“No.”
“Do you know for sure who distributed those JonBenét photographs to the media?”
“No.”
Jenks excused himself and joined Prentup, who was watching the examination from the next room. “He’s either involved or he knows someone who is,” Jenks told the officer. He went back inside and sat down next to Smith.
“You really need to come clean on this,” he told Smith. “Sometimes things happen in people’s lives. They get in a bind.”
Smith didn’t answer. A few minutes later, Prentup and Smith left for Boulder. Smith still wouldn’t talk.
The next stop for the detectives was the Hotel Boulderado, where many out-of-town reporters were staying. Registration records indicated that NBC, ABC, CBS, and all the cable channels were still in town. Prentup checked the list for tabloids. When he saw the Star, the National Enquirer, Hard Copy, and American Journal, Prentup felt as if he were looking into an abyss.
Late in the afternoon, back in his office, Prentup listened to a voice-mail message. “I’d like to give you a hypothetical,” said Peter Schild, a respected defense attorney, who had once worked in the public defender’s office. “If I had someone who has some knowledge about the JonBenét photos that the Globe is publishing, someone who should have known better…”
Schild was obviously speaking for someone. Probably Smith, who under pressure, was starting to crack.
Prentup called Pete Hofstrom, who in turn called Schild.
As any good attorney would, Schild wanted immunity for his client in exchange for his client’s full cooperation.
“Schild says it’s someone you know,” Hofstrom reported back to the detectives.
“No sale,” Prentup told him. “We don’t like bargaining with someone who’s hiding behind his lawyer’s skirt. Our terms are full accountability and a complete and honest statement in exchange for our not arguing for any particular sentence. We’ll live with the judge’s call.”
The detectives could tell that Hofstrom wanted to get this incident out of the way. What mattered was solving JonBenét’s murder.
On January 14, the day after the Globe appeared in supermarket racks, Hofstrom met Schild for breakfast at the Harvest restaurant on Pearl Street. The detectives knew that Schild’s mystery client would also be at the meeting. If the three of them couldn’t work out a deal, the client’s identity would remain a mystery to the officers.
Schild trusted Hofstrom, who was known to prefer precharging plea bargains, which Boulder’s defense attorneys called negotiations. More important to the attorney, however, was Hofstrom’s understanding of the human condition, particularly in criminals. They might have done terrible things, but he still cared about them as human beings.
Within an hour, Hofstrom called Prentup: Schild would deliver his client as soon as the plea agreement was typed.
Dunphy and Prentup waited on the second floor of the Justice Center for Schild and his client, Brett Sawyer, a former deputy sheriff, who was now a private investigator handling mostly divorce cases and insurance claims.
Sawyer said to Prentup, “Well, I guess this means I lose my concealed weapons permit.” It was his only comment.
Ainsworth escorted Sawyer to what detectives call the hard room—nothing on the walls, no table, only one hard plastic chair coated with Armoral, so slippery that nobody could sit comfortably. The interview was videotaped through a one-way mirror.
Sawyer told them that it began with a phone call the morning of Friday, January 3, when Brian Williams, an editor for the Globe, told him, “We’re looking for information the rest of the media doesn’t have.” Sawyer took the job. He would be paid $50 an hour. He claimed he had no idea the Globe was a tabloid.
Sawyer suspected that the police had their film developed at Photo Craft, and he went to see his friend Shawn Smith, who worked there.
“We don’t work for the cops anymore,” Smith told him, “but we do the coroner’s processing.”
Sawyer told Ainsworth that a moment later he found himself peering through a photographer’s magnifying loupe at the internegatives of JonBenét’s autopsy and the crime scene photos that had been taken by the coroner’s investigator. The six-year-old child was just three weeks younger than his own son and one grade behind him at the same school.
Sawyer waited while Shawn Smith made the prints he’d requested. An hour later, he handed them to a courier.
