Perfect Murder, Perfect Town (53 page)

In Quantico, the police had been told that they still had a lot more work to do. It wasn’t that they had done a bad job, but there were many tasks still to be completed before the case could be considered ready for presentation to the DA’s office.

The detectives accepted the fact that they would have to get back to work: More than 180 videotapes from the Ramseys’ home had to be viewed. Books from the Ramseys’ shelves had to be examined and, in some cases, read. Pathologists had to be consulted to determine if JonBenét’s vaginal injury had taken place before or after her death and, if it was prior, to see if penetration had come from the child herself or from another person. The police would have to track down the origin of a small amount of cellulose
that had been found in JonBenét’s vagina.
*
The possibility existed that it could have come from the broken paintbrush used for the ligature. The knot on the ligature that acted like a slip-knot also required more investigation. Burke’s friends and their parents had yet to be interviewed. More DNA testing had to be done—in the hope of finding a match for the foreign DNA found under JonBenét’s fingernails and in her underpants, since it didn’t look as if John’s and Patsy’s DNA matched it. The list went on and on.

After the meeting with the FBI, Hunter’s staff told him that the police detectives were more certain than ever that the Ramseys had murdered their daughter—that’s what the cops were telling Koby. Hunter’s representatives said that they hadn’t reached the same conclusions.

The perceptions of the various participants at the FBI meetings were so different that to clarify matters for himself, Hunter asked to meet with Koby. They scheduled a meeting to discuss the FBI’s evaluation, but first they decided they had to talk about the media in general and the
Vanity Fair
article in particular.

On September 15, Hunter met with Koby and the detectives’ three pro bono attorneys. Everyone agreed that leaks tended to backfire on them. Bill Wise, for example, remembered the time when he confirmed for the
Rocky Mountain News
that the police weren’t providing the DA’s office with results of the DNA tests. He had expected the next morning’s headline to read
COPS AREN
’
T COOPERATING WITH DA
. Instead, the spin on the story was the reverse:
BOULDER PROSECUTOR OUT OF LOOP
, implying that Hunter was ill-informed about the investigation.

Koby and Hunter decided they should limit their press statements to joint releases, though they realized it wouldn’t stop all the leaks, especially from the Ramsey camp. It was remarkable that this strategy meeting took place, given the wide rift between the Boulder PD and the DA’s office. However, the previous Saturday, Hunter had met with Koby and a mediator to plan some damage control in the wake of Ann Bardach’s article.

The facilitator told them that their problem was even more intractable than some NATO situations he had handled. Koby agreed to write a letter of apology to Hunter’s staff on behalf of the police, stating that the information leaked by his department to
Vanity Fair
was false and misleading.

As planned, on September 22 Hunter met again with Koby and pro bono attorneys Miller, Baer, and Hoffman, this time to discuss the FBI’s evaluation of the Ramsey case. The attorneys said that the case was on track. The detectives were doing high-caliber work and good interviews. Despite what the detectives believed, however, it wasn’t an 80 percent certainty that Patsy Ramsey had killed her daughter. It was clear that charges could not be filed against the Ramseys—or against anybody else—at this point.

Bob Miller had developed a long “to-do” list—people to reinterview and loose ends to be tied up. Among those to be questioned were friends of the Ramseys, children who had played with JonBenét, and a long list of peripheral people who had yet to be excluded as suspects. Richard Baer, who was familiar with the physical evidence, said he was working closely with Detective Trujillo and that he had his own to-do list. Optimistically, he said that he thought the case could still be solved.

Toward the end of the meeting, Koby suggested that Hunter convene a grand jury—to decide whether charges
should be filed against the Ramseys or anyone else. The FBI had also mentioned this possibility. Hunter said he would discuss it with his staff but that to him it looked more like a political solution than a way of solving the case.

