Perfect Murder, Perfect Town

by Lawrence Schiller

  On the agenda for the day was a tour of the Ramseys’ house. Hunter, Scheck, Lee, Kane, and Wise had never been inside before. At the crime scene, the Ramseys’ attorneys and investigators were the first to arrive: lawyers Foreman, Burke, Bynum, and investigator Armistead. Commander Beckner and Detective Sgt. Wickman pulled up just before Hofstrom, DeMuth, Haney, Smit, and Kane appeared. Before long the Ramseys’ group left so that Hunter’s team could be alone.

  Outside, Henry Lee lifted the grate that led to the broken basement window. He climbed down into the window well to see how hard it would be to enter the house from there.

  “I could do it, but I don’t think Barry could,” Lee teased. Then Lee inspected the ventilation duct from the boiler room that led to the front of the house.

  Once inside, everyone noticed how empty the house was. The only furniture was in the caretaker’s room. Some walls had been repainted, though, and the basement was clear of the clutter it had once held. Lee took out his Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass. He photographed everything against a scale card that indicated inches and centimeters. Soon he was totally absorbed in his work, measuring and asking questions.

  At first several members of the team couldn’t find the basement door, though they had studied floor plans. The way the door opened at the top of the basement stairs was unusual. They noticed that even in daylight, it took some time to find the light switch to the basement stairs. Its location on the wall opposite the basement door was counterintuitive—the last place you’d think of looking.

  Standing in the doorway to the wine cellar, Lee first looked in quickly, exactly as Fleet White said he had done. The room was dark. There was a foot-thick concrete wall immediately to the right as he stood in the doorway, and Lee had to turn his head to the left to see inside the room. Even though a bare lightbulb hung just outside the doorway, its angle was such that light did not shine directly into the room. If you weren’t looking down, you might not see the white blanket in the dark. However, when Tom Haney made the same test, he stepped a foot inside and quickly saw the blanket lying on the floor.

  One observer, seeing what he called the maze of the house and the basement entrance, said that the intruder theory wasn’t worth even a footnote. “Who gives a fuck if every window and every door was open in the house?” said another visitor. A stranger entering the house for the first time would need a map and a guide, he claimed.

  On the theory that JonBenét had eaten the pineapple in the kitchen area before she was hit on the head, the group walked every possible route from JonBenét’s room to the kitchen and then to the basement. But they didn’t stumble on any overlooked evidence that would solve the case.

  From the house, the group went to the war room at the Justice Center, where DeMuth, Smit, Haney, and Hofstrom gave Lee and Scheck another briefing. Then Hunter invited everyone to his home for dinner. With the unobstructed view of the Flatirons in the background, it was a pleasant, relaxing evening, with very little talk about the Ramsey case.

  5

  On Sunday, May 31, Steve Thomas sat in his usual back pew at St. John’s, reflecting on the last eighteen months and what he had learned about some of the people sitting in the rows ahead of him. He looked at the Fernies and the other friends who had been left behind after the Ramseys moved back to Atlanta, all of them bewildered and damaged as they searched for some meaning in the events since December 1996. It was like watching a fire burn out of control and knowing you couldn’t do anything about it. Thomas found peace in taking communion. Rev. Hoverstock held the detective by the shoulders and prayed over him.

  Later that afternoon, Thomas and Jane Harmer visited Fleet and Priscilla White. Here were two more people who, like it or not, had been pulled into a vortex from which there seemed no escape.

  On Monday morning, June 1, seventy-five members of the media showed up outside the University of Colorado’s Coors Events Center to cover the first day of the Boulder Police Department’s presentation of the JonBenét Ramsey case. Peter Boyles, of Denver’s KHOW radio, began broadcasting live from the parking lot at 5:00 A.M. Remote vehicles from CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox stood ready to transmit video as soon as anyone said anything on camera.

  Alex Hunter and Bill Wise, accompanied by Barry Scheck and Henry Lee, arrived at 7:00 A.M. The DA answered questions shouted by reporters without breaking his stride. He had “come to listen,” he said. Lee and Scheck had no comment. By 7:30 forty-one people had arrived for the presentation.