Two days later, Sawyer told the officers, Brian Williams called and said the pictures were being shown to one of the Globe’s experts. Sawyer would be paid his fee of $500, plus a $5,000 bonus. On Saturday, Sawyer told Ainsworth, he woke up to the Daily Camera’s front page headline TABLOID OBTAINS MURDER-SCENE PHOTOS. The article said there would be a full investigation and potential felony charges against whoever had compromised the case.
Ainsworth asked Sawyer why he had turned himself in.
“My conscience got to me,” Sawyer said. He worried about embarrassing his family.
When Sawyer’s interview was over, he agreed to sign his statement. Half an hour later, Ainsworth called Shawn Smith, who continued to deny everything.
“You know Brett Sawyer, don’t you?” Ainsworth asked. Then Smith admitted everything.
What struck the detectives was that if Sawyer hadn’t turned himself in, Smith would never have talked. A court date of February 20 was set for Sawyer and Smith.
When the Globe published the photos on January 13, it promised its readers an exclusive glimpse into JonBenét’s TERRIFYING LAST MOMENTS IN THE HOUSE OF HORROR. The tabloid claimed the photos held answers to what happened the night JonBenét died: CORONER: THIS WEAPON KILLED JONBENÉT, 6.
When the photos appeared, the DA’s staff saw them for the first time. One prosecutor joked that “it was as tasteful as you can get with stolen property. The only part of the body shown was a hand hanging down.” Hunter’s office would not receive a complete set of photos until mid-April.
Within hours the other tabloids had called police headquarters and the DA’s office for reactions to the Globe’s publication of the photos. Don Gentile of the National Enquirer was first. Two other tabloid reporters offered Bill Wise money to answer their questions. “They’re naive,” Wise said. “Boulder’s a city that as public officials go is virtually bribery-free.”
The tabloids used their money. Reporters like Marilyn Robinson of The Denver Post, and Mike Gudgell of ABC found themselves without a story most of the time. “I’m going to lose my job,” Wise kept hearing from some reporters. At the time he felt sorry for them. Then he started getting calls from private investigators who claimed they were looking for work. In all, twenty-six PIs called. What they really wanted, Wise knew, was information for their clients—the tabloids and even some members of the mainstream media, who were employing the same methods.
No one could stop the tabloids from using money to get information. Sometimes it worked—even in Boulder. More often, however, it didn’t, and by the end of April, there were three criminal investigations into the tabloids’ business practices. After the Globe published the autopsy and crime scene photos, a police investigation and litigation by the county of Boulder stopped the publication of additional pictures. One tabloid offered a handwriting expert $30,000 for a copy of the ransom note, which resulted in an investigation by the Jefferson County DA’s office, to which the offer had been made. When the Globe purchased photographs taken inside the Ramsey house by the Ramseys’ own investigators and published six of them, another police investigation and an imminent court proceeding halted publication of the rest of the pictures.
THIS MURDER IS OURS, CHIEF
ON THE POLICE, THE MEDIA AND THE DEATH OF A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG GIRL
Thomas Koby made an unusual appearance on local television. There was still no suspect, he said, but he thought it would be “healing” to let people know they were doing all they could. (Very Boulder, I thought, in keeping with a place where snow is cleared from bicycle paths before ro
ads.)
Let’s get this straight. Chief Koby believes that this crime belongs to Boulder and that the rest of the country is just rubbernecking. Hello? Maybe I am new here, but when I think about JonBenét Ramsey, it is not a matter of prurient curiosity; I’m wondering what to believe in. Wanting to know who did it “is a natural response,” the chief allowed (though only for Boulderites). “It is often an effort to assure ourselves that such a tragedy will never happen to us.” Well, yes. Beyond that, there is the question of whether this is a work of the darkest evil imaginable or a more or less random act of malice and greed gone awry. Evil on this scale is impossible to comprehend. To know who murdered JonBenét Ramsey is to know what world we live in, where we are.
Not incidentally, the national press is in Boulder because despite its tabloid aspects and despite what the tabloid press will do to exploit the story, the murder of JonBenét Ramsey is important. Listen to her mother, who said on CNN: “You know, America has just been hurt so deeply…the young woman who drove her children into the water, and we don’t know what happened with O. J. Simpson. America is suffering because we have lost faith in the American family.”
