We Have Your Daughter Page 25

  • BPD officials also suspected that the alleged cover-up had involved Patsy Ramsey writing the ransom note inside her home. The note and the practice page containing the words “Mr. and Mrs. /” had been written on the tablet that belonged to Patsy. The pen used to write the note was found in the home. According to retired Adams County District Attorney Bob Grant, BPD considered the existence of the practice note to be one of the most incriminating indications that the murder had been an inside job.

  From the Ramseys’ point of view, however, the presence of the practice note revealed that the killer 1) had been brazen enough to use what he could find in the house to write the ransom note on the premises before killing their daughter, or 2) had been in the house before, possibly during the home’s recent and extensive renovations, and removed items including the pen and Patsy’s tablet, which he used to write the note outside the home and then replaced in the home before killing their daughter.

  • Some BPD investigators speculated that the couple, or one of them, had staged the apparent disruption around the southwest window well and the open basement window with the suitcase under it after their daughter had been killed. They did not think an intruder had gotten into the house that way.

  The window well and the possible evidence around it formed the basis for much contentiousness and bitterness related to the Ramsey murder investigation. Questions arose related to whether the state of the window well on Thursday, December 26 signified that an intruder had been present at any point during the night before. A lot rested on the answer to this question, which still hasn’t been resolved due to differing opinions among experts on spiders and spider webs and how long it takes for a spider to construct a web. (BPD Reports #1-1106, #5-3339, #1-1108, #1-1109.)

  Both an intact spider web and spider web strands were found in the window well the evening of Thursday, December 26. According to Jim Kolar, who studied the case evidence in the mid-2000s as part of his role of chief investigator for the Boulder District Attorney’s Office, an extensive police videotape was made of a walk-through of the Ramsey home on the night of December 26, after JonBenét’s body had been removed and the police re-entered the home for further investigation. In the videotape, a spider web is shown in the left-hand lower corner of the center window of the three-paned window that sits below the southwest window well. This is the same window that was found open the morning of December 26. The operating theory among Boulder detectives was that the intact spider web proved the killer had not climbed into the house by that window because that particular spider web would have been disturbed if that had been the case.

  But according to reports from three different BPD officers, at least one spider web inside that window well had been disturbed. On Friday through Monday (December 27–30), those officers noticed spider web drag lines coming from the grate covering the window well and going down into the window well space. (BPD Report #1-1363.) According to one of those officers, these findings would indicate “that a spider web was disturbed.” But others disagreed.

  Later tests conducted by the Boulder Police Department also revealed that it would have been possible for an adult to climb through the center pane of the three-paned window into the basement, although others have long argued against this possibility. John Ramsey found this window open the morning of December 26. Styrofoam packing peanuts also seemed to have been brushed into the right and left window well spaces away from the center window, possibly indicating that someone had moved such debris in order to enter the center window, a possibility that would support an intruder theory. Other packing peanuts were also on the basement floor.

  Yet it did not appear at the time that the dirt on the window sill at the center window had been disturbed. That finding casts doubt on the intruder theory. Or does it? Given the quality of the photographs taken by the BPD of the window in question, some say it is difficult to ascertain whether or not the dirt had been disturbed and therefore impossible to conclude whether anyone had gone into or out of that window based on these photos.

  To further complicate issues related to the southwest window well, green foliage that had grown at the edge of the window well’s grate was found folded over and underneath that grate. The folded foliage was still fresh when it was examined in the days after December 26, indicating the grate had recently been lifted and closed, according to Detective Lou Smit.

  BPD Detective Carey Weinheimer also investigated the window grate and the material under it. According to excerpts from his report in the WHYD Investigative Archive, Weinheimer stated his observations: “The weight of the grate crushed and traumatized the plant material under it. The plant will not just grow under the grate naturally.” (BPD Report #1-1142.)

  Left, center, and right window well. Courtesy Boulder Police and Boulder County District Attorney.

  Window grate from west-facing window. Lifting the grate and climbing through the basement windows below was one of the theories for how an intruder could have gotten into the home. Courtesy Boulder Police and Boulder County District Attorney.

  While the Ramsey attorneys were convinced there were other ways inside the home including unlocked windows and doors, they also believed the one video photo of a spider web did not preclude the possibility that an intruder had entered the home through the southwest window well. Explanations were also needed for the suitcase, the comfort items found inside the suitcase, the folded-over foliage under the grate, and the leaves and white Styrofoam peanuts that had been pushed away from the center window, and also found in the basement. When the Ramsey attorneys consulted experts on spiders, however, they also found contradictory information.

  • Police said the layout of the home was confusing. According to Bob Grant, Boulder investigators questioned how an intruder could have gotten around so easily, particularly in the basement.

