Perfect Murder, Perfect Town (13 page)

—Niki Hayden

I was standing out there that Sunday, taking pictures for my paper. I knew Pastor Rol. He looked at me the same way he was looking at all the media—with complete contempt.

When most of the press had left, he came over to me. “Why do you have to do this?” he asked. I told him that this was my job. I had to put food on my family’s table.

He didn’t respond. He seemed not to understand me. Then I added, “I’d much rather be photographing elk in the mountains. That’s what I really like to do.”

—A news photographer

On Sunday morning, January 5, John Ramsey was still angry about what Patsy had been put through the previous day when she gave her second handwriting sample at Pete Hofstrom’s home. However, as he had promised, he gave four of his own samples to the police before going to church with his wife.

Now that the Colorado Bureau of Investigation had determined that the ransom note was written on a pad that came from the Ramseys’ house, the police had to obtain unsupervised and casual handwriting samples from the family and their friends. Analysts would need a variety of specimens to compare with the ransom note. Just before the Boulder detectives left Georgia, they asked the Roswell police to search Don and Nedra Paugh’s garbage for the family’s handwriting samples and any other useful evidence that John and Patsy might have left behind.

Meanwhile, Detectives Gosage and Harmer had gone to Charlevoix, Michigan, to search the Ramseys’ summer house, a two-story white Victorian overlooking Round Lake, where they moored a powerboat, the
Grand Season.
They kept their sailboat, the
Miss America
, at nearby Lake Charlevoix. The detectives were looking for evidence that someone had attempted to contact the Ramseys with the intent of harming them. The police hoped that the Ramseys’ caller ID telephone devices, answering machine tapes, computers, or mail might hold some clue about who might
have murdered JonBenét. Perhaps there might be other evidence related to the crime scene. Also, they would contact several people about the Charlevoix Little Miss pageant. The police were hoping to learn more about JonBenét’s pageant activities. In all, the detectives stayed in town for three days. They discovered nothing useful.

When DA Alex Hunter was briefed about the case, he took an interest in the pageant aspect. He learned that Pam Griffin, who sewed JonBenét’s pageant costumes, had been the first to shed light on the subject, when Mason interviewed her the day after the murder. Since then the police had discovered that a dozen or so families in Boulder County participated in pageants. Hunter asked to see the pageant video of JonBenét that was making headlines. He knew nothing about children’s beauty pageants and had never seen such a display. The tape made him blush.

The police had found out that few of JonBenét’s school friends or their parents had been invited to watch her compete. The pageants were a separate world from the rest of the Ramseys’ life.

During the winter of 1995 and the first months of 1996, JonBenét had competed in her first pageant, at the Twin Peaks Mall, just twenty minutes from Boulder. The judges ignored her. Not long afterward, Patsy entered JonBenét in the Colorado State All Star pageant in Denver. John, Patsy, Nedra, and Burke were in the audience to cheer her on.

Pam Griffin told the police that when she first spotted JonBenét performing at the All Star pageant, she saw that Patsy didn’t know how to apply pageant makeup or style her daughter’s hair. When JonBenét presented herself in front of the judges, she mouthed oohs and aahs and rolled her eyes in a very amateurish way. Even so, Pam thought she showed promise. Pam, who was there to watch another six-year-old whose costumes she’d designed, introduced
herself to Patsy, and they realized they lived only twenty minutes from each other. Pam suggested that she could make a few alterations to the party dress JonBenét was wearing. Patsy accepted the offer. “Do whatever you need to do to make it look better,” she said.

Patsy enjoyed visiting Pam Griffin’s simple home in Longmont. She would walk in, kick off her shoes, and watch several seamstresses assemble costumes in Pam’s basement workshop. Sometimes Patsy would bring lunch for everyone. Other times she would sit out on the patio with Pam and talk about her battle with cancer or her worries over JonBenét’s incontinence. Patsy told Pam that JonBenét often waited until an emergency was imminent and as a result was still having accidents. Pam said that when her own daughter, Kristine, was small, she also used to wait until the last possible second and sometimes miscalculated. Patsy complained that JonBenét had frequent infections that were hard to clear up because her underpants were always wet. JonBenét would often fall asleep in her bedroom in front of the TV set, she said, and Patsy would wake her up at around midnight to make sure she used the bathroom. Sometimes Patsy was just in the nick of time, but sometimes she was too late. Pam understood how aggravating that could be for a mother.