Give the rest of the country a break, Chief. And don’t kill the messengers. They work for you.
—James R. Gaines, former managing editor of Time
Time, January 13, 1997
Meanwhile, Bryan Morgan, who had just received Eller’s response to his proposal for the Ramseys’ interviews, wrote to the commander about requests he’d made of Pete Hofstrom. The police scheduled the testing of evidence, and Morgan wanted it on record that no physical evidence should be destroyed during the testing process. In addition, he reminded Eller that care should be taken in conducting DNA tests so that they didn’t consume all the DNA and leave none for the defense to test independently. Morgan also objected to the use of RFLP DNA testing and wanted to know which PCR DNA systems were being used.*
More important, he made a formal request that representatives of the Ramseys be present when the swabs that contained the substances to be tested were split. The vials or other packaging should be preserved with the swabs themselves, Morgan wrote. In addition, he asked for the names of all the labs being used.
Hofstrom and Bob Keatley, the Boulder Police Department’s legal adviser, could see a legal battle looming. The Ramseys’ attorneys were raising many of the same points concerning the preservation and contamination of DNA that had come up in the Simpson criminal case.** The battle on the horizon was made even more obvious on January 15, when Patrick Burke, Patsy’s attorney, advised Keatley that JonBenét’s death did not void her physician-patient privilege.
On January 13, the day Morgan wrote to Eller, Detectives Thomas and Gosage continued their investigation of ex-employees of Access Graphics. They interviewed Kathy and Jeff Merrick for a second time at their home. Merrick confirmed Don Paugh’s story about his having dinner at Pasta Jay’s with current Access Grphics employee Tom Carson and his anger toward John Ramsey. He said he’d remained friendly with several people from the company—what was so unusual about that? He restated his alibi, and his wife corroborated his story. On Christmas night he had been at home all evening, and she had been sick. When the detectives asked him to take a polygraph test, Merrick refused. The next day, Thomas and Detective Harmer interviewed Don Paugh again. He confirmed that his son-in-law and Merrick were no longer friends. Merrick remained a suspect.
Thomas and Gosage then interviewed Access Graphics employees David Harrington, Susan Richart, and Jim Hudson and a former sales representative, James Marino. Detective Thomas told Marino, “I know you didn’t have anything to do with this. I just need for you to answer a few questions so we can cross your name off the list.” The detectives found nothing out of the ordinary about any of them. For the time being they were cleared.
Several days later, Thomas and Gosage returned to Access Graphics and interviewed Gary Merriman again. A month later, Merriman would be asked by police to write the figure 118,000 over and over again, although he was never asked if he knew the amount of John Ramsey’s bonus for the year. He did. It was within pennies of $118,000. After his seventh handwriting sample, Merriman felt he’d written enough to fill the Library of Congress. “If you need more, come back with handcuffs,” Merriman told the detectives.
That was when they said they didn’t think he’d killed JonBenét but that he might have written the note.
Appalled, Merriman said, “I want you to repeat to me what you just said.”
The detective repeated it.
“The next time you come into my office,” Merriman said, “I’m having my attorney here.”
In fact, his lawyer was present when the police returned for another handwriting sample. Gary Merriman understood that if his son had been killed, he’d want the cops to suspect everyone—his neighbors, the dog catcher, the milkman. Everybody. Nevertheless, he still felt he had to protect himself.
RAMSEYS HIRE FORMER FBI AGENT
Former FBI agent John Douglas, the inspiration for one of the central characters in the movie “Silence of the Lambs,” has been hired by John and Patsy Ramsey to help investigate the murder of their daughter, JonBenét.
Douglas, former head of the FBI’s behavioral science unit in Quantico, VA, worked on the Unabomber case, the Tylenol poisoning and other high-profile cases.
