After a couple of attempts, he apparently was successful at grabbing and smashing the camera of one of the photographers covering the scene. The man was subsequently charged with Harassment and Disorderly Conduct. It is unknown at this writing if he was ever chosen to serve as a juror on the case for which he had received a jury summons.
In additional “news,” the Denver Post reported that the newly impaneled grand jury was expected to review “fiber evidence” that linked clothing of Patsy Ramsey to the duct tape found on her daughter’s body. “The fiber was discovered in recent months, long after the killing, sources said.” 26
The article proceeded to cover the legal complications involved in the late discovery of the evidence, and chastised the police for their inability to have uncovered the fiber earlier in the investigation.
An Atlanta TV station was also cited as reporting that Boulder authorities had been considering the exhumation of JonBenét’s body for further forensic testing. Boulder city officials denied the report, indicating that police “knew of no court order, or court order in progress” that would direct the exhumation of JonBenét’s body.
The article pointed out, however, that Alex Hunter had stated in January 1998, that he would consider exhuming JonBenet’s body “if that is what is necessary in the search for the truth.” 27
The details surrounding this report were not fully disclosed, but there had been some discussion amongst investigators and prosecutors at the time as to whether the body should be exhumed to conduct microscopic examination of the skin cells at the site of the suspected stun gun injuries. It was eventually determined that the forensic examination of these injuries would not have been probative to the inquiry.
The grand jury met twice a week in the early stages of their investigation. At times, witnesses would enter and exit through the front doors of the Justice Center in plain view of anyone present.
On other occasions, witnesses were driven to the building in the rear of unmarked vehicles with tinted windows. Their entry and exit to the proceedings took place through the underground parking garage of the building, and the back hallways of the secured interior of the Criminal Justice Center complex.
It was a game of cat and mouse for the journalists attempting to cover the progress of the case. They were frequently attempting to determine the identity of the person(s) who had appeared before the grand jury that day, and what relevant facts they had to offer in the inquiry into the murder of an innocent 6-year-old child.
Speculation and rumor often led the headlines of the day.
It only took 15 minutes for the media to arrive at 755 15th street on the morning of October 30, 1998, after grand jurors had been delivered to the Ramsey home to inspect the scene of the crime. Prosecutors lingered in the yard, as reporters and photographers observed from an approved distance of 100 feet, the finders of fact meander through the curtilage and premises of JonBenet’s last abode.
Nearly two hours and twenty minutes (2:20 hours) had elapsed as the men and women of the Boulder County Grand Jury explored the scene where a brutal murder had taken place 22 months previous. Concluding their individual inspection of the home, the jurors silently boarded the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department transport vans, and departed the scene with a different perspective.
The media reported on two different aspects of this visit to the crime scene. The Rocky Mountain News quoted the views of two separate “legal experts” on the matter.28 One expert thought the visit to the crime scene “very unusual,” and went on to proclaim that if the jury had ‘enough to indict, you don’t need to tour the house.’
A contrasting opinion was offered by a local University of Colorado Law School instructor, who opined that there was “nothing startling about the visit.”
“This gives them an idea how isolated the various rooms are from each other, that it would be easy for noises to happen in the vicinity of JonBenet’s room that the parents wouldn’t necessarily hear. And it’s good for them to get a feel for that.” 29
On December 28, 1998, Boulder’s Daily Camera reported that the grand jury would be taking a month-long break until January. Ramsey attorney Hal Haddon expressed disappointment at the pace of the investigation. “We were hopeful it would move faster…but, I have no idea why they have recessed. So, I’m not critical of it.” 30
Haddon went on to state that no member of the Ramsey family had received a subpoena to testify before the grand jury.
It wouldn’t become public information until more than a year later, but in February 1999, Alex Hunter obtained a court order seeking to prohibit Lou Smit’s request to testify before the grand jury about his intruder theory. With the assistance of former El Paso County District Attorney Bob Russel, and former Public Defender Greg Walta, Smit overturned the court order that prevented him from voicing his opinion on the matter.
The Rocky Mountain News reported on the matter: “Smit’s attorney accused Hunter of not wanting to give the grand jury all of the facts in the case, according to court documents. Authorities have named only JonBenet’s parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, as suspects in the case.”
“The prosecution is either intentionally or unintentionally emphasizing and focusing upon evidence which points to involvement of the Ramsey family and is not presenting clear evidence of involvement of an intruder in the murder of JonBenet Ramsey,” attorney Greg Walta argued in court documents.” 31
A source close to the investigation explained Hunter’s reasoning for seeking the prohibition of his former investigator’s testimony: he was concerned that Smit would only offer his theories about the case, and no factual evidence to the grand jury.32
Smit eventually presented his intruder theory to the grand jury in March 1999. He later stated that he quit the DA’s office in part, because “he believed Boulder Police and prosecutors had developed tunnel vision and were focusing only on the Ramsey family and not on other suspects.” 33
The Boulder Grand Jury was reported to have ended their spring session of 1999 not long after hearing the testimony of Burke Ramsey, JonBenét’s brother, who was 9 years old at the time of the murder. Jurors took a summer hiatus of nearly four months after their May 25th meeting.