That afternoon, when Hunter told Hofstrom what Koby had suggested, Hofstrom, who had been at Quantico, said he simply didn’t see enough evidence for a grand jury. He thought the move was premature and that the cops were looking for a way to relinquish their responsibility, which was to gather the evidence needed for prosecution. Then Hunter called Bob Grant, one of the metro DAs advising him on the case. “It’s still too early,” Grant told him, echoing Pete Hofstrom. “Before you take that step, get more of your investigation completed.” The next day, Hunter told Koby that the time was not right for a grand jury. Knowing that work on the investigation still had to be completed, the police chief withdrew his request.

That same week, a reporter for the
Star
tabloid had discovered on file in a local recorder’s office a real estate partnership affidavit between Bill Gray, a civil attorney for the Ramseys, and Hunter. Channel 7, the local ABC affiliate, began broadcasting a series about various legal entanglements among players in the Ramsey case, implying conflicts of interest and a so-called web of influence. Hunter’s explanation that Gray had been his attorney only once, back in 1969, fell on deaf ears.

More problems loomed ahead. In the pipeline, as he put it, was a case in which it had taken his office nearly two years to file murder charges. The Boulder PD was furious about the delay, but Hunter’s staff had thought there were mitigating circumstances and had looked deeply into the reasons why Michael Grainger had killed his 300-pound bedridden wife, Sonia. Hunter knew that given the current climate in Boulder, he was sure to be attacked for being soft on Grainger.

It wasn’t only Boulderites who were doubting his methods, however. The eyes of the entire country were on him.

On September 25, Geraldo Rivera, who had been pursuing the thesis that JonBenét’s killer must be a member of the Ramsey family, hosted “The Ramseys Fight Back” on his daytime TV show.

Jennifer Kay, a producer for Rivera’s show, had persuaded Nedra Paugh, Patsy’s mother, to give an impromptu interview from her home in Roswell, Georgia.

“Well, every day was Christmas to JonBenét,” Nedra said. She sat slumped in a chair, a defeated woman, her heartbreak palpable. “She [JonBenét] had a wonderful life. I often looked at her and Burke as well and thought how wonderful life had been to them. She was beautiful. She was gracious, intelligent, loved life, loved her friends, loved animals. She loved everything. And that was taken away by a thief in the night as she slept. Now she is in heaven, and I’m sure she’s a very good angel.”

When Nedra mentioned the crime, it was in a string of half-completed thoughts and seeming nonsequiturs: “I didn’t know that she had been mole…molested to some extent and hit on the head. I didn’t know that. And somehow I
hoped that she had died very quickly, and I think that she did. I…I really do believe that whoever has done this strangled her, because I’m sure that she put up a tremendous fight. Although she had tape on her mouth, she couldn’t scream. But I knew she had fought.

“To think that a perfectly healthy, happy child, sleeping in her bed on Christmas Day, dreaming, as the story says, of sugar plum buds—and for someone to kill and murder, molest, and then, if that isn’t enough, strike her on the head, is something—it’s just more, because if that hadn’t happened, she would be well and alive, making a contribution to the world.”

After the segment with Nedra, Rivera chatted briefly with producer Kay, who shared her observations of Patsy, with whom she’d spoken the previous week in Atlanta without a camera crew.

“She told me, you know, she wishes that the police would not focus on her anymore but find who the real killer is,” Kay said. “And she also told me she didn’t care what the public felt about her being guilty or innocent. She knew in her heart she didn’t do it.”

After a panel discussion featuring various Ramsey friends and defenders, Rivera put the spotlight on the Ramseys themselves.

“Imagine this: Your beloved six-year-old, the child at the very soul and center of your existence, is snatched from her bed as you sleep. The child is then tortured, sexually assaulted, and brutally murdered in the basement of your dream house. Grief-stricken, your nightmare has only just begun, because almost everyone on the planet thinks that you did it. Now imagine—just imagine for a moment that you’re innocent.

“We invite the Ramseys”—he paused for effect, then said, “come on down.”

