Perfect Murder, Perfect Town (46 page)

Several pieces of evidence matched John and Patsy’s samples, but that was logical and to be expected, since they lived in the house and had constant, lengthy contact with their daughter. Without semen or some other hard evidence, the incest theory went nowhere. A careful review of Dr. Beuf’s medical records had given no indication of prior
abuse. Nor could the police find any indication of prior suspicious behavior on the part of JonBenét’s parents.

The police had hung their hat on the Ramseys as culprits, but they were still unable to provide the DA’s office with enough evidence to warrant an arrest. Neither Alex Hunter nor the police were ready to admit that the case was unsolvable, however. Knowing that the ransom note was the best piece of evidence they had, Hunter hoped that the CBI’s handwriting experts would find something solid, but Chet Ubowski would not take the leap and say that Patsy had written the note. The CBI expert refused to tailor his conclusions to the needs of the police and the DA.

To say that Patsy hadn’t been excluded as the author of the note was only “soft evidence,” as Hunter called it, and it might not be enough to charge her as an accessory. In addition, the DA believed that under Colorado law an accessory could be charged only when a principal was charged.
*
Harder evidence would be needed to charge a perpetrator.

Hunter called his old friend Bob Kupperman, formerly of the Institute for Strategic and International Studies, who recommended using a psychological linguist, Donald Foster, a professor of dramatic literature at Vassar. Foster studied grammar, syntax, punctuation, style, and vocabulary to track down the authors of texts. He had accurately identified for the FBI source material for parts of Theodore Kaczynski’s Unabomber manifesto. He had also identified the writer Joe Klein as the anonymous author of the novel
Primary Colors
and had discovered William Shakespeare was the author of a previously anonymous Elizabethan funeral eulogy.

Hunter thought that Foster might be helpful in the Ramsey case. Just before the July Fourth weekend, he called Foster, who told the DA that he had once written a letter to Patsy Ramsey and another to her son, John Andrew, while following the case on the Internet. He said he had wanted to lend them some support. Hunter saw no
conflict of interest.

Foster agreed to analyze the ransom note for the DA’s office. He would also be sent Janet McReynolds’s play
Hey, Rube
, Christmas letters and articles written by both Janet and Bill McReynolds, some of Patsy Ramsey’s writings, and transcripts of the Ramseys’ January 1 and May 1 press conferences. Not long after speaking to Foster, Hunter said that “this case will come down to linguistics.”

U.S. district judge Richard Matsch, who was presiding over the first Oklahoma city bombing trial at the time, had noted that handwriting analysis was not a science and wasn’t subject to peer review and was therefore not verifiable. But the Colorado state courts felt differently. In many cases, state judges had allowed handwriting experts to testify about comparisons and to draw conclusions from them.

For months the Boulder police had been collecting Patsy’s handwriting samples: beauty-pageant entry forms, school documents, applications, and business letters. They had recently visited the offices of Hayes Micro Computer in Norcross, Georgia, where Patsy had worked before marrying John. There they found more handwriting samples. This material was relevant for handwriting analysis but was of limited value to Donald Foster. He needed lengthy texts and examples of Patsy’s prepared and extemporaneous speeches. These would take time to find and even longer to analyze.

If the CBI were to state definitively that Patsy had written the note and Foster were to confirm that finding, Hunter would have something. He worried, however, that even with such positive findings, his staff might be unable to arrest Patsy. Linguistic analysis had never been used by experts in Colorado courts, so there was a question about whether Foster’s findings would be admissible. The professor had never before testified in a criminal trial.

Meanwhile, Eller and his detectives were slowly com
ing to the realization that without a break in the case, Hunter would not arrest the Ramseys. One detective was sure that if the DA had charged them earlier, Patsy would have broken down and confessed. When that didn’t happen, he suggested to his superiors that a grand jury be used to compel the Ramseys to talk. Hunter rejected the idea, saying it was premature. When immunity was discussed, he said he didn’t want to give someone protection in exchange for testifying. Most of Eller’s detectives believed that the moment had been lost forever. They didn’t much care if the Ramseys suffered the shame of public condemnation for the rest of their lives.