Late in September 1999, Rocky Mountain News staff writer Charlie Brennan reported that the 18-month term of the grand jury was due to expire on October 20th, and that it was unclear who would be next testifying before the panel.34
Brennan reported that former FBI profiler John Douglas had previously stated that he believed the crime had been committed by someone outside the family, possibly by someone with a “business-related grudge against John Ramsey.”
Brennan noted, however, that interviews with executives of Ramsey’s former employer, Access Graphics, revealed that no one from the company had been called to testify before the grand jury. Denver media legal analyst Scott Robinson thought that information relevant, and he believed that the investigation was focused “elsewhere in the search of JonBenét’s killer.” 35
Some of the witnesses who were reported to have testified before the grand jury up to that point in time were listed as follows:
Mike Archuleta, Ramsey pilot
Lind Arndt, BPD detective
Dr. Francesco Beuf , JonBenet’s pediatrician
Debbie Chaves, CBI forensics expert
John Douglas, retired FBI profiler
Michael Everett, BPD CSI
John and Barbara Fernie, friends of Ramsey family
Rick French, BPD officer first on scene
Ron Gosage, BPD detective
Pam Griffin, Ramsey family friend and beauty pageant seamstress
Jan Harmer, BPD detective
George Herrera, CBI fingerprint expert
Linda Hoffmann-Pugh, Ramsey housekeeper and accused suspect
Reverend Rol Hoverstock, Ramsey pastor
Larry Mason, BPD detective sergeant
Dr. John Meyer, Boulder County Coroner
Fred Patterson, BPD detective
<
br /> Carol Piirto, JonBenet’s 3rd grade teacher
Merv Pugh, husband of Ramsey housekeeper Linda Hoffmann-Pugh
Burke Ramsey, older brother of JonBenet
Lou Smit, Boulder DA investigator
Tom Trujillo, BPD detective
Chet Ubowski, CBI handwriting analyst
Barry Weiss, BPD CSI
Fleet and Priscilla White, Ramsey family friends
Tom Wickman, BPD detective sergeant
On October 1, 1999, the Denver Post reported that the grand jury was preparing to hear from people considered to be Ramsey supporters.36 Private investigator Ellis Armistead, working for Ramsey attorneys from nearly the outset of the case, had been observed walking into a grand jury “prep room” and walking from the ‘direction of the Boulder District Attorney’s Office’ about an hour later.’
Close family friend and supporter, Susan Stine, was said to have testified the week prior. The Ramseys had delivered a Christmas present to the Stine residence after leaving the White party on Christmas night. Susan was described as a staunch defender of Patsy Ramsey, and she and her husband had moved to Georgia with the Ramseys when they left Boulder.
The paper also reported that John Ramsey’s older children, John Andrew and Melinda, were expected to testify on Thursday of that week. Though not in the home on the night of the murder, they could possibly answer questions about other relationships with the family.
Legal analysts theorized that the appearance of witnesses friendly to the Ramseys suggested that investigators were looking for suspects outside the family. Friends might be able to point to things that aroused their suspicion and provide detectives with new leads.
Though they were prepared to testify in the matter, neither Patsy nor John Ramsey was reported to have appeared before the grand jury during their investigation.
On October 13, 1999, thirteen months after being convened, Alex Hunter held a press conference and stated that the grand jury had concluded its inquiry into the murder of JonBenét Ramsey, and that “no charges have been filed.” He went on to indicate that prosecutors “do not have sufficient evidence to warrant the filing of charges against anyone who has been investigated at the present time.”
The panel of grand jurors investigating the murder had been dismissed and no report had been issued by their body. Hunter reportedly vowed that the proceedings would remain secret forever and jurors were prohibited from speaking about the details of their participation in the investigation.
Mark Beckner, now the police chief of Boulder, issued a statement two days later. He thanked the grand jurors for their service to the community, and went on to praise the special prosecutors who had led the grand jury through its work.
Commenting on speculation that charges had not been filed because of reluctance on the part of the District Attorney’s Office, Beckner noted that three experienced prosecutors had worked on the grand jury investigation. In his opinion, none of them would hesitate to take the case to trial once the evidence was sufficient to do so.
Beckner indicated that despite the lack of an indictment being issued, progress had been made during the grand jury inquiry and that the murder investigation remained an open and on-going case.
Michael Kane, the special prosecutor who had led the grand jury inquiry, returned to his home in Pennsylvania a tired and frustrated man. In an interview conducted nearly two years later, Kane told Rocky Mountain News staff writer Charlie Brennan that he still thought about the murder case every day.
“And at least once a week, when I’m out running or something, this case will be running through my head, and I’ll think, ‘What if we did this now?’ Or, ‘What if that happened?’” 37
Kane had the opportunity to interview the Ramseys on two occasions: the first when he joined Hunter’s team in June 1998 and he assisted Lou Smit with the family interviews arranged by the DA’s office. The second occasion took place in August 2000, when he traveled to Atlanta with Mark Beckner to participate in interviews taking place in the offices of Ramsey attorney, Lin Wood.
