We Have Your Daughter Read online

  When your child is murdered, the anger, pain and grief are compounded by the crushing realization that another person intentionally took the life of someone so precious, so innocent.

  To see your child’s name on a headstone is impossible.

  —Parents of Murdered Children, Inc.

  Two mothers on their daughters’ murders

  There’s no tragedy like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.

  —Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Supreme Commander, Allied Forces, World War II US President, January 1953 to January 1961

  Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it.

  —Ayn Rand

  Novelist, philosopher, playwright, screenwriter

  Logic is the technique by which we add conviction to truth.

  —Jean de la Bruyère

  17th Century Philosopher and Moralist

  Steve:

  Thank you for your incredible support of this book and me and your values which have always encouraged me.

  I love you. I miss you.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 The Family

  Chapter 2 The Day after Christmas—Morning

  Chapter 3 Finding JonBenét

  Chapter 4 Ransom Note

  Chapter 5 John and Patsy

  Chapter 6 Patsy’s Cancer

  Chapter 7 Police Mistakes

  Chapter 8 First On-Scene Police Officer’s Report

  Chapter 9 Lone On-Scene Detective’s First Report

  Chapter 10 JonBenét’s Autopsy

  Chapter 11 The Days After—December 26 to 31, 1996

  Chapter 12 Interviews, Formal Interviews and Interrogations and Why They Matter

  Chapter 13 The First Media Interview—CNN

  Chapter 14 Manipulating the Media 197 Photos of JonBenét

  Chapter 15 Child Beauty Pageants

  Chapter 16 Months Following—1997 to 1998

  Chapter 17 Vanity Fair

  Chapter 18 Handwriting Analyses

  Chapter 19 The Case—Boulder Police Department

  Chapter 20 Additional Evidence

  Chapter 21 Public Reaction

  Chapter 22 Ramsey Attorneys—Personal Perspectives

  Chapter 23 Colorado Governors

  Chapter 24 Ramsey Grand Jury

  Chapter 25 Federal Judge Ruling

  Chapter 26 Who?

  Chapter 27 DNA

  Chapter 28 Behind the Scenes—Twenty Years

  Chapter 29 John and Burke Ramsey, 2015

  Epilogue I

  Epilogue II

  Notes

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Documents

  Additional Resources

  Index

  Copyright

  INTRODUCTION

  ON DECEMBER 26, 1996, the brutally beaten body of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was found by her father in a rarely used storage room in the basement of the Ramsey home in Boulder, Colorado. The little girl had been strangled and her skull fractured either late on Christmas Day or sometime the morning after. Evidence showed she’d struggled helplessly with her tiny fingers to free the rope that was pulled tight around her neck.

  The case was initially classified as a kidnapping because of a ransom note that had been left in the home. I began reporting on the story on December 27, 1996, the day after JonBenét’s body was found. The murder of the “child beauty pageant queen” became worldwide news and, in the midst of their excruciating grief, John and Patsy Ramsey, parents of JonBenét, became the prime suspects.

  Twenty years later, memories have evolved and fewer details are remembered, but one strong and inviolate premise remains: every discovery that members of law enforcement, the media and the public have made through the years about a possible killer in this case has only strengthened their beliefs in their own theories. The perception, whether misguided, that either an intruder or a member of the Ramsey family murdered JonBenét has been solidified in many minds. And that is what this book examines.

  The JonBenét Ramsey case is still one of this country’s most famous unsolved mysteries. In 2012, the Boulder Police Chief declared it a “cold case.” The Boulder County District Attorney, Stanley Garnett, however, wrote at that time that “no homicide is ever ‘closed’ while I am DA, meaning we will investigate them until we solve them and, as an office, have made solving all unsolved homicides a top priority.” He described the Ramsey case as “inactive.”

  Four years prior, JonBenét Ramsey’s parents and her brother, Burke, had been exonerated through DNA evidence by then Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy, who stated, “we do not consider your immediate family to be under any suspicion in the commission of this crime.” However, through the years others in positions of power stated publicly that John and Patsy Ramsey remained “under the umbrella of suspicion,” a stigma they were forced to carry beginning in 1997, when then Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter and then commander of the Ramsey investigation Mark Beckner, who would later become chief of the Boulder Police Department, labeled them in this way.

  There is no statute of limitations on murder.

  This is the first investigative examination and book on the Ramsey case that has involved the cooperation of people with varied points of view, including police investigators who worked the case, district attorneys who were part of the investigation, John and Patsy Ramsey and members of their family, and the Ramsey’s defense attorneys. I have remained in contact with these people, and others who’ve operated on the fringe of the investigation, since I began reporting on this case.

  The involvement of three Colorado governors in the case has been considered and those individuals interviewed as well. More than 10,000 pages of confidential case notes, unpublished police reports and prosecution documents, defense documents and accumulated evidence never before made public have been studied and nearly one hundred people interviewed.

