Perfect Murder, Perfect Town

by Lawrence Schiller

  “What does Hunter see in you?” Gosage asked.

  “I guess he likes me. I brought him information, like I brought you information,” I told him. “When I talk to Hunter, it’s different from the way I talk to you. He’s more political. He’s not military the way you are.”

  “Are you a double agent for Hunter?” Gosage asked.

  “No. I’m a twenty-four-year-old kid caught in the middle of something.”

  “Junior detective,” Thomas called me. Then Gosage repeated, “Junior detective.” It was their joke.

  “If I’m a junior detective,” I interjected, “I should have a gun.”

  “You could be a private investigator if you want,” Thomas said. “You don’t need to be licensed in Colorado.” I told them I’d start looking for a badge. Steve said he’d introduce me to this guy who sold guns below cost, a Glock or a Beretta.

  After that Sunday night, at Chautauqua Park, I felt like one of the boys.

  —Jeff Shapiro

  What Jeff Shapiro didn’t know was that the detectives were wearing a hidden microphone and that the conversation was being recorded and transmitted by radio to a van parked just a hundred yards away.

  The following Thursday, October 1, Gosage took the tape to Eller, who listened to Shapiro recount how Hunter wanted to smear him with the supposed sexual harassment allegation. Eller remained calm. The next day, he and Gosage met with Koby and played him the tape.

  Koby was thunderstruck: Thomas and Gosage were not only trying to find the murderer of JonBenét, they were also investigating the conduct of Hunter’s office. He was angrier at the detectives than at Hunter. On the one hand, the tape confirmed what Eller had been telling him all along about the DA’s office; on the other hand, it gave the police enormous power over Hunter—power that Koby wouldn’t allow them to use.

  Koby knew that Eller’s rage at Hunter would destroy whatever was left of his professional relationship with the DA. The department’s work would suffer. Eller would have to be replaced. To Gosage, it was clear that Koby was “handing up” Eller to protect Hunter.* Koby kept the original tape and ordered Gosage to destroy the copies in his presence. When Gosage told Thomas what had happened, Thomas believed it was more important to Koby to maintain his relationship with Hunter than to expose the DA’s subterfuge.

  Two days earlier, September 29, the Boulder County clerk’s office provided copies of the previously sealed search warrants to the media and the public. Representatives of every newspaper, radio station, local television affiliate, and national network stood in line to obtain a copy of the sixty-five-page package, which cost $48.75. This represented the largest batch of released investigative material from among the eight thousand pages the DA’s office had received from the police department to date. A total of 179 sets were purchased.

  By now Hunter had decided to give up his fight to keep the search warrants sealed. Both the text of the ransom note and a photocopy of the original had been published, and nine months of aggressive reporting by the media had led to the disclosure of many other details of the crime.

  In a cover page to the search warrants, the DA’s office wrote that no evidence of child pornography had been found to date, and for the first time it was confirmed that nothing “consistent with semen or seminal fluid” had been found at the crime scene. Two brief passages had been blacked out by Judge MacDonald, at the request of the DA’s office. After the line “In the area where Det. Arndt had told Det. Everett that the decedent had been found by her father he observed two blankets on the floor in the center of the room,” a line and a half were deleted. On the next page, which was a list of items removed from the Ramsey home, a line was censored by the judge. The second deletion was preceded by “any writing pads, lined and white in color, any examples of handwriting, any felt-type writing utensil with black ink.” The media speculated that the deleted lines referred to the piece of duct tape found in the wine cellar. Only the police and the killer would know its color and width.

  The newly released documents supported early press reports, which had stated that though there were urine and possibly blood stains on JonBenét’s underpants and long johns, there was no corresponding fluid on her pubic area. Apparently the child’s body had been wiped clean, leaving some smeared blood. The substance used to wipe JonBenét clean still had not been identified.

  The warrants confirmed that fragments of a green substance, consistent with the decorative Christmas garland found on the spiral staircase, were found entwined in JonBenét’s hair, which suggested that she might not have been awake but asleep, wounded, or already unconscious when she was carried down the stairs. The second addendum to the search warrant noted that when Sgt. Whitson first arrived at the Ramsey house, he noticed what seemed to be a pry mark on the door jamb. The damaged area “appeared to have been less weathered than the surrounding surfaces on the door and door jamb,” the document said.

  The Ramseys’ attorneys were quick to point out in a press statement that the documents contained nothing to incriminate their clients. Hal Haddon said it was “significant” that people close to the investigation had not leaked information that was exculpatory to the Ramsey family, such as the pry mark. He also provided the media with a photograph of the door jamb, which the police had seen on December 26, and said, “The material released today demonstrates substantial evidence of an intruder.”

  The next day, the Rocky Mountain News published the 5 x 8 inch photograph alongside a story that quoted Haddon as saying that important evidence of an intruder had been withheld from the public.

