Boulder investigators were fully conversant with this situation when they had their first opportunity to conduct follow-up interviews with John and Patsy Ramsey in April, 1997.
Treading lightly in his approach to the topic, Steve Thomas indicated that he was attempting to take possible suspects out of the bucket so that he could focus his efforts on those who declined to clear themselves of involvement in the crime. He didn’t specifically ask either of the parents during their interview if they would submit to polygraph testing, but wanted to know how the test results would turn out if they did take a test.
John Ramsey indicated that he had been told that he should not take a test because of the tremendous amount of guilt he was harboring for failing to protect his daughter. This feeling of guilt, and the strong emotions he was experiencing, might impact his test results. He went on to say that he had not killed JonBenét, and that if the polygraph was accurate, he would “pass it 100%.” Thomas pressed the issue, and asked Ramsey if he would, at some point, take a polygraph. Ramsey replied that he would be “insulted” if asked to take a polygraph, and though he was willing to follow any recommendations made by his attorneys, he objected to the way he thought police were trying to characterize him and his wife in the matter. He expressed the opinion that police were on a course of “tragic misdirection” by spending time investigating him and Patsy for possible involvement in the murder of their daughter. Patsy was asked a similar set of questions regarding a polygraph examination, and indicated that she was “telling the truth.” She stated that she didn’t know how polygraphs worked, but that if they “tell the truth,” then she would be “telling the truth.” When asked specifically if she would pass a test, Patsy replied by saying, “Yes, I would pass it. I’ll take ten of them, I don’t care, you know. Do whatever you want.” The topic of polygraphs remained dormant for the 40 months that followed the death of JonBenét, and it was not until after the grand jury had concluded their inquiry into the matter that Ramsey attorneys considered using the lie detector for their clients. When answering questions posed by the media during the release of their book, The Death of Innocence,42 in March 2000, the Ramseys indicated that they had never taken a polygraph in relation to the murder investigation of their daughter. At one point during the interviews, however, they stated that they were now willing to do so, provided that the polygraph examiners had no connection with the Boulder Police Department. Chief Beckner decided to take them up on the offer not long thereafter, and after consulting with the DA’s office and FBI, indicated in an April 11, 2000, press release that he was willing to accept their conditions. Beckner indicated that Ramsey attorneys had been notified of the acceptance of the offer and was awaiting a reply to schedule a date for the exam.
Negotiations appeared to have broken down in the interim, and the City of Boulder issued another press release on April 25, 2000.
After several discussions with Boulder Police, an attorney for John and Patsy Ramsey today informed police Chief Mark Beckner that the Ramseys will not take polygraph examinations.
On April 11, the Boulder Police Department accepted John and Patsy Ramsey’s public offer to take polygraph exams regarding the death of their daughter, JonBenét. The department agreed to the conditions as set forth by John Ramsey in a March 23 television interview as follows:
The exam be conducted by an examiner independent from the Boulder Police Department
The exam be conducted in Atlanta
The results of the exam be made public
Boulder Police arranged to have FBI specialists conduct the examination in Atlanta. After consulting with others in law enforcement, Boulder Police selected the FBI polygraphers specifically for their international reputation in criminal polygraphs and their independence from the Boulder Police Department. Other factors that weighed heavily in selecting the FBI were the specialist training received by FBI examiners, the quality control implemented in their examinations and supervisory oversight that is provided for every exam.
During subsequent discussions, Ramsey attorney Lin Wood told Boulder Police that the Ramseys were reluctant to take an exam administered by the FBI, as they believed involvement of the FBI and FBI laboratories in the JonBenét Ramsey murder investigation prevented them from being “independent” examiners.
As a compromise to the Ramsey’s concerns, the FBI agreed to assign an examiner who had no prior knowledge or involvement in the Ramsey case, and the Boulder Police Department agreed not to be involved in selecting the specific FBI examiners.
This did not satisfy Ramsey concerns with the FBI involvement, and the Boulder Police Department is not willing to further compromise the issue, so there will be no polygraph exams at this time.43
Beckner was quoted as saying that he was disappointed that the Ramseys had declined to take the polygraph examinations, after publically saying that they would.
Ramsey attorney Lin Wood was hesitant to accept Beckner’s offer when he learned that the FBI’s protocol for a polygraph examination typically involved pre and post-testing interviews. Subjecting his clients to another series of interviews was not part of his agenda, and he countered by offering to have the Ramseys tested by someone other than the FBI. He claimed that the Bureau had been assisting the Boulder Police Department throughout the entire course of their investigation and he didn’t consider them to be neutral parties in the matter.
Wood didn’t trust the federal authorities, based upon his prior experience with the FBI when defending accused Atlanta bomber, Richard Jewel. He thought the Boulder Police Department’s conditions for polygraph testing was unfair. Further, he was insisting that the Boulder Police take the parents off the suspect list if they were able to successfully pass their tests.