Bill Wise, like the detectives, had been sure earlier in the year that the Ramseys were guilty. But that was before the alleged semen turned out to be something else. By May 1997 he was far less sure that a case against them could be proved. Wise hadn’t lost hope entirely, but as his certainty diminished, he continued to think that if the Ramseys had killed their daughter, they deserved to suffer.

Late in the morning of Monday, June 2, Suzanne Laurion greeted Ann Bardach of
Vanity Fair
and escorted her to Alex Hunter’s private office, where the journalist and the DA were scheduled for a fifteen-minute interview. Sitting down in one of the four old leather chairs that encircled a wood table, Bardach noticed a pencil sketch of President Kennedy hanging above Hunter’s antique rolltop desk. Sitting atop the desk was a black three-ring binder, on its cover a color photograph of JonBenét Ramsey.

Bardach’s fifteen minutes of interview time became half an hour before Hunter said they’d have to take a break. Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh’s verdict was to be announced. At 1:15
P
.
M
. Hunter turned on his TV. Phil Miller, Jim Atherton, Pete Hofstrom, Susan Ingraham, Trip DeMuth, Bill Nagel, and several other staff members came in to watch. After it was announced that McVeigh was found guilty of the bombing and the murder of eight federal agents, Bardach stayed in Hunter’s office and soaked up the conversation.

In his interview, Hunter had told her his impressions of the Ramseys and their attorneys and referred to John Ramsey as “Ice Man.” When the DA talked about his team of investigators, he called Lou Smit “the ace” and “the fox.” By the time she left the Justice Center, Bardach had over two hours’ worth of tape-recorded material. A few days later, she called the DA’s office with follow-up questions. When Hunter heard them, he replied that the statements
Bardach was referring to had been given “off the record” and therefore didn’t require a response. Afterward, Suzanne Laurion tried to clarify with Bardach which parts of her conversation with Hunter were off the record. Bardach argued that her tape recorder offered evidence of what was “on the record.”

By then, Bardach had already spoken with several friends and neighbors of the Ramseys. She had shown up at John and Barbara Fernie’s house uninvited. John Fernie would later tell a reporter covering the story that when he and his wife arrived home, Bardach was waiting for them. When they refused her an interview, she became pushy, said Fernie.

Not everyone reacted to the journalist the same way, however. In time, she would meet with two police detectives to hear the cops’ side of the story. It’s possible that after all those months of talking to local media and the tabloids, the police and Alex Hunter both talked freely to Bardach because they felt they had reached the epitome of celebrity when this national publication sought them out.

Meanwhile, Bardach kept in touch with Suzanne Laurion. “The Ramseys are in a full-court campaign; they’re doing a spin on Alex too,” the journalist told Hunter’s press rep. The DA should know about it, she added. Another time, she asked Laurion, “What is wrong with this town? In any other city, the Ramseys would have been behind bars long ago.” Bill Wise was concerned because he had heard that Bardach was looking for dirt on Hunter and his staff.

At the end of June, Bardach asked for another interview with Hunter. She told Laurion she had conducted over a hundred interviews. She said there was some “serious stuff” being leveled against Hofstrom and Hunter and that most of it was coming from Hunter’s usual allies.
Hunter said that any such accusations were ludicrous; he had full confidence in the way his staff was handling the case. Laurion tried to get Bardach to submit her follow-up questions in writing, since the DA refused another interview.

