Law & Disorder

by Douglas, John

  I kept waiting for more compelling evidence to surface, but I never saw any.

  The Pageant Videos

  If there is a single factor that made this case go global and turn public opinion against the parents, it was the images of pageant videos that flooded the media and the just emerging Internet. In addition to the Vegas showgirl, there was also the red-white-and-blue outfit for her singing of “God Bless America,” the rhinestone-cowgirl attire of “Cowboy Sweetheart,” the sequined snow princess, the mini Upper East Side sophisticate, with her fancy feathered hat, and so many more.

  The contests had names like All Star Pageant and National Sunburst Pageant and Royal Miss, and they disturbed a lot of people. There was a jarring disconnect between the adorable, innocent child and the adult outfits she was wearing and the adult poses she was striking, with the imitation adult hairstyles and adult makeup, all overlaid with an implied sexuality that seemed inappropriate at best and downright exploitative at worst. Some of the investigators and many in the public concluded that JonBenét’s reported habitual bed-wetting was a result of the pressures and conflicts imposed on her by the demands of pageant participation. I admit that my wife, Pam, and I, parents of two daughters, were uncomfortable watching the videos.

  But what do the pageant videos actually tell us about John and Patsy Ramsey? The couple would have said that these beauty pageants were no different from any other organized children’s activity, be it Little League baseball or youth league soccer, Cub Scouts or Brownies, music, dance or skating lessons, or anything else. It is a common interest throughout the Southeast, enjoyed by generations of little girls and their families. Patsy had participated as a young girl and it had prepared her for the grown-up pageants and her role as Miss West Virginia in the Miss America pageant. She would also have said that participation in these events develops poise, talent, self-discipline and confidence—all great assets to little girls as they grow up.

  As it turned out, almost all of the images were from a few pageants in which JonBenét participated during a very limited interval of time. The videos themselves were not fancy productions; they were made to be sold to parents and grandparents. Most important, JonBenét was a natural performer and pushed her mother to let her participate. At home, she would act out strutting down the runway and make Patsy the emcee, who would introduce her and announce her as the winner.

  Regardless of whether we approve of these pageants or would want our daughters to participate, there is no indication they contributed to any personal or family pathology, and certainly provided no motive for a murder. At the time, there was some speculation that JonBenét had abruptly decided she didn’t want to participate any longer, and her mother, living through her and distraught over her decision, had struck out in a moment of insane despair and rage. This idea is patently ridiculous and there is no psychological or physical evidence to support it.

  Still, once the pageant videos went viral, a large sector of law enforcement, the media and the public decided that John and Patricia Ramsey had to be guilty of something.

  Lawyering Up

  This was another element that severely damaged public perception of the Ramseys.

  Around two in the afternoon, the police decided the house should be cleared; and after John’s son and daughter, John Andrew and Melinda, and Melinda’s fiancé, Stewart Long, arrived (they were originally to meet the family for the flight to Charlevoix, Michigan), the Ramseys decided they would go to the Fernies’ house, where the police would provide an around-the-clock guard. They didn’t know that the officers had been instructed to listen to everything John or Patsy said.

  The next day, Detectives Linda Arndt and Larry Mason came over to the Fernies’ house to talk to the Ramseys. At one point, Arndt asked them to go to the police station for a formal interview. John was quietly trying to hold it together; Patsy was almost suicidally distraught; understandably, they were hesitant.

  This was all observed by Michael Bynum, an attorney friend of the Ramseys who had come to the Fernies’ to pay a condolence call. Though he was now in private practice, he had once been a prosecutor in the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office and knew his way around the criminal justice system. Seeing how the police seemed to be focusing on the Ramseys rather than looking for any other leads, Bynum took John aside and asked if he could take it upon himself to make some legal decisions for them. John was grateful for any burden that could be taken off his shoulders, particularly by a trusted friend who was also a lawyer.

  Bynum announced to the detectives that the Ramseys were not in shape to be interviewed and would not be going down to the station. He then called two prominent attorneys he knew, Hal Haddon and Patrick Burke. He asked Haddon to represent John and Burke to represent Patsy.

  This move immediately triggered suspicion on the part of the police. But if you’ve read this far already, you know from previous cases we’ve discussed that this was a very reasonable and intelligent move by Michael Bynum and John Ramsey. The police investigators have certain legal obligations regarding suspects, but they are not out there primarily to protect your rights. They are there to try to figure out who committed a crime and line up the proof to convince a judge and jury. With all my experience, if I were ever a suspect, you can bet I would have legal representation, the best I could find.

  It is up to an attorney to call the shots to protect his client, whether the client is innocent or guilty. Though it had no legal or procedural impact on the case, it is a matter of record that the Ramseys’ attorneys did believe they were innocent. And it is also a matter of record that they were following their attorneys’ advice, not calling the shots themselves. During our meeting with the detectives, Bryan Morgan stated, “It is I who have said you [John Ramsey] may not talk to police. And take that or leave it, but I want to put that on the record now. It was I who stopped the process.”