It was now clear to everyone in the DA’s office that Hunter no longer wanted simply to prosecute the Ramsey case—he wanted to solve it. His staff had never seen him behave this way before. He wanted access to all the police evidence so that he could cut Lou Smit and Steve Ainsworth loose to investigate the case as they saw fit. He wanted Vassar professor Donald Foster to look into the writings of Janet McReynolds and other possible suspects as well as Patsy’s. He was prepared to call upon both the CBI and Sheriff Epp for help.

Alex Hunter has a little girl and a little boy as well as older children. One child is about JonBenét’s age. As a father, he understands that there could be nothing more horrible than having your daughter die, especially if it’s by your own hand. I mean, if I were to accidentally kill my child, the horror I would be struck with for the rest of my life would be immeasurable. I can’t even conceive of it.

So as a human being, Alex feels it immensely. And as a prosecutor, he has to do it right. He must do it in a way that he can accept because he’s ultimately answerable to himself. He’s going to make sure he does the right thing for number one before he satisfies the community. If the right thing ultimately disappoints the community or the police, he’ll still do it. How can he live with that politically? I don’t know.

I hope Alex has reached that point where he can decide which is more important—to live with himself as a human being or to pony up to someone else. But keep in mind that this is Alex’s last term in office. You never want to leave a job on a down note. You want to have a swan song.

—former judge Virginia Chavez

As far as the DA’s office knew, there was no DNA evidence to link JonBenét’s murder to her parents or any other member of the family. No murder weapon had been identified by forensic evidence. The flashlight found on the kitchen counter, a possible weapon, would have been accessible to anyone. The Ramsey family background did not indicate any of the pathologies generally associated with this kind of murder or with child abuse. No one had seen either parent so much as scold their children in public.

The police were unable to find a motive for the crime. Hunter remembered what Dr. Lee had said to him early in the case—that JonBenét’s death may have been the result of an accident, that what may have begun as an accident was then covered up to look like a murder. Lee had suggested that the investigators look at the evidence from that point of view.

Hunter understood that JonBenét’s participation in beauty pageants caused people to think that Patsy was somehow suspect as a mother. But it was wrong to focus suspicion of murder on the Ramseys simply because of some choices they made for their daughter were wrong. As an officer of the court, Hunter was troubled that the public had reached a conclusion about the Ramseys’ guilt.

“We don’t have a filable case,” John Eller told Alex Hunter in late September, referring to the Ramseys—not because there was evidence of an intruder, the commander pointed out, but because there wasn’t enough admissible evidence against the Ramseys. There was no smoking gun.

Clearly, Eller had listened to the pro bono attorneys, who had become an asset to the investigation—and thereby to Hunter. They had accomplished what his office had been unable to do, and in a nonadversarial way. Even
with Eller’s new attitude, however, Hunter was unhappy with him and wanted the commander replaced. In the DA’s eyes, Eller had a paramilitary approach. He stifled the instincts and abilities of some of his detectives, which in turn stymied and stalled the investigation. If they wanted to solve this crime, they needed creativity and ingenuity, not rigid, inflexible, linear thinking. Eller had to go.

Hunter knew that Koby had been avoiding the inevitable—removing Eller—since the beginning. The DA had never tried to pressure Koby about it, because he wanted to preserve his relationship with the police. Between them, they had to deal with more than four hundred felonies a year. Hunter hadn’t listened to Koby when the chief wanted Wise disciplined in February. Why should Koby listen to Hunter’s suggestions to remove Eller?

Nevertheless, Hunter knew that he and Koby had to come to terms about Eller. Frustrated, he called the chief. A few days later the two men met.

Koby began by telling Hunter that he was in the midst of restructuring the department. He wouldn’t give any details other than to say that Tom Wickman now had full authority on the Ramsey case. Hunter thought Wickman was a good man, but he told Koby that some of the cops working the case were a hindrance. They were self-righteous, conspiratorial, judgmental, and unforgiving. Before Koby left, he told Hunter that the items on the to-do lists would be completed by December 1.