Laurion became concerned that Hunter and his staff didn’t understand the distinction between “on the record” and “off the record.” She could see disaster looming on the horizon with
Vanity Fair
, and hoping to avoid further catastrophes, she sent a memo to Hunter, Wise, and Phil Miller. She warned them that not all journalists play by the rules, that not all journalists clarify the rules of an interview in advance—because that sort of talk makes sources nervous—and that some journalists are also careless about protecting their sources, even in off-the-record situations. “When they use what source #1 says to get the information from source #2,” Laurion noted in her memo, “they ‘inadvertently’ reveal the identity of source #1 to source #2.” The bottom line, she said, was that the DA’s name might not show up in print or on TV, but it almost certainly would show up on the notepad of some source #2. Her memo continued:

The warning was tactful but plain. Laurion also sent Hunter and his staff the published definitions of
on the record
,
off the record
,
not for attribution
,
background
, and
deep background
.

The same day Hunter met with Bardach, June 2, Frank Coffman, a local writer and new friend of Jeff Shapiro’s, dropped by the DA’s office to leave a note for Lou Smit. Coffman was surprised when Smit came out to the reception area and suggested they have a chat. Over coffee at the Canyon Café in the Justice Center, Coffman told Smit he’d heard a rumor that the acronym SBTC, which had been mentioned in the ransom note, might stand for “saved by the cross.”

The detective said he had to admit that there were “lots of wild things in this case.” He asked if Coffman knew what movies had been playing in Boulder right before JonBenét was murdered.

Ransom was one, Coffman said.

“Well, what do you think that means?” Smit asked.

“Could JonBenét’s death have been premeditated?”

“You’re the one who used the word premeditated,” Smit answered—as if confirming that he too thought the murder had been planned.

“This guy’s going to be caught,” Smit added.

That was odd, Coffman thought. The police didn’t have to catch John or Patsy Ramsey—all they had to do was arrest or indict them. Coffman surmised that Smit was exploring an intruder theory.

“I’ve studied the whole thing, I’ve read everything,” Smit said in a matter-of-fact—and somewhat superior—way. “Other people have a piece of the picture. I have all the information right up here,” he said, pointing to his head.

Some weeks later, Coffman met Steve Thomas for the first time at police headquarters. “Do you think the crime was premeditated?” he asked the detective.

Thomas assumed that Coffman was referring to an intruder theory.

“That’s not the way we think. That sounds like Lou Smit,” he replied. “They’re going by a different theory over there.”

Smit and Steve Ainsworth were still investigating the possible use of a stun gun. By now they had learned that Air Tasers were sold locally by Boulder Security, and that another stun gun, called the Muscle Man, had the same characteristics as the Air Taser.

When they had gathered sufficient information, Ainsworth, Pete Hofstrom, Trip DeMuth, and Detective Sgt. Wickman met with the coroner, John Meyer. After reviewing the photos and this new information, Meyer concluded that the injuries on JonBenét’s face and back were, in fact, consistent with those produced by a stun gun.

Soon after, Ainsworth learned of a 1988 Larimer County murder in which a stun gun had been used on a thirteen-month-old girl, Michaela Hughes, who had been sexually assaulted and killed. Ainsworth met with Dr. Robert Deters, the pathologist on the case, and showed him the autopsy photos of JonBenét. Deters agreed that the marks were consistent with a stun-gun injury, but he didn’t think the body had to be exhumed. Nothing more would be learned by examining the skin tissue. Ainsworth asked Deters if a child of six would be immobilized by a stun-gun’s electrical shock. Not only would the child be paralyzed, the coroner said, but she would have been unable to scream. That raised the question of whether JonBenét had screamed before the stun gun was used on her—if one was used.

In her June 3 column, Cindy Adams of the
New York Post
wrote that Commander Eller had applied for the job of police chief in Cocoa Beach, Florida. The next day, Charlie
Brennan of the
Rocky Mountain News
obtained a copy of Eller’s résumé from Florida. Brennan told Bill Wise that he had Eller’s curriculum vita, and Wise asked for a copy. Since Hunter’s staff could also obtain the document, Brennan saw no reason not to fax him a copy.

A few days later, Hunter spoke to Brennan. “Charlie, you might want to do a little digging into the time Eller spent with the community policing consortium,” Hunter said. Brennan could tell that the DA was choosing his words carefully. “Apparently things didn’t go so well for him there,” Hunter told the reporter. “There might have been a charge of sexual harassment, or something to that effect.”