In all, Pam Griffin made half a dozen outfits for JonBenét, some of which cost as much as $600. Several of the outfits were not typical pageant attire but more like theatrical costumes. One day Patsy’s mother, Nedra, who occasionally came to Pam’s house with Patsy, showed her a photograph of an outfit with marabou and glitter. Nedra said it was just right for “Patsy’s doll baby,” as she liked to call JonBenét. She thought it would be perfect for the “Anybody from Hollywood” category at the next pageant, where the children could dress as Shirley Temple or Charlie Chaplin or any other star—or, for example, a Las Vegas
Ziegfeld Follies showgirl, which Nedra thought would be perfect for JonBenét.

When JonBenét was at Pam’s house, she loved to look over Kristine’s collection of pageant crowns. One was displayed in a cabinet by the Griffins’ front door, and two others sat under a blue light in a waterless fish tank near the stairs to the basement workshop. Soon JonBenét knew all about the various types of crowns. Standard crowns, metal circlets with scalloped top borders, often elaborately decorated, were usually awarded to division winners. Kristine’s pink “bucket crown,” a standard crown with a fabric cap enclosing the center, was the prize of all prizes, presented only to the overall pageant winner.

Kristine, a high school senior, loved to coach JonBenét. She taught her the walk, the wave, and the pageant poses on a small mock runway in her basement. The girls giggled, surrounded by the hundreds of costumes Pam was working on for girls all over the country. Off to the side was one of Kristine’s 8-foot-high trophies. When the girls got tired of pageant practice, they would plop down on the couch and play Nintendo, even though Patsy was paying Kristine $20 an hour for pageant lessons.

On June 1, 1996, JonBenét appeared in the Royal Miss state pageant in Denver and a month later in the Gingerbread Productions of America pageant, where she won her division title, Mini Supreme, Little Miss Colorado. JonBenét loved hanging out at pageants and playing with the other kids. When Nedra was there, she would give each of the children playing with JonBenét a dollar to buy cookies. Patsy gave presents of hand lotion to all the little girls.

Most pageants include a “Most Photogenic” or “Photo Portfolio” category, where the entrants are judged solely on their photographs. Pasty decided it was time for JonBenét to have a portfolio, and Pam Griffin recommended a pho
tographer, Randy Simons, who could make a six-year-old look twenty. When a pageant favored the seductive look, Pam told Patsy, Simons was the best.

On the July Fourth weekend, Patsy entered JonBenét in the Royal Miss pageant in Denver’s Sheraton Hotel. Patsy, her sister Pam, and Nedra all attended. During the three-day pageant, Patsy did a lot of socializing with the other mothers. There was a pizza party, a “Your Favorite Star” party, and a party where all the mothers and daughters dressed alike. Tammy Polson, one of the mothers, talked to Nedra, who chatted cheerfully about “her girls.” That’s how Polson learned that Patsy and her sister Pam had both competed in the Miss America pageant.

In the Denver event, JonBenét’s song and dance routine and makeup were perfect. Everyone at the pageant considered her a strong competitor. Mark Fix, a photographer, could see that she wanted to win. He couldn’t put his finger on how he knew it, but her desire to win was obvious, he said.

JonBenét won overall in her division but missed the best-in-pageant prize that she wanted. Though she was disappointed that she took home only a small trophy, she didn’t cry.

The Gingerbread nationals were scheduled for August 1996. Pam offered to take JonBenét to the pageant, since it conflicted with the Ramseys’ family reunion. Patsy said no thanks, Pam told the police. JonBenét had to be with her family, Patsy said. This would be true for any pageants that conflicted with family events. Moreover, when the Royal Miss nationals moved to Las Vegas, Patsy told Pam that John didn’t want his six-year-old daughter exposed to Vegas.