  The new evidence unearthed through this research includes information from a rare, never-before-published, 3,000-page JonBenét Ramsey Murder Book Index. Organized and prepared by the Boulder District Attorney’s Office, this index is a summary of the many Boulder Police Department Ramsey case reports that also includes evidence, public input and documentation from the numerous Ramsey Murder Case Files. The JonBenét Ramsey Murder Book Index has been verified as authentic by three people who worked on the case.

  Accessed along with the Murder Book Index was information from an additional and confidential 1,000-page file of all Boulder Police Department officers involved in the Ramsey case. This file describes the officers’ participation by dates and police report numbers and includes references to some in law enforcement outside the department who aided in the investigation. Also accessed as part of the research for this book was information from a 182-page confidential Boulder Police Department Master Witness List. This information came from the BPD for use by the Boulder District Attorney’s Office and is labeled “JonBenét Ramsey 1st Degree Murder Case—Report DA 96-21871.” This last file is, in essence, one of the prosecuting attorney’s trial preparation outlines. It includes the name of each witness to be called at trial, the name of the person who interviewed that witness and a short synopsis of expected testimony information.

  Also included in this book are written reports from the first police officers and detectives who arrived on the scene, critically important documents that have never been published. These documents answer questions related to this case that have been asked for years such as “Why didn’t the police find the child’s body w
hen they arrived at 6 a.m. that day?” and “Why did it take seven long hours for JonBenét to be found, and why was it her father who found her and not police officers?”

  Information from an evaluation of Boulder Department of Social Services confidential interviews with JonBenét’s brother, Burke, shortly after the murder has also been reviewed, as has private information provided by JonBenét’s teachers. New information is disclosed as well about what JonBenét actually ate before she was killed, and why this matters. In short, many urban myths related to this case that have been considered as fact for so many years are finally here exposed for what they are—myths.

  This book also includes content from a confidential 60-page journal written by John Ramsey over a period of eleven months beginning in January 1997, shortly after his daughter was murdered. Portions of the journal are being made public now in order to provide a rare look at a family under siege following a murder of one of their own.

  The acting defense attorneys at the time of the murder never voiced their personal perspectives on the Ramsey case, but they have now in this book. There is also new information that helps explain why, from the fall of 1997 to present day, the three principal Ramsey family attorneys, Pat Burke, Hal Haddon and Bryan Morgan, represented John and Patsy Ramsey at no cost.

  JonBenét’s brother, Burke, also talks publicly for the first time in this book. Rare conversations with JonBenét’s half-sister and half-brother, Melinda and John Andrew Ramsey, are included as well. Patsy’s primary cancer doctor has also gone on the record in an exclusive interview to discuss his patient, including her disease and treatment.

  Only three people have known that, until Patsy Ramsey’s death in 2006 from ovarian cancer, she and I would occasionally talk in what she called “do you have a few moments” conversations.

  Patsy made it clear that she wanted to relay candid bits and pieces of family information, conversations among them and thoughts about her children, her cancer, the police and the killer whenever she could. Her rules: everything she said was off the record, at least for the time being.

  Whatever people thought about Patsy Ramsey, she was a woman who bore the scars of tremendous suffering. Accused by many—including the powerful and the merely shrill—of the most heinous crime a mother could commit, she stood straight, facing into the gale. At some level, my response to her remained simply human to human. I would listen to her off the record, in private conversations, as long as she did not admit to criminal acts.

  Patsy said I could reveal all the information she shared with me only if and when she decided it was OK, or upon her death. After that, she said, it would be my decision on when to release it. I could ask her whatever I wanted, and she would choose whether to answer. She answered all my questions.

  I took notes of these conversations, and then we went over them in detail after we were finished to make sure they were accurate.

  Now is the time to release what is a deeply personal perspective on Patsy Ramsey via conversations in which her husband did not participate, though he did know about them. Approximately eighty-five percent of the quotes from Patsy noted in this book are from those sessions.

  “Someday it may help John just to hear my thoughts after I’m gone,” she told me. That was part of my last conversation with her. She was in Denver in late 2005, meeting with members of her defense team for what was, in her mind, her goodbye to them. We spoke by phone.

  “Someday,” she added, “this may build enough publicity so the right person who is dedicated to the truth can really help find the killer, if he hasn’t been found.” In reality, of course, that may never happen.

  Also included in this book are examples of the misinformation that was continuously and deliberately provided by the Boulder Police Department and the Boulder District Attorney’s Office in attempts to influence reporters and public perceptions of the Ramsey case. These are included so erroneous assumptions based on such misinformation can be debunked once and for all.

  It’s important to note that several law enforcement officers and others involved in the Ramsey case who cooperated on this book asked that their names not be used for fear of losing current jobs. Still others were apprehensive about openly criticizing their colleagues who are still in law enforcement despite such colleagues’ apparent lack of regard for administrative rules and criminal evidence procedures. Now, twenty years later, this case still has that much power.

