Perfect Murder, Perfect Town (33 page)

Soon after that search for prostitutes, Detective Harmer received a phone call from Christopher Doherty, a reporter for the
Globe
. A woman named Kimberly Ballard had told the
Globe
she’d had an affair with John Ramsey
from August 1994 through the spring of 1995, while Patsy was battling cancer. The
Globe
was set to publish Ballard’s story, Doherty said.

When Alex Hunter heard about this, he knew that even if the allegation were true, cheating on a desperately ill wife was still a long way from murdering your six-year-old daughter. Detective Harmer, however, thought that Ramsey might have told Ballard something material to the case—perhaps a passing reference to something that only the police and the killer knew. The Boulder PD followed up on the lead.

Detectives Harmer and Arndt went to Tucson, where Ballard now lived, to interview her face-to-face, but she declined to meet them. Nevertheless, they conducted some background checks on her and visited the Brown Palace, the Denver hotel where Ballard claimed to have met Ramsey on several occasions. The hotel had no record of these visits. In the end, the police found no evidence that Ramsey had ever met Kimberly Ballard. On April 22, the
Globe
reported that the Boulder PD had Ballard under investigation. The tabloid published her story based solely on their interview, with no independent confirmation.

Two and a half months after the Boulder police began investigating John Andrew and Melinda Ramsey, they received the final pieces of evidence that cleared Ramsey’s older children of any involvement in JonBenét’s murder. Bryan Morgan wrote to Detective Thomas on March 4 stating that John Andrew had made an ATM transaction at the QT Store on Roswell Road, in Marietta, Georgia, at 9:00
P
.
M
. on December 25. His friend Brad Millard had been present. To support his claim, Morgan enclosed the ATM transaction slip. He also repeated that Melinda had awakened her brother in the early morning hours of December 26, in time for him to stop at a store and still make an 8:30
A
.
M
. flight to Minneapolis. It was impossible for John Andrew to have flown from Atlanta to Boulder, whether by commercial or private aircraft, commit the murder, and return in time to be awakened by his sister in the presence of Brad Millard, who had stayed overnight in John Andrew’s room.

Morgan also wrote that John Andrew hadn’t been in Charlevoix, Michigan, on either the Memorial Day or the July Fourth 1996 weekend. The accusation of a onetime police informant that John Andrew had tried to stage an “accidental death” in order to kill JonBenét was clearly preposterous. Morgan again requested an official announcement that John Andrew was no longer a possible suspect.

By now the police had received the test results from John Andrew and Melinda’s hair, blood, and handwriting. At the time, the only possible match to evidence found at the crime scene was the pubic hair found on the white blanket in the basement, which held some slight similarities to Melinda’s. But her alibi was even tighter than her brother’s, and it was not likely that she had used the same blanket when she stayed with the family. The next day the police informed the DA’s office that they would make a public statement regarding Ramsey’s older children within the week.

Pete Hofstrom was encouraged to hear that the Ramseys’ attorney was corresponding directly with the police. He hoped he would no longer have to be a go-between. Then, Chief Koby received a letter from Bryan Morgan. Presumably, Morgan wanted to deal with Eller’s boss because the Ramseys still hadn’t gotten over the commander’s attempt to withhold JonBenét’s body. Morgan requested a meeting to discuss the pending issues, among them John’s and Patsy’s interviews and the possible waiver of attorney-client privilege in any meeting between the
Ramseys, their lawyers, and the police. Koby passed the letter on to Hofstrom, placing him back in the middle. Hofstrom told Morgan that topics discussed in such a meeting would not be used against the Ramseys in court. However, any lead developed or evidence discovered as a result of any discussion
could
be used in a future prosecution. Hofstrom told Hunter he hoped that these exchanges would lead to the formal interviews the police wanted.

When Hunter returned home on the evening of March 4, he turned on his TV to see district attorney Bob Grant, a member of his task force, on
Larry King Live
, hosted by Wolf Blitzer. Appearing with Grant were Janet and Bill McReynolds, along with Charlie Brennan of the
Rocky Mountain News
and Dan Glick of
Newsweek
. The McReynoldses were responding to rumors that they were suspects in JonBenét’s death. They addressed parallels between their own daughter’s kidnapping, Janet McReynolds’s play
Hey, Rube
, and the murder of JonBenét.

As the hour progressed, Janet McReynolds became increasingly preachy: “I feel that…the media is saying to this collective community…in some ways she [JonBenét] deserved to die. That, at least, is a message that I am getting: She deserved to die because she was too beautiful. She deserved to die because she was from an affluent family. She deserved to die because she lived in an upscale community. She deserved to die because her family taught her gestures which might be interpreted as sexually suggestive. She deserved to die because she was in beauty pageants…. And to me, that is a crucifixion of an innocent victim.”

Janet McReynolds’s fervent outburst led the police to take an even harder look at her family. They began to search for their old handwriting samples as they awaited the results from the McReynoldses’ blood samples.

POLICE CLEAR ADULT KIDS

HALF BROTHER, HALF SISTER ELIMINATED AS SUSPECTS IN J
ON
B
ENÉT
’S MURDER

Although Eller had pushed the FBI out of the day-by-day investigation on the afternoon JonBenét’s body was found, the Bureau’s forensics labs had been analyzing the evidence for the police since January 19, and its Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit (CASKU) was evaluating and profiling the crime scene.