Mark Beckner balked at the idea. Investigators believed it was important to carefully craft the types of questions that would be posed to each of the parents during an examination, and there were too many variables to consider if someone unfamiliar with the details of the investigation were to run the test.
Besides, there were just too many things that had been uncovered in the investigation to remove the parents from the umbrella of suspicion. Their passing of a polygraph test was not likely to convince investigators of their innocence.
The ball was now in Wood’s court. His clients had volunteered to take a polygraph examination and had offered to make the details public. Some in the media quietly debated whether the Ramseys had been experimenting with polygraphs before the topic was ever raised during the press conference that announced the release of their book.
Wood declined Beckner’s offer to participate in an FBI test, but was now beginning to feel the heat that was building with the media. He had to do something, and outside the scope of public scrutiny, proceeded to hire a private examiner from New Jersey to carry out the testing.
Wood subsequently held a press conference about a month later on May 24, 2000,44 pointing out that his clients had never actually been asked by police investigators to take a polygraph during the interviews being conducted in the death of their daughter. Wood quoted portions of the April 30, 1997 interview transcripts of the Ramseys, during which time they had only been asked how they might do on a test if taken. (Relevant portions of those questions are referenced above.)
Wood seemed to be trying to make the point that police had never asked the Ramseys to submit to polygraph testing, and that it had been their idea to clear themselves of involvement of the crime by taking a lie-detector exam.
Wood pointed out that the topic of polygraphs had not been raised at all during the family’s second set of interviews, arranged by the D.A.’s office in June 1998.
Wood reported that the polygraph examiner who conducted the first tests on John and Patsy, Jerry Toriello, determined the results to be “inconclusive.” Toriello reportedly didn’t think he should conduct follow-up tests, and pointed Wood to Edward Gelb, a man recognized nationally as an expert in the field of polygraphs.
Toriello’s
absence at the press conference was explained by Wood to be due to a recent medical procedure, and he proceeded to introduce Gelb to the Press Corp gathered for the conference. He let Gelb speak to his area of expertise and outline the testing procedures that he had used in his examination of the Ramseys.
Gelb cut to the chase and listed the questions that had been individually posed to John and Patsy Ramsey.
Conclusion: Based on the numerical scoring of the examination in this series, John Ramsey was telling the truth when he denied inflicting the injuries that caused the death of his daughter, JonBenét.
Series 2, John Ramsey,
Question 1. Do you know for sure who killed JonBenét?
Answer: No.
Regarding JonBenét, do you know for sure who killed her?
Answer: No
Are you concealing the identity of the person who killed JonBenét?
Answer: No.
Conclusion: Based on the numerical scoring of the examination in this series, John Ramsey was telling the truth when he denied knowing who killed JonBenét.
Patsy Ramsey’s examinations:
The first polygraph examination was unusable due to distortions. Appropriate cautions were suggested to eliminate the artifacts so that conclusive results could be obtained. Three series of single-issue examinations were conducted with Patsy Ramsey. The first examination was conducted to determine if Patsy Ramsey had direct involvement in the murder. In other words, whether Patsy inflicted the injuries that caused the death of JonBenét. The second examination was conducted to determine whether Patsy knew who killed JonBenét. The third examination was conducted to determine if Patsy wrote the ransom note that was found at the scene.
The questions asked during the three single-issue examinations follow with Patsy Ramsey’s answer:
Series one, Patsy Ramsey:
Did you inflict any of the injuries that caused the death of JonBenét?
Answer: No.
Regarding JonBenét, did you inflict any of the injuries that caused her death?
Answer: No.
Were those injuries that resulted in JonBenét’s death inflicted by you?
Answer: No.
Conclusion: Based on the numerical scoring of the examinations in this series Patsy Ramsey was telling the truth when she denied inflicting the injuries that caused the death of her daughter, JonBenét.
Series two, Patsy Ramsey.
Do you know who inflicted the injuries that caused the death of JonBenét?
Answer: No.
Regarding JonBenét, do you know for sure who killed JonBenét?
Answer: No
Are you concealing the identity of the person who killed JonBenét?
Answer: No.
Conclusion: Based on the numerical scoring of the examinations in this series, Patsy Ramsey was telling the truth when she denied knowing who killed JonBenét.
Series three, Patsy Ramsey:
Did you write the ransom note that was found in your house?
Answer: No.
Question 2: Regarding the ransom note, did you write it?
Answer: No.
Following the initial disclosure of these test results, Wood introduced Cleve Baxter, another veteran polygraph examiner, who served as the quality control monitor to Gelb’s testing procedures. Baxter went on to state:
Now the quality control of polygraph examinations, a lot is dependent upon the adequacy of your case information, the strength of the issue concerned, and distinctness of the issue concerned, in order to try to eliminate inconclusive polygraph examination results.
Baxter spoke a little about comparison questions compared to relevant questions and went on to advise that he felt the case information for this testing process was adequate. There was some brief discussion about two different types of polygraph testing: one involving “zone comparison” testing, which Gelb had developed during his career, and one that was referred to as “guilty knowledge” testing. This second type of examination reportedly involved “evidence connecting questions,” that were asked about a case. Wood indicated that this type of polygraph was “extremely difficult to prove truthful.”
