Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet?

by A. James Kolar

  Ramsey referenced the bizarre past he would later hear about the McReynolds family and when he put it all together, he wondered if they somehow could have been involved in the murder of his daughter. He went on to state that “whoever had done this was quite clever and that they seemed to have been trying to be overly clever.”

  Ramsey thought that the crime had been “well thought out” and referenced Janet McReynold’s fictional play that she had written about a child’s murder. He thought perhaps that she had wanted to “try the real thing.”

  Ramsey alluded to McReynold’s presence at his holiday party as being a precursor to the alleged secret visit that Santa was going to make to JonBenét on one of the days bracketing Christmas day. JonBenét reportedly told a childhood friend that Santa was going to pay her a special visit in addition to Christmas morning.

  Two verses of Psalms had been circled in a bible located in his home, and he pointed to these as additional clues left by the intruder. He reported that neither he nor Patsy had ever marked a bible in their home and wondered why an intruder would leave a ransom note, except for the purpose of leaving “clever little clues.”

  Ramsey also indicted that he had read that Psalm 118 was located exactly in the center of the bible, and that this perhaps accounted for the $118,000.00 ransom figure.

  He concluded his assessment with the McReynolds involvement by opining that perhaps the real signature on the ransom note was “SBJC”, rather than “SBTC”. He suggested that it could be interpreted as an acronym for “Santa Bill and Janet Claus.”

  Former employees of Access Graphics became the next focus of Ramsey’s list of possible “suspect” leads and he mentioned two people that he himself had a hand in terminating from the company. He then named men who had been mentioned early in the inquiry, people who might have been indirectly angry with him as a CEO who had permitted their firing.

  Jeff Merrick, Jim Marino, and Mike Glenn had been introduced into the company by Ramsey, but eventually terminated. Each of the men apparently thought that Ramsey should have intervened in their personnel matters.

  Ramsey indicated that he found it difficult to believe that any of these men would have been involved in the murder of his daughter, but of all of the three, he was suspicious of the wife of Merrick. He thought that she could have been angry with him over her husband’s situation.

  The last suspect named in Ramsey’s letter was the woman with whom he had had an affair. He indicated that he had not seen or heard from her in 20 years and that it was difficult for him to imagine that she could have been involved.

  He provided the names of a couple people who might be able to determine her current whereabouts, and concluded by indicating that it might be possible that she had been “vengeful” about his meeting and subsequent marriage to Patsy.

  John Ramsey signed off this personal correspondence expressing the hope that Smit and his family were well, and that he would be able to spend time with them. Further, he expressed his and Patsy’s thanks that Smit had come into their lives at that time.

  Boulder investigators were growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of any real progress in their investigation. It seemed that certain members of the D.A.’s office were bent on crippling their efforts to pursue leads in the case. Routine search warrants for records had been denied, and evidence that had been unearthed by investigators that pointed to family involvement was deemed insignificant by prosecutors, the very people who were supposed to have been their allies in the pursuit of the truth of the matter.

  The media leaks continued, and the men and women of the Boulder Police Department were portrayed as inexperienced, incompetent, and biased in their singular opinion that the evidence collected in the case continued to lead them to believe that a family member had been involved in JonBenét’s murder.

  The leadership of the department remained silent on the public front, not able to compromise the details of an ongoing criminal investigation, but that did not assuage the demoralized investigators who worked tirelessly to solve the murder of a six-year old girl. The media would not hear of all of the other intruder leads that Boulder investigators would be pursuing in their search for answers.

  Boulder investigators had been asking for a grand jury investigation from the early onset of the case, as early as January 1997. There was a need to compel testimony from people who were refusing to cooperate, and to secure the information of witnesses while it was still fresh in their memories.

  It was not a novel idea. Many judicial districts brought murder cases before their sitting Grand Juries because of the broad reaching powers associated with their investigative authority. Witnesses, adverse or otherwise, could be compelled to testify, and subpoenas could be issued that directed the production of records deemed probative to the inquiry.

  For some unknown reason, the D.A.’s office balked at the idea. Apparently, Hunter’s office preferred to the let the gulf widen between his agency and the members of the police department who were statutorily charged with the investigation of the murder. Law enforcement agencies investigated crimes committed within their jurisdiction. District Attorney’s offices were responsible for prosecuting defendants who were ultimately charged under the legal threshold of “probable cause.”

  Hunter seemed content to let confusion reign, and the animosity between police investigators and his office continued to build. As noted in Steve Thomas’s letter of resignation, the level of frustration amongst BPD investigators was reaching epidemic proportions. The Ramseys had not been charged in any crime, and yet their cadre of attorneys were making demands exclusively reserved to the rights of a criminal defendant.

  The analysis of physical evidence that could have moved the case forward was put on hold, and investigators were constantly reminded that the politically influential team of Ramsey attorneys were a power unto themselves. From an outsider’s perspective, it seemed that the D.A.’s office was afraid to go head-to-head with the defense team that had been assembled in this case.

