We Have Your Daughter Page 17

  CHAPTER 14

  MANIPULATING THE MEDIA

  Deposition with testimony of former Boulder Detective Steve Thomas.

  IN JANUARY 2007, Special Counsel to the Los Angeles County District Attorney Devallis Rutledge wrote an article for Police magazine entitled “The Lawful Use of Deception: Sometimes you have to resort to trickery to get confessions from suspects.” In that article, Rutledge said, “It might be nice if law enforcement officers never had to lie to a criminal suspect in order to solve a crime … Unfortunately, the reality is otherwise.”

  Rutledge then noted that the US Supreme Court has repeatedly supported the use of deception in criminal investigative work and quoted the following statements from two Supreme Court rulings: “‘Criminal activity is such that stealth and strategy are necessary weapons in the arsenal of the police officer.’ (Sorrells v. U.S.).”

  “‘Nor will the mere fact of deceit defeat a prosecution, for there are circumstances when the use of deceit is the only practicable law enforcement technique available.’ (U.S. v. Russell).”

  In other cases noted in the article, the Supreme Court has ruled that it is acceptable for police to falsely tell a suspect he has been implicated by his accomplice in a crime; use an informant to set up a drug sale between an undercover agent and a suspect; and tell a suspect his fingerprints have been found at a crime scene. As Rutledge stated, “The general rule is that deception can be used as long as it is not likely to induce an innocent person to commit a crime or to confess to a crime that he or she did not commit.”

  While such use of deception in police work may be considered by many to be necessary, during the Ramsey murder investigation, the Boulder Police Department used deception in a different way.

  A former FBI profiler consulted by the Boulder Police Department developed the idea, and the blueprint of attack was simple and insidious. The first step was to turn media attention away from what had been called “the bungled investigation.” The second step was to convict the Ramseys in the press. The plan was to put pressure on John and Patsy by leaking information, accurate or not, to the media, which was desperate to feed the voracious public appetite for details about the brutally murdered child beauty queen.

  The practice of leaking information to favored reporters is a shopworn method law enforcement uses for one of two possible reasons: to get correct information out or to put a certain slant on a story. Reporters work hard to develop trust with a source or two within law enforcement so they, too, can get the inside story, and they sometimes maintain a relationship with a source for years. But reporters have a responsibility to double-source, or talk with sources from opposing sides of an issue, in order to verify that the information they present to the public is accurate. During the investigation of the murder of JonBenét Ramsey, that was hardly ever done.

  Hundreds of journalists were pursuing the story. Every leaked morsel of information—and many of those tidbits were either blatantly wrong or maliciously misleading—spread across the media universe with unparalleled speed.

  Just as the Boulder Police Department completely blew the early stages of the investigation of the Ramsey murder, the mainstream media, for the most part, was far from experiencing its finest hour. JonBenét’s sordid death sold print copies and air time in the same way that the upcoming death of Princess Diana, in August 1997, would. After Diana’s tragic accident, John Ramsey wrote about her death in his journal:

  John’s Journal:

  We are shocked and saddened along with the rest of the world to learn of Princess Diana’s death over the weekend … I think we have particular empathy because we have been pursued for months by the tabloids stalking us.

  Three Boulder law enforcement officers on the Ramsey case later confirmed the “deliberate and misleading leaking strategy.” They were there when the strategy was being developed, but they won’t allow their names to be used for fear of repercussions. The name of the FBI agent who is alleged to have developed the active “manipulation” protocol put into effect in late December 1996 is also not being used in this book. In a phone conversation, he denied to me that he had developed the strategy, saying, “I would never leak on an active case.”

  More details about the early plan to manipulate the media in relation to JonBenét’s murder were revealed in a transcript from a civil lawsuit against the Ramseys in September 2001. That defamation lawsuit, Wolf v. Ramsey, was filed by a man who thought the Ramseys had defamed him because they had called him a potential suspect in their book.

  During the deposition phase of the lawsuit, former Boulder Detective Steve Thomas testified while under oath. He had worked on the Ramsey murder case before resigning from the Boulder Police Department in August 1998.1 Ramsey civil attorney Lin Wood questioned Thomas in the deposition about the BPD strategy of using the media:

  WOOD: Was there any plan or strategy on the part of [the] Boulder Police Department or any other law enforcement agencies to try to put pressure on the Ramseys through the public?

  THOMAS: I think so.

  WOOD: And isn’t it true that [retired Colorado Springs and El Paso County, Colorado Homicide Detective] Lou Smit’s approach to build a bridge with the Ramseys really was in conflict with the Boulder Police Department’s strategy of putting public pressure on them?

  THOMAS: Yes.

  WOOD: And the FBI was involved …

  THOMAS: … I believe there were discussions with the FBI, yes, about how to exert some public pressure on people who are not cooperating, yes.

  WOOD: Part of that was to try to portray [the Ramseys] clearly to the public as being uncooperative and therefore appearing to be possibly involved in the death of their daughter, right?

  THOMAS: I think it was two different things. I don’t think they were necessarily trying to further paint them as uncooperative. I think they were using the media to get them back in to help us with the case.

