Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? (10 page)

L
aw enforcement officials will often tell you that the initial steps taken in the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours in any felony investigation, and especially in a homicide inquiry, are crucial to the success of resolving a case.

Witnesses need to be located and interviewed; search warrants for potential pieces of evidence need to be prepared and executed before they are hidden or destroyed; suspects need to be developed, identified and interrogated; alibis need to be checked out and other timelines regarding events need to be mapped out.

The first hours can be a very hectic time, and due to the many tasks that are required of a significant investigative effort, many resources are poured into the first days of a criminal investigation.

In this particular instance, however, the
primary witnesses
to this abduction and murder had driven away from the crime scene shortly after the discovery of the body of the victim. Instead of immediately gathering the family at the station for more detailed interviews, Boulder Police were rallying their resources to properly handle the processing of the crime scene, and to track down several of the suspects who had initially been named by them.

It never occurred to them that the parents would not be ready and willing to sit down with them after they had taken care of some of these critical tasks, one of which included having a clear understanding of how JonBenét had died. The forty minutes spent with John Ramsey on the evening of December 27
^th
, following the completion of the autopsy of his daughter, failed to establish a firm date and time for a follow-up interview, and it left detectives wondering what was going on.

That did not deter investigators, however, from moving forward in their attempts to interview other witnesses, or potential suspects in the case.

Ramsey housekeeper, Linda Hoffmann-Pugh and husband Mervin Pugh, lived in Ft. Lupton, about a forty-five minute drive from Boulder. Because she had been named as a possible suspect by the parents, BPD Detectives Fred Patterson and Greg Idler paid her home a visit on the afternoon – evening of December 26
^th
, not long after the discovery of JonBenét’s body.

Word of the kidnapping and murder had not yet reached the Hoffmann-Pugh household, and the detectives obtained some preliminary information before explaining the nature of their visit. Patterson advised that Boulder Police had received a call that morning reporting the kidnapping of JonBenét.

The first words out of Hoffmann-Pugh’s mouth were, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

Patterson told her that there was a kidnap note. Hoffmann-Pugh was beginning to exhibit signs of distress, and he told her to settle down and to listen to what he was trying to say. He again explained that there was a note and that JonBenét was missing, and that they were talking to a number of people who knew and worked for the family.

Hoffmann-Pugh again exclaimed, “Oh my God,” and stated that she “would never do anything like that.”

She told the investigators that several months earlier she had talked to Patsy about JonBenét and Burke walking to school alone, and JonBenét playing outside on her skates. She had wondered if Patsy was ever fearful of JonBenét being kidnapped under those circumstances. Hoffmann-Pugh reported that she had talked to no one other than Patsy about those concerns.

Hoffmann-Pugh seemed to be unclear as to what was happening, and asked the investigators if JonBenét was gone, if she was still missing at that moment.

The detective paused momentarily, and then told her that JonBenét had been murdered.

Hoffmann-Pugh screamed, and broke down so completely that the investigators were unable to complete as thorough an interview as they had desired. The remainder of their questions would have to wait until the following day.

Investigators would eventually learn that Hoffmann-Pugh had requested a loan of two-thousand dollars ($2,000.00) from Patsy to help pay the rent, purchase some car parts, and to complete some dental work her husband needed. He too had done some odd-jobs around the house over the years for the Ramsey family, and this included decorating the home for the Christmas holidays and family parties. The Christmas trees and decorations had been stored in the Wine Cellar and basement of the home.

Like many others who would be interviewed by BPD investigators, Linda Hoffmann-Pugh described the home as a warren of doors and oddly placed rooms. Finding the specific door that led to the basement was no easy task, and she felt that whoever had perpetrated this crime had to have had some level of familiarity with the layout of the home.

During her follow-up interview, Hoffmann-Pugh indicated that there were not a lot of extra sheets for JonBenét’s bed, and she reported that JonBenét had been wearing pull-up diapers during her first six months of employment with the family. She had been wetting the bed nearly every night of the week.

Hoffmann-Pugh indicated that the bed-wetting eventually subsided, but that it had begun again in the month or so preceding the 1996 Christmas holidays. It went on nightly for about a week, and then she thought it to be occurring every other night. Hoffmann-Pugh indicated that she worked every other day. When she arrived at the home, the sheets to JonBenét’s bed were already stripped and in the washing machine located in the hallway outside her room. She indicated that this activity was taking place right up until about a week before JonBenét’s murder.

Hoffmann-Pugh also told investigators that the bed-wetting problem extended to the soiling of her sheets. She reported once finding fecal material the size of a grapefruit in JonBenét’s bed.†

JonBenét’s problem with bed-wetting was of interest to investigators, and it figured as one early component in their theory that Patsy Ramsey may have lost her cool with her daughter over this behavior.

Investigators queried Hoffmann-Pugh about the type of duct tape and cord she had seen around the house during her employment with the family. Nothing that she could recall seeing matched the description of the implements used in JonBenét’s murder.

Investigators wondered, given their examination of the cord used in the garrote, if one or both of these items had been recently purchased items. Their requests for a search warrant seeking credit card charges, like similar requests for telephone records, were shot down by the D.A.’s office, and it would be months later in November, 1997, that a white, Stansport brand nylon cord would be identified as the make of cord used to bind and garrote JonBenét.