  Another hot point that was exacerbated by the entrance into the fray of heavy legal talent was the simmering conflict between the police and the DA’s office.

  Keep in mind the context. John Ramsey was a corporate executive whose company had been merged, then sold, and constantly had to answer to stockholders, regulators and others. He was accustomed to having things done through lawyers. This was just the way things were done in his world.

  Ironically, John and Patsy had no problem cooperating with the police. “We were perfectly willing to talk and didn’t understand exactly why our lawyers didn’t want us to,” John told us recently. “Looking back on it, from what I learned, I would tell anyone wrongly accused of murder to make sure he has the best lawyer he can get.”

  But the police saw this move the way much of the public did: anyone who needs to lawyer up must be guilty. The lawyers are there not to get to the truth but to keep the police away from the truth about their clients. This perception fed into the spiral of mistrust, which was already forming.

  As soon as possible, the Ramseys wanted to take JonBenét back to Atlanta for burial in the family plot next to Beth. Detective Commander John Eller wasn’t happy about the phalanx of attorneys that stood between the department and those he considered his two prime suspects. What’s more, he didn’t like the Haddon, Morgan, and Foreman firm’s apparently close ties to members of DA Alex Hunter’s office. In what seemed to be a ploy to gain leverage and force the Ramseys’ cooperation, Eller told Assistant District Attorney Pete Hofstrom, head of the felony division, that the coroner would hold the body for some indeterminate time for further tests.

  This announcement ignited a firestorm, recalling as it did the threats in the ransom note to deny the family the victim’s remains for proper burial. ADA Hofstrom was outraged, and so were the Ramseys’ attorneys. The police were forced to back down and release the body for the funeral and burial in Atlanta.

  If the case was getting off on the wrong track, this was nearly a point of no return. How could the police have any semblance of objectivity after this? How could they separate genuine behavio
ral evidence from resentment that their alleged suspects were getting away with murder?

  We asked John how he and Patsy reacted, in the midst of their deep grief, to everyone thinking they had done it. “Frankly,” he said, “it was mostly background noise. We were concerned with burying our daughter and protecting our son. I don’t think we really understood why it was all happening, but it was never our primary consideration.”

  Looking for a Motive

  One of the guiding principles of criminal investigative analysis is that past behavior suggests future behavior. Another way of saying this is that people do not act out of character. If they seem to be doing so, it is only because you don’t properly know or understand their true character.

  Let’s start with what we know, or can learn, about John and Patricia Ramsey. This is the beginning of the profiling process.

  There is nothing in the background of either parent to suggest they were capable of murdering their child in cold blood. There are no indications of any kind of sexual aberration or paraphilia, particularly involving children. Not only is there no indication that either one was sexually abusive, there is no indication that they were physically or emotionally abusive. Even John’s first wife and older children had nothing bad or suspicious to say about him.

  JonBenét’s pediatrician was contacted and asked point-blank if during any of his examinations he had observed the remotest evidence of any abuse. None whatsoever, he responded. Quite the contrary, John and Patsy were the most loving and caring of parents.

  The police hunted for any clue or evidence, and what’s more, so did the tabloid press, which was even more motivated and had far less in the way of scruples when digging for information.

  No one found anything.

  If you don’t even spank or slap your child, you aren’t likely to bash her brains out, even in a moment of extreme rage (and there is absolutely no indication there ever was such a moment).

  You don’t just suddenly blossom into a killer out of nowhere. Even for people who kill with no previous criminal history, there is always a specific reason. The most common instance we tend to see in the media: A single mom is just barely getting by, financially and emotionally, and she meets some guy who somehow gives her the message that he would like her in his life, but there is no room for her kids. Maybe he wants them to have kids together, or maybe he doesn’t want to be saddled with children at all. In either case, if she wants to change her life, she has to get rid of her children.

  Another variation on this is the same woman, without a new man in her life, still wants to start over and seek something better, but feels she can’t do it if she is tied down. Certainly, this was the theme of the 2011 trial of Casey Anthony in Orlando, Florida, for the murder of her nearly three-year-old daughter, Caylee. Though she was acquitted by an agonized jury, the impression remained locked in the public conscience.

  Lest you think it is always a desperate woman who goes in this appalling direction, the counterpart phenomenon is a man who kills his wife or girlfriend in her eighth month of pregnancy. Up until then, it seems, the life-changing reality of birth is an abstraction. But once this man realizes his baby is imminently due, panic starts to set in. If he doesn’t do something soon, he will be trapped. This appears to be the motivation in the 2002 murder of Laci Peterson and her unborn son by her husband Scott.

  But neither of these scenarios had anything to do with the Ramseys’ domestic situation. So if we want to pursue the case against either John or Patsy, we still need a believable motive.