  In the Events Center, the police had chosen a room designed as a lecture hall; it had tiered seats in three sections. On the right sat five rows of Boulder police officers, including case supervisor Detective Sgt. Tom Wickman and Detectives Tom Trujillo, Steve Thomas, Jane Harmer, Ron Gosage, Carey Weinheimer, and Michael Everett. Sitting above them were metro DAs Bob Grant, Bill Ritter, and Jim Peters and forensic psychiatrist Steve Pitt. Just behind them were pro bono attorneys Richard Baer, Daniel Hoffman, and Robert Miller. Chief Tom Koby sat alone in another row.

  The police had arranged their voluminous files, photographs, and visual displays in the first few rows of the center section. Behind those seats, Barry Scheck and Henry Lee sat next to each other. Behind them were Alex Hunter and Bill Wise. In the top row, sitting alone, was Pete Hofstrom.

  To the left was Hunter’s group—Trip DeMuth, deputy DAs Pete Maguire, Bill Nagel, John Pickering, and Mary Keenan—and beside them, Tom Haney, Michael Kane, Lou Smit, and Dan Schuler, and John Dailey and Terry Gillespie from the Colorado attorney general’s office. Also present were four Boulder police commanders who had applied for the position of director of police services—Molly Bernard, Jim Hughes, Tom Kilpatrick, and Dave Hayes.

  Bill Hagmaier, Mike Morrow, and Larry Ankrom from the FBI’s Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit were also there, joined by CBI personnel, including Pete Mang, Kathy Dressel, and Chet Ubowski.

  In front was a podium equipped with a microphone and, behind it, a large screen.

  The room was stifling; the air-conditioning wasn’t working.

  The Boulder PD wanted to make sure that Hunter would take the case to a grand jury. The detectives had exhausted their resources and were ready to turn the case over. The crime and its aftermath had taken a heavy toll on everyone in the department. Among the casualties were John Eller, Tom Koby, Larry Mason, and Linda Arndt. Jane Harmer had been hospitalized once, and Rick French, the first officer to respond to Patsy’s 911 call, was reportedly still tortured by his failure to open the wine cellar door when he searched the house in those first minutes. What if JonBenét had still been alive? he kept asking himself.

  Beckner opened by thanking everyone for coming and was soon followed by Steve Thomas, who spoke for ninety minutes, to the accompaniment of images projected on the screen behind him. He began by describing the Ramseys’ life in Atlanta and Boulder. The first image he showed was JonBenét on Christmas morning with her new bike. The second, which Thomas kept on the screen for five minutes, was Patsy holding her daughter’s arm, the pressure of her fingers evident on the child’s skin. Thomas then moved on to the events of the day of the murder. He told the audience that Linda Arndt had “amnesia” and couldn’t assist the department, though she had been the first detective on the scene and the only one present when JonBenét’s body was found. Thomas was followed by Tom Trujillo, who discussed the autopsy findings; Michael Everett, who described the crime scene and the items collected from the house; and Carey Weinheimer, who presented the evidence about the pineapple.

  The police said that JonBenét’s head injury could have been caused by the flashlight they found on the Ramseys’ kitchen counter, although nothing had been found on the flashlight to tie it to the crime or the injury. There was nothing on the child’s scalp to suggest the pattern on the casing of the Maglite. Whatever had struck JonBenét on the head had left a rectangular hole in her scalp about the size of a dime. It could have been made by the joint that connects a golf club to its shaft. John Ramsey’s partial
set of clubs had been discovered just paces away from where JonBenét’s body was found.

  Next the police presented the facts about the noose—also called a garrote by some—the rope, the type of knot, and the broken paintbrush attached to the rope that was used to strangle JonBenét. The knot on the stick and the knot on the wrist were different. The one on the wrist ligature was a “capsized square knot.” The rope had been pulled through a knot and acted as a noose rather than a true garrote. The point where the rope became a noose was at the back of the neck, which suggested to some that JonBenét was lying facedown when the ligature was tied. That seemed to be consistent with the bruises on the front of her face that the coroner had noted in the autopsy.