In May, 1997, investigators had purchased examples of this type of nylon cord from the Boulder Army Store and McGuckin’s Hardware. They would eventually determine that Patsy Ramsey had purchased an item from the sporting goods section of McGuckin’s on December 2, 1996, for $2.29, the same price as that of the nylon cord purchased by the detectives during their investigation.

The McGuckin receipts did not specifically detail the
identity
of the items purchased, but investigators thought it too coincidental that the cord had come from the same part of the store, and had the same retail price as Patsy Ramsey’s receipt. By the time this information came into their hands, however, the video surveillance tapes at the store had already been recorded over.

Investigators were surprised to learn that Ramsey attorneys and their investigators had already interviewed Fleet White on the afternoon of December 27
^th
. In fact, they had called him on the afternoon of the previous day, not long after the discovery of JonBenét’s body.

White’s interview with BPD detectives took place late in the day on December 27
^th
, and ultimately, he would be interviewed on three separate occasions regarding his activities at the Ramsey home.

White told investigators that Patsy had called his home early Thursday morning, December 26
^th
, indicating that something had happened, and she needed them to come over immediately. He, and his wife, Priscilla, drove to the home and observed uniformed police officers on the scene. They soon learned that JonBenét had been kidnapped and that a ransom note had been left.

Something apparently didn’t ring true to White, and despite the presence of a kidnap note that demanded ransom, he decided to take a tour of the basement to look for JonBenét. He indicated that this was within approximately 15 minutes of his arrival at the home.

White’s daughter, 6-year-old Daphne, was a playmate of JonBenét, and she had gone missing about a year previously. She was eventually found asleep in the family home, so White was intimately familiar with the feelings of panic that were generated under such circumstances.

Ransom note notwithstanding, White called JonBenét’s name as he moved through the rooms of the basement. He found himself looking at a broken window pane in a series of three windows that opened to a subterranean window well. The window was closed, but not latched, and he observed a hard-sided Samsonite suitcase standing flush against the wall directly beneath the window. He spent some time inspecting the area for signs of freshly broken glass and moved the suitcase to get a better look at the floor.

White told investigators that he only found a “small kernel” of glass on the floor and placed it on the windowsill before leaving the room. He left the window in its closed, unlatched condition.
⁷

He then moved out of the Train Room, and down a short, dead-end hallway to a storage room that would later be identified as the Wine Cellar. A block of wood rotated on a screw to secure the door to this room, and he reportedly “unlocked” the door and peered inside. It was pitch black inside the windowless room, and unable to find a light switch, he closed the door and secured it with the wood block.

White returned upstairs and didn’t mention his tour of the basement to anyone at the time.

The house began to fill with people that morning, as additional police officers, CSIs, and victim advocates arrived to take care of business. Father Rol Holverstock had been summoned to help console Patsy. It wasn’t long before family friends were inquiring about the status of Burke. Was he okay? Was he still asleep?

Patsy was a veritable wreck, and they thought it probably wasn’t a good idea for Burke to see his mother in her condition. Fleet White volunteered to take Burke to his house, where visiting family were caring for his children. The Fernies decided to send their children there as well.

White indicated that Burke was retrieved from his bedroom by his father, and according to the latter, was told that his sister was missing. He was going to spend some time at his friend’s house, Fleet White Jr., so he quickly dressed and grabbed his new Nintendo computer game before heading out of the house.

White left the Ramsey home with Burke before the first detectives arrived on the scene, which was at approximately 0800 hours. He later told investigators there had been very little conversation between the two of them in the car, and that Burke asked him no questions about his sister’s disappearance, or about the presence of uniformed police officers in his home that morning.

White returned to the home after depositing Burke with his relatives and would ultimately accompany John Ramsey to the basement when Detective Arndt suggested that the house be checked “from top to bottom” for anything unusual early that afternoon.

White reported that he had followed Ramsey to the Train Room where they spent some time talking about the broken window. Ramsey told him that he had broken into the house through that window earlier that summer, and that he had failed to have the glass repaired. He had said nothing about the placement of the suitcase beneath the broken window.

They looked around for signs of more broken glass, and finding none, Ramsey then moved from the room.

Concurrent with this activity, White had stopped to move a fireplace grate that was blocking a closet in the Train Room. Quickly checking the interior, he had moved the grate back into place and was headed out into the hallway when he heard John Ramsey scream. He indicated that he was right behind Ramsey and saw him kneeling down next to JonBenét’s body in the Wine Cellar.

An overhead light had been turned on in the room, and he saw that JonBenét was wrapped in a blanket on the floor. Her feet were sticking out at the bottom, and he bent over to touch them: they were cold to the touch.

White stated that he then immediately ran upstairs, shouting for someone to call an ambulance. Ramsey was close on his heels, carrying the body of his daughter outstretched before him. Detective Arndt directed Ramsey to put her down at the top of the basement stairs, and she then subsequently moved the body to the floor of the living room.

Detective Arndt had directed White to stand guard at the top of the basement stairs before moving into the living room with JonBenét. For unknown reasons, he again went to the basement and took a quick look around the Wine Cellar. He told investigators that he handled a piece of black duct-type tape from the floor and had also handled a cigar box in the room. Leaving these items behind, he then returned upstairs and awaited the cavalry.

Investigators learned that Ramsey attorneys had been quick to contact the Fernie family as well. It seemed that the family had been dedicating resources to the search for the killer(s) as quickly as law enforcement authorities.