  Point A to Point Z

  To make plausible the idea that either of the parents could have or would have murdered their daughter, we have to show how they could come to do this. In other words, unless they had been planning to kill their daughter for some time, something would have to have happened between the time they got up in the morning until the time JonBenét died to transform them from ordinary parents into murderers.

  We start from Point A by observing that Christmas was a happy time for the Ramseys. They looked forward to it every year as the traditional time of joy and family togetherness. John’s older son, daughter and her fiancé were coming to town and they were all flying up to the beloved weekend/summer home in Michigan to spend time together. Then John and Patsy were going to Florida to take the younger children on the Disney-themed cruise, which they were anticipating with great excitement. They had begun the day opening presents and had gone to visit good friends for dinner. They stopped at other friends’ houses to exchange greetings and gifts. JonBenét fell asleep in the car on the way home. John carried her upstairs, and Patsy put her to bed as John played a game with Burke before he, too, fell asleep. John’s business was doing well. Patsy’s cancer was in remission. Life was good, and so was the day.

  Point Z is JonBenét’s bound, strangled and beaten body lying in the wine cellar, the remotest room in the basement. As I told the detectives during our January 10 meeting, “You don’t just act one way at a party, and then, all of a sudden, another way and commit this type of crime.”

  So how do we get from Point A to Point Z with either or both of the Ramsey parents as the killer?

  Before we do that, let’s divert for a moment to consider one other possibility, which, believe it or not, became a popular theory of the crime. This one has nine-year-old Burke as the killer.

  We can dispense with this one pretty quickly. First, there is no motive, though children don’t have the same motives or understanding of lasting consequences that adults do. It is conceivable that brother and sister got into some sort of squabble, he decked her, and then the parents had to deal with it. But would they have gone to elaborate steps to stage a kidnapping, write a ransom note and then set up a weird strangulation scenario in the basement? It makes no sense because a nine-year-old would not be subject to the same legal sanctions as an adult.

  There is no way Burke would have the strength either to deliver the fatal head blow, twist the garrote or move his sister’s weight. And then the parents never would have sent him to the Whites’ house, knowing that kids tend to talk about whatever enters their minds. So let’s just move on.

  The Police Theory

  After some shifting around, Boulder Police Department detective Steve Thomas took over as the primary investigator on the case. As we have noted, Boulder fortunately did not have many homicides; so in the rare instance that one occurred, a detective from another area or squad was put on the case. Thomas had little experience with homicide investigation, but he had spent considerable time on narcotics.

  After conducting his own investigation, Thomas came to believe that the happy anticipation of the Christmas Day we’ve just described was actually a veneer over the tension Patsy was feeling about the holidays in general and several run-ins she’d already had with JonBenét. According to Detective Thomas, Patsy had not wanted to make the hectic trip up to Michigan, and she was upset over her daughter’s stubborn refusal to put on the dress Patsy had selected for their dinner at the Whites’.

  This was all brought to a head during the night when JonBenét woke up with a wet bed. He speculates that a red turtleneck found balled up in the bathroom must have been what she had worn to bed, and that Patsy had angrily stripped it off her when the little girl had had another accident.

  He goes on to speculate that while Patsy had her undressed, cleaning her up before putting her in the clothing in which she was found, she used some sort of cloth to roughly or violently wipe the little girl between the legs. In other words, by this account, the abrasions in her vaginal area were not the result of the digital penetration of some perverse sex play by an intruder, but were a form of intended or unintended punishment for JonBenét’s frequent urinary accidents. This could also account for the small amount of blood in her panties.

  I find this theory bizarre, but the next part of the scenario is even more far-fetched. Thomas imagines “some sort of explosive encounter in the child’s bathroom.” In a moment of uncontrolled rag
e, Patsy either struck JonBenét on the head or threw her across the room. Either way, the child landed against a hard surface, causing the large skull fracture described by the medical examiner. It’s hard to believe, even for Thomas, that Patsy meant to hit her or slam her this hard. So when she saw what she had done, she panicked. What to do next?

  The rational thing is to call 911 and say it was an accident, but Thomas believed that her first instinct, and presumably that of her husband, was to stage the injury to look like something else. This presupposes that Patsy knew her daughter was dead from the first blow, or was so frightened of getting caught that she was willing to let her daughter die rather than seek help. Then she and John went through the elaborate setup with a garrote and duct tape and all the rest to throw police off. They came up with a three-page-long ransom note on the spur of the moment, and Patsy managed to sound suitably surprised and hysterical when she finally did call 911 to report her daughter missing. And . . . and . . . and these people, who had never pulled off a crime before, manage to make it all so realistic that they take in the police, who at first believe it really is a kidnapping. How logical or believable does that all sound?

  Now let’s take it from John’s point of view. Even if everything Steve Thomas suggests did take place between JonBenét and Patsy, does John just go along with it? Does he buy into her insane plan? What would make John go along with this? Would it be that he had already lost his eldest daughter and now his youngest, and so he didn’t want to lose his wife, too? I have yet to see a parent who would favor a spouse over a murdered child. None of this scenario is believable.