The Ramseys spent the summer of 1996 in Charlevoix and Atlanta, where JonBenét entered the Sunburst pageant, which cost Patsy over a thousand dollars in entry
fees. JonBenét was first runner-up in each of the nine categories in her division, but once again she missed out on the overall title. Her performance, Pam said, was still a big accomplishment. It was her first experience competing against top-of-the-line entrants—southern girls who already held numerous titles.

After Sunburst, both Patsy and Nedra called Mary Clark, the pageant director. They wanted to dissect every detail of JonBenét’s costumes, music, and performance. Exactly what were the judges looking for? How could they hone a competitive edge for JonBenét? It was obvious to Clark that Patsy was ready to spend any amount of money, go to any length, to ensure a win for her daughter.

Kristine said that JonBenét often gave her prizes away to newcomers who hadn’t received any. But unlike many regulars on the circuit, she didn’t appear at pageants she’d previously won simply to present trophies to new winners. Instead, Patsy had JonBenét compete all over again at those pageants.

One day Patsy suggested to Pam Griffin that they make a few dresses to have on hand for kids who showed up in “civilian” clothes. Patsy said she didn’t want some little girl to feel humiliated. Pam felt that Patsy was a genuinely kind person but also knew that Patsy always wanted to make the best possible impression on people.

On December 17, JonBenét entered the All Star Kids Christmas pageant at the Airport Holiday Inn outside Denver. Her parents watched her win several titles, including Little Miss Christmas. When it was all over, John carried all her trophies and costumes to the car. It would be her last pageant

I’ve thought a lot about JonBenét’s death. It’s true that if a child is found dead in her own home, that alone makes the parents suspect. I don’t understand why the police
didn’t immediately have officers come and examine John and Patsy’s bodies for scratches or whatever. Why would you
not
do all that? I was a registered nurse; I know it’s not wrong to suspect a family in a case like this.

—Pam Griffin

On Monday morning, January 6, photos of the Ramseys emerging from St. John’s and meeting the bishop were on the front page of all the local papers. When Alex Hunter saw the newspapers and TV coverage, he said to himself, These people aren’t getting good advice. His common sense told him that people don’t behave this way in deep mourning. The scene at the church looked staged, and raised questions in his mind about the Ramseys’ role in their daughter’s death.

RAMSEYS RECEIVE POLICE QUESTIONS

On January 6, the police department notified the local press that Chief Koby would discuss the Ramsey investigation on January 9. It would be a roundtable discussion. Koby selected reporters that he had worked with before—all of whom would still be working there after the sensation died down. “The rest of the press will be going on to their next firefight,” Koby said. Boulder’s city-owned TV Channel 8 would broadcast the event.

Koby wanted to speak directly to Boulder’s residents and to respond to the questions
he
believed should be answered. He wasn’t interested in Dan Rather or some other media star shouting questions at him, and he didn’t want his words filtered through the press.

Rocky Mountain News
reporter Kevin McCullen was named one of the roundtable invitees. Immediately he was bombarded with calls from all three TV networks for on-air interviews before and after Koby’s telecast. That was when McCullen realized that JonBenét’s murder was more than just a Boulder story. Joining McCullen would be Ron Baird of the
Colorado Daily
, Alli Krupski of the
Daily Camera
,
The Denver Post
’s Mike McPhee, and Jim Burrus, managing editor of the
Boulder Planet
.

That same day, January 6, was the first day of school after the Christmas break. TV news trucks would be parked in front of JonBenét’s school for days, and Charles Elbot, the principal, had hired security people to make sure that the reporters hung back and didn’t frighten the children by shoving microphones into their faces.

That morning, before school opened, Elbot and several teachers checked the halls to make sure that none of JonBenét’s artwork or poetry was displayed where a reporter could grab it.

Elbot held an assembly before classes began. He was straightforward with the children. “In life,” he said, “difficult things happen, and part of the challenge we’re left with is not only trying to find our own way through the difficulty but to help others.”

During recess that day, Elbot walked around to see how the students were doing. A second grade girl came up to him and said, “If I died, no one would care.”

“What do you mean?” Elbot asked.

“You know. If I die, there wouldn’t be all these people around—there wouldn’t be all this fuss.”

“If something happened to you, I would care and your parents would care and your friends would care,” Elbot replied.