Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? (43 page)

I can’t help but wonder, what the hell makes this case so different? Why are we not giving consideration to the possibility that all of these pieces of trace evidence were in place long before these articles came into contact with JonBenét Ramsey? Are we afraid to even consider other options in our evaluation of this case, and in our pursuit of the truth?

By way of another example regarding the collection of physical evidence at a crime scene, I again refer to the sex assault investigation I oversaw in the early 1990’s.

The suspect had worn gloves during his entry to the apartment where the assault took place, but removed one of them during the assault. He unplugged the telephone when leaving, and we collected a decent latent fingerprint from the plastic covering of the phone. We thought it possible that he had handled the phone with the ungloved hand and had left us a tangible clue.

We submitted the latent print for comparison to the national AFIS database and were extremely disappointed when we received no hit. Whoever had left the print on the phone was not in the system, and had no record of arrest.

The inked fingerprints of friends and family of our survivor were collected for elimination purposes, and we gathered nearly two dozen cards for review by technicians.

Again, there was no match of the latent fingerprint to any of the known inked cards we had collected for elimination purposes. It was an extremely frustrating setback.

The latent fingerprint, thought to possibly belong to our perpetrator in the early stages of the investigation, was never identified as belonging to anyone associated with our inquiry. It was one piece of physical evidence that the defense attorney continued to point to as evidence of his client’s innocence until the DNA test results came back.

Ultimately, as noted above, the case was made on the DNA evidence left at the scene. The suspect had ejaculated during the assault, and we had plenty of this type of physical evidence to link our perpetrator to the crime.

The point to be illustrated here is that physical evidence may be collected from a scene that has no connection whatsoever to the perpetrator of a crime. There will frequently be unanswered questions about this type of evidence, and each piece must be carefully scrutinized and weighed as to its probative nature. It is critical that we keep an open mind, however, and properly evaluate every piece of evidence that we have collected over the course of an investigation.

As of this writing, I have been unable to determine the strength of the genetic markers that were identified as the Touch DNA samples found in the leggings worn by JonBenét at the time of the discovery of her body. Horita reported that they were weaker than the partial sample identified as Distal Stain 007-2.

The strength of the loci (genetic markers) observed in the cord of the wrist bindings were reported to be 6 markers, and those of the male in the garrote were 7. Both of these samples were less than the partial sample of 10 markers identified as Distal Stain 007-2.

What I viewed as significant however, was the revelation that Horita had disclosed during the task force meeting held in February 2009:

• Touch DNA testing discovered the presence of two additional, unknown samples of male DNA on the implements that had been used to kill JonBenét.
  
• Mary Lacy made the decision to withhold this information from the public when she apologized to, and exonerated, the Ramsey family.
  

For what it’s worth, here is my personal observation and my takeaway:

For reasons beyond my comprehension, there has been a total lack of objectivity on the part of the prosecutor’s office regarding the DNA in this case, and I have a difficult time understanding why the totality of the Touch DNA testing evidence was not released to the public by Lacy when the family was exonerated in the death of their daughter.

Why was Mary Lacy’s office so unwilling to look at
all
of the evidence that had been collected over the course of this investigation?

Finally, and more to the point, I can’t help but wonder what Paula Woodward would say if she were conversant with all of the details surrounding these new, Touch DNA “discoveries.”

N
ot yet half-way through his first term in Boulder, Stan Garnett had decided to throw his hat in the ring for the Colorado Attorney General’s office. The campaign trail had brought him to the Western Slope on a couple occasions during the summer and fall of 2010, and the first time we were able to get together was over a cup of coffee in my kitchen as he was on the way to the airport. He was in the company of his chauffeur, so we didn’t have an opportunity to speak confidentially about the status of the JonBenét investigation.

I emailed him later that week and asked if he thought if anyone would ever be prosecuted in this murder investigation. He replied by telling me that Boulder Police had not yet provided him with a “theory of prosecution.”

I was aware that Boulder investigators had been following up on some of the leads that had been suggested at the task force meeting, and that there had been an effort to gather DNA samples from JonBenét’s and Burke’s classmates to determine the possibility of a match with the unknown sample in her underwear.

Garnett’s last trip to Telluride was approximately two weeks prior to the November election, and this time we were able to speak for a few minutes. He advised me that he had received virtually no communication from Beckner’s office about their progress on the case, and he knew of no plans for calling the task force back together.

He indicated that he, and Ryan Brackley, his first assistant district attorney, had been intending to make a trip to Telluride to chat with me further about my theory, but his first 18 months in office had been a busy time. Five full-blown murder trials had resulted in five convictions, and they just hadn’t been able to find the time to drive to my far corner of the state.

