Perfect Murder, Perfect Town

by Lawrence Schiller

  After a day of introduction, the grand jury began hearing from Rick French, Karl Veitch, Paul Reichenbach, Bob Whitson, Linda Arndt, Barry Weiss, and Larry Mason. Pete Hofstrom, in sweater-vest, tie, and tweed jacket, would walk briskly past the grand jury room, making an exaggerated grimace to a reporter he recognized but never pausing to comment as he headed off to litigate cases that no one would ever read about in the newspaper.

  In his thirty-two years as a law enforcement officer, Lou Smit had worked enough grand juries to know that “you can indict a ham sandwich if you present only one side of the case.” What about all the evidence that had been found of an intruder? Smit asked himself. If Michael Kane was planning to introduce any exculpatory evidence, Smit hadn’t yet seen any signs of it. He was sure the Ramseys were going to be indicted.

  Smit didn’t want his name associated with the case anymore. On September 19, he finished writing his letter of resignation and showed it to Pete Hofstrom and Trip DeMuth before leaving it for Hunter on September 20. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the media got word of it, but it surprised him that Hunter didn’t call him until three days later—to say that The Denver Post knew he’d resigned and wanted a copy of his letter. Hunter was calling to ask Smit’s permission to release it to the press. Smit first said yes, then called Hunter back and asked him to wait a few days.

  Smit’s had already received a phone call from Sherry Keene-Osborn of Newsweek. She also asked for permission to print his letter. Smit said no. Keene-Osborn then drove all the way from Denver to Colorado Springs, where Smit lived on the west side of town, just below majestic Pikes Peak, on a tree-lined street right out of Norman Rockwell’s America. Beside the door to his lovingly maintained duplex hung a wooden shingle: “The Smits—Founded 1958.”

  “This is the greatest case I ever worked,” Smit told the Newsweek reporter. “For a detective it’s a real puzzle—a whodunit.” Keene-Osborn talked the retired detective into giving her an unsigned copy of his resignation letter. She sensed that by the time she arrived at his door, Smit’s attitude was, Why quit if nobody is going to know the reasons behind it? When Newsweek decided not to print it in the magazine, she shared the letter with the AP, which released it on September 25, the same day that Newsweek put it up on its Web site.*

  Sept. 20, 1998

  Dear Alex:

  It is with great reluctance and regret that I submit this letter of resignation. Even though I want to continue to participate in the official investigation and assist in finding the killer of JonBenet, I find that I cannot in good conscience be a part of the persecution of innocent people.

  When we first met I told you that my style of approaching an investigation is from the concept of not working a particular theory, but working the case.

  Alex, even though I have been unable to actively investigate, I have been in a position to collect, record and analyze every piece of information given to your office in the course of this investigation. At this point of the investigation “the case” tells me that John and Patsy Ramsey did not kill their daughter, that a very dangerous killer is still out there and no one is actively looking for him.

  The Boulder Police Department has many fine and dedicated men and women who also want justice for JonBenet. They are just going in the wrong direction and have been since day one of the investigation. The case tells me that there is substantial, credible evidence of an intruder and lack of evidence that the parents are involved. If this is true, they too are tragic victims whose misery has been compounded by a misdirected and flawed investigation, unsubstantiated leaks, rumors and accusations.

  Alex, you are in such a difficult position. The media and peer pressure are incredible. You are inundated with conflicting facts and information, and “expert” opinions. And now you have an old detective telling you that the Ramseys did not do it and to wait and investigate this case more thoroughly before a very tragic mistake would be made. What a double travesty it could be; an innocent person indicted, and a vicious killer on the loose to prey on another innocent child and no one to stop him.

  Shoes, shoes, the victim’s shoes, who will stand in the victim’s shoes?

  Good Luck to you and your fine office and may God bless you in the awesome decisions you must soon make.

  Sincerely

  [signed]

  Detective Lou Smit

  When Bill Wise read Smit’s letter, he saw it as an invitation to a defense attorney to call Smit as a star witness. Wise could not understand what evidence of an intruder Smit was talking about, but of course he wasn’t a detective. Still, it was one thing to say that there was insufficient evidence to go after the Ramseys. It was quite another to conclude that the parents couldn’t have done it. That really astounded Wise.

  When Tom Haney read the letter, he thought the intruder theory had gotten the best of Smit and that the veteran detective had lost his objectivity. Haney knew that in every case, there was something that didn’t fit. In this case, it was the tone of the ransom note, the strands of a spiderweb partially attached to the open basement window, the shoe imprint and the palm print on the wine cellar door. Haney had debated every aspect of the case with Smit, and with all the evidence that also pointed to the Ramseys, it didn’t make sense for Smit to say that they were innocent.

  For his part, Bob Grant saw a fundamental difference between Thomas’s letter and Smit’s. Thomas had intended his to be made public; he’d had an agenda. Smit, on the other hand, had meant his letter to be private; only as an afterthought did he release it to the media. That made Smit’s message weightier. If the case reached trial, no matter who the defendant was, any defense attorney would have to try to get Lou Smit as a defense witness. Not doing so would be tantamount to malpractice.