Kane indicated that he had spent many hours questioning the Ramseys and believed they had ‘yet to give him the straight story.’ 38
It was his impression that he felt like he was talking to a “press secretary who was giving responses with a spin.” “I felt like their answers were very careful and, in some cases, scripted. And that caused me a lot of concern.”
The August 2000 interviews had been arranged so that police could explain the evidence that placed the Ramseys under suspicion, and explore whether the family had any explanations for some of the evidence.39
Kane and Wood went head-to-head on one or more occasions during the interviews. Kane took exception to Wood’s interjections during some questions and accused him of obstructing his questioning. Wood responded by calling Kane’s line of questioning as irrelevant, and referred to one particular question about Burke’s school security as “the disgusting tactic of an overzealous prosecutor.” 40
Kane had encouraged Wood to accompany him to a judge’s chambers, and seek public disclosure of the grand jury records. Wood responded affirmatively to the suggestion, but there was never any follow-up on the proposal.
The August interviews were characterized by both police and Wood as non-productive, and marked the end of Kane’s official involvement in the murder investigation.
He told Brennan in his 2001 interview that he thought a major problem with the case was that prosecutors had failed to initiate a grand jury inquiry early in the investigation. He felt that the grand jury should have been impaneled promptly, not necessarily with the intent to seek a quick indictment, but to use its broad-ranging subpoena powers. Reluctant witnesses could have been compelled to testify, and records of a personal and business nature could have been obtained in a more timely fashion.
Kane indicated that, despite the numerous books and media stories that had covered the investigation, the public was not fully aware of the real facts of the case. There remains ‘dozens of secrets and what the public thinks is fact is simply not the fact.’ 41
After a year and a half spent focusing on nothing but the murder case, Kane indicated that he was burned out from the cat-and-mouse aspects of the case. He found it rewarding, but was glad to have been able to take a break from the frustrations of the investigation.
Chapter Seventeen
To Tell the Truth
The polygraph has been a tool used by law enforcement investigators for decades, and it is an instrument that relies upon the physiological responses of an individual who undergoes questioning while attached to the machine. It is intended to tell an examiner whether or not someone is being truthful during the testing process.
The polygraph machine tests three aspects of the human physiology:
Respiration
Changes in skin resistance / skin conductance
Relative blood volume and pulse rate
The lie is purportedly detected by physiological changes taking place in the body when a person is not being truthful. The premise being, that when a person is deceptive, there are numerous physiological changes that occur, such as an increase or decrease in blood volume being pumped through the body; an increase or decrease in the heart rate; and changes in respiration and perspiration.
When a person is being truthful, the body functions within its normal patterns with no significant changes. The polygraph examiner helps determine this baseline of physiological behavior by asking questions for which a truthful response is expected: i.e. How old are you? Do you live at 123 Oak Street, Anywhere, USA? What is your name?
Changes in physiological conditions are graphed throughout the questioning, and alteration or significant and consistent changes in a person’s responses may be indicative of deception.
It is important to note that many studies have taken place over the years to help determine the reliability and veracity of polygraph testing. There are many different factors that come into play when deciding w
hether the results of a polygraph test can be relied upon to determine the truth of the matter.
Despite the studies that have been completed to date, there continues to be a debate about the accuracy of polygraph exams. While it is has been stated that the polygraph technique is highly accurate, it must be recognized that it is not infallible, and errors can and do occur when an examiner is interpreting the data collected during a test.
Like the situation in which an inexperienced physician can misdiagnose an x-ray, so too can a polygraph examiner misread a chart if there is insufficient experience coming into play. Most errors point to inexperienced polygraph examiners.
And despite the evidence that points to the credibility of polygraph testing, there are many people who claim to be able to teach methods and techniques that will help someone successfully beat the machine. The Internet is full of websites that claim to offer this service.
The American Polygraph Association notes that the admissibility of polygraph test results vary from state to state and from one federal circuit court to another. A judge is usually the final arbiter when it comes to admitting polygraph test results in a court of law. Most frequently, both sides must stipulate in advance of any test, that polygraph results will be permitted to be entered into the record of the case being heard before the court.
In Colorado, it is extremely rare to see polygraph results considered during the prosecution of a criminal case. The polygraph is more typically used as an investigative tool, and test results are frequently utilized during the interview that immediately follows an examination. The subject of the interview may be questioned more thoroughly about indications of deception on certain questions that were asked during the testing process.
The success of rooting out the deception that has been uncovered during the polygraph examination is often determined by the experience, and skill of the trained police interrogator. An admission of guilt must accompany a deceptive polygraph exam, for it is not possible to waive the test results of a lying suspect in front of a prosecutor and expect that criminal charges will be filed. It just isn’t going to happen in today’s environment.
Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? Page 16