  The police did not say whether the garroting had occurred before, during, or after the blow to the child’s head. The coroner himself wasn’t sure if strangulation by the noose or garroting was the sole cause of death. He had said—and the police now repeated—that death had been caused by the noose in association with a blunt cranial trauma. Though there was no expert opinion to confirm it, a reasonable person listening to the presentation could conclude that the blow to the head had probably come first.

  Also unclear from the crime scene was where JonBenét had been when she suffered the blow to the head. The injury hadn’t produced any bleeding to leave a trail. She could have had her skull fractured in her bedroom, the kitchen, or the basement. Nobody could be sure that the scream heard by the neighbor was JonBenét’s, the police said. Sound tests indicated that a scream should also have been audible to the parents on the third floor, but whether it would have been loud enough to awaken them was unclear.

  The police addressed the likelihood of staging at the crime scene. Their analysis of the ransom note indicated that it was evidence of staging. The white blanket in which JonBenét’s body was enveloped and the Barbie nightgown found next to her body were strong indications of staging, as was the cord tied lightly around her wrist, the police said. All suggested compassion, caring, and emotional attachment. The FBI profile said that parents typically found it harder to dispose of a child’s body than an intruder would. Listening to the presentation, one investigator theorized that the nightgown might have been bundled up together with the blanket, a gesture not unlike burying the child with her favorite stuffed animal.

  Throughout the presentation, Dr. Lee took notes by hand. Scheck typed on his laptop. Pete Hofstrom had three legal pads. On one, he took notes with a blue pen; it indicated significant evidence that implicated the Ramseys. On the second pad he used a red pen, to record evidence of an intruder. The third pad, on which he used a black pen, was for inconclusive evidence. Everyone paid strict attention to the speakers. No one left until breaks were called.

  Detective Harmer covered the family history of the Ramseys and the Paughs and reviewed the medical findings about JonBenét’s genital injuries. Several well-known experts had concluded that the child’s hymen was torn weeks or even months before her murder, Harmer said, but other experts had said the tear was recent. Broken blood vessels inside the child’s vagina clearly indicated that she was penetrated that night, but there was no conclusive evidence of a sexual assault before that time. The blood stained her underpants. The state of the hymen offered clues, but they were open to interpretation. Experts were also divided over the act of penetration. Some said it occurred before she suffered the blow to the head; others thought it was part of the staging. Several experts had told the police that the microscopic piece of cellulose found in JonBenét’s vagina was wood. Most likely it came from the same splintered paintbrush that had been used for the “garrote.” If she was penetrated with part of the paintbrush or a finger that carried the cellulose into the body, it had probably taken place around the time of the garroting or while JonBenét was dying.

  Steve Thomas presented the tape, ligature, and cord evidence. According to their best conclusions, the cord and the duct tape had probably been bought at McGuckin Hardware by Patsy Ramsey. Thomas pointed out, however, that even though Patsy had purchased items that cost the same amounts as the tape and the cord, the store’s computerized sales slips did not list the name or number of the items purchased—only the prices. It was also possible that the duct tape had been purchased in Atlanta. The purchase of the items did not show intent to use them in a criminal act and, Thomas admitted, someone other than the Ramseys might have used those items in the crime.

  The trace evidence lifted from the duct tape was presented. The CBI had established that the four fibers found on the duct tape were consistent with the jacket Patsy wore to the Whites’ house on Christmas, which Officer French observed she also had on the next morning. A photograph taken at the Whites showed Patsy in the jacket. The detectives were certain of this evidence and its importance. They considered it a match.

  To Henry Lee, however, the word consistent was not the same as a definitive match. Lee, like Scheck, thought like a defense attorney. In his mind, fibers were fibers. When confronted with evidence like this, Lee always asked himself what other garments existed that were made of the same fiber. He knew it was impossible to match a fiber to a garment the way a fingerprint or DNA could be matched to a person. The fibers found on the duct tape here might be slightly persuasive to a jury, but in Lee’s opinion, they were not a smoking gun.

