Perfect Murder, Perfect Town

by Lawrence Schiller

  8

  On August 18, returning home at about 11:00 P.M., Steve Thomas saw an unfamiliar car in his driveway and the light on in his living room. Jeff Shapiro was on his doorstep talking to his wife through the door. She was in her pajamas and frightened. Thomas told the reporter he’d crossed the line by coming to his home.

  “I’m trying to help you,” Shapiro said, now standing in the driveway. “The Globe has found a source who told them some things that you don’t want made public. They hope you’ll cooperate with them.” Thomas said nothing.

  “They need to know things about the grand jury,” Shapiro said. Thomas thought the reporter was playing good cop, bad cop—the oldest trick in the book.

  “They know about your mother,” Shapiro continued. “We know she committed suicide.”

  “My mother…my mother…” Thomas said, staring at Shapiro. “You’ve got that all wrong.” Thomas had been just seven years old when his mother became suddenly ill and died.

  “I don’t want to see that story run,” Shapiro said. “I’m just trying to protect you.”

  But the way Thomas saw it, Shapiro was trying to buy him. He told the reporter to leave at once.

  Three days later, a FedEx package arrived at Thomas’s house. In it was a letter from Craig Lewis of the Globe, who requested an interview. Enclosed were pictures of Thomas’s long-deceased mother and late aunt, who had died of brain cancer.

  That afternoon, Thomas told his lawyer to write Shapiro and the Globe that any further contact with him would be met with legal action. Before long, Thomas heard that the DA’s office was floating a rumor that mental instability ran in his family.

  Several months later, the FBI talked to Shapiro about the possibility that he had engaged in extortion with Thomas. Shapiro played them a tape he had recorded during a conversation with Globe staff, where the topic of how to go about leveraging Detective Steve Thomas had been discussed.

  Thomas decided not to press charges against the Globe or any of its employees and the FBI dropped the investigation for the time being. To clear his own name, Shapiro went public with excerpts from more than half a dozen phone conversations he’d recorded with his editors at the Globe. It wasn’t long before he was appearing on TV and in such publications as Editor and Publisher with his views on tabloid journalism.

  Meanwhile, Michael Kane asked Ron Gosage and Michael Everett to visit Linda Hoffmann-Pugh and show her a photograph of a knife the police had discovered at the Ramsey house just after the killing. It had been found on the counter near the microwave oven in the utility area just off JonBenét’s bedroom.

  Hoffmann-Pugh said it was the paring knife from the kitchen, which she had put away many times. It had a wooden handle and wasn’t serrated. She said that the knife had never been used upstairs; it was always in the kitchen. Linda wondered if the knife had something to do with an intruder. Surely Patsy would never scare JonBenét with a knife. That same day, the police told her she would be called before the grand jury.

  Two days later, the National Enquirer called her to inquire about the Barbie nightgown that had been found next to JonBenét’s body. Linda mentioned to the reporter that she’d just been visited by Gosage and Everett—they had never told her to keep their visit private. The Enquirer reporter offered her $300 for the story of the detectives’ visit. Hoffmann-Pugh turned it down. The next day, she called Craig Lewis of the Globe. He offered her $1,000 and came over with the money. He was sitting in her living room getting ready to take notes when David Wright of the Enquirer knocked on the door. When he saw Lewis in the living room, he yelled, “Don’t say a word until I make you another offer!” Unable to decide what to do, Hoffmann-Pugh asked Lewis to leave. She said she’d call him the next day. Several hours later, Wright called her back. “I’ve just gone to the bank, and I’m on my way to your house with cash.” He gave her $1,500 for the story. Now Linda Hoffmann-Pugh had enough money to pay the rent and buy her daughter Ariana some new clothes for school.

  By now it was apparent to Alex Hunter that he wouldn’t be able to use Al LaCabe. LaCabe’s boss, Henry Solano, said the Denver U.S. Attorney’s office was understaffed. Hunter withdrew his request and began to look for two prosecutors. With the grand jury start date just three weeks away, Bill Ritter recommended Mitch Morrissey, who understood DNA. From his office, Bob Grant said that he was willing to loan out Bruce Levin, his chief trial deputy.