  Tom Wickman was a friend and former colleague of mine, and he had come to Telluride on many occasions over the years to work as a reserve officer for me during the summer music festivals. As a detective sergeant, he had assumed responsibility for overseeing the murder investigation after Larry Mason had been removed from the case, wrongly accused of leaking information to the media.

  Wickman was tightlipped about the inquiry, but he once shared with me that frustrations had run to the boiling point on one particular day. The men and women under his command had been running their tails into the ground, working untold hours, and in their minds their efforts had been fruitless.

  Taking in the disparaging look on the faces of his team, Wickman decided to close the doors of the unit for the afternoon. Submitting their leave requests, the team snuck out the back door of the department and reconvened at a movie theatre. They took in a matinee movie, the topic of which was an uplifting crime drama that depicted the good guys triumphing over evil, something that doesn’t always happen in the real world.

  I can’t tell you how impressed I was by Tom’s willingness to make a command decision and retreat from the front of the battle for a short period of time. Boulder Police had been continually berated and hounded by the press, and they risked being followed whenever they left the building. His decision served to lift up the spirits of his fellow investigators and gave them the hope of starting anew the next day.

  Having secured a sympathetic ear in the prosecutor’s office, John Ramsey took the next step to further distance the Boulder Police Department from the lead role they held in the investigation of the murder of his daughter. He crafted a personal handwritten letter to Alex Hunter on April 11, 1998, that purportedly bypassed his team of attorneys.

  It was one of the documents that I would eventually review during my participation in the case, and it had been forwarded to the Boulder Police Department on May 4, 1998.24

  Mark Beckner, then a commander with the depart
ment, had assembled the investigators assigned to the murder case and explained some of the exchanges that had apparently been taking place between the Ramsey team and District Attorney’s Office.

  A copy of Ramsey’s letter, unknown to the team prior to that time, was effectively entered into the record.

  The correspondence reads as follows:

  4/11/98

  Dear Mr. Hunter,

  I am writing this letter because it seems difficult at times to communicate through attorneys who are focused on protecting my rights as a citizen.

  I want to be very clear on our family’s position.

  1.) We have no trust or confidence in the Boulder Police. They tried, from the moment they walked in our home on December 26, 1996, to convince others that Patsy or I, or Burke killed JonBenét. I will hold them accountable forever for one thing – not accepting help from people who offered it in the beginning and who could have brought a wealth of experience to bear on this crime.

  2.) We (myself, Patsy, Burke, John Andrew, Melinda) will meet anytime, anywhere, for as long as you want, with investigators from your office. If the purpose of a grand jury is to be able to talk to us, that is not necessary. We want to find the killer of our daughter and sister and work with you 24 hours a day to find “it.”

  3.) If we are subpoenaed by a grand jury, we will testify regardless of any previous meeting with your investigators. I’m living my life for two purposes now: to find the killer of JonBenét and bring “it” to the maximum justice our society can impose. While there is a rage within me that says, give me a few minutes alone with this creature and there won’t be a need for a trial, I would then succumb to the behavior which the killer did. Secondly, my living children must not have to live under the legacy that our entertainment industry has given them based on false information and a frenzy created on our family’s misery to achieve substantial profit.

  It’s time to rise above all this pettiness and politics and get down to the most important mission – finding JonBenét’s killer. That’s all we care about. The police cannot do it. I hope it's not too late to investigate this crime properly at last.

  Finally, I am willing and able to put up a substantial reward, one million dollars, through the help of friends if this will help derive information. I know this would be used against us by the media dimwits. But I don’t care.

  Please, let’s all do what is right to get this worst of all killer in our midst.

  Sincerely,

  John Ramsey

  This letter was effectively signaling the end of the Boulder Police Department’s primary and statutory role in the murder investigation of JonBenét Ramsey.

  The following year, in May 1999, Hunter would publically announce that Burke Ramsey was not a suspect in his sister’s death. It was reported in the Denver media that he was prompted to make this announcement after supermarket tabloids had pointed the finger at Burke as being responsible for the murder of JonBenét.

  In this same time frame, it was announced that the Ramsey family had hired civil attorney L. Lin Wood, of Atlanta, Georgia, to represent their interests in pursuing legal action against the media outlets who were slandering the family.

  Wood eventually filed a number of lawsuits on the behalf of the family in the years that followed.

  “If I could speak to John and Patsy Ramsey I’d tell them to quit hiding behind their attorneys, quit hiding behind their PR firm, come back to Colorado; work with us to find the killers in this case, no matter where the trail may lead.”

  —Colorado Governor Bill Owens, quoted during a Barbara Walters interview aired on ABC News, March 17, 2000

  Chapter Sixteen

  Behind Closed Doors

  Lead investigators in the case had begun to contemplate the use of a grand jury as early as January, 1997, when members of the immediate family and many other potential witnesses began to lawyer up, as it is sometimes called in the street-language of police officers. They also began to experience this phenomenon with those who were refusing to speak on the official record due to the publicity the case was attracting. No witness with credible information wanted to be subjected to the experience of a news crew being stationed outside their home or business for days on end.

