Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? (29 page)

Strengthening their suspicions was the peculiar fact that it had been written on
her
notepad kept in the kitchen. A pen found in the same area was identified as the instrument used to write the note. Moreover, there were remnants of what appeared to be a practice note and missing pages from the tablet.

In considering the components of this theory, I took into consideration Lou Smit’s perspective regarding this loving, Christian family. I asked the following:

• Did John or Patsy have any motive to intentionally murder their daughter?

I believed the likely answer to that question was No.

I then pondered the theory that the death had been an accident:

• Was it possible that Patsy had lost her temper during an argument with JonBenét, and struck her with an object?

It was clear that
someone
had struck a blow to the head of JonBenét, and that it had not been self-inflicted. If it wasn’t Patsy, then who?

The next questions that had to be considered were then the following:

• If the parents didn’t intentionally kill their daughter, and if there was no intruder, then why go to all of the effort of staging a cover-up?
  
• Who would benefit?
  
• Who was being protected?
  
• Why?
  

It has been my experience that the interpretation of a crime involves an understanding of the dynamics and psychology of human behavior. As humans, our behavior tends to reveal our motives, and we all behave for specific intent and purpose. We are driven by our desires and objectives.

Determining
motive demands more than the simple task of following the physical evidence. Uncovering motive involves careful evaluation of all of the elements associated with a crime.

Solving
a crime requires a comprehensive, objective interpretation of both the physical evidence and the human behavior associated with the events under investigation.

The presentation of my Power-Point theory began at 1300 hours on the afternoon of January 30, 2006. Materials contained within the presentation included crime scene photos, a variety of video clips from police interviews and media coverage, as well as a discussion of some of the physical evidence that had been collected over the course of the investigation.

A significant number of slides detailed statements that had been made by the family and other witnesses. The behavioral aspects of motive and opportunity were discussed at length.

The clock was closing on 1900 hours. Mary and the members of her command staff, Pete Maguire and Bill Nagel, had listened attentively and asked pertinent questions over the course of the afternoon.

But I could tell their attention was fading. We had not taken a break during the entire six hours, and there were approximately fifty slides of material yet to be shown. I decided that it was time to cut to the chase.

I pointed out that Ramsey attorneys had effectively withheld medical records from the prosecution during the investigation, and I specifically referred to John Ramsey’s interview of June 1998.
⁵¹
I felt, that given the above information, we should be revisiting and intensifying our investigation of the involvement of the family. Among other things, we should be seeking the psychiatric records of Burke to determine if he had had any knowledge of the death of his sister, either through a grand jury or by asking the Ramseys for the information.

I believed wholeheartedly that this was a viable investigative lead that deserved pursuit. If nothing came of it, then at least we could say that we had covered all of our bases.

Mary Lacy’s response is something that I will have difficulty ever forgetting.

She told me that she was unwilling to pursue that lead because she ‘didn’t want to harm her relationship with the Ramsey family.’

This response left me speechless, and it effectively ended the presentation. At that juncture, I felt that nothing more could be said, or done, that would sway Lacy from this position.

As I was packing up my computer and projector, she told me about something that Tom Wickman had purportedly observed during the execution of the search warrants at the Ramsey home. He reportedly had observed the impression of someone’s buttocks in the carpet of the hallway outside JonBenét’s second floor bedroom. It appeared that someone had been sitting on the floor with their knees up around their chest, leaning against the wall / cabinets.

Wickman purportedly told her that he thought it was where the intruder had been waiting while the family was at the White dinner party. I was aware that some intruder theorists believed it possible the perpetrator had entered the home while the family was away that evening, and that he had written the ransom note while awaiting their return. Apparently, Lacy thought that Wickman was suggesting the intruder had found some time to sit on the floor outside JonBenét’s bedroom after penning his note.

I didn’t recall seeing anything like that in any of the police reports I had read and subsequently asked Wickman about it.

He told me he had no idea what I was talking about.

M
y last days with the district attorney’s office were fast approaching. It wasn’t official yet, but at the time that I presented my theory to Mary Lacy and her command staff, it seemed likely that I would be returning to the West Slope. Had Lacy opted to pursue the leads I was proposing, I had decided that I would stick around long enough to see it through. But it was clear that was no longer likely.

As her chief investigator, I felt that it had been my obligation to inform her of my findings and had proceeded with fingers crossed, hoping that the essence of my argument would carry the day. Perhaps some of the things I presented that day were too esoteric.

January 30
^th
happened to fall on a Monday, and late Tuesday morning I stopped by Lacy’s office on another matter. While there, she informed me that her daughter had actually run into John and Patsy Ramsey at a Boulder restaurant the previous evening. They spoke briefly and indicated that they might stop by the D.A.’s that week for a visit.

How coincidental was that? The lead investigator in their case had just come off the fence and taken a position opposite that of his employer. I wondered if they really would come by the office to visit and if I’d have an opportunity to meet them.

The following afternoon I attended the case staffing at the weekly SART meeting which, as usual, took several hours to complete.

I returned to my office and was asked by an investigator in the neighboring space if I had been with the Ramsey family. No, I replied. I had been otherwise engaged.

I checked my desk phone and saw that I had no voicemail messages or missed calls. The cell phone at my hip displayed the same information.

Mary Lacy caught me at the end of the day and told me that the Ramseys had stopped by the office, and she had spent an hour or so visiting with them. She indicated that she had looked for me that afternoon to no avail.

I subsequently asked my neighbor if anyone had come looking for me while I was gone that afternoon: Not that she had seen.

It has been said that timing is everything, and it seemed apparent that timing was against me in this instance.