  Levin had the reputation of always doing the right thing in a case, though some of his colleagues thought he was only average. He’d been at his job for eighteen years. Unlike Pete Hofstrom, who did his own docket every week, Levin took only the cases he wanted. Nevertheless, Levin had good courtroom skills and came off as sincere and honest. Jurors seemed to like him. While several of Mitch Morrissey’s colleagues considered him unremarkable in the courtroom, he had handled five rape and murder trials where his presentation of DNA evidence had played a major role obtaining convictions. Morrissey was resident specialist on DNA evidence with the Colorado District Attorneys Council and was often called upon to teach his expertise to prosecutors.

  Meanwhile, Michael Kane was working seven days a week, totally focused and giving every minute to the job. Awake well before seven in the morning, he worked until nine in the evening and would often sleep on an air mattress in the war room when he was too tired to drive to his apartment. He had even cut his running down to three miles a day—from the Justice Center down to Folsom Avenue and then back along the Boulder Creek bike path.

  Levin and Morrissey reported to work at the end of August. Neither had attended the Boulder PD’s presentation, nor had they been around during the Ramseys’ interviews. Kane worried whether they would get up to speed by September 15, when the grand jury proceedings were to begin.

  Hunter now had a team: Kane, Levin, and Morrissey. Pete Hofstrom, who didn’t want anything to do with the grand jury, took off for his yearly vacation to San Francisco to see old friends. Though Trip DeMuth still held to the intruder theory, he was important because he carried encyclopedic knowledge of the case in his head. Lou Smit, mad that the Ramseys were to be made the target of a grand jury investigation, was rarely in the office. He still thought that Bill McReynolds should be looked at again.

  By now, it was likely, Kane had decided that his goal was to return an indictment and go to trial. And if the indictment was supported by the evidence, he hoped Hunter would be prepared to sign it. The attitude in the office was not “if this case reaches a courtroom” but “it will reach a courtroom.”

  On September 3, Steve Thomas and his wife, Karena, took off for a three-week trip across the United States. Thomas loved to travel the country’s back roads, and this much-needed vacation would take them to Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida, where they would visit John Eller.

  Meanwhile, Hunter was adjusting to life with outside prosecutors in his midst. When one Boulderite saw the DA at the Boulder recycling center, his four-wheel-drive bursting with empty milk jugs and piles of newspapers, he thought that Hunter looked tired. The DA told his acquaintance that if anyone could do something with the Ramsey case, it was Michael Kane. It might take some time, Hunter said, maybe another six months, but Kane could do it.

  Kane had been given complete autonomy in preparing the case for the grand jury. He held daily meetings with Hunter, but if they came to an impasse, Kane had the last word. Nevertheless, the final decision—whether or not to sign a true bill, also known as an indictment—would be for Hunter, the elected official, to make.* By then Kane’s job would be done.

  Kane, Levin, and Morrissey were not new kids on the block. On many occasions, Kane had taken cases that seemed to have no answers and developed new evidence. He had acquired his reputation by going before grand juries, getting indictments, and then convincing a trial jury that the grand jury had been right in its findings. Kane got convictions.

  While the three prosecutors reviewed the evidence, they handed out assignments to the Boulder PD, th
e Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office. Some interview subjects still hadn’t provided saliva for DNA testing or had their palm prints taken. Tom Haney and Steve Ainsworth did some work, and so did Gosage, Harmer, and Everett.

  On Sunday, September 13, Kane, Levin, and Harmer went to see Linda Hoffmann-Pugh at her home in Fort Lupton. Hoffmann-Pugh was worried that they were going to subpoena her for the grand jury. Instead, they brought with them books of photographs. For three hours, Hoffmann-Pugh was asked about the photographs, taken inside the Ramseys’ house shortly after the murder, depicting furniture, clothing, and household objects. Did this garment have these stains on them? Was this ever used by JonBenét for sleepwear? Did JonBenét ever wear this shirt inside out? Did she sleep in this? What about this shirt and the thermal underwear found on the bed?