  John and Patsy routinely left lights on in the first and second floors at night. They had done so on the night of December 25, 1996, a fact confirmed by two different neighbors. Furthermore, an unknown number of construction workers had roamed the house during recent extensive renovations. At least a thousand people had been inside the home during a Boulder Christmas Tour in 1994, when “the Ramsey residence was part of the Historic Society home tour” and “the Ramsey residence had numerous people tour the house as part of the tour.” (BPD Reports #5-3919, 5-3920.) Plus, the Ramseys’ attorneys believed an intruder could have secretly entered the home several times before because of the couple’s careless security that left the alarm system unarmed and doors and windows often unlocked. It was also possible that an intruder at times could have stayed in the basement crawl spaces.

  • Boulder Police Department officials noted that the broken paintbrush used to make the garrote to strangle JonBenét had come from within the house and was one of the brushes Patsy used for painting and sketching. (BPD Report #2-9.)

  The Ramseys’ attorneys said the paintbrush could have been removed covertly from the home and made into a garrote before the murder by an intruder who had broken into the home secretly and frequently.

  • BPD officials thought the Ramseys had demonstrated guilt by hiring attorneys, especially because they’d hired separate attorneys. (WHYD Investigative Archive.)

  But the Ramseys did not take the initiative to hire attorneys. Mike Bynum, John Ramsey’s business attorney and friend who hired the attorneys for the family, has said he did so without specific permission. “It is a common misperception that people are guilty if they hire attorneys,” he said, adding, however, that “if you’re innocent, it’s all the more reason to hire an attorney.”

  With regard to the concern that the Ramseys had hired separate attorneys: according to Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct as passed by the Colorado Bar Association, since both John and Patsy Ramsey were possible suspects, they had to be represented by separate attorneys.

  • The lack of Ramsey interviews, formal interviews and interrogations were considered to be extremely suspicious and frustrating,
according to police investigators. (WHYD Investigative Archive.)

  “They did do interviews with Boulder Police,” Bryan Morgan, John’s attorney, explained. “But the police didn’t release that information. It was BPD’s responsibility to conduct interviews in a timely manner. They had plenty of opportunity the Thursday JonBenét was reported missing and did interview her parents. Then when her body was found, they should have gotten tremendous amounts of information from Patsy and John by taking them to the police station for individual interviews. But the police didn’t know what to do. By the time we were fully involved, which was a week after [JonBenét’s body] was found, the hostility and focus on the Ramseys being guilty of killing their daughter was so strong that we had to build numerous safeguards into the process; which in the weeks following were beset by game-playing and delays by Boulder investigators.”

  Morgan continued, “[The Ramseys] didn’t ever have to do interviews with the police. They wanted to. Both the police and the defense attorneys were then later involved in delaying the interviews because of what was perceived as a built-in bias against the Ramsey family.”

  • Both the Boulder Police Department and the Boulder District Attorney’s Office were also concerned about the timeline of the digestion of food found in JonBenét’s body during the autopsy, and whether such a timeline would help prove who gave the food to her … and likely killed her. For nearly a year, these officials assumed that the material in the murdered child’s stomach had consisted of pineapple only based on an open bowl of pineapple found on the kitchen table in the Ramsey home the following morning and a mention of pineapple in the coroner’s report. (BPD Report #70KKY, #71KKY.)

  Boulder police and/or the coroner did not seek out expert opinion or analysis of the contents of JonBenét’s stomach/intestine until ten months after her autopsy, when the BPD approached experts at the University of Colorado in Boulder in October 1997. (BPD Report #1-1156.) In late December 1997, the BPD received a report from these experts stating that grapes, grape skins and cherries had been found with pineapple in JonBenét’s body. (BPD Report #1-1349.) These foods are commonly included in most cans of fruit cocktail.

  All the experts consulted by both the BPD and the Ramsey attorneys disagreed on how long it would take to partially digest the fruits, stating a wide variety of time requirements. One doctor told Boulder Police Department officials that the pineapple, grapes and cherries could have been eaten even the day before her body was found. (BPD Report #26-193.) A forensic coroner consulted in the case told me that “the food would have been in the stomach/intestine within 30 minutes, but digestion of the food would have stopped if she were traumatized by a stun gun or a blow to the head. There is no evidence as to who fed her the fruit.”

  • The BPD asserted that urine found in JonBenét’s underwear had come from her wetting her bed. This also led to the theory that Patsy had become upset about JonBenét’s bedwetting and hit her daughter, setting a deadly sequence of events into motion. The bedwetting issue was continually discussed in the early weeks of the investigation as a key to the police theory that one or both of the Ramseys had murdered their child. The housekeeper was quoted as saying that she had changed the sheets from those found on the bed three nights earlier. (WHYD Investigative Archive.)

  However, the Ramseys’ attorneys said no, JonBenét did not wet the bed the night of December 25, 1996, adding that the urine in her underwear most likely was caused by the trauma of a stun gun, her strangulation, the blow to the head or her death. Police reports also make it clear that JonBenét did not wet the bed that night. Evidence admitted into police custody (BPD Reports #44, #45, #46 #47, #48KKY, #2-7, #50KKY, #2-18) from the sheets, pillow and bedspread that had been on JonBenét’s bed showed that forensic analysts had found fibers from her bed clothing on her sheets, indicating that they hadn’t been changed, according to Detective Lou Smit. At least one crime scene photo reportedly showed sheets from JonBenét’s bed in the dryer just outside of her room. Patsy said clean sheets were often left in the dryer until they needed to be used again.