—Mike McPhee and Mary George The Denver Post, January 14, 1997
6-YEAR-OLD BEAUTY QUEEN’S MURDER
HOW DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL REALLY DIED
UNTOLD STORY OF THE MURDER
Authorities are convinced JonBenét’s death is a murder disguised as a kidnapping—and believe the little girl may have known her killer!
Sometime during the night after JonBenét’s mom tucked her into bed, the killer crept into the girl’s bedroom, not far from where her parents slept, and carried her silently to a little-used basement wine cellar.
The beauty queen was bundled in a blanket and her mouth covered with duct tape. Her skull was fractured by a blow…and she was sexually molested!
Then the killer wrapped a cord around her neck and used a wooden handle to twist the cord tighter and tighter around her neck until it choked the life out of her little body.
—David Wright and David Duffy National Enquirer, January 14, 1997
Early in the afternoon of January 14, Joann Hanks, the office manager of McGuckin Hardware in Boulder, received a phone call from an anxious-sounding man who identified himself only as John. He said that looking over his American Express bill, he had discovered two charges made by his wife, Patsy Ramsey, on December 2 and December 9, for $46.31 and $99.88, and he wanted to know what they were for. Hanks recognized the name Ramsey. She told John that since the purchases were from more than thirty days ago, the records had been purged from her computer and she’d have to do a hand search. Ramsey said he’d call back on January 20. Hanks told McGuckin’s head of security, John Christie, about the call, and he notified the Boulder police. Late that day, Hanks found the receipts.
Two days later, Detectives Ron Gosage and Steve Thomas, responding to Christie’s call from the previous day, stopped in at McGuckin Hardware. They learned that Patsy Ramsey had used an American Express credit card on December 2 and December 9 for purchases of $46.31 and $99.88, respectively, and agreed that the person Joann Hanks had talked to was in fact John Ramsey, although the urgency in his voice that Hanks described seemed out of character from what the detectives knew of him. Hanks gave them the two credit card receipts, which they took to police headquarters and booked as evidence.
The detectives theorized that Ramsey had discovered his wife’s December charges when he received his bill and might have suspected that she had purchased items used in the crime. The police contacted the FBI to help them set up a phone tap at McGuckin Hardware, awaiting Ramsey’s call on January 20.
The next day, January 17, Thomas and Gosage continued an interview at Access Graphics with comptroller Susan Richart, who
told them about Sandra Henderson, a former employee, who was in trouble with the law, and her husband, Bud, each of whom owed the firm $18,000. Add $100,000 to either of them and you had the ransom amount, which gave the detectives cause for suspicion. They put Bud and Sandra high on the list of those to be interviewed.
Richart told the detectives that John Ramsey’s previous yearly net bonus, after taxes, was within a half dollar of $118,000. To her knowledge, the only other people who knew the exact amount were Lockheed Martin’s evaluators; Ramsey’s boss, Gary Mann; and Ramsey himself. She did not mention Gary Merriman. When asked if she had an alibi for the night of the murder, Richart said that she had been with her parents. Within four days of Richart’s interview with the police, CNN reported a possible link between Ramsey’s bonus and the amount of the ransom demanded.
The following day, Detective Thomas interviewed Mike Glynn, another former Access Graphics employee. He was cooperative. He told the detectives that he had been with his in-laws in Tucson, Arizona, the evening JonBenét died. Glynn had met Ramsey in 1991, while he was on the football coaching staff at the University of Colorado, and joined Access Graphics in 1992 as head of international business development, where his knowledge of several foreign languages would come in handy. Glynn and Tom Carson set up the company’s overseas sales and distribution center. By 1996, however, Glynn didn’t see room for advancement in the company and decided to leave. Ramsey offered him more money to stay, but on May 3, four days after Jeff Merrick left, Glynn went to work for CompuWare in Tucson, where his family preferred to live so that they could be closer to Glynn’s ailing mother-in-law. Gary Merriman had told the police that Mike Glynn had a personal relationship with the Ramseys and was one of the few Access Graphics employees to have been invited to the Ramseys’ home. In fact, the two families had often vacationed together.
Perfect Murder, Perfect Town Page 16