Thinking that Koby might listen to Epp, Hunter called the sheriff and asked him to try once more to influence the chief to remove Eller. Epp said he would.

Koby agreed to meet with Epp, and this time the chief indeed seemed to listen. Several days later, Koby called Pete Hofstrom to talk about Mark Beckner, a twenty-year veteran of the Boulder PD and now a commander, who had
stood in for Koby on several occasions and was known for his organizational skills. What did Hofstrom think of Beckner? Eller’s name was never mentioned. The DA’s office had never had a problem with Beckner, Hofstrom said.

MORE DETECTIVES MAY TAKE ON RAMSEY CASE

When Alex Hunter read the “More Detectives” story in the
Rocky Mountain News
, he must have wondered how the other media would react. The to-do list was lengthy. The Ramseys’ neighborhood had to be canvassed again. Cars that had been parked in the vicinity had never been checked. Investigators had to take saliva swabs from many people in order to eliminate them as suspects through DNA testing. The question of the foreign DNA found in the mixed stain on JonBenét’s underpants might innocently be accounted for by finding a playmate she had exchanged clothes with. Interviews from as far back as January, February, and March still had to be transcribed. The possible use of a stun gun, the palm print on the wine cellar door, the pubic hair found in JonBenét’s blankets, and the shoe imprint were still issues. Hunter hoped all of it would be accomplished before the press got wind of what was still under investigation.

On Saturday night, September 27, Steve Thomas called Jeff Shapiro. “Jeff, let’s get together for a few beers,” Thomas said.

The next day at 9:00
P
.
M
., in Chautauqua Park, Gosage, Thomas, and Shapiro sat crammed into the detective’s little Mustang.

The detectives were in gym clothes. Gosage had a baseball cap on backward. Shapiro was in a black James Bond blazer. It was raining outside, just like in some detective movie.

Thomas said he wanted to go over a few things. Before long Shapiro was talking about Hunter and how the DA had suggested that he get some dirt on Eller. Then Thomas asked him to describe Hunter’s office. Shapiro now felt he was being interviewed.

“There’s a picture of J. F. Kennedy over his desk,” I said. “There’s a table at the back.” They start to laugh. “OK, OK, we believe you.”

“Could you give Hunter a call and just talk to him for a minute,” Gosage asked, “so we know you’re telling us the truth?”

I said, “No.”

Thomas looked at me like, Don’t fuck with me.

I just looked back at Thomas. Finally I said, “Fuck.”

Thomas activated his cell phone, and I gave him Hunter’s home number. Hunter’s answering machine picked up.

“What does Hunter see in you?” Gosage asked.

“I guess he likes me. I brought him information, like I brought you information,” I told him. “When I talk to Hunter, it’s different from the way I talk to you. He’s more political. He’s not military the way you are.”

“Are you a double agent for Hunter?” Gosage asked.

“No. I’m a twenty-four-year-old kid caught in the middle of something.”

“Junior detective,” Thomas called me. Then Gosage repeated, “Junior detective.” It was their joke.

“If I’m a junior detective,” I interjected, “I should have a gun.”

“You could be a private investigator if you want,” Thomas said. “You don’t need to be licensed in Colorado.” I told them I’d start looking for a badge. Steve said he’d introduce me to this guy who sold guns below cost, a Glock or a Beretta.

After that Sunday night, at Chautauqua Park, I felt like one of the boys.

—Jeff Shapiro

What Jeff Shapiro didn’t know was that the detectives were wearing a hidden microphone and that the conversation was being recorded and transmitted by radio to a van parked just a hundred yards away.

The following Thursday, October 1, Gosage took the tape to Eller, who listened to Shapiro recount how Hunter wanted to smear him with the supposed sexual harassment allegation. Eller remained calm. The next day, he and Gosage met with Koby and played him the tape.

