Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? (41 page)
Read Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? Online
Authors: A. James Kolar
I was on the phone after my first viewing.
“Way to go Harry! I think you just found the weapon used to inflict those marks on JonBenét.”
The pins on the outside rails of that piece of “O” type train track
matched up exactly
to the twin abrasions on the back of JonBenét.
Photo 26 - Stun gun one-to-one scaled overlay
This was a toy readily accessible in the home and located only feet from where her body had been found. Crime scene photos / video had captured images of loose train track on the floor of Burke’s bedroom as well.
Lou Smit’s calculation of the “close” match between the Air Taser stun gun and JonBenét’s injuries had effectively been marginalized. This cornerstone piece of “evidence” of an intruder’s participation in the crime, already called into question, had essentially vaporized. .
One of my female officers, Christine Sandoval, volunteered to be a “beta”’ tester the following week, and I videotaped her jabbing and slightly twisting the head of the track into the soft flesh of her palm.
Photo 29 - Scaled one-to-one Power-Point overlay photographs of the “O” gauge type of train track found in the Ramsey home reveals an exact match to the abrasions located on the back of JonBenét (The center pin is missing from the track in this photograph). Source: Photo of train track by author, and Power-Point series prepared by Boulder PD criminalist Shelly Hisey
The pins of the track left red marks when sufficient pressure was applied, and I suspected that the twisting motion of the twin outside rails could have been responsible for the appearance of an
abrasion,
especially when considering that the target area was the soft skin of a 6-year-old girl’s back. It was my observation that the twisting motion of the pins could have created the round and slightly rectangular aspect of the abrasions as noted by Dr. Meyer during the autopsy.
I believed the discovery of this toy was a significant development in the case, and I contemplated the possibilities of its use during the commission of this offense. Ultimately, I had a good cop, and an old friend, to thank for unearthing this breakthrough.
Photo 30 - A twisting and jabbing motion of the “O” gauge train track will create abrasions when sufficient pressure is applied. Source: Author photograph of Deputy Christy Sandoval
In June 2007, Mark Beckner and I found ourselves both in attendance at the annual Colorado Chiefs of Police conference being held in Ft. Collins. At the tail end of the gathering, we spent some time discussing my attempts earlier that year to stimulate interest in opening a new grand jury inquiry into the matter of JonBenét’s death.
It was apparent that Beckner had not wanted to wade into the middle of that effort, and it made perfect sense. At the time, there were approximately two years remaining in Mary Lacy’s term as D.A., and he couldn’t afford to jeopardize the working relationship between their two agencies.
I spelled out some of the details of the childhood behavioral disorder that I had been studying and how it appeared to correspond to several observed aspects of Burke’s behavior and others that were possible and called for further investigation. Beckner seemed interested in these details, and I told him that I would try to find the time to organize the information into a written document for his consideration.
I would estimate that I had been working on this for well over a year, but managing my own department had demanded the better part of my extracurricular energy. Although delayed by many months, I finally forwarded a synopsis of the studies to Beckner in October 2008. It provided an assessment of the statements, physical evidence, and behavioral clues that strongly suggested family involvement in the crime under investigation.
I pointed out that I thought it extremely significant that Ramsey attorneys were able to withhold certain medical records from the District Attorney’s Office during the period of their cooperation that preceded the grand jury inquiry in 1998. At the time, Alex Hunter probably considered it a small concession to agree to a partial withholding of records that Ramsey attorneys were declaring to be an “island of privacy” required of the family.
John Ramsey noted during his June 1998 interview with Lou Smit, that he was taking medication that had been prescribed for him by Burke’s psychiatrist, Dr. Steven Jaffee of Atlanta, Georgia. The fact that John was taking medication to help him through those difficult times didn’t seem out of the ordinary to me. I did think it unusual, however, that Burke, who reportedly had not witnessed any of the events surrounding JonBenét’s kidnapping or death, was still being treated professionally nearly a year and a half after the event.
Patsy had also made reference to Burke’s treatment during her 1998 interview with authorities, indicating that they didn’t want to him to wake up one day when he was forty, and have difficulties dealing with the repercussions of all that was going on with the events surrounding the murder investigation.
Purported to have witnessed nothing related to his sister’s disappearance, or having nothing of import for a police interview, I could not help but wonder why Burke would require such extensive psychological counseling.
I also referenced statements made by Pam Paugh during a nationally televised interview that had taken place around the time that the grand jury had begun its inquiry in 1998. Paugh declared during that interview that Burke had been cleared of any involvement in his sister’s death by psychological testing. Worthy of note is that she felt it necessary to spontaneously provide his psychological treatment as an offer of proof that he could not have been involved in this crime of violence.
I presented the argument to Beckner that Pam Paugh’s statements to the national audience about Burke’s psychological counseling, and his being cleared of any involvement in the death of his sister, may have voided the doctor-patient privilege. I believed that by raising the issue of his psychological testing and treatment, she had made the issue of his mental health treatment a matter of public record, interest, and concern. I wondered whether or not her public statements had opened the door to accessing his psychiatric records, for I felt that they needed to be evaluated in relation to any possible knowledge he may have had about the death of JonBenét.
