Now Patsy can never be happy on this earth. But she has to live someplace. We all have to live someplace.

—Nedra Paugh

For seven weeks the police had been interviewing the Ramseys’ family, friends, and business associates without turning up any real suspects. They had finished their background checks on John Andrew and Melinda and had verified commercial airline schedules and private plane flight plans and found no record that either of them had traveled the night of December 25. Their alibis were solid. Besides the Ramseys, the only people apparently still under investigation were “Santa” Bill McReynolds and his wife, Janet; housekeeper Linda Hoffmann-Pugh; part-time reporter Chris Wolf; Bud Henderson, who owed $18,000 to Access Graphics; company executive Gary Merriman; and the Ramseys’ friends Fleet and Priscilla White.

Next would come interviews with pageant photographers Randy Simons and Mark Fix, who had taken pictures of JonBenét. The police wanted to check the two men’s whereabouts the night of the murder; they were also interested in finding out more about Patsy’s and JonBenét’s involvement in the pageants.

On February 20, Detective Harmer interviewed Randy Simons. Simons told her that on June 5, 1996, he had spent an entire day photographing JonBenét. Since JonBenét’s death, his shots and Mark Fix’s runway snaps had been sold to over two hundred magazines and newspapers, and now Simons was being pressured by the media for photographs of JonBenét in more provocative poses. He had never taken such shots, he told the police.

The night of the murder, Simons said, he had been at
home alone in Genoa, 120 miles from Boulder.

Simons, a native of Denver, had been a professional news photographer since 1970 and had once worked for the Associated Press as a stringer. Several times he’d almost been killed while covering fires. In 1979 Simons decided he could make a better living—without risking his life—in fashion and advertising photography. When he opened his studio in Denver, upscale retailers like AP&S, Joslins, Fashion Bar, and Miller Stockman became his clients. When she was three, Kristine Griffin became his second child client. By the time she was nine, Kristine’s annual income from modeling probably exceeded his, Simons said.

In May 1996 Kristine’s mom, Pam Griffin, referred Patsy Ramsey to Simons, and she booked her daughter for a June 5 shooting. Because JonBenét was only six, Randy set aside only half a day. He knew he’d be lucky to get an hour or two from a child that young.

Patsy brought more clothes than I had ever seen a parent bring. In the makeup chair, JonBenét appeared quiet and shy, not scared. She kept looking at her mother.

In the studio, I shot close-ups with a cowboy hat first, then shots with flowers in her hair, which eventually adorned covers all over the world. Before noon, Patsy went out and got pizza for everyone, and then all of us went on location. I photographed the dance outfit with the polka dots next, then the harlequin dance costume. By one o’clock, JonBenét was tired of wearing the tap shoes, but she never complained about the heat or the bright sun. At the residential subdivision Ken Caryl Ranch, I did the Little House on the Prairie dress—that playful shot of JonBenét hiding behind the tree.

The half-day booking become a full day, and I got tired faster than JonBenét. At the Wilson White Fence Farm in Lakewood, which has a gazebo and carousel horses, Jon
Benét played peek-a-boo. She giggled and laughed. The wind began to blow, so I made Patsy my assistant. She held a reflector when we did the Little Red Riding Hood photograph. By then, I’d photographed JonBenét in eleven different outfits. She was a neat kid.

It wasn’t long before the tabloids were saying that Patsy had forced JonBenét into some excruciating shots. I never saw anything like that.

I was paid $590 for the day. Patsy gave me a tip of $45. A month later, she ordered $960 worth of hand-retouched prints.

—Randy Simons

Three weeks later, on March 12, Detective Jeff Kithcart interviewed Mark Fix, who had also photographed JonBenét at various pageants. Fix, who had been a forensic photographer and had gone through 240 hours of police-academy training, was also a “certified protection professional”—a bodyguard. Kithcart was interested in what Fix knew about Randy Simons. Could he be a suspect? He said no.

Fix told the detective that Simons was into high fashion and pageants and had clients from all over the country. His specialty was shooting five- and six-year-olds, and he was known for his creative flair with lighting and retouching. A Randy Simons photo, Fix said, automatically gave a pageant contestant a higher score in the Miss Photogenic competition.

Simons was something of an “odd critter,” though, said Fix. Right now he claimed that people were chasing him and that the Ramseys were pointing the finger at him. Simons had even told Fix that some paramilitary group was trying to ambush him and steal his negatives. He’d shot someone in the leg with an arrow to protect himself, Fix said, shrugging.