  It was also possible that the fibers had gotten stuck to the duct tape in a secondary transfer. For example, the fibers could have been transferred to the child’s blanket as Patsy tucked her daughter into bed and then could have adhered to the duct tape even if Patsy never came into contact with it. The police had found the tape on the blanket.

  Listening to the presentation, Tom Haney knew that trace evidence could be strongly convincing to a jury but that a good defense attorney could explain it away, especially when the defendant lived in the house where it was found. Haney also knew it was a tedious and enormous job to identify and trace every fiber that had been found on JonBenét’s blanket. They hadn’t even begun the process, and he would lobby for it in the coming weeks. For example, the pubic hair found on the blanket had to be thoroughly investigated. It was decidedly odd for pubic hair to be on a child’s blanket—especially one that was washed often. At first the police understood the hair to be somewhat like Melinda Ramsey’s, but the match didn’t rise even to the level of consistency. Only John Ramsey had been excluded as the source of the pubic hair, which meant that a lot of work still had to be done. It also could turn out to be a secondary transfer.

  The police reported that they had been unable to find a match for the fibers discovered on JonBenét’s labia and on her inner thighs. The fibers did not match any clothes belonging to John or Patsy. The police were stumped.

  The detectives presented a long list of suspects who had been considered and dropped. Randy Simons, Kevin Raburn, Bud Henderson, Linda Hoffmann-Pugh, Joe Barnhill, and Chris Wolf had been eliminated by forensics evidence. Others, like Sandra Henderson, had ironclad alibis. By now, all but two of the thirty-two known sex offenders in the Boulder area had been cleared.

  As for other suspects, Steve Thomas had told more than one observer that Bill McReynolds was not involved in the crime because he was too infirm from his then-recent heart surgery.

  The results of DNA testing were inconclusive at this time, the police said. The DNA found under JonBenét’s fingernails showed the possibility of contamination. Nevertheless, the police claimed that they had been able to exclude certain people by these DNA tests. This led Barry Scheck to comment, “You can’t say the DNA test results are iffy and then exclude people because their DNA doesn’t match. You can’t have your cake and eat it.” He recommended further RFLP or newer types of PCR testing. Most in the audience considered the DNA test results the weakest part of the presentation.

  Fleet and Priscilla White, who were eliminated by forensics and alibi, were still the subject of some conversation. Someone asked if White’s erratic behavior during JonBenét’s funeral and afterward had been
considered before he was cleared. Yes, the police replied. What about his continued involvement? Was it a sign of guilt? Detective Harmer pointed out that White had information that he still had not shared with the detectives. Metro DAs Bob Grant and Bill Ritter both said that since White had sat on the information for so long, its credibility was questionable, regardless of what it was.

  Every ninety minutes, the audience took a break. Despite their animosity of the past eighteen months, there was now an easygoing exchange between the DA’s staff and the police. Steve Thomas even joked with Barry Scheck that the attorney wasn’t any friend of law enforcement. Scheck said he was more a friend than Thomas knew. Tom Koby, a lame duck as he awaited his replacement, made small talk during the breaks.

  When the cops played the tape of Patsy’s 911 call, Alex Hunter wrote on his legal pad, “Doesn’t sound as upset as I thought.” But others on his team had the opposite reaction. Then John and Patsy’s statement that Burke had been asleep and knew nothing about the events of that morning was called into question when what sounded like Burke’s voice could be heard on the tape—if you could be sure it was a voice, said one listener.

  The police discussed the Ramseys’ demeanor both before and after JonBenét’s body was found. They had seemed distant from each other the entire morning, had never tried to comfort each other, and had remained physically separate. Patsy was looking around, peeking through the fingers covering her face, one police report said, while John was off by himself much of the time, out of Arndt’s sight. He had even gone alone into the basement at midmorning, after which time he had become despondent, sitting alone. The Ramseys’ refusal to grant formal interviews until four months after the murder was also highly suspicious, the police said.