I concluded my letter to Beckner urging that he again consider involving the grand jury in the matter of JonBenét’s death and was hopeful that a new regime at the District Attorney’s office would consider this course of action.
It was this work that prompted an invitation to participate in the Cold Case Task Force that would later be assembled to consider the future course of the investigation. I was optimistic that some positive movement would finally be taking place.
“The Boulder Police would like us to go away. They would like to just close the books on it, pretend that none of it ever happened. But we are not going away. We are going to be their worst nightmare. Patsy and John Ramsey are hanging in there, until the day we die we’ll be looking for the person who murdered our daughter.”
—Patsy Ramsey, quoted during an interview with Barbara Walters aired on
ABC News
March 17, 2000.
I
n the late fall of 2008, Boulder County District Attorney- elect Stan Garnett announced that he intended to take another look at the infamous JonBenét Ramsey homicide and return primary investigative responsibility back to the Boulder Police Department. Upon receipt of that news, one of the first steps taken by Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner was to invite a wide-ranging group of experienced local, state, and federal law enforcement investigators, forensic laboratory technicians, and prosecutors to participate in a briefing and brain-storming session that was intended to help point the 12-year-old homicide investigation in the right direction.
I had been invited to attend, not only as an advisory member of the Cold Case Task Force, but as a presenter. I had been asked to participate because during my role as a chief investigator in the JonBenét Ramsey case for the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office, I had discovered credible information that discounted the single intruder theory that had been espoused in the early months of the investigation. It was my responsibility to spell out the details of that theory to the team of experts who had assembled for a briefing on the case.
Over the course of two days, on February 26
th
and 27
th
, 2009, approximately 30 law enforcement professionals assembled to receive a briefing on the status of the investigation. It had been nearly seven years since the Boulder Police Department had relinquished their case to the D.A.’s office, and I was anxious to see where events would take the inquiry.
I had been waiting for this opportunity for nearly three years and was hopeful that the district attorney’s office was willing to take a look at the case with a new set of experienced prosecutorial eyes.
Prior to the gathering, Beckner had forwarded to me a portion of the materials that I had prepared for Lacy’s office in 2006. I proceeded to condense what originally was roughly an 8-hour Power-Point presentation to 2-hours. I was the last investigator to present on the first day of case review, and provided a condensed version of my theory to the group of experts who had been convened to review the matter.
Day two was comprised of a round-table discussion of the previous day’s work, and it ended on a positive note. There was a renewed energy to clean up some old details and pursue new additional courses of inquiry.
I was exhausted from a week of anxious, irregular sleep patterns, and the two days spent reviewing the details of the investigation had been mentally and physically draining. Boulder was more than four hours behind me as I headed home to the mountains of southwestern Colorado.
The Escalante Canyon was coming up on the approach to Delta and the decision was made to pull off the highway to do some meditative wandering. The Escalante was a frequent stopping point for me on my return trips from the front-range, and meandering over the open rugged plain offered a brief respite of quiet and solitude. Moreover, it offered the opportunity to explore something that had been tugging at the edge of my consciousness for some period of time.
Something said during our review of the investigation had set my subconscious into overdrive. It had been there, hiding beneath the surface, since the early days of my involvement in the investigation, and I felt that a meditative hike through the backcountry might help flush out the intangible that had been lingering in the background for several years.
I contemplated the comment that had stirred my memories: a Colorado Bureau of Investigation lab supervisor had talked about looking at the chronological sequence of events. I knew there was a challenge in that because from the early outset of their response to the 911 call reporting the kidnapping of JonBenét, Boulder Police had decided to maintain radio silence so as not to alert the perpetrators to their activities. Constructing an accurate time clock from the dispatch radio logs for a number of the investigative steps that were taken on December 26th, 1996, could be challenging.
Nevertheless, the comment about establishing a time line for the sequence of events struck a chord with me. After having poured over hundreds of pages of police reports, interviews, and lab findings during my time as lead investigator on the case, I recognized that it was the nature of the sequence of events that had been hovering in the shadows of my subconscious for the previous 3 1/2 years. The missing piece gradually began to take form as I trekked in a westerly direction toward the canyon walls enveloping the Gunnison River.
It occurred to me that the answer had been voiced during my presentation regarding the analysis of John Ramsey‘s statements. I had held up two photographs for the group to see: one of John Mark Karr and the other a psychic rendition of what the perpetrator was supposed to look like. (Eerily similar to Karr I must note.)
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Holding the photos up for all to see, I had posed a rhetorical question to the group: “Where were they hiding?”
Photo 31 - Photograph of John Mark Karr at the time of his arrest by the Boulder District Attorney’s Office in 2006. Source: Boulder County Sheriff’s Department
Photo 32 - Dorothy Allison’s psychic rendition of the “intruder” thought responsible for the kidnap and murder of JonBenét Ramsey. Source: Internet
There had been an inordinately long pause of silence after I asked the question, and some forgotten insight had momentarily surfaced, but was gone before I could fully take hold of it. The synapses had failed to fire, and it wasn’t until I was hiking in the solitude of the rugged plain that the full image finally came to mind.
