Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? (42 page)

At no point does John Ramsey ever state that he visited the basement prior to the arrival of Officer French. As outlined herein, over the course of numerous interviews and public statements, he vaguely indicates that the time frames were within one to three hours after French’s arrival and likely after the 10:00 a.m. ransom call had failed to materialize.

Though it was noted that Ramsey had to run to the den to answer the phone on one or more occasions, it didn’t seem reasonable to believe that he would have ventured as far as the basement, or the second floor, while awaiting a call from the people who had kidnapped his daughter. I would suggest that it is more likely that he made trips to Burke’s room and to the basement when Detective Arndt reported losing track of his whereabouts from approximately 10:40 to 12:00 hours.

Also to be considered were the time frames involved in his first being alerted to JonBenét’s disappearance by Patsy. According to family statements, John responded downstairs in his underwear and was reading the ransom note in the back hallway as Patsy was on the 911 call. At some juncture, he had to check on Burke, search JonBenét’s room, and then rush upstairs to fully dress and be back downstairs in the kitchen to be present when Officer French arrived at the scene. All of this activity would purportedly have had to have occurred within minutes of Patsy’s finding the note and the three minutes it took French to arrive after receiving notice of the 911 call.

Based upon the historical record of his statements and the timing of events described above, it is therefore presumed that John’s first visit to the basement did not occur before Officer French arrived on scene. One has to surmise that John Ramsey did not report his trip to the basement or his suspicions about the suitcase to Officer French, for otherwise the first CSI on scene would have been diligently processing the area when Fleet White arrived that morning.

If these are accurate statements, then it must be concluded that an “intruder” had to have moved the chair into a position to block the doorway after Fleet White had conducted his search of the basement. The time frame of White’s trip to the basement can be estimated to have occurred between 0730 - 0745 hours. Following this testimonial evidence, this places an intruder in the home well after a number of police officers and CSIs were on scene and processing the house.

Photo 33 - The chair that John Ramsey purportedly moved to gain entry to the Train Room. Source: Boulder PD Crime Scene Video/Case File.

There is another aspect of Fleet White and John Ramsey’s statements that need to be considered. During his first in-depth police interview conducted on April 30, 1997, John advises that he “closed and latched” the Train Room window during his first visit to the basement. Fleet White clearly states that he observed the window to be closed but “unlatched.”

Giving consideration to the likely timing of John’s first visit to the basement (after 1000 hours), this means that Fleet visited the Train Room before John was there to close and latch the window. Under these conditions, based upon John’s statements, it must be presumed that the perpetrator was still concealed within the basement and didn’t block the Train Room doorway until after Fleet left the basement. This again places an intruder in the basement from approximately 0730 to 1040 hours.

If, on the other hand, John was somehow mistaken about the time frames involved and visited the basement before Fleet, then the doorway blockage would have been cleared and the window latched. This could only have occurred after police had arrived.

The intruder would have to have been responsible for unlatching the window and escaping after John’s visit to the basement, but before Fleet conducted his examination of the basement at 0730.

The two key elements that should be considered in this analysis are to be found in the chronology of John Ramsey’s statements regarding the condition of the basement Train Room and window well. His observation of the
blockage
of the doorway to that room and his
latching
of the window, when viewed in terms of the timeline of events and witness statements, places an intruder in the home long after police arrive on the scene.

Lou Smit questioned John in depth about the blockage of the Train Room door during the interviews conducted in June 1998, and it appeared to be a significant element that supported his intruder theory. But as noted above, the blockage of the doorway was never mentioned in John’s April 1997 interview and after its brief appearance in 1998, it was suddenly excised from any further discussion about his theory of the intruder’s actions in his home.

The chair that played such a significant role in establishing the existence of an intruder is never again mentioned following Lou Smit’s 1998 exploration of matter.

As a criminal investigator, I have to consider the question: Was this an oversight on John Ramsey’s part, or does the intentional absence of this key element reveal consciousness of guilt?

It begs the broader question:

• Is it possible, or even plausible, that one or more intruders were able to remain concealed in the basement during four sweeps of that area?
  
• If so, why would they remain in the residence hours after JonBenét’s death, and how did they avoid the attention of police officers and family friends when they eventually did escape the residence that day?
  

I found it noteworthy that John Ramsey never mentioned his immediate concerns and suspicions about the placement of the Samsonite suitcase to Boulder Police investigators on the morning of December 26, 1996. This information was only first declared on April 30, 1997, during his negotiated interview with police investigators.

Nor did he mention his immediate concerns about the suitcase to Fleet White when they were inspecting the train room window well together. According to White there was some discussion about the “possibility” that someone could have come through that window but Ramsey said nothing about his concerns regarding the suitcase.