Garnett suggested that we get together after the election, and we tentatively pinned down a date in mid-November when I would be in Denver on other business. Before parting ways, I told him that I would give some thought to putting together a theory of prosecution for his consideration.

The meeting we had agreed upon never took place, and I subsequently prepared a document that outlined a theoretical concept of the events that had taken place in the Ramsey household on the night of December 25, 1996, and the potential criminal charges that I believed were supported by the evidence in the case. I copied this correspondence to Chief Beckner at the Boulder Police Department.

The cover letter below is a redacted version of the correspondence I sent to Garnett’s office in January 2011.

Portions of the document containing references to grand jury information and other sensitive materials have been excised from its presentation here.

January 3, 2011

Stan Garnett, District Attorney

20
^th
Judicial District Attorney’s Office

1777 6
^th
Street

Boulder, CO 80302

Stan,

Somewhere in between your campaign visits to Telluride this last fall, I had inquired by email if you thought anyone would ever be prosecuted for their involvement in the death of JonBenét. Your response indicated that Boulder Police had not yet presented a theory of prosecution to your office.

I am aware that Mark’s office has been pursuing the task of attempting to identify the contributor of the DNA in JonBenét’s underwear and presumably this effort has been consuming a lot of time on the part of his investigators and laboratory personnel. Understandably, he is attempting to negate this piece of trace evidence before updating a case theory and although this seems a thorough and necessary course of action, I will be pleasantly surprised if this endeavor yields positive results.

During our last brief conversation, I indicated that I would consider putting together a working theory for your consideration.

This task has taken longer than anticipated but I am enclosing a theory of prosecution that outlines this hypothesis. It incorporates a theoretical construct of the events of the crime and is presented in a manner that might be argued before the members of a grand jury. As expected, a working theory involves some degree of speculation and for the sake of brevity I did not duplicate all of the information that has previously been documented in my investigative reports and correspondence.

From my perspective however, and it will become evident should you elect to take the time to review this theory, your predecessors have left your office with little or no opportunity to prosecute anyone who had a hand in the murder of JonBenét or those who participated in the cover-up of the circumstances surrounding her death.

With the recent passing of the fourteenth anniversary of JonBenét’s murder I suspect that the vast majority of people have given up hope of ever seeing the case resolved. Moreover, I whole-heartedly share the opinion that you voiced during the task force meeting nearly two years ago: most in Boulder County wish to hear nothing more about the case unless it has been definitively solved.

With those sentiments in mind, I continue to argue that there is a course of action available to you that will ultimately clear this homicide. I believe that the information outlined in the attached materials provides your office with the best and perhaps the last opportunity to seek the answers that Alex Hunter and Mary Lacy were unwilling to pursue.

Ultimately, the furtherance of this murder investigation rests in your hands and I would propose that the time has come for the prosecutor’s office to take back the initiative from the cadre of Ramsey attorneys who have steered the course of this inquiry for far too many years.

In closing, I have to state that I have always held to the belief that the criminal justice system would be able to bring this case to a successful resolution. And as a criminal investigator who was once responsible for the lead role in one of the most bizarre murder investigations this country has ever witnessed, I feel that I have finally fulfilled my obligation to the office where my participation first began.

Respectfully,

James Kolar

ajk

Enclosure: Theory of Prosecution

The document prepared for Garnett, which ran to approximately 20 pages, included an opening statement that a prosecutor could use to outline the details of the case to a jury, and was followed by a theoretical construct of the events that I believe to have occurred in the Ramsey home on the evening of December 25, 1996.

The actions of each of the family members in the home that night were fleshed out in a story-telling fashion that was based upon, and supported by, information found in the investigative files I had reviewed up to that point in time.

The conclusions voiced about what likely occurred in the home that evening were based upon my analysis of the behavioral clues, family statements, and physical evidence that had been gathered over the course of the investigation. The theory outlined a suggested motive for the cover-up of JonBenét’s death.

I found the totality of the circumstances comprising the investigative theory to be rather disquieting, and too disturbing, in my opinion, to express in a public forum. It was another internal debate that continued for some period of time as I went about putting the finishing touches on this work, but eventually, as the time to go to press grew near, I decided not to spell it out it, or share that written document in the body of this manuscript.

Some portions of the theory regarding the behavioral aspects of the crime were of a highly speculative nature, and I felt they are better reserved for a presentation to a trained law enforcement audience.

I realize that this situation is probably a little frustrating to the reader, but the foundation for this theory is interspersed throughout this manuscript and I will have to leave it to your imagination for the moment.