  The Ramseys’ former housekeeper, Linda Hoffmann-Pugh, was surprised to see both the picture and Haddon’s statement. The photograph showed the spot where a protective metal plate on the door jamb had fallen off months before the murder. She had seen the plate become looser until one day it fell off, revealing the same marks that she now saw in the photograph. Hoffmann-Pugh had taken the plate to Patsy, who wasn’t concerned enough to have it replaced. The detached plate had sat on a shelf in the hallway near the kitchen. Now Hoffmann-Pugh wondered if the police had discovered it and made the connection.

  After the Quantico meetings, Sheriff Epp felt that Hunter no longer needed Steve Ainsworth. The DA had never been allowed to give him free rein and assign him to interview a string of witnesses. He had done a good job for Hunter, but now Epp wanted his detective back.

  The six months he’d spent on loan to the DA’s office had been both fascinating and frustrating to Ainsworth. Some of his fellow sheriff’s deputies had told him he was wasting his time looking for an alternate suspect. Ainsworth would reply, “Maybe so, but that’s a door you’re going to have to close sooner or later, so you might as well get it done now.” Like Hunter, he believed that every possibility had to be investigated.

  The Boulder police had a different attitude. In the first forty-eight hours after JonBenét’s death, only about 25 percent of the neighbors had been home. Now the other 75 percent would have to be interviewed. “We don’t need to do that,” one detective told Ainsworth. “We know what happened. The Ramseys did it.” That was the typical response of Eller’s detectives when it was suggested that they investigate a new lead.

  Ainsworth felt the only real piece of evidence against the Ramseys was that they were home when their daughter died. But there was evidence that pointed away from the Ramseys—for example, the broken glass on the suitcase under the basement window, the scuff mark on the wall—although nothing indicated a specific person.

  Ainsworth thought the crime scene exhibited an “organized disorganization.” In his opinion, the cord and roll of duct tape had been brought to the house. The note had been written before the Ramseys returned home that night. By writing a bogus ransom note, the intruder had made it look as if the Ramseys had committed the murder and had then covered it up in such a way as to make it appear that an intruder had killed JonBenét. “Using the pad and pen from the house,” Ainsworth told one deputy DA, “was a str
oke of genius,” a ruse within a ruse. The Ramseys had not proven themselves in his eyes to be master criminals.

  During the last days of September, a reporter told Alex Hunter, “If you don’t have this solved by Christmas, you’re out of here.” To Hunter the statement seemed an exaggeration, just like the stories the reporter’s newspaper published. But it was a clear indication of the public’s frustration. Still, the public was no more frustrated than the police and the DA, who knew that the available evidence so far proved nothing.

  In this climate, Hunter had been talking to Bill Wise and Suzanne Laurion about how to repair the reputation of his office. The Vanity Fair article had left a stain on just about everyone involved in the case and was still a topic of conversation. When Hunter talked to several journalists he felt comfortable with and asked how his office was perceived, they answered as he had expected: his credibility would remain an issue as long as he was DA.

  While he mulled over whether or not to change tack, Hunter continued to give a series of interviews to The New Yorker, hoping to provide a more accurate picture of what he perceived to be his search for justice in the Ramsey case.

  Meanwhile, Suzanne Laurion reminded him that he had many options, and on October 2, she presented him with an analysis.

  10/2/97

  To:

  Alex [Hunter] and Bill [Wise]

  Fr:

  Suzanne [Laurion]

  Re:

  Suspected problem and proposed solution

  We’ve been beaten up by the press lately and we need to do some things to rehabilitate the office’s credibility, assuming we determine for certain that our credibility has been damaged. “If there’s gonna be a day that comes when we have a case,” Hunter said, “I would like to be making these moves with as much credibility as we can.”

  Alex believes the solution lies in a two-pronged media campaign. (1) Open with a formal statement to the media, take no questions, but do work the media crowd for about a half hour before the statement. (2) Follow this with a series of media appearances with only one condition: Alex gets uninterrupted opportunity to speak his piece.

  DAY 1: Meet on-the-record with two local daily papers.

  DAY 2: Meet on-the-record with two daily Denver papers.

  DAY 3: Hold news conference with local and Denver radio.

  DAY 4: Hold news conference with four Denver TV stations.

  DAY 5: Flip coin to choose among Geraldo, Internight MSNBC, King.

  DAY 6: CBS…network chooses program (48 Hrs., Rather, 60 Min).

  DAY 7: ABC…network chooses program (PrmeTmeLve, Jennings, Nightline, 20/20, GMA).

  Day 8: NBC…network chooses program (Dateline, Today, Brokaw).

  Day 9: PBS Charlie Rose.

  Day 10: Local weeklies (CO Daily, Planet).

  Day 11: National weeklies (Newsweek, Time).

  Day 12: American Journal, Extra, America’s Most Wanted, Inside Edition.

  Alex says there are two potential “pegs” to hang this campaign on: (1) Koby’s announcement that he’s reorganizing his Ramsey team, (2) just before the [one] year anniversary.

  After discussions with Alex, I concluded that THE MESSAGE needs to cover 3 R’s: rift, role, resolution. We must be prepared to tell the truth about the rift between the cops and DA. We must have image-, example-laden statements about our role vs. that of the cops. We must give concrete reasons why we KNOW this is a more complicated case than people imagine.