  WOOD: Were they also thinking that they might use the media to apply pressure so that there might be a possibility that one of the parents might confess involvement in the crime? Was that ever discussed?

  THOMAS: That may have been—that may have been some motivations.

  WOOD: Do you believe from your recollections that that was discussed?

  THOMAS: I wouldn’t disagree with it. I don’t have any concise, clear recollection of a conversation like that.

  The judge reviewing the depositions in the Wolf v. Ramsey lawsuit, Federal Judge Julie Carnes, supported the evidence of a stated plan to manipulate the media when she dismissed the case before trial and issued a written 93-page summary statement. As part of the March 2003 statement, Judge Carnes wrote:

  Pursuant to the FBI’s suggestions that the Boulder Police publicly name defendants as subjects and apply intense media pressure to them so that they would confess to the crime, the police released many statements that implied defendants were guilty and were no longer cooperating with police.

  Here is a sampling of what was published or broadcast during the week after JonBenét’s murder, all of which supports Judge Carnes’s written statement:

  Friday, Dec. 27, 1996—Assistant Boulder District Attorney Bill Wise is quoted by the Rocky Mountain News as saying, “It’s not adding up.” Wise should have elaborated on this comment. What wasn’t adding up? The reporter who wrote this article also should have asked the question, and included the answer.

  Monday, Dec. 30, 1996—False statements related to the Ramseys not having been interviewed early in the investigation by the Boulder Police Department: “Police, however, have not interviewed JonBenét’s parents, John and Patricia Ramsey. ‘They’re still very grief-stricken. They’re not in any condition to be interviewed,’ Police Department spokeswoman Leslie Aaholm said.”

  (Rocky Mountain News)

  “Police … have not interviewed the girl’s parents, … ” Aaholm said. “‘They have been in no condition to be interviewed up to this point.’”

  (Daily Camera)

&nbs
p; Tuesday, Dec. 31, 1996 and Wednesday, January 1, 1997—False statements published in three separate articles in the Daily Camera related to whether DNA samples had been collected from Patsy Ramsey by the BPD:

  “Police would not comment on when the Ramseys will return to Boulder or when, or if, they plan to take samples from Patsy Ramsey.”

  “No samples were collected from Patsy Ramsey.”

  “Police have taken blood and hair samples from all family members except JonBenét’s mother, Patsy Ramsey, who police said was too distraught to give the samples.”

  Tuesday, Dec. 31, 1996—“Experts say ‘ransom demand too low and too specific.’”—Statement aired on NBC Nightly News that was accompanied by no statistics to back up this claim.

  Wednesday, Jan. 1, 1997—“John Ramsey is a pilot, and the family traveled to Georgia in his plane.” False statement published in the Rocky Mountain News that led the public to believe John Ramsey had flown his family in his plane to Georgia for his daughter’s funeral. The family traveled to Georgia for JonBenét’s funeral on a Lockheed plane flown by Lockheed pilots.

  In response to the January 1, 1997, Ramsey CNN interview, during which Patsy said, “There’s a killer on the loose,” the following reactions were published and broadcast by the media:

  Friday, Jan. 3, 1997—Boulder Mayor Leslie Durgin told the Daily Camera: “It’s not like there is someone walking around the streets of Boulder prepared to strangle young children.” What evidence had been collected relative to the Ramsey case that would have allowed anyone in a position of authority to make this statement?

  Friday, Jan. 3, 1997—According to a Rocky Mountain News headline, Boulder “cops and mayor” have stated there is “no need to worry about killer on loose.” How could they have been certain of this? Why did they continue saying this? What evidence had been collected to support such a statement?

  Friday, Jan. 3, 1997—CNN reported in a story about the Ramsey murder the false statement by Boulder Mayor Leslie Durgin that “there were ‘no visible signs of forced entry in the house’ where JonBenét was found dead.”

  Saturday, Jan. 4, 1997—The Denver Post reported with apparent certainty that the Ramsey ransom note had been “written in house,” even though no proof to support this claim had been collected. In fact, the location in which the ransom note was written—a key element related to whether there was premeditation involved in the murder—has never been determined.

  According to those inside the investigation, the Boulder Police Department quickly began to operate under the presumption that if they put enough pressure on the Ramseys, Patsy and John would break and turn against each other. The media—and then the public—fell quickly into line, creating an uproar around the case.

  One law enforcement person who worked on the case said, in looking back, “Little consideration was given by those in charge as to whether or not the Ramseys were innocent or the inevitability of the family being tainted for the rest of their lives by a barrage of erroneous information published by the media. In the minds of many readers, viewers, outside law enforcement and even reporters, the Ramseys were involved in the death of their daughter; it was that simple.”

  When a case has reached the courts, leaks to the media can be stopped through a court-issued decree called a gag order. A gag order applies court-ordered penalties to all officers of the court and witnesses in order to prohibit them from talking to the media and help ensure a defendant gets a fair trial. Gag orders are used in notorious cases.

  Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter couldn’t have gotten a gag order through a trial judge for the Ramsey murder case because there hadn’t been any arrests that might have led to a criminal trial.