I would point out that this information only materialized after the D.A.’s office had provided police reports to his defense attorneys in preparation for the April 1997 interview.

Of further interest, the theory regarding the use of the Samsonite suitcase being evidence connected with a possible point of entry and exit for the intruder(s) wasn’t espoused by investigators, or the Ramseys, until
after
Lou Smit joined the investigation in mid-March, 1997. This particular aspect of the case was troubling and gave me pause.

I found it intriguing that John Ramsey did not introduce the chair into the intruder equation until June 1998, nearly eighteen months after the murder of his daughter. In concert with the suitcase, was there no thought given to the fact that CSIs may have been able to collect latent fingerprints or trace DNA from such valuable pieces of evidence?

If John Ramsey’s version of events is to be believed, then one has to accept that one or more perpetrators were able to successfully remain concealed in the Ramsey home for some period of time after police had responded to the family’s 911 call reporting the kidnapping of their daughter.

In this leap of faith, if one follows the evidence, it must be concluded that the “foreign faction” involved in the abduction and murder of JonBenét were truly an exceptional and clever group of criminals.

I
regret that I cannot recall the specific circumstances of this event, but we had been ensconced in the confines of a large conference room that contained a white dry-erase board upon one wall. Black capital letters, “WWPWS”, had been scrawled across the board.

Sitting with me were Mary Lacy and Peter Maguire, and we were discussing some important case that was being set for trial.

I occasioned to ask the significance of the letters displayed on the board.

My query about the letters led to a brief explanation about a guiding principal regarding the practices of governmental agencies, and apparently, the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office.

The acronym stood for this: “What Would Paula Woodward Say?”

For those of you not familiar with the Denver news media, Paula Woodward was an investigative reporter for Channel 9 News, and she frequently reported on the questionable activities of government employees. What immediately came to mind was her work in an unmarked van that had exposed Denver Public Works employees sloughing off on the job. Prime time news video captured too many coffee breaks at the expense of taxpayers.

Fast forward to current events:

As noted previously, I had written Mark Beckner in October 2008 regarding my views of the case, and was soon preparing to participate in a review of the case through the efforts of a newly formed Cold Case Task Force.

Events in the case would take another twist before the task force had an opportunity to convene, however. In the waning days of her term, Mary Lacy announced the results of new DNA testing.

More than two years had passed since leaving her service, and I was mildly interested in her declaration that “Touch DNA” had effectively cleared the Ramsey family of any involvement in the death of their daughter.

She authored an official letter of public apology to the Ramsey family, and many thought that this final act in office precluded the incoming District Attorney from taking future action against family members.

Lacy Exoneration Letter

Lacy reported that the new technology of Touch DNA revealed that the perpetrator believed responsible for the kidnap and murder of JonBenét had also handled the leggings worn by her on the night of her abduction. DNA originally found in her underwear now matched microscopic traces of male DNA found in the interior waistband of these leggings.

She considered it proof positive that an intruder was responsible for this crime.

The media’s response to Lacy’s letter of exoneration was less than complimentary. It was one thing to announce the findings of new DNA testing results, but it was quite another to take the next step and publically clear the family of
any
involvement in the death of their daughter.

The
Boulder Daily Camera
wrote, “Lacy has ruined her public and professional reputation through her collective actions in the Ramsey case…The consensus, overwhelmingly, is that (the public and other attorneys) think she is incompetent. Quite frankly, I think they are stunned and confused about the entire way she has handled the Ramsey case.”
⁷⁹

University of Colorado Law Professor Paul Campos declared the letter a “reckless exoneration.” He went to state, “Everyone knows that relative immunity from criminal conviction is something money can buy. Apparently another thing it can buy is an apology for even being suspected of a crime you probably already would have been convicted of committing if you happened to be poor. That at least is one explanation for the letter Lacy sent John Ramsey last week, absolving the Ramsey family of any involvement in the killing of his daughter, and apologizing for contributing to the ‘public perception that (anyone in the family) might have been involved.’”
⁸⁰

Craig Silverman, a defense lawyer and former Denver prosecutor, called the move to exonerate the Ramsey family “extremely unusual.” “Nothing is out of the realm of possibility in this case…anything could happen.”
⁸¹

Reporter James Baetke, a staff writer at the
Boulder Daily Camera,
went on to report that touch DNA wasn’t necessarily new, but technology had improved its ability test for “increasingly small genetic samples.”
⁸²

The article included an advisory note of caution about touch DNA from an Oakland, California forensic mathematician, Charles Brenner: “Some controversy surrounds this kind of collection; the sample can be so small, it’s hard to be reliable.”
⁸³

It was not disclosed during the task force presentation the exact strength of these markers, or how they compared to other samples previously discovered on JonBenét’s body (i.e. The male and female DNA collected at autopsy from beneath her fingernails), but it did not prevent the outgoing DA from exonerating the Ramsey family in this murder investigation.