On page four of Eller’s résumé, it said that he had been a “loaned executive” from January to August 1995, serving as director of the Colorado Consortium of Community Policing.

Brennan decided to look into the matter. The media were well aware of the tensions between the DA’s office and the police, and Brennan knew that this story would serve Hunter’s purpose of discrediting Eller. Brennan had no interest in helping Hunter, but a charge of harassment against Eller would be legitimate news.

Brennan soon learned that indeed Eller had been loaned out to the community policing consortium for a year and that he had returned to the Boulder PD earlier than expected. Those Brennan spoke to praised Eller for the most part. A few confided that there may have been “personality conflicts” resulting in Eller’s early departure from the consortium. Brennan could find no evidence of the charge and dropped the story. John Eller didn’t get the job in Cocoa Beach.

If Hunter wasn’t happy with Eller, Pete Hofstrom wasn’t any happier with Tom Wickman, who was running the investigation for the commander. Hofstrom suspected that the police were not sharing all their information with the
DA’s office. He felt that Wickman hadn’t been candid with him about whether a particular DNA report had been received. Hunter confronted Koby about it, and the chief admitted that his detectives were withholding information. Koby seemed to be more upset that Wickman had not been forthcoming than that Hofstrom had been deceived.

Hofstrom was also angry that the police still hadn’t given him a printout of all the physical evidence. Without such a list, Smit and Ainsworth couldn’t complete the organization of the files they had been hired to do. The two detectives were reduced to rechecking the police reports and pursuing a few independent leads. Their time and skill were being wasted.

After the
Rocky Mountain News
published “Boulder Prosecutor Out of Loop,” Hunter called Jeff Shapiro from his car phone. The headline, not the facts of the story, seemed to have embarrassed the DA.

“God, I hate that fucker,” Hunter said. He meant John Eller, who was probably responsible for holding back the DNA results.

“Should we look into him?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Hunter answered. “I think it’s his turn”—meaning that Eller should get ripped in the tabloids.

“I can get you Eller’s résumé,” Hunter told me, “and I can get you the letter Larry Mason’s attorney just wrote to the Boulder PD. He’s suing Eller.”

Hunter suggested we meet in his office. Later in the day, he started the conversation by discussing different ways I could dig up dirt on Eller. He handed me Eller’s résumé from his recent job application in Florida and pointed to something on the fourth page.

“I think if you look far enough, you may find a sexual harassment charge somewhere here.”

“Really,” I said.

“When do you think this could come out?” Hunter asked. “I hate that fucker!”

We both started to laugh.

In my mind, Eller was the bad guy. He’s the asshole. Then it hit me. I was reacting to Hunter’s perception of Eller. Hunter said the police detectives were the good guys and Eller was the problem.

I asked him about Eller’s claims that Larry Mason had leaked information to the media.

“It was someone in Bryan Morgan’s office who really leaked that, not Larry Mason,” Hunter said.

“What was leaked?” I asked.

Alex picked up the phone and said he was calling Bryan Morgan to get the facts.

“Did you ever dig that up for me?” Hunter asked Morgan a moment later.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The DA was calling Ramsey’s criminal defense lawyer right in front of me to get information I had asked for.

I mean, would Chris Darden call Johnnie Cochran and say, “Did you check on that date I need for this Enquirer guy?”

It was bizarre.

—Jeff Shapiro

During the second week in June, Jeff Shapiro visited the Boulder public library to research garrotes. He learned that the Spanish conquistadors who colonized the Philippines had executed native revolutionaries by strangling them with a garrote in the same manner the media believed JonBenét had been murdered. Shapiro discovered that the garrote became the symbol of the Philippine revolution of 1872 and that every Filipino schoolchild learned that the revolutionaries had been garroted to death in public. José Rizal, who inspired the revolution, was himself sentenced to death on December 26, the same day of the year that JonBenét Ramsey died.