  By the time they were through, Hoffmann-Pugh wondered why she hadn’t been asked these questions before. Everyone knew she had been the Ramseys’ full-time housekeeper for a year and a half. She had last cleaned the house on December 23, just two days before JonBenét was murdered.

  Michael Kane did most of the talking, and everyone took notes.

  First, Hoffmann-Pugh was asked about JonBenét’s bedroom. The photos showed everything from her beds to her bedding, her TV, her videotapes, and her shoes. She was asked about the many hair ties scattered on the floor at the foot of the bed and in front of the closet. Hoffmann-Pugh said that wasn’t normal. The ties were usually kept in a basket in the bathroom. Maybe one or two would be lying on the bathroom counter, but they were never on the floor, or even in the bedroom. Then there was an open drawer. The housekeeper confirmed that it was the drawer where JonBenét’s panties were kept. A new pair of underwear might have been put on JonBenét that evening, or maybe the drawer was left open from the morning. They wanted to know which shampoos were used on JonBenét’s hair and where she bathed. She was always bathed in Patsy’s tub on the third floor, Hoffmann-Pugh told them. Burke was also bathed in Patsy’s tub, but lately he had taken baths in his father’s bathroom. She knew for sure, because his Legos were always at the bottom of the tub when she drained the water. Then there was a photo of the decorative curtain treatment on the wall just behind JonBenét’s bed. One of the ties was undone. Could JonBenét have hidden behind the drape? The housekeeper didn’t think there was enough space, but JonBenét could have drawn the fabric around her for protection. Had JonBenét tried to protect herself from someone or from something like a stun gun? Linda Hoffmann-Pugh asked herself.

  They also showed her a picture of JonBenét’s white thermal blanket which had many urine and brown-colored stains on it. Some of them looked like dried blood. Then they showed her a picture of JonBenét’s bed, which looked strange to her. Looking at the comforter, you couldn’t tell that the blanket beneath it had been pulled off. The bed looked barely disturbed. Hoffmann-Pugh knew that to pull the blanket off, you had to first remove the comforter, other-wise it would get messed up. But in the photo, it was neat. Maybe the white blanket hadn’t been on the bed at all. She told the police that the blanket might have been in the washer-dryer outside JonBenét’s room. Then they showed her a photograph of the dryer, with the door open. Inside, she saw JonBenét’s pink-and-white-checked sheets, which she had put on the bed two days before the murder. But on JonBenét’s bed in another photo were the Beauty and the Beast sheets.

  The logical explanation, Hoffmann-Pugh said, was that JonBenét had wet the bed on either Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday night. The clean sheets had probably been put on the bed and the wet sheets, blanket, and maybe even the Barbie nightgown were put in the wash and dried. The Ramseys didn’t even have a clothes hamper, she said. When they took off their dirty clothes, they would just leave them lying around. The only things that went directly into the washer were JonBenét’s urine-soaked sheets and blanket, so that they wouldn’t smell. Only someone who knew which washer and dryer the Ramseys used for JonBenét’s sheets and blanket would know where to find the blanket if it wasn’t on the bed. Just as important, the washer-dryer outside JonBenét’s room was built into a cabinet. Hoffmann-Pugh speculated that whoever killed JonBenét knew where the blanket was that night and probably took it out of the dryer.

  Next was a picture of Burke’s red pocketknife that the police found in the basement several yards from JonBenét’s body. It might have been used to cut the cord that was found binding the child. Linda remembered taking the knife away from Burke several weeks before the murder and hiding it in a closed cupboard in the service area just outside JonBenét’s bedroom. Burke had been using the pocketknife to whittle without collecting the discarded shavings. Again, Linda pointed out to the investigators that only an adult in the family would have had any idea of where she’d put the knife.