Back in May 1996, Fix had been photographing pageant contestants on stage in Denver. One of them was JonBenét.

JonBenét came out in this shocking outfit, and a noticeable murmur went through the room. There were all these feathers, like an ostrich. Someone called it a Ziegfield costume—so much more expensive and elaborate than anyone else’s. You could see it was custom-tailored for her.

It was like showing up in a tuxedo when everybody is wearing sandals and T-shirts. Patsy realized she’d overdone it. She was as shocked as everybody else. I don’t think JonBenét ever wore that outfit again, not even in the national pageant that I photographed two months later.

In July, at the national finals, JonBenét’s costumes were less frilly. They were still on the cutting edge, but they’d been changed to fit the pageant system. By then, her singing and dancing routine had improved. She was really cooking. I don’t know exactly how to describe it…she wanted to win. She was going to win. It showed all the way through.

The photograph I shot of her wearing a crown was just a simple runway photograph, but it appeared on the cover of People magazine. She just walked up, struck a pose, and that was it. End of story.

—Mark Fix

TWO ORDERED TO WRITE APOLOGIES FOR RAMSEY AUTOPSY PHOTO SALE

The Ramseys were virtually under siege. John Ramsey had to sneak into his office building because he was constantly followed and harassed by reporters, photographers, and people on the street. Guards were now posted at the Access Graphics offices twenty-four hours a day.

At first, Ramsey worked a couple of hours at a time, then a half day or an evening. By the third week in February, he was able to make it into the office two days a week or three days every two weeks. When Gary Mann, his boss at Lockheed Martin, spoke to Ramsey, he heard a man totally consumed by the loss of his daughter. Nobody thought of asking Ramsey to return to work full-time. Mann understood that the company’s management team would have to operate without him for months.

In the office, Ramsey would pace back and forth or stare through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the snow-covered
Flatirons. Then, from the corner of his eye, he would spot a reporter or a photographer staking out the offices or going through the company’s trash, and the police would be called. An alarm was installed on his office door to prevent break-ins. Denise Wolf, his secretary, had to do the cleaning in his office because they could no longer trust the janitorial staff not to rifle through—or steal—the papers on his desk.

“How does it feel to work for a murderer?” employees were asked by strangers on the street. Some of them were stalked, followed home. Others were ostracized by their friends for their loyalty to John Ramsey. The firm received obscene phone calls and hate mail and even a bomb threat. One day a photographer was discovered on the back fire escape trying to break into the building. An employee was offered $50, 000 to bug John Ramsey’s office.

With the office and employees of Access Graphics besieged, Lockheed Martin could have used the occasion to get rid of Ramsey, but Mann knew that he had looked out for their interests over the years, and the company was willing to allow the situation to play itself out. No matter what, Mann was going to maintain the billion-dollar business Ramsey had built.

To Gary Merriman, life at the company was now like something out of
Night of the Living Dead
, especially since Access Graphics had been such a wonderful place to work before the tragedy. The front door to the building was in the heart of downtown Boulder, on the tree-covered Pearl Street Mall. Over the last six years, the company had expanded from twenty-five to more than four hundred employees.

The staff at Access was energetic and fearless. The average age was in the late twenties. The corporate culture was entrepreneurial. Employees were encouraged to take risks, and the company prospered. As it grew, Merriman was hired to head the new human resources department and to structure the company.

Despite its growth, the company had the atmosphere of a small shop. John Ramsey was decent to his employees, more patriarch of a large family than president of a company. He elicited loyalty and dedication from his employees. Introverted by nature, he treated people with respect and concern for their welfare. He often referred to Access Graphics as “four hundred families.” And his staff responded accordingly.

In the office, no one ever heard Ramsey raise his voice—in anger
or
in delight. Even when frustrated by a setback, he dealt calmly with the problems at hand. Ramsey seemed to know that problems were not solved by being emotional.

What was most noticeable to Ramsey’s colleagues was his sense of ethics. When people made mistakes, he never attacked their integrity. He was, however, offended by failure of character. On this point, he was firm. Business matters came and went, problems would be resolved or not, but character was permanent. If someone fell short in Ramsey’s estimation—even if only in manners—he would remember it.

There was one unwritten rule that everyone at Access Graphics understood: John Ramsey never mixed work with his personal life. No matter how close they were to him or how long they had been associated with him, he almost never invited his employees home. You could have a close relationship with John Ramsey at work and never see him outside the office.