Perfect Murder, Perfect Town (58 page)

The police hadn’t yet discussed with the Ramseys their other suspects, such as Chris Wolf and Kevin Raburn. They wanted to ask about some of the books and videotapes they’d found in the house, and about the Bible, which was found open to Psalm 118.

Then there was the issue of where Burke’s red pocket knife had been kept prior to the murder; it was found a few yards from JonBenét’s body. High on their list of questions was the family’s movements early that morning, at the time of the 911 call, and the clothes the Ramseys wore that morning and the time and order in which they were put on, as well as when and where Patsy had gotten dressed and put on her makeup that morning.

The long list of questions demanded additional interviews with John, Patsy, and Burke Ramsey, but as of the end of November, the attorneys had not responded to the police department’s request. Getting the Ramseys and their attorneys to agree to another round of questioning would be Mark Beckner’s first real test since he had replaced Eller.

RAMSEY CASE COSTS CLIMB IN BOULDER

On November 12, Sheriff Epp met with Koby. The week before, the chief had told the mayor, acting city manager Dave Rhodes, and his command staff that he would be leaving his post in 1998 and would soon make it public. Koby told Epp that he felt good about himself, because the week before, voters had agreed to a tax increase that would permit the implementation of his plan for more police officers and satellite substations. He was happy to be retiring, he told Epp.

But Epp wasn’t happy. “I’m angry because of the way you guys have handled the Ramsey case,” he told Koby. “It makes us all look bad.” The sheriff complained that Koby had placed his loyalty to Eller above solving the case. Koby, he said, was still, at this late stage, blind to what had gone on in his department.

Epp felt that Koby had simply distanced himself from the problems of the investigation. Each time Epp had suggested that Eller be removed from the case, Koby had answered, “We’ve got them where we want them,” referring to the Ramseys. The police simply didn’t care that the Ramseys were being prejudged by the public and that they had lost their presumption of innocence. “Just let them sweat” was their attitude. Epp knew it was hard for law enforcement officers to see both sides of an issue and still do their job. But Epp had learned to walk a tightrope. You have to be honest and choose your words carefully. You may say
that the evidence points in a particular direction, but you should explain that it is not conclusive. Epp had never once heard words to that effect from the chief of police.

KOBY ANNOUNCES HIS INTENTION TO RESIGN

The same day that Tom Koby made it official, John Eller put a
FOR SALE
sign on his front lawn and told the detectives that his resignation would be effective February 28, 1998. In Eller’s living room hung an oil painting of the famed mission in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico, which he had painted in happier times. Now there was such an emptiness in his life
that he couldn’t even imagine picking up a paintbrush. He had resolved to remain silent about the Ramsey case until it reached some conclusion, but he also feared that it would never reach a courtroom. If it didn’t, he said, he would write a book. Then he remembered the book
Guilty
, by Judge Harold J. Rothwax, of New York City, which Steve Thomas had given him. Rothwax believed that while the rights of defendants are important, they should not be protected at the expense of justice for the victims. He wrote, “Our system is a carefully crafted maze, constructed of impenetrable barriers to the truth. Even when the evidence against the accused is as clear as a ringing bell, lawyers will grasp at anything to fog the issues and mask the terrible facts.”

Eller remembered that Thomas had told him about his first confrontation with Pete Hofstrom, while the police substation on University Hill was being set up in the early 1990s. Thomas was part of a team chosen to help clean up the Hill under Koby’s community policing policy. Young people were out of control, throwing Molotov cocktails and cinder blocks at the police. Some nights the police would make fifty arrests, but only a few kids would go to jail. The rest would be processed and released with a summons. One night a girl, maybe five feet tall and eighty pounds, was arrested. Thomas was six-foot-one and 215 pounds, but she punched him with a closed fist and drew blood. Only after Thomas handcuffed the girl and took her to jail did he realize that his nose was broken.

Two weeks later, Thomas, who had charged the girl with a Class II felony, received a letter from her mother asking that he not “ruin” her daughter’s life. She didn’t seem to understand that her daughter had punched him deliberately. He ignored the letter.

Shortly afterward, Pete Hofstrom walked into the Hill annex to see Thomas. “I noticed you charged this girl with a felony,” he said.

“She broke my nose.”

“I want to drop this to a misdemeanor.”

“I’m not looking to ruin anybody’s life, but she tagged me,” Thomas said. “There has to be some consequence for her actions. I don’t agree to a misdemeanor plea bargain.”

“Look, I worked San Quentin,” Hofstrom said. “I know what a felon is. And goddamnit, I respect those guys on death row. I had to feed some of them their last meals. You don’t know what a goddamn felon is.”

“Maybe not, but from where I come from, you don’t punch a cop,” Thomas replied. “She should consider herself lucky she didn’t get her ass kicked.” Hofstrom left without saying another word.

A month later, the DA’s office pled the charges to a nonviolent misdemeanor. Thomas saw it as part of the culture of Boulder. Eller agreed. But he was damned if he would go along with it.

Commander Mark Beckner told Alex Hunter that he had scheduled a press conference for December 5. A lot of thought had gone into how Beckner would deal with the Ramseys and the media, much of it from forensic psychiatrist Steve Pitt, who had begun to work with the Boulder police in February. Pitt was an expert in behavioral profiling and he had advised the police on interview techniques to be used with the Ramseys.

In early November, Pitt was asked how the Boulder PD might use the media to its advantage when dealing with the Ramseys. A couple of weeks later, Pitt met with Tom Wickman, Alex Hunter and metro DA Dave Thomas, from Hunter’s task force.