  JonBenét’s family members have always insisted that her bedwetting was not a big deal, and Patsy has said she was never angry with her daughter about such accidents, but concerned for JonBenét, who was embarrassed by them when they did occasionally occur.

  • BPD officers who worked the case were deeply and adversely affected by JonBenét’s participation in child beauty pageants and wondered what kind of parents would encourage their child’s participation. One high-ranking officer, upon seeing JonBenét’s pageant picture for the first time, said “she looked like a whore.” He would not allow his name to be used for this book. But such an attitude affected some BPD detectives’ perceptions of John and Patsy Ramsey. The pictures and videos of JonBenét’s participation in the pageants also helped drive the publicity about the murder. Many in the public judged her parents harshly for allowing or encouraging their daughter’s participation in the child beauty pageant circuit, which was underscored by the endless broadcasting of video of JonBenét in pageant contests. (WHYD Investigative Archive.)

  JonBenét’s family and the Ramseys’ attorneys have always insisted that JonBenét was an active little girl who wanted to be in the pageants and enjoyed them as much as she enjoyed other fun activities.

  • Boulder Police Department officials noted that fibers from Patsy’s clothing were on her daughter’s clothes and insisted that indicated she’d carried her daughter to the basement to kill her. (WHYD Investigative Archive.)

  The Ramseys and their lawyers maintained that Patsy could have left fibers on her daughter when she hugged JonBenét good night on December 25th or the next day when Patsy held her daughter’s dead body, especially since Patsy had the same clothes on then. There are also other fibers on JonBenét’s clothing that police were not able to identify, according to Detective Lou Smit and police reports. (BPD Reports #1-77, #26-187.)

  • BPD officials were suspicious that Patsy was wearing the same outfit on Thursday morning that she’d worn the night before. They suggested that she hadn’t had enough time to change or simply forgot to change because she was so busy staging the crime. (WHYD Investigative Archive.)

  The Ramsey team has always argued that theory was ridiculous. If Patsy had tortured and murdered her daughter while wearing those clothes, and was clever and meticulous enough to do all that staging, why wouldn’t it have occurred to her to change her clothes in order to hide any possible DNA evidence? They also said that, from a woman’s viewpoint, it wouldn’t be that unusual to wear a special holiday outfit two days in a row when planning to visit different family and friends.

  • BPD officials believed the Ramseys did not act as though they were innocent. Individually, Patsy and John Ramsey acted very differently the morning their daughter was reported missing, according to Detective Linda Arndt’s police report, which included hearsay from one officer to another.

  But actual police reports and interviews from officers who witnessed the Ramseys’ behavior that morning indicated that JonBenét’s parents “acted appropriately.” (BPD Report #5-3851.) BPD officers interviewed dozens of people, including business associates, teachers and friends across the country, about the Ramsey family, and the comments these people provided were overwhelmingly positive. At the time, Boulder Detective Steve Thomas said, “It seems the theme that’s being portrayed is [that] John and Patsy were ideal parents, Christian people. It has been difficult at best during this investigation to uncover anyone that can offer any other perspective on the Ramsey’s [sic].” (BPD Report #5-5026.)

  Despite these findings, Detective Thomas formed an opinion very early on regarding the Ramsey murder. Eventually he would resign from the Boulder Police Department and, while the case was still active, would co-author a book in which he stated his belief that Patsy Ramsey had killed her daughter. As mentioned, Thomas was sued by the Ramseys about his book and his publisher paid damages.

  • Then there was the hugel
y problematic ransom amount. The FBI quickly discerned that the ransom amount, $118,000, was an unusual number. Why not $100,000? Why not $150,000? Why choose that particular figure? Was it because a Bible on a nightstand next to John and Patsy’s bed was turned to Psalm 118? (BPD Report # 1-1017.) The Ramseys said they’d kept that bible turned to a passage in that scripture because it provided peace and strength and gave them comfort.

  Was it the amount close to John Ramsey’s work bonus (BPD Report #5-797) of $118,117.50? According to the Ramseys’ attorneys, the Boulder Police Department had learned about the work bonus coincidence in the first few days of the investigation from Ramsey investigators. The fact that John Ramsey’s bonus had been for slightly more than $118,000 didn’t make sense, said the attorneys, but that didn’t seem to make any difference to the BPD, which soon leaked the information about the ransom amount matching the amount of John’s bonus to the media.

  Those who disagreed with the police theory related to John Ramsey’s bonus didn’t think the Ramseys would be so dumb as to use that amount if they had indeed written the ransom note. During the morning that JonBenét was reported missing, the Ramseys indicated to BPD investigators that they, too, were confused about the curious amount of the ransom demand. John said his tax returns were openly sitting in the kitchen, and pay stubs were kept in his unlocked desk at home. Both reflected a recent bonus of $123,000, which after taxes equated to slightly more than $118,000. (BPD Report #5-797.)