As the sun breaks the horizon during its rise, so did the thought slowly emerge that shed clarity on the shadow that had been plaguing me.
The realization slowly dawned that, according to John Ramsey’s account, at least one of the intruders must have remained hiding in his home well after the time that police arrived on the scene to investigate the kidnapping of his daughter.
That realization abruptly halted my westerly progress, and I paused to gather my thoughts. I struggled to remember the details of the chronology of the visits to the basement that had taken place before the discovery of JonBenét’s body. I knew that four people had been through various parts of the basement that morning, either looking for JonBenét or for a viable point of entry and exit from the home. The sequence of those events was significant, and I recognized that confirmation of this watershed moment was to be found in the various statements provided by those who had been in the house that morning.
From the outset of my involvement in this murder investigation, I found it interesting that John Ramsey had never mentioned his concerns about the placement of the Samsonite suitcase below the Train Room window, or his suspicions about the condition of that basement room to investigators during their initial inquiry on the morning of December 26, 1996. It seemed unusual because, after all, police officers and investigators were aggressively attempting to determine how the perpetrator(s) had gained entry to the residence to accomplish the task of kidnapping JonBenét, and it was on the minds of everyone at the home that morning.
Determining a point of entry or exit might have yielded physical evidence that could help identify the assailant(s). Yet knowing this, John not once mentioned his concerns about the placement of the suitcase, the condition of the basement, nor the suspicious vehicles he reportedly observed driving in the area and parked in the alley across the street that morning. None of this information came to light until months later when the family finally consented to their first full-length police interview and even then, John continued to withhold information that may have been helpful to the investigation.
It was the memory of these facts that provoked the realization that if John Ramsey’s account was to be believed, at least one of the perpetrators had remained in the home on the morning of December 26, 1996.
For the sake of objective clarity, the reader may wish to review the chronological history of John Ramey’s statement in chapter Twenty-Five so that you may better understand the following analysis.
Patsy Ramsey placed a 911 call to the Boulder Regional Communications Center at 0552 hours on the morning of December 26, 1996, and Officer Rick French was the first police officer to arrive on the scene at 0555 hours. Patsy greeted him at the front door and John Ramsey was observed standing to the rear of the residence near the kitchen. Officer French was advised that the Ramsey’s 6-year-old daughter was missing and shown a ransom note. He immediately took steps to sequester the parents to the first floor Solarium located in the S. E. corner of the residence.
Sergeant Paul Reichenbach is reported to be the second police officer to arrive on the scene, and after receiving a quick briefing from Officer French, he conducted an exterior / interior sweep of the residence that included the basement. He is believed to have been the first police officer to visit the basement.
Officer French remained with Patsy and John as Sgt. Reichenbach called in additional resources to assist in the investigation.
CSI Karl Veitch arrived on scene at 0610 hours.
CSI Barry Weiss arrived on scene at 0640 hours.
CSI Sue Barklow arrived on scene at 0700 hours.
At some juncture, French conducted a cursory inspection of the rear ground floor doors and garage and ultimately checked the basement. Looking for a forced entry to the residence, he did not open the Wine Cellar door due to the fact that it was secured from the outside by a rotating block of wood. If someone had forced entry through that door from the outside of the residence, behind which lay the body of JonBenét, the wood block would have been damaged.
French apparently did not think the Train Room window a likely point of entry and left the basement as he had found it. He did not report placing a chair in the doorway to block the Train Room. The timing of French’s visit to the basement was believed to be sometime after CSIs had arrived on the scene to begin their processing on the first floor level of the house and before the White and Fernie families arrived on scene.
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It was close to 6:30 a.m. when John and Barbara Fernie arrived and, from outside the rear kitchen / patio door, John was able to observe the ransom note still spread out on the floor of the hallway next to the kitchen.
Not long thereafter, Fleet and Priscilla White were the next family friends to arrive at the Ramsey home. Fleet reported that within approximately 15 minutes of his arrival he made a quick inspection of the basement of the home. He was purportedly the third person to visit the basement at that point of the morning, and I believe his observations are a key component to unraveling this mystery.
White observed a Samsonite suitcase beneath the broken Train Room window. Its side was flush to the wall, and he moved it as he closely inspected the area for new broken glass. White reported finding one small kernel on the floor that he placed on the interior window ledge. He observed the window to be closed but unlatched and left it in that condition.
Continuing his exploration of the basement, White unlatched a door and briefly looked in the darkened room identified as the Wine Cellar. Unable to find a light switch and not seeing anything in the dark, he closed the door and returned upstairs. He subsequently removed Burke Ramsey from the residence, and this was accomplished prior to the arrival of Detective Arndt at 0810 hours.
Interviewed by police on three separate occasions about his inspection of the basement, White never mentioned having to move a chair to enter the Train Room. He made it clear that he spent some amount of time inspecting the window and aside from placing a kernel of glass on the sill, he left the window in its original closed and unlatched position. He never reported placing a chair to block the Train Room doorway upon his departure from the basement.