  After many debates and arguments over the issue, BPD investigators were belatedly granted their wish on March 12, 1998, when the City of Boulder issued the following press release:

  Boulder Police Chief Tom Koby and Commander Mark Beckner today requested and recommended that the Boulder District Attorney convene a grand jury investigation into the homicide of JonBenét Ramsey. While there is still some investigation left to be done, both Chief Koby and Commander Beckner believe the investigation has progressed to the point at which the authority of a grand jury is necessary in order to have a complete investigation. A grand jury can be utilized to obtain sworn testimony, to obtain other items of evidentiary value not otherwise available through routine investigative methods, and to review the case for purposes of seeking an indictment after the person or persons responsible for the death of JonBenét.

  Commander Beckner has worked closely with the District Attorney’s Office in recent weeks in preparation of the commendation for a grand jury. According to Beckner, “We only make this request / recommendation after 14 grueling months of investigation, much consideration and thought, and after consultation with attorneys familiar with, and experienced in the use, of grand juries. We believe the investigation has reached the point at which a grand jury will be very helpful in completing the investigation, thus, our recommendation to the District Attorney.”

  As the investigation progressed in recent weeks, the direction the investigation should take became very clear. As stated at the Dec. 5, 1997 news conference, the police were working one of three options:

  Seek an arrest warrant and prosecution

  Ask for a grand jury investigation, or

  Inactivate the case until such time that additional information becomes available

  Out of a task list that has grown to 90 tasks, 64 tasks have been completed or worked on as thoroughly as possible. “The longer we worked on the case, the clearer it became that inactivating the case would not be appropriate,” said Beckner.

  “The appropriate step at this time is to ask for a grand jury to assist us in gathering additional admissible evidence.”

  The next step will be for the police to assist the District Attorney’s Office in the review of the case files and evidence. Given the volume of information gathered to date, it is expected that it will take some time for the District Attorney’s Office to complete its review of the case files prior to any decision being made. “We have worked well with the DA’s Office in the last five months and I expect to work even closer with in the months to follow,” added Beckner.

  City of Boulder, Press Release #65

  As noted in a previous chapter, District Attorney Alex Hunter responded to this public request by saying that he needed the Boulder Police Department to present the details of their investigation to his staff before he was willing to convene a grand jury in the matter. This presentation took place over the course of two days in early June 1998.

  The Ramseys apparently decided it was time to get their story on the record as well, and agreed to participate in another round of interviews that the DA’s office arranged later that month. It would be the first formal law enforcement interview they had participated in since speaking to Boulder detectives in April 1997.

  On August 12, 1998, Hunter announced that he was now ready to present the JonBenét murder case to a Boulder County Grand Jury. Fleet and Priscilla White responded to this news by authoring a second letter to the public, dated August 17, 1998.25 It called for the appointment of a special prosecutor in the case. Their first letter had been published in January, 1998, and had urged then-Governor Roy Romer to appoint the Colorado Attorney General as a special prosecutor in the case, citing malfeasance on the part of Hunter’s office.

  Governor Ro
mer declined to intervene in either instance, but prior to the publication of the White’s August letter, Hunter’s office had engaged the services of a former grand jury specialist from the Denver District Attorney’s Office to serve as lead attorney in his grand jury inquiry. Michael Kane, working as the deputy director of taxation in the Pennsylvania State Department of Revenue after leaving the Denver DA’s office, had returned to Colorado in time to observe Boulder PD’s two day presentation in early January. He would also personally participate in the Ramsey interviews that took place over three consecutive days at the end of June 1998.

  Kane supplanted two of Hunter’s key prosecutors, Pete Hoffstrom and Trip DeMuth, when taking the lead role in the grand jury inquiry in the investigation. Veteran prosecutors from adjoining jurisdictions were selected to serve as advisory consul, and they included Mitch Morrissey of the Denver DA’s Office, and Bruce Levin of the Adams County DA’s Office.

  A series of questions were posed to 60 potential jurors in open courtroom proceedings that took place during the summer of 1998. By September 16th, a panel of 12 grand jurors and 4 alternates were seated, and they began to hear the first hours of testimony in the JonBenét murder investigation. Nearly eight hours of procedural briefings and introductory testimony consumed their first day on the case.

  The news media was encamped in the parking lots fronting the Boulder County Justice Center, and their cameras would come to life every time a potential witness entered or exited the gray stone building. Their vigil would continue for longer than anyone expected.

  Given the history of this case, it would not have been possible for the opening day of the grand jury murder inquiry to have passed without some type of controversy. In the first hour of its birth, a Boulder man summoned to the Justice Center as a potential juror in an unrelated case, reportedly walked past a retinue of Ramsey reporters and photographers with his middle finger raised in salute, muttering a slur of epithets.