On March 7, Special Agent Gregory Bishea of the FBI’s Chemistry Unit completed his initial examination of the black duct tape, including the yarn/scrim count and the percentage of calcium filler in the adhesive. With this data, the FBI and the police hoped to discover where the tape had been manufactured and when it was distributed. Pre
viously, microscopic fiber trace evidence had been lifted by the FBI from the duct tape, and the source of the fiber was also being investigated.

The efforts of CASKU were not scientifically precise, but its work was important nonetheless. Its profilers studied the physical evidence and all the known circumstances of homicides in order to provide a probable portrait of the perpetrator.

JonBenét was at home in bed on Christmas night in an affluent neighborhood while her parents were supposedly sleeping, which by the profilers’ standards put her at extremely low risk of encountering a stranger who intended harm. Her risk for murder by a stranger was also low because she hardly ever interacted with strangers, her circle of playmates and friends was constant, and she hardly ever played on the street unsupervised. Several of her parents’ friends told police that JonBenét was always with a known adult.

Appearing in child beauty pageants, however, increased JonBenét’s potential risk for meeting death at the hands of a stranger. Pageants exposed her to more potential suspects, including known pedophiles. Even though JonBenét had been found dead at home, the pageant connection couldn’t be ignored. Had some stranger been attracted to her?

Pedophiles are persuasive by nature; they use attention, affection, and gifts to seduce a child, usually over an extended period. Force and violence are rarely involved, and the molester is not usually a stranger to the victim.

But if a stranger had murdered JonBenét in her home, he took a big risk that family members might wake and discover him.

The FBI believed that JonBenét’s vaginal trauma was not consistent with a history of sexual abuse, and they had turned up no evidence of any other type of abuse. The sexual violation of JonBenét, whether pre- or postmortem, did
not appear to have been committed for the perpetrator’s gratification. The penetration, which caused minor genital trauma, was more likely part of a staged crime scene, intended to mislead the police.

Kidnappings are almost always committed for money or sex. Rarely can another motive be found. The FBI concluded that if the duct tape over JonBenét’s mouth had been used to silence her during an attempted abduction, the kidnapper would have taken her out of the house immediately. There would have been no reason to stay where the kidnapper could be discovered at any moment. Instead, they theorized, the duct tape too was probably used as part of a cover-up, along with the loosely tied cord found around JonBenét’s right wrist. Whether the duct tape had been placed on JonBenét’s mouth before or after her death could be determined by an examination of the body and tape. Skin trauma would be evident if she had been alive when the tape was applied. Applying the tape after her death would not produce noticeable skin markings. Coroner Meyer had not reported any trauma to the skin around JonBenét’s mouth.

The probable behavior of the offender was an important factor. If the killer did not intend to kidnap JonBenét, he or she must have been there for a reason, perhaps to assault her. But if there had been no intent to kidnap, why did the killer write the ransom note?

The FBI profilers who scrutinized the overall crime scene, the autopsy findings, and the fingerprints, fibers, and blood evidence told the police that the ransom note was the most important piece of behavioral evidence in the case. Of all the elements of the crime, it probably took longest to complete.

The police believed that if the ransom note was written before JonBenét’s murder, that left the door open to the possibility of an intruder, but if it was written after she was killed, it was unlikely an intruder would have stayed to
write it. But the FBI and the police could not determine when the ransom note was written.

Once JonBenét had been murdered, the only reason to write the note or to leave it behind was to provide a false motive for the crime. And, to give credibility to the ransom note and a bogus kidnapping, the offender had to make the police believe that JonBenét had been restrained and silenced. That was called staging within staging.

The moment JonBenét died and her body was left in a place where it would be found, the ransom money was lost forever to the kidnapper. If it was a real abduction gone sour, why leave the ransom note? After all, the handwriting might lead the police to the killer. The only reasonable conclusion was that the note had been left behind in an attempt to hide the killer’s identity and the real reason for JonBenét’s death.

If the killer was a stranger, why did he wrap JonBenét’s body in a blanket? Why try to comfort someone who was no longer of use? The dominant sign of hostility toward JonBenét was the use of the noose. Its elevation at every point around the neck was equal in distance from the shoulders, indicating that it had not been tied during a struggle. The FBI had never before encountered this type of violence in a child homicide. No parent who killed a child had ever used a “garrote” for strangulation.

The note, the cord around the wrist, the tape over the mouth, the noose around the neck, and the possibility of penetration all suggested that the killer had no fear of discovery during the crime, though John, Patsy, and Burke Ramsey were asleep in the house. A further analysis of the crime elements led the FBI to conclude that the killer felt comfortable and secure inside the Ramsey home. Few crime elements suggested an intruder or a stranger. Some of the FBI experts thought that the hard blow to JonBenét’s head had been intentional. The injury did not have the characteristics of an accident. Besides, when accidents happen, people
usually call for medical assistance. Still, the FBI noted, the blow to the head had not produced any bleeding and might not have been noticed at first. The experts considered an alternate explanation: the offender might have intended to hit a third party, missed, and hit JonBenét by mistake.

The police knew that when all the factors were considered, one scenario would be more compelling than the others. Various pieces of evidence might suggest other theories, but all the facts together could allow for only one. The FBI told the police that whatever theory they settled on must be fact-driven: They could change the theory as new facts emerged, but they could not twist the facts to fit a preexisting theory.

Regardless of the conclusions reached by the FBI profilers, the police were constrained by Colorado law. Behavioral profile analysis was admissible as expert analysis of a crime scene, but nothing about the personality of the presumed offender was admissible in court.

SNOW AT RAMSEY HOUSE LACKED FOOTPRINTS