  The people who requested that their names not be used are well known to me and were intimately involved in some phase of the Ramsey murder investigation. They have also met my editor’s tough requirements for allowing anonymity in rare but necessary cases.

  Accepted law enforcement protocol is discussed throughout this book in order to clearly present instances in which such protocol was not followed during the Ramsey case investigation. Several law enforcement research manuals and books that provided such information are noted as utilized resources. Concluding statements in reports from the six handwriting experts consulted on both sides of the case, some of which have never been published, are included as well.

  There are also instances in which a person quoted is described as a family friend or a female friend, etc., rather than identified by name, even if such names are noted in previously unreleased police reports or in information from key witnesses. This is done for members of the public who are not in law enforcement for the sake of their privacy after so many years. It is also done for the sake of simplicity in telling this story.

  Additional research for this book utilized resources from the Vanderbilt University Television News Archive in Nashville, Tennessee; NewsLibrary.com; LexisNexis; the Norlin Library at the University of Colorado in Boulder; and the Auraria Library in Denver (which supports the Metropolitan State University of Denver, the University of Colorado in Denver and the Community College of Denver). Researchers from the Denver Public Library were also consulted.

  While researching this book, I wasn’t prepared for my personal reaction to seeing and studying JonBenét’s personal belongings. As a journalist, I have found it necessary to prepare emotionally for stories and trials involving child deaths, child abuse or other disturbing events. Such stories inevitably have a harsh impact, one a reporter has to consciously work to guard against. When I first set out to cover this story, I knew I could not let it take a part of me with it.

  As I brought this thinking into my more recent coverage of JonBenét’s case, I realized in looking at her drawings, writings, photographs and autopsy photos that I hadn’t allowed myself in the late 1990s to view her as an innocent child who was tortured and murdered. Rather, I had held her at a distance as the child beauty contestant—the one-dimensional JonBenét of the tabloids and sensational TV shows. That was my loss.

  This is one reason there are so many previously unpublished photographs, drawings and writings of hers included in this book. My hope is that such documentation of the life ended through murder in December 1996 may give others the same richer, more fully formed understanding of the little girl named JonBenét Ramsey that I now have. Some crime scene photos and diagrams are used as well in order to contribute to a more complete understanding of the facts of this case and enhance the reader’s ability to analyze them.

  Through the window of all the materials that have been collected and researched for this book, which include additional defense papers, communications between prosecutors and Ramsey attorneys, personal tape-recorded interviews, DNA findings, letters and other documentation related to the case, a new transparency is revealed. The entire collection of the researched material is used for listed reference as needed under the umbrella name “WHYD Investigative Archive.” “WHYD” is an acronym for the title of this book, We Have Your Daughter, which is from words used in the ransom note.

  The bits and pieces of information related to this case, some factual and some not, that have been disseminated by so many with no proof should no longer stand as correct. What is publicly known is both accur
ate and false. Now, with newly disclosed documentation, evidence and contributions from the people involved in this tragic story, the case of the murder of JonBenét Ramsey can be portrayed as never before. And you, the reader, can make your own decisions related to it.

  PROLOGUE

  “I WANT TO KILL THE KILLER.”

  He said it with fists clenched, his face taut with anger and the smoldering frustration of many years unfulfilled by resolution.

  John Ramsey and I were sitting on a restaurant balcony next to a short waterway, the Pine River Channel connecting Lake Charlevoix and Lake Michigan in Charlevoix, Michigan, a quaint summer resort where John and his family had spent their summers for many years. It was June 2009, and town residents had held art and bake sales to raise money to buy and plant petunias along the boulevards. The town was draped with hanging flower baskets full of bright pink, purple, red, white and yellow blossoms.

  We were seated near the drawbridge that allowed mostly pleasure boats to pass under Bridge Street, the main street of Charlevoix. It was early evening, quiet and calm. The people in the boats smiled and waved as they passed by. In the fading sunlight, the glint of the blue water rebounded in mirrored reflections.

  I was stunned. There had been nothing about the serene setting or peaceful moment to suggest that the man across the table from me was contemplating revenge.

  In the time I had known John Ramsey, the stoic, long-suffering father and central figure in an infamous murder investigation, I had never heard him say anything like this. He stared at me for several seconds, and there was silence between us. Then he gradually released his fists and said, “For years I had such rage that I told my friends just let me alone in a room with the monster that killed my daughter. We won’t need a trial. I will tear him to shreds and it will take time because I want him to suffer, just as my daughter suffered. I will have no remorse.”

  The lines in John Ramsey’s face slowly faded as he reflected on this statement. “But,” he added, “I found I could not live with that kind of anger. My soul was rotting inside. Forgiveness came painfully slow, but I had to go in that direction. I couldn’t spend each hour in every day still hating him.”