  RIFT

  —Yes, it’s bad. The FBI and CBI will attest that our guys are set to evaluate and analyze yet the cops are denying us access to the evidence.

  —Yes, it’s bad. When we tell the cops what further investigation we (including Henry Lee and Barry Scheck and our DA team) need to feel the cops have a complete case, they don’t do the work and they don’t explain their stubborn inaction.

  —Yes, it’s bad. The cops are in the war room no more than one day a week.

  —Yes, it’s bad. The cops are behaving so unprofessionally that their Chief has had to write letters of apology to us.

  —Yes, it’s so bad that the progress of the case has been hampered. For months we’ve felt the rift was nothing out of the ordinary, but now that we’ve hit 9 mos. mark and we see that the patient isn’t getting any better and at times is taking a turn for the worse, we need to conclude that the rift may well be extraordinary.

  —The cops will tell you that they can’t trust us not to leak information to the Ramseys (as reported by Vanity Fair & Channel 7) or the news media (as reported by Vanity Fair & Channel 7). Well, I’d like to address each and every one of their suspicions head on and let you be the judge as to whether any of these charges of conflict of interest and malfeasance hold water. I assure you they don’t and so-and-so and so-and-so will back me up on this. All of these folks stand ready to come on this very news program and back me up on what I’m saying tonight. You say you want character references on me and my office…well…here they are.

  —Also understand that it’s not unusual for a murderer who’s yet to be caught to try to drive a wedge between the police and the DA over a high-stakes case. It is naïve to think that whoever did this crime is ambivalent about the progress of the case. Whoever did this crime may very well be taking an active role in undermining the progress of the case.

  ((The toughest and most risky message (yet the most important charge to answer) is explaining the rift. Toughest because truth doesn’t match the cops’ truth. Most risky because it’ll goad the cops into resurrecting Vanity Fair. And it’ll give the Ramsey camp more fodder for declaring that “Boulder authorities” are unethical and incompetent and then they’ll rush again to exclude us from their tirade…“accidentally” causing us more damage.))

  ROLE

  —Who our guys are and what they’re doing.

  —A computer database prepared for trial.

  —But all this is on hold until we get a case from the cops.

  RESOLUTION

  —Mistakes WERE made.

  —Nationally renowned forensic pathologists tell us flat-out that the evidence is even more difficult to decipher than they’ve imagined.

  —We are open-minded, we are open to outside experts (list ’em all) and we are NOT doing anything to impede the cops’ progress.

  ((I believe there are three camps out there who benefit from tearing down the DA’s credibility: BPD wants to be able to lay blame at our doorstep when they can’t make a case. Ramseys want us crippled in the court of public opinion before they face us in the court of law. Media gets new angle to keep story alive. I believe that all three of these camps have been equal players in negative press we’ve gotten the past three weeks. And all three will be in there swinging in the aftermath of our proposed media campaign. No matter how convincing our message, how impeccable the delivery, the aftermath will be ferocious. And the whole thing is liable to leave the public thinking that they wish everyone would just shut up and solve the case.))

  A few days later, Hunter got a call from Koby, who wanted to see him as soon as possible. The chief said he had been thinking about the progress of the investigation and was considering some changes. Hunter had heard from Epp that Koby was moving toward replacing Eller, so he went into the meeting thinking the chief had actually made the decision.

  When he arrived at Koby’s office, however, there was a tape recorder on the table. Koby wanted him to hear something his detectives had brought in. Listening to the recording, Hunter realized that Thomas and Gosage had worn a wire during a recent meeting with Jeff Shapiro and secretly tape-recorded a conversation in which Shapiro revealed the content of his private talks with Hunter, including the DA’s leaks to the Globe; Hunter’s meeting with Globe editor Tony Frost; his attempt to smear Eller, and other indiscreet disclosures to Shapiro, whom he knew to be a tabloid reporter. Hunter understood that what he was hearing could cost him his job. Bardach’s article was in part based on unnamed sources, but this tape was hard evidence.


  Hunter was speechless. The question of what Thomas, Gosage, or Eller might do with this information would trouble him for months. Only his close relationship with Koby protected him from exposure.

  Koby made no comment about the tape, and quickly changed the subject. He told Hunter he thought that Mark Beckner was the right man to take over the Ramsey investigation. Beckner, the father of two, had come up through the ranks of the Boulder PD and had once headed the internal affairs division. He had graduated from college with a degree in criminal justice and joined the department as a patrol officer. He was organizationally sound—made assignments, followed up, met deadlines, and maintained quality control. More important, under Beckner’s supervision, the detectives would no longer decide on their own assignments as they often had done under Eller. Koby said he planned to permit Eller to stay on as head of the detective division, a position he’d held throughout the JonBenét investigation.

  Koby told Hunter that his decision had not been influenced by the internal investigation into Larry Mason’s legal claims against the commander and the department. Nevertheless, the DA understood that Koby did not want Eller’s reassignment to be perceived as having been motivated from outside the Boulder police department.

  One detective who didn’t know about Shapiro told a reporter covering the story that John Eller had taken the fall for the leaks in Vanity Fair. As always, he had protected his officers. They had always respected their commander, and this only increased their admiration.