  The two letters showed exactly how complicated the case was. Two experienced detectives, both with full knowledge of all the evidence, had come to opposite conclusions. That raised a question: If these two disagreed, could a grand jury ever agree on who killed JonBenét?

  Hal Haddon told The Denver Post, “I would hope the authorities in charge of the investigation will take note of what Lou Smit said, and will devote some significant resources to finding the real killer.”

  “Lou Smit has been on this case for how many months now,” Mark Beckner told the same paper, “and I don’t recall him ever presenting any arrest warrants to the DA’s office.”

  On the evening of September 27, Smit’s letter spread like wildfire on the Internet, and 20/20 broadcast a one-hour special, hosted by Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer. Correspondent Elizabeth Vargas pointed out: “We emphasize there may be evidence to the contrary [to what we are reporting] not available to us or different conclusions that might be drawn [from what we are reporting]. And a reminder—in law, and in fairness, all people are considered innocent until proven guilty.” The report detailed Donald Foster’s conclusions about Patsy’s authorship of the ransom note; the enhanced 911 call with Burke’s voice in the background; the four fibers found on the duct tape that seemed to match Patsy’s jacket; and a time study prepared by the police, that showed how long it would take for someone to complete the murder and the cover-up while the family slept, unaware.

  Vincent Bugliosi, a former Los Angeles prosecutor, told Vargas, “The strongest evidence against the Ramseys in this case is nothing that directly implicates them. [It is] the implausibility that anyone else committed these murders. But paradoxically, the strongest evidence that I’ve just pointed to, by its very nature, is the weakest evidence against the Ramseys.” Vargas asked, “Why?” Bugliosi continued, “If we come to the conclusion that JonBenét was not murdered by an intruder, the inevitable question presents itself: which [parent] did it? A prosecutor can’t argue to a jury, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence is very clear here that either Mr. or Mrs. Ramsey committed this murder and the other one covered it up…’ There is no case to take to the jury unless [the DA] could prove beyond a reasonable doubt which one [of them] did it.” Later in the sh
ow, Bugliosi told Vargas, “Even if you could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Patsy Ramsey wrote the ransom note, that doesn’t mean that she committed the murder.”

  Alex Hunter had watched 20/20 fearing the worst. The attack on him wasn’t as bad as he had expected. But listening to Foster’s conclusions regarding Patsy and the ransom note, he knew there was another side to that story, which the Ramseys’ attorneys were sure to make public. Several months earlier, Bryan Morgan had given Hunter a copy of a letter that Foster had written to Patsy Ramsey in the spring of 1997, before he agreed to work for Hunter. The DA was aware that Foster had followed the case on the Internet from February 1997 and that he had also written to Patsy. But when Morgan told him about the second communiqué, which Foster sent to Jameson, who ran an information Web site on the Internet, Hunter was dismayed. It seemed that at first Foster believed that Jameson was in fact John Andrew. Foster, after e-mailing Jameson/John Andrew a series of Internet communiqués, was told by Jameson that she was Sue Bennett and not John Andrew. Foster soon after asked Bennett to turn herself in to the police for her part as an accessory to the crime of murder. In the same communiqué to Jameson/Bennett, Foster said John Andrew and Jameson were one person and indicated that he believed that John Andrew was involved in the death of JonBenét.

  In Foster’s letter to Patsy, he had written, “I know you are innocent—know it absolutely and unequivocally. I will stake my professional reputation on it, indeed my faith in my humanity.” He also said that his analysis of the note [at the time] “leads me to believe you did not write it and the police are wasting their time by trying to prove that you did.” Even though Foster’s spring 1997 conclusions were based only on the fragments of the ransom note that were available at the time, there was a powerful contradiction between his conclusion at the time and what he said in 1998.

  “Did you think the Ramseys were going to forget about his letter?” Wise said to a reporter when word of it leaked. In his final report, Foster used strong language to state that Patsy Ramsey had written the ransom note. In the letter to Patsy claiming he was sure she didn’t write it, Foster had used almost the same language.

  The 20/20 broadcast also caused problems for the prosecution. Hunter had so far been able to isolate Kane, Levin, and Morrissey from the media. In fact, his entire office had been avoiding the press and there were no leaks from the grand jury room. But now 20/20 had put the case in the news again. This, combined with Lou Smit’s resignation, discouraged the prosecutors. The grand jurors had to be advised again not to read the papers or watch TV—not forbidden, simply advised. They were told that their decisions should be based only on what they heard in the courtroom, no matter how difficult it might be to block out what they heard or read elsewhere.

  The following week, Detective Arndt told the grand jury that behavior was the key to finding the killer of JonBenét. She painstakingly told how each of the Ramseys conducted themselves after she arrived on the morning of December 26. John Ramsey’s actions, in her opinion, were not consistent with someone whose daughter had been kidnapped. Arndt would later characterize his demeanor as cordial. After JonBenét’s body was discovered, Ramsey scared her, she said. Then Arndt gave the grand jury an emotional account of being left alone in the Ramsey house that morning for over two hours, one law enforcement officer with the near-impossible task of supervising the distraught Ramseys and their equally distraught friends. She emphasized that her urgent calls for assistance had gone unanswered. The prosecutors were furious; it was obvious that she was attacking the investigation. Within days the grand jury was told that their job was not to investigate the investigation. On March 18, 1999, Arndt resigned from the Boulder PD.