I had missed my opportunity to meet the parents of the little girl whose murder investigation had been entrusted into my care.

Bill Nagel stopped by my office the following week. He apparently had been giving my theory some additional thought. Bill advised me that no one had really taken a very close look at Burke and that Ramsey attorneys had campaigned Hunter’s office to publically clear him of any involvement in the case. All eyes were focused elsewhere, and Hunter eventually caved on the request.

It made sense to me. I recalled having seen a handwritten note on attorney letterhead that had been faxed to the D.A.s office.

It was my impression that Hunter’s subsequent announcement to the media, which cleared Burke Ramsey as a potential suspect in the case, read nearly verbatim to the content of the note sent to him by Ramsey attorneys.

I was writing reports up to the last day that I occupied my desk at the D.A.’s office and had been unable to find the time to translate my theory into the form of a written document. The Power-Point had been crafted over time using sticky notes scattered through numerous binders, and there wasn’t always an explanation that accompanied some of the slides. I felt that a written investigative report was a necessary component of the presentation.

It was a matter, I believed, of quid-pro-quo. Tom Bennett had permitted me to travel to Oregon in the early days of my employment with his office in order to execute an arrest warrant I had obtained prior to leaving Telluride. The warrant had been issued as one in a series in the cocaine trafficking investigation I had been leading, and this subject had disappeared on the eve of our roundup.

He was a key witness that needed to be turned state’s evidence, and Bennett let me go on company time. I felt that I would return the favor and finish the written report after returning to Telluride. I told Tom that I thought I should be able to finish the project before the summer festival season kicked off in June.

The best of intentions…

April 2006 witnessed my return to the mountains of southwestern Colorado. The “sabbatical” I had taken in Boulder had been interesting and rewarding, but I was happy to be back. I didn’t realize how much I had missed the majestic beauty and solitude of the hills surrounding my log home.

Tom Bennett had been recruited to return to Lacy’s office yet again, and in this instance, it seems that the timing of events had spared me from the humiliation of one enormous fiasco. I was unaware of it at the time, but shortly after my departure Bennett was assigned the unfortunate task of dealing with Michael Tracey, a journalism professor and movie maker who had become focused on the Ramsey investigation. He wanted us to help him track down a pedophile who was claiming by email to have been the person responsible for JonBenét’s abduction and murder.

April and May were occupied with a move to a new headquarters building for my department, and Bennett was fully engaged in the Tracey mess. Unbeknownst to me, he was working seven (7) days a week on nothing but that case.

June brought the death of Patsy from a second bout with ovarian cancer, and a media frenzy once again surrounded the family. I should not have been surprised to see Mary Lacy attending the funeral services.

The summer festival season demanded my attention, and my thoughts of the Ramsey case fell further from my mind. I had begun to debate whether it was really necessary to pursue the course I had suggested to Lacy given all of the pain and suffering the family had endured that year.

Then all hell broke loose. It was soon broadcast all over the media in August of that summer that there had been an arrest in the Ramsey case. John Mark Karr had been identified as the person responsible for corresponding with Tracey via email, and he was to be brought back to Colorado from Thailand for further investigation.

There were not a lot of details released in the first hours of Karr being taken into custody, and I thought to myself, “Damn, they’ve finally caught the son of a bitch.” I shot a quick email to Bennett congratulating him on the arrest.

His response was less than enthusiastic. Bennett didn’t think this was the guy.

Perhaps half a dozen reporters called my office in search of details. I was asking questions too because there was not a lot information being reported about the things Karr had disclosed to Tracey in his emails. I wondered what it was that had been said that led authorities to seek his arrest.

Within a few days, the details of his writings began to publically emerge. I told a friend in the media that John Mark Karr was no doubt a pedophile, but he wasn’t responsible for the murder of JonBenét. His written explanation of events was pure fantasy and didn’t match the forensics of the case.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 16, 2006

Statement of John Ramsey

On Today’s Arrest in Connection with Murder of His Daughter, JonBenét Ramsey

“I want to have only limited comment on today’s arrest because I feel it is extremely important to not only let the justice system operate to its conclusion in an orderly manner, but also to avoid feeding the type of media speculation that my wife and I were subjected to for so many years.” said John Ramsey. “I do want to say, however, that the investigation of the individual arrested today in connection with JonBenét’s death was discussed with Patsy and me by the Boulder District Attorney’s office prior to Patsy’s death in June. So Patsy was aware that authorities were close to making an arrest in the case and had she lived to see this day, would no doubt have been as pleased as I am with today’s development almost 10 years after our daughter’s murder. Words cannot adequately express my gratitude for the efforts of Boulder District Attorney May Lacy and the members of her investigative team.”

Patsy Ramsey lost a 13-year battle with ovarian cancer and passed away on June 24.

“The Ramseys and I have been totally amazed and impressed with the professionalism of law enforcement under the direction of Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy. This was obviously an incredibly complex task but one that has been carried out in almost textbook fashion with the investigation of this individual going on for several months, without any leaks in the case,” said L. Lin Wood, attorney for the Ramsey family and partner at Powell Goldstein in Atlanta. “I want to express my heartfelt thanks to the many people who have stood by the Ramseys, believing in them and their innocence these long and difficult years.”

John Ramsey will not be providing interviews at this time. Requests for future interviews should be directed to Lin Wood, attorney for the Ramsey family, at:

Mr. L. Lin Wood

Powell Goldstein LLP

One Atlantic Center, 14
^th
Floor

1201 West Peachtree Street NW

Atlanta, Georgia

Press Release issued by John Ramsey and attorney Lin Wood following the Boulder District Attorney’s office arrest of John Michael Karr in Thailand, August 2006.