  Then they showed her the picture of Patsy’s paint tray—or tote, as she called it—and some paintings leaning against the wall. The photograph had been taken just outside the wine cellar, right next to where Hoffmann-Pugh’s own daughter had put John Ramsey’s golf clubs. But that wasn’t where she’d left the tray on December 23, she said. She had put it at the foot of the stairs and didn’t know who had moved it. They asked her about the bowl with pineapple that was found on the dining room table. Did she recognize the white ridged bowl with a little lip on the bottom that served as a base, about the size of a softball?

  Yes, it looked familiar, she said, but it would be better to see the real bowl, since there were so many in the kitchen that looked alike. Later, thinking about it, Hoffmann-Pugh felt that it was almost as if they had been playing the game “What’s wrong with this picture?”

  Finally, Kane showed her a picture of the Bible that John kept on his bedroom desk. Hoffmann-Pugh knew it was always open to Psalm 118. Every time she dusted, she saw it open to the same page. She told them she often read the verse. She didn’t sit down to read it, just read it standing up. Hoffmann-Pugh started to cry. She remembered that the amount of the ransom demand was $118,000, and thought about JonBenét being dead.

  “That’s OK,” Michael Kane said, patting her on the hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “We’ll see you in court,” said Bruce Levin.

  That same Sunday, Lou Smit thought about the tunnel vision that, he believed, had set in at Hunter’s office. Now that Levin and Morrissey were up to speed, they were thinking just like Kane—they wanted the grand jury to return an indictment. Smit understood that it was their job—they hadn’t been brought in to evaluate the case: they were there to present it. They were hired guns. Though it wouldn’t be known to the public for several weeks, Trip DeMuth had been removed from the case.

  Smit gave it one last crack. He asked Hunter to wait with the grand jury, came close to begging him. Smit could see that Hunter felt the evidence wasn’t quite there yet, but at the same time it was clear to him that the DA was not exactly in charge—he had been told what to do.

  9

  On Tuesday, September 15, the grand jury convened at the Justice Center to hear the Ramsey case. It had been 628 days since JonBenét was found murdered in her parents’ basement.

  The sky was cloudless and postcard-perfect as reporters and photographers gathered once again. There were representatives from all the Denver and Boulder news outlets, from TV networks—NBC, ABC, CBS, and their affiliates—and from the National Enquirer, Globe, and Extra. Few of the participants would talk, so members of the media chatted with each other as they waited for something to happen.

  The grand jurors arrived shortly after 8:00 A.M., and a Boulder County sheriff escorted each one up the sidewalk, past television camera crews and still photographers, to the entrance. None of the jurors seemed upset by the photographers. As they passed the newspaper vending machines by the entrance of the building, they could see that the morning edition of the Daily Camera had published their Department of Motor Vehicle photos on the front page. The mug shots made them look like criminals.

  On the left side of the gr
and jury room, with its tight-pile pale blue carpet, stood the jury box, with two tiers of high-backed, cushioned purple chairs, seven in the back row and six in the front. On the front railing of the box sat a white plastic water pitcher and two stacks of paper cups. Arranged in front of the jury box were nine royal blue, cushioned armchairs. The witness box was on the spectators’ far right, at the judge’s side. Behind the raised area where the judge would sit were two flags, the American flag on one side and the Colorado flag on the other. White paper was taped over the panes of glass on the door so that no one could see in.

  Outside the courtroom, no fewer than four sheriff’s deputies were on hand, to keep the press at a distance. There were enough casual exchanges between reporters and grand jurors—“How are you?” “Good morning,” and the like—that a judge ordered the reporters to stand back.

  The DA’s position was clear: They would say as little as possible. Bill Wise told Daily Camera reporter Matt Sebastian, “I’m not answering any questions except to say that it’s a beautiful day in Boulder.” Alex Hunter—carrying a legal pad and an orthopedic seat for his back condition—also said to reporters, “It’s a beautiful day.”

  Michael Kane’s plan was to present the case in the classic way—in the order in which the police had discovered the various elements, without first presenting a history of the family or suggesting possible motives. There was none of that in this case anyway. There were only the crime, the evidence, and the targets. The grand jury would follow the events through the reports and recollections of every officer who had come into contact with the Ramseys, starting just after 5:52 A.M. on December 26,1996, when Patsy called 911.