  On the afternoon of Friday, October 16, Randy Simons, who had photographed JonBenét in June 1996 and whose photographs had subsequently appeared on many magazine covers throughout the world, was found walking naked along a residential street in Genoa, Colorado, a town of two hundred residents on the eastern plains, where he lived. Approached by a sheriff’s deputy, Simons blurted out, “I didn’t kill JonBenét.” The sheriff, who had no idea who Simons was, hadn’t even mentioned the subject.

  Simons was taken into custody and then transferred to University Hospital in Denver. No charges were filed. When the story was reported, the Ramseys’ investigators immediately interviewed Simons at the hospital. It would be a week before the Boulder police arrived to talk to the photographer. Even though Simons didn’t have a good alibi for the evening of JonBenét’s murder, this incident didn’t provide any new information and he was released.

  10

  By October 27,1998, the grand jury had been sitting for five weeks, had met ten times, and had taken one ten-day break. Coroner John Meyer and experts from the CBI presented their evaluations of the evidence, including Chet Ubowski, the handwriting expert, who had reported to the police that Patsy could not be excluded as the writer of the ransom note. He had also told Pete Mang, his boss at the CBI, that his gut told him it was her handwriting.

  Alex Hunter attended every session. For the first time in his career as DA, Hunter was giving his full attention to a case. He knew that his legacy and reputation would depend on his evaluation of the evidence being presented to the grand jury. If an indictment was handed down, it would be his responsibility to sign it if he believed there was a case against either of the Ramseys. If he didn’t see the evidence—well, that was a bridge Hunter might have to cross later.

  The police also worried about their legacy. In November 1998, Tom Wickman asked a journalist, “Why does the media keep talking about how we screwed up?” Before the reporter could answer, Wickman said, “We’ve been looking outside the Ramseys since the beginning. We are doing the best we can to look at other leads and I don’t know why this story keeps perpetuating.” Then he suggested that they have coffee. They didn’t talk about the grand jury—only about Wickman’s background as a psychology major and his interest in law enforcement and how different this case would have been if the press had gone away after the first few weeks.

  That evening, Jay Leno did a routine about an imaginary phone call:

  CALLER: “I’d rather not give my name. I’m a detective with the Boulder Police Department. I don’t appreciate your jokes about us not being very good investigators. I just don’t think it’s fair.”

  LENO: Well, I understand what you’re saying but you have to admit it does seem like you’re moving awful slow on this JonBenét Ramsey murder case.

  CALLER: There’s been a murder at the Ramseys’!?! Why didn’t someone tell me? I’d better get over there right now!!!

  In many respects, the case was “scene-dependent”—could a person have lifted the window-well grate and climbed through the broken window to the basement and still leave a partial spiderweb intact? How well could someone hear from one room to another?

  On October 29, the grand jury toured the Ramseys’ fifteen-room house. By 9:10 A.M. some jurors were already combing the property, going in and out through the side doors on the north side of the house and in and out the front door and peering in through the windows on the ground level. Each juror carried a notepad and several pages of photocopied material.

  Kane, Levin, Morrissey, Wise, and Hunter lingered in the yard while the jurors spent several hours in the house, working mostly alone, almost never speaking to one another, each moving along at his or her own speed. The house was now unfurnished, and without the aid of photographs, it was hard to visualize how it had once looked. Still, the tour was sure to have an impact on the jurors. It was, after all, the crime scene.

  Before the group left, one male juror tested the drainpipes on the exterior of the house, to see how strong they were. Possibly he wondered whether the pipes could support someone trying to scale the outside of the house. Another juror looked at the duct that led from the boiler room to the front of the house. Probably the jurors had been told Lou Smit’s theory about how the scream might have been heard by the neighbor but not on th
e third floor, by JonBenét’s parents.

  At 11:20 the jurors left, two hours and twenty minutes after they arrived.

  As the sheriff’s van pulled away from the house, Wise said to Kane, “We’ve got a problem. Sixteen of them went in and only fifteen came out. I think we lost one.” Wise saw a momentary flicker of panic cross Kane’s face before the prosecutor realized that Wise was pulling his leg.

  That afternoon, the grand jury began hearing from Tom Trujillo, who had been sworn in as a grand jury investigator. CBI analyst Debbie Chavez was the next to give testimony. Her areas of expertise included the ink on the ransom note, the paintbrush, and Patsy’s paint tray. Chavez was followed by CBS fingerprint expert George Herrera. Even as the grand jury was working, the police were still taking palm prints from witnesses in the hope of finding a match to the print on the wine cellar door.

  Alex Hunter can just say at some point, “I’ve developed the evidence and I see the case.” He doesn’t have to wait for a grand jury to reach a verdict. He can indict and arrest his target. There are some technical problems, but it can be done.

  He would have to show a good reason to do that. In my view, it would be easy for the prosecution to say, “I want this evidence you’ve developed to be presented at a public preliminary hearing.”