  Contributing to the turmoil and perceived lack of accountability related to the Ramsey murder case was the type of government in effect in Boulder at the time, a council-manager (also known as a “weak-mayor”) form of government. Floyd Ciruli of Ciruli Associates, a political consultant in Denver, says, “The weak-mayor form of government, which is typically the council manager form of government, was developed at the turn of the early 1900s as part of a reform movement and part of increased municipal control of government. It was an answer to the strong-mayor form of government when sometimes the strong mayor system became corrupt.

  “The downside to weak-mayor government is that the power is extremely diffuse. Whether you are a constituent or a member of the media, it is often difficult to make any one individual accountable. There is no one location or … individual in complete control. The city manager has control of employees and hires the police chief. The council, which is elected, hires the city manager and therefore has control of the city manager, but can’t order the city manager what to do. The mayor is mostly ceremonial and selected by the city council. If anyone in the government doesn’t want to cooperate, it is impossible to make them.”

  That diffused accountability within the ranks of the Boulder city government led most reporters to rely on unnamed sourcing in order to gather information related to the Ramsey murder case.

  The following statement from a confidential defense memo underscored the attitude of the Boulder Police Department related to the Ramsey murder case: “[I]f you don’t hate the Ramsey’s [sic] a lot, then you are not a good team player.”2 Supporting the Ramseys in any way was considered a very poor career move within the Boulder Police Department at that time, according to Lou Smit, a retired detective who’d worked on the Ramsey case and eventually changed his initial opinion that the Ramseys were guilty. After analyzing the related police reports on a daily basis, Smit has said, he came to the conclusion that the Ramseys were innocent.

  Less than a week after JonBenét’s death, the Boulder commander of the investigation, John Eller, contacted a business in Colorado Springs that put cases together for computer courtroom presentations. One of the owners of the business, Ollie Grey, a law enforcement officer with homicide experience, said he met with Eller and with a district attorney and police personnel at that time. Eller told the business owners he wanted to hire the company to help put together a case for court. Their suspects, Eller told Grey, were “the Ramseys.”

  Grey told Eller, “Let’s look at the evidence.” But according to Grey it became clear after several meetings that the Boulder Police Department had no physical evidence to support their theory that the Ramseys were guilty in the murder of their daughter. He added that there wasn’t anything his company could have utilized to move forward in preparing a trial presentation related to the case.

  Meanwhile, leaks from various sources continued to make headlines:

  Wednesday, Jan. 8, 1997—“2nd Note Found in Ramsey Residence”—Misleading headline run in The Denver Post with a story that, quoting sources, said the second note “could be a draft of the ransom note … ” The article was accurate in that it referred to the partially finished greeting for the ransom note, “Dear Mr. & /,” that had been written on Patsy’s notepad and found in the home on Thursday, December 26—the day JonBenét’s body was also found. What was wrong with the article was it assumed the note had been written in the home, and no one but the killer knows where the note was written. It could have been written at an earlier time somewhere else. The leak cast suspicion on the Ramseys and was reported in the Rocky Mountain News and the Daily Camera and on CBS Evening News.

  “It’s a mystery to me how it got so sideways,” Patsy’s attorney, Pat Burke, has said. “I think the media does have so much control over what happens in daily life in America … I think it influenced the wretched behavior of the Boulder Police Department. I think it was sad. And I’m very upset that Patsy went to her grave with people still thinking she had something to do with the death of her daughter.”

  Susan Stine, with whom the Ramseys lived during the first months after JonBenét’s murder, since then has discussed the animosity displayed toward the Ramsey family by certain Boulder Police Department officials. In the spring of 1997, Stine and her neighbors called the B
PD to complain about members of the media harassing their children at a neighborhood school bus stop. While several Boulder patrol officers helped in this situation, they told Stine that they were risking their jobs to do it. Two officers told Stine that they had been ordered not to help the Ramseys and their friends, and that this order had come “from the top,” i.e., from the Boulder police chief and the Boulder city attorney. Neither official has responded to requests for information about that order.

  Bryan Morgan, John Ramsey’s attorney and a Boulder resident, is still appalled by the behavior of the Boulder Police Department during the Ramsey investigation. “With all the indicators, the hard evidence that pointed outside,” Morgan has said, “they tried to railroad these people. When people in a position of power act like that, all of our liberties are at risk. They were frighteningly and terrifyingly unprofessional.”

  While speculation circled related to the murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey, an awful reality had shifted into full motion. On Wednesday, January 8, in a quiet area of Boulder County, nine-year-old Burke Ramsey, JonBenét’s brother, underwent a mandatory Colorado Department of Social Services Boulder Child Protection Team interview.3 Boulder detectives, Social Services staff, attorneys for the prosecution, and Pat Burke (Patsy’s lawyer) watched the interview from behind a one-way mirror. Patsy had brought her son to the department’s Child and Family Advocacy Center, but was not allowed to watch the interview, which is not unusual. The location for the interview had been chosen by Boulder Police Department Commander John Eller. Child psychologist, Dr. Suzanne Bernhard from Boulder, was chosen by the Boulder County Department of Social Services/Human Services. She interviewed Burke.