Knowing the history of Mary Lacy’s announcements, I should not have been surprised when D. A. Investigator Andy Horita shed further light on the Touch DNA test results during the Cold Case Task Force meeting held in February 2009.

I had supervised Horita during my stint as chief investigator at the D.A.’s office, and it was my opinion that he had a promising future ahead of him. He had no experience as a police officer, but he was an extremely intelligent young man. He looked decidedly dejected as he delivered the news about the additional DNA test results.

Horita confirmed the public announcements Lacy had made about matching DNA found in the leggings worn by JonBenét.

He went on to report, however, that
additional
samples of trace male DNA had been discovered on the cord used in the wrist bindings, and the garrote that had killed JonBenét. These trace “Touch DNA” samples were
genetically unique
from one another, and were believed to belong to different individuals.

It took several moments for this information to be absorbed by the cadre of law enforcement experts filling the room before one of the female laboratory technicians voiced her observation.

It went something like this:

“Are you telling me, based on trace Touch DNA testing results, that we are now looking at six different people being involved in this murder?”

Horita reluctantly nodded his head.

We collectively recapped the DNA evidence that had been analyzed in this investigation, and it included the following:

1.) There had been trace DNA samples collected from beneath JonBenét’s fingernails of both hands during autopsy that was identified as belonging to her.

2.) There had been trace DNA samples collected from beneath her left fingernails during autopsy that belonged to an unidentified male.
⁸⁴

3.) There had been trace DNA samples collected from beneath her right fingernails during autopsy that belonged to another unidentified male, and a female. (JonBenét could not be eliminated as a possible contributor of the female DNA.)

4.) There had been trace DNA samples located in the crotch and waistband of her underwear that belonged to an unidentified male. This became known as Distal Stain 007-2.

5.) The new technology of Touch DNA identified trace samples in the waistband of the leggings that matched the unidentified male DNA (Distal Stain 007-2) in the underwear.

6.) The new technology of Touch DNA had located another sample of DNA located on the wrist bindings that belonged to a different unidentified male.

7.) The new technology of Touch DNA had located another sample of DNA located on the garrote that belonged to yet another unidentified male.

By our count, we were looking at
six separate and independent DNA samples
that belonged to unknown individuals, comprising a group that consisted of five males and one female.

But there was more.

Horita indicated that Touch DNA testing had discovered traces of genetic material on the pink Barbie nightgown found in the Wine Cellar with the body of JonBenét. This Touch DNA belonged to Patsy and Burke Ramsey.

No surprise there: they all lived in the same house.

So, what is the takeaway that we may derive from this information?

In my view, it demonstrates the advances that our scientific community has made in the application of the forensic sciences.

A hundred or more years ago it was a stretch to make people understand that the ridges on the tips of our fingers were uniquely identifiable. It wasn’t long before the technology of fingerprinting exploded, however, and there are now over seventy-one (71) million sets of fingerprints on file with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

We were only first exploring the identifying characteristics of genetic markers twenty years ago, and in many states across the nation convicted felons / arrestees are now required to provide a saliva swab so that we may compare their DNA identity to the unknown samples collected in open and unsolved cases.

It has been repeatedly demonstrated that technology frequently outpaces the slow moving constraints of the criminal justice system. This was illustrated by the case study presented in the sexual assault investigation that I oversaw in 1990’s. RFLP DNA testing technology available at the time indicated that there was a statistical chance of one in ten thousand that our suspect was the contributor of the semen left at the scene of this assault.

DNA testing conducted pursuant to new PCR technology a year later advanced these numbers to one in nine-hundred billion!

The point to be made is that Touch DNA is relatively new technology, and we are still trying to understand the parameters of its capabilities.

Does the discovery of the additional samples of “touch” male DNA on implements used in JonBenét’s murder truly mean that we should be searching for an entire group of individuals who participated in this crime?

Or should we interpret this trace evidence in another manner?

Is it possible that new technology is capable of identifying trace evidence, naked to the human eye, which has nothing to do with the transfer of DNA evidence that occurred during the actual commission of a crime?

Is it possible that these trace samples of DNA were deposited on these items of evidence at a time
prior
to the murder of this little girl?

There are numerous examples across the nation where courts have thrown out critical physical evidence due to some type of contamination taking place during laboratory testing. A technician forgets to change a pair of gloves, and microscopic trace evidence from one crime is transferred to the evidence of another.