Koby was thunderstruck: Thomas and Gosage were not only trying to find the murderer of JonBenét, they were also investigating the conduct of Hunter’s office. He was angrier at the detectives than at Hunter. On the one hand, the tape confirmed what Eller had been telling him all along about the DA’s office; on the other hand, it gave the police enormous power over Hunter—power that Koby wouldn’t allow them to use.

Koby knew that Eller’s rage at Hunter would destroy whatever was left of his professional relationship with the DA. The department’s work would suffer. Eller would have
to be replaced. To Gosage, it was clear that Koby was “handing up” Eller to protect Hunter.
*
Koby kept the original tape and ordered Gosage to destroy the copies in his presence. When Gosage told Thomas what had happened, Thomas believed it was more important to Koby to maintain his relationship with Hunter than to expose the DA’s subterfuge.

Two days earlier, September 29, the Boulder County clerk’s office provided copies of the previously sealed search warrants to the media and the public. Representatives of every newspaper, radio station, local television affiliate, and national network stood in line to obtain a copy of the sixty-five-page package, which cost $48.75. This represented the largest batch of released investigative material from among the eight thousand pages the DA’s office had received from the police department to date. A total of 179 sets were purchased.

By now Hunter had decided to give up his fight to keep the search warrants sealed. Both the text of the ransom note and a photocopy of the original had been published, and nine months of aggressive reporting by the media had led to the disclosure of many other details of the crime.

In a cover page to the search warrants, the DA’s office wrote that no evidence of child pornography had been found to date, and for the first time it was confirmed that nothing “consistent with semen or seminal fluid” had been found at the crime scene. Two brief passages had been blacked out by Judge MacDonald, at the request of the DA’s office. After the line “In the area where Det. Arndt had told Det. Everett that the decedent had been found by her father he observed two blankets on the floor in the center of the room,” a line and a half were deleted. On the next page, which was a list of items removed from the Ramsey home, a line was censored by the
judge. The second deletion was preceded by “any writing pads, lined and white in color, any examples of handwriting, any felt-type writing utensil with black ink.” The media speculated that the deleted lines referred to the piece of duct tape found in the wine cellar. Only the police and the killer would know its color and width.

The newly released documents supported early press reports, which had stated that though there were urine and possibly blood stains on JonBenét’s underpants and long johns, there was no corresponding fluid on her pubic area. Apparently the child’s body had been wiped clean, leaving some smeared blood. The substance used to wipe JonBenét clean still had not been identified.

The warrants confirmed that fragments of a green substance, consistent with the decorative Christmas garland found on the spiral staircase, were found entwined in JonBenét’s hair, which suggested that she might not have been awake but asleep, wounded, or already unconscious when she was carried down the stairs. The second addendum to the search warrant noted that when Sgt. Whitson first arrived at the Ramsey house, he noticed what seemed to be a pry mark on the door jamb. The damaged area “appeared to have been less weathered than the surrounding surfaces on the door and door jamb,” the document said.

The Ramseys’ attorneys were quick to point out in a press statement that the documents contained nothing to incriminate their clients. Hal Haddon said it was “significant” that people close to the investigation had not leaked information that was exculpatory to the Ramsey family, such as the pry mark. He also provided the media with a photograph of the door jamb, which the police had seen on December 26, and said, “The material released today demonstrates substantial evidence of an intruder.”

The next day, the
Rocky Mountain News
published the 5 x 8 inch photograph alongside a story that quoted Had
don as saying that important evidence of an intruder had been withheld from the public.

The Ramseys’ former housekeeper, Linda Hoffmann-Pugh, was surprised to see both the picture and Haddon’s statement. The photograph showed the spot where a protective metal plate on the door jamb had fallen off months before the murder. She had seen the plate become looser until one day it fell off, revealing the same marks that she now saw in the photograph. Hoffmann-Pugh had taken the plate to Patsy, who wasn’t concerned enough to have it replaced. The detached plate had sat on a shelf in the hallway near the kitchen. Now Hoffmann-Pugh wondered if the police had discovered it and made the connection.