Wood advised that portions of the testing processes had been video and audio-taped, and that he had offered to have the FBI observe the examinations. The offer had been declined by the Boulder Police Department.
Copies of the test results had been faxed to the Boulder D.A.’s office, as well as to Chief Beckner, and Wood indicated that he was waiving the attorney privilege and would allow investigators to question Gelb about his testing procedures. In total, Wood indicated that Gelb had administered five separate polygraph tests to John and Patsy Ramsey and declared that they had passed them all.
Within a few hours of the Ramsey press conference, Chief Beckner told the media that the investigation into JonBenét’s murder would proceed unaffected. The fact that the parents had passed an examination conducted by a private professional in the field of polygraph tests held little sway in the minds of the law enforcement officials who were directing the inquiry into the murder of JonBenét Ramsey. Neither positive, nor negative test results would ever make their way into a criminal court of law.
In spite of this response, the Ramseys and their attorney were pleased that they could point to positive test results that seemed to suggest that they had no personal involvement in the death of their daughter.
On June 3, 2000, the Ramseys posted a psychic’s composite sketch of a possible suspect in the murder of JonBenét on the website of the foundation they established in 1997. The sketch was based on the work of psychic Dorothy Allison, who had passed away in 1999. Allison was reported to have developed her vision of the perpetrator during a 1998 appearance on a network television program.
The website reportedly asked: Have you seen this man? This man may have been in the Boulder area in December 1996…We firmly believe that this most horrible of killers will be caught based on information provided by people who care about right and wrong…Please help, so another innocent child will not be a victim and another family will not suffer unbearable grief.
Chapter Eighteen
A New Direction
Topic: December 17, 2001 City of Boulder Ramsey Expense Memo
On the above captioned date, Chief Mark Beckner released a summary of expenses as they related to the JonBenét Ramsey homicide investigation. The department had been providing this information on an annual basis to the media and the following is a year-by-year summary of total expenditures:
1996:
Overtime Expenses: $20,340.80
Travel Expenses: $248.38
Investigative Expense: $788.55
Total Expenditures: $21,377.73
1997:
On-duty Salary Expense: $308,630.81
Overtime Expense (3,929.5 hours) : $134,621.66
Travel Expenses: $57,392.46
Investigative Expenses: $30,830.08
Total Expenditures : $531,475.01
1998:
On-duty Salary Expense: $562,149.72
Overtime Expense (954 hours) : $37,541.46
Travel Expenses: $11,319.01
Investigative Expenses: $19,946.74
Total Expenditures: $630,956.93
1999:
On-duty Expenses: $220,780.16
Overtime Expenses (218.75 hours) :$10,554.11
Travel Expenses: $3,842.91
Investigative Expenses: $3,010.70
Total Expenditures: $238,187.99
2000:
On-duty Expenses: $133,648.28
Overtime Expenses: $4,898.78
Travel Expenses: $3,157.00
Investigative Expenses:$4,369.25
Total Expenditures: $146,073.31
2001:
On-duty Expenses: $133,624.66
Overtime Expenses: $3,005.59
Investigative Expenses: $550.00
Total Expenditures: $137,180.25
The report indicated that total expenditures r
elated to the Ramsey homicide investigation for the years 1996 through 2001 were $1,705,251.21.
The conclusion of 2002 brought a decision that would significantly change the direction of the investigation. In a December 20th press release issued by the City of Boulder, it was announced that Chief Beckner and DA Mary Keenan (later to become Lacy) had agreed that the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office would assume responsibility for following up on new leads and other information developed in the murder case.
“The primary reason for this change is an attempt to further the investigation in a positive manner,” said Chief Beckner. “The interests of the Boulder Police Department have always been to do what is in the best interest of the investigation. This is a strategy to address concerns expressed by the Ramseys and their attorney that the Boulder Police Department is not following up additional leads. This may provide the Ramseys and their attorney greater comfort in forwarding what they believe is new information or leads that need to be investigated.”
“It is our hope that by changing the dynamic of the investigation, information maintained by the Ramseys will be forwarded to the DA’s Office for follow-up,” stated Chief Beckner. “Obviously, it is impossible to investigate information you do not have access to. We also realize that a fresh look at the case from time to time is healthy and could lead to new progress in the investigation.”
Beckner went to say that he didn’t care how or who solved the case, and if this change in the investigation helped, then it was the right thing to do.
On June 14, 2003, the New York Times provided a brief update on the status of the JonBenét Ramsey murder investigation.
“The Boulder district attorney, Mary Keenan, has hired a retired police detective, Tom Bennett, to lead her office’s investigation into the 1996 death of 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey. Ms. Keenan’s office took over the investigation in January, and in April she said that she believed an intruder might have killed the girl. An earlier investigation by the Boulder police focused on John and Patsy Ramsey, JonBenét’s parents.” 45
Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? Page 17