Though there was a liability in Beckner’s holding a press conference when the police had nothing new to tell the public, Pitt emphasized that the goal of the press conference was to put pressure on the Ramseys to grant the
police a new round of interviews. Pitt said the upcoming holidays, which coincided with the first anniversary of JonBenét’s death, would be an excellent time for the police to update the media on the status of the investigation.

When he was told about the strategy, Koby balked. Pitt then requested a meeting with him and Mark Beckner. Over coffee at the Foundry coffee house, Pitt told them that a public request for the Ramseys to grant new interviews was essential: the Ramseys would not be inclined to refuse, because that would make them appear uncooperative. Pitt suggested that Beckner include the threat of a grand jury in his opening statement. And, the Ramseys were to be mentioned continually in every answer given to the media. A message was to be delivered to the couple: if you don’t cooperate, somebody is going to push for a grand jury.

Koby finally agreed, on the condition that Hunter’s office would not be involved in the press conference. Hunter accepted the condition but asked to be consulted on the wording of Beckner’s opening statement. Within a day of their agreement, the threat of a grand jury had been leaked to the press. The Ramseys would feel the pressure sooner than Steve Pitt had planned.

REPORTS OF RAMSEY GRAND JURY ‘PREMATURE’

In the early afternoon of December 1, Bryan Morgan called Alex Hunter and asked if he, Hal Haddon, and Patrick Burke could meet with the DA and Pete Hofstrom. In Hunter’s office on December 3, Haddon asked Hunter point-blank where the case stood. Would Mark Beckner announce the convening of a grand jury when he held his press conference on December 5?

Hunter told the lawyers that as far as he knew, the police were not ready to present the case to his office, so he didn’t see a grand jury as imminent. Haddon then asked whether there was a possibility of arranging another set of interviews with the Ramseys through some civil process. For example, they would consent to be interviewed under oath in a civil discovery deposition setting, with a court reporter present. Hunter said this would not be the same as twelve citizens sitting in judgment.

Next Patrick Burke spoke up. He said he didn’t like the false information being circulated in the press about Burke Ramsey. The media repeatedly said that the boy hadn’t been interviewed by the police. The lawyer reminded Hunter that Burke had been interviewed twice, once on December 26 by Detective Patterson and a second time on January 8 by child psychologist Dr. Suzanne Bernhard, yet the Boulder police kept giving the public the impression that no interviews of the boy had taken place. The lawyer wanted Hunter to “stand up and be courageous” and set the record straight.

Hunter reacted with irritation at the suggestion that the actions of the DA’s office were—or could be—dictated by the police or anybody else. Then he confronted the real issue facing them. He told the Ramseys’ attorneys what he was sure they knew—that there would soon be tremendous pressure from the police and the public to convene a grand jury. Hunter added that the Ramseys’ image would be further tarnished if they didn’t agree to nonconditional interviews with the police. They had to know that in such a complicated case, as the investigation proceeded and more information became known, specific questions were raised and these questions needed answers.

Patrick Burke argued that if their clients cooperated, it would give credence to the idea that they were involved in the death of their daughter. However, Haddon admitted that if the Ramseys didn’t consent to the new interviews, they would be damned again in the press. Of course they were used to that by now, but it was an unpleasant prospect nonetheless. The DA implied that the real holdup for the Ramseys’ attorneys was that Burke wasn’t old enough to be coached for an interview or an appearance in front of a grand jury.

With nothing resolved and the atmosphere tense, the Ramseys’ attorneys left. Hunter said that he felt Hal Haddon watched him as closely as anybody had ever looked at him in his life. It was as if Haddon was trying to assess by Hunter’s every movement and gesture whether Hunter was being candid with him.

That afternoon Bill Wise spoke to Bob Miller, one of the three pro bono attorneys advising the police detectives. They agreed that any future action or decision the police took in this case would have to be clearly thought out. For example, if they asked to convene a grand jury, they had to be clear about its true purpose. Would it be to preserve testimony under
oath, to get a reluctant witness to talk, to develop new evidence, or to seek an indictment?
*
Each one of those aims would require developing a different strategy. Nevertheless, there was an advantage to using a grand jury, said Miller. Under a new state law, if a grand jury failed to indict, it could, if it wanted, issue a report giving reasons for its decision. Hunter’s only fear, Wise said, was of a “runaway jury,” predisposed to indicting the Ramseys. He was pretty sure that his boss was prepared for any other eventuality, he said.

On December 5, Mark Beckner stepped in front of a single microphone at Boulder’s city council chambers. He was flanked by the eight police detectives who were now working the case. Seated before them were over a hundred members of the media. This was the first time that most of the press had seen Beckner—as well as the detectives. For the occasion, the police wore suits.

Beckner introduced his team—Detective Sgt. Tom Wickman, the case supervisor, Detectives Tom Trujillo, thirty-six, Steve Thomas, thirty-five, Jane Harmer, thirty-five, Ron Gosage, thirty-one, Kim Stewart, thirty-seven, Carey Weinheimer, thirty-three, and Michael Everett, thirty-three.

The commander began with some prepared remarks. Seventy-two separate tasks had been on his list when he assumed command, he said, and twenty-eight of those had been completed. Another dozen were in progress. The most important remaining task he added, was reinterviewing John, Patsy, and Burke Ramsey. “We have made a formal request for these interviews, and do expect this to be completed in the near future.

“When those and other jobs are finished,” he continued, “we will be in a position to make a decision as to the next step in this case.” Beckner went on to outline his options.

“One, we could seek an arrest warrant and prosecution. We could ask for a grand jury investigation. Or we could inactivate the case until such time as additional information becomes available.” He had nothing more to say.