Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? (48 page)

Chief Beckner,

On June 22, I submitted a letter to Chief Koby, requesting a leave of absence from the Boulder Police Department. In response to persistent speculation as to why I chose to leave the Ramsey investigation, this letter explains more fully those reasons. Although my concerns were well known for some time, I tried to be gracious in my departure, addressing only health concerns. However, after a month of soul searching and reflection, I feel I must now set the record straight.

The primary reason I chose to leave is my belief that the district attorney’s office continues to mishandle the Ramsey case. I had been troubled for many months with many aspects of the investigation. Albeit an uphill battle for a case to begin with, it became a nearly impossible investigation because of political alliances, philosophical differences, and professional egos that blocked progress in more ways, and on more occasions, than I can detail in this memorandum. I and others voiced these concerns repeatedly. In the interest of hoping justice would be served, we tolerated it, except for those closed door sessions when detectives protested in frustration, where fists hit the table, and where detectives demanded that the right things be done. The wrong things were done, and made it a matter of simple principle that I could not continue to participate as it stood with the district attorney’s office. As an organization, we remained silent, when we should have shouted.

The Boulder Police Department took a handful of detectives days after the murder, and handed us the case. As one of those five primary detectives, we tackled it for a year a half. We conducted an exhaustive investigation, followed the evidence where it led us, and were faithfully and professionally committed to this case although not perfect, cases rarely are. During eighteen months on the Ramsey investigation, my colleagues and I worked the case night and day, in spite of tied hands. On June 1 -2, 1998, we crunched thirty thousand pages of investigation to its essence, and put our cards on the table, delivering the case in a formal presentation to the district attorney’s office. We stood confident in or work. Very shortly thereafter, though, the detectives who know the case better than anyone were advised by the district attorney’s office that we would not be participating as grand jury advisory witnesses.

The very entity with whom we shared out investigative case file to see justice sought, I felt, was betraying this case. We were never afforded true prosecutorial support. There was never a consolidation of resources. All legal opportunities were not available. How were we expected to “solve” this case when the district attorney’s office was crippling us with their positions? I believe they were, literally, facilitating the escape of justice. During this investigation, consider the following:

During the investigation detectives would discover, collect, and bring evidence to the district attorney’s office, only to have it summarily dismissed or rationalized as insignificant. The most elementary of investigative efforts, such as obtaining telephone and credit card records, were met without support, search warrants denied The significant opinions of national experts were casually dismissed or ignored by the district attorney’s office, even the experienced FBI were waived aside.

Those who chose not to cooperate were never compelled before a grand jury early in this case, as detectives suggested only weeks after the murder, while information and memories were fresh.

An informant, for reasons of his own, came to detectives about conduct occurring within the district attorney’s office, including allegations of a plan to destroy a man’s career. We carefully listened. With that knowledge, the department did nothing. Other than to alert the accused, and in the process burn the two detectives [who captured that exchange on an undercover wire, incidentally] who came forth with this information. One of the results of that internal whistleblowing was witnessing Detective Commander Eller, who also could not tolerate what was occurring, lose his career and reputation undeservedly; scapegoated in a manner which only heightened my concerns. It did not take much inferential reasoning to realize that any dissidents were readily silenced.

In a departure from protocol, police reports, physical evidence, and investigative information was shared with Ramsey defense attorneys, all of this in the district attorney’s office “spirit of cooperation.” I served a search warrant, only to find later defense attorneys were simply given copies of the evidence it yielded.

An FBI agent, whom I didn’t even know, quietly tipped me off about what the DA’s office was doing behind our back, conducting investigation the police department was wholly unaware of.

I was not advised not to speak to certain witnesses, and all but dissuaded from pursuing particular investigative efforts. Polygraphs were acceptable for some subjects, but others seemed immune from such requests.

Innocent people were not “cleared”, publically or otherwise, even when it was unmistakably the right thing to do, as reputations and lives were destroyed.

Some in the district attorney’s office, to this day, pursue weak, defenseless, and innocent people in shameless tactics that one couldn’t believe more bizarre if it were made up.

I was told by one in the district attorney’s office about being unable to “break” a particular police officer from his resolute account of events he had witnessed. In my opinion, this not trial preparation, this was an attempt to derail months of hard work.

I was repeatedly reminded by some in the district attorney’s office just how powerful and talented and resourceful particular defense attorneys were. How could decisions be made this way?

There is evidence that was critical to the investigation, that to this day has never been collected, because neither search warrants or other means were supported to do so. Not to mention evidence which still sits today, untested in the laboratory, as differences continue about how to proceed.

While investigative efforts were rebuffed, my search warrant affidavits and attempts to gather evidence in the murder investigation of a six year old child were met with refusals and, instead, the suggestion that we “ask the permission of the Ramseys” before proceeding. And just before conducting the Ramsey interviews, I thought it inconceivable I was being lectured on “building trust.”

These are but a few of the many examples of why I chose to leave. Having to convince, to plead at times, to a district attorney’s office to assist us in the murder of a little girl, by way of the most basic investigative requests, was simply absurd.

When my detective partner and I had to literally hand search tens of thousands of receipts, because we didn’t have a search warrant to assist us otherwise, we did so. But we lost tremendous opportunities to make progress, to seek justice, and to know the truth. Auspicious timing and strategy could have made a difference. When the might of the criminal justice system should have brought all it had to bear on this investigation, and didn’t, we remained silent. We were trying to deliver a murder case with hands tied behind our backs. It was difficult, and our frustrations understandable. It was an assignment without a chance of success. Politics seemed to trump justice.

Even “outsiders” quickly assessed the situation, as the FBI politely noted early on: “the government isn’t in charge of this investigation.” As the nation watched, appropriately anticipating a fitting response to the murder of the most innocent of victims, I stood bothered as to what occurred behind the scenes. Those inside the case knew what was going on. Eighteen months gave us a unique perspective.

We learned to ignore the campaign of misinformation in which we were said to be bumbling along, or else just pursuing one or two suspects in ruthless vendetta. Much of what appeared in the press was orchestrated by particular sources wishing to discredit the Boulder Police Department. We watched the media spin, while we were prohibited from exercising First Amendment rights. As disappointment and frustration pervaded, detectives would remark to one another, “If it reaches a particular point, I’m walking away.”

But we would always tolerate it “just one more time.” Last year, when we discovered hidden cameras in the Ramsey house, only to realize the detectives had been unwittingly videotaped, this should have rocked the police department off its foundation. Instead, we allowed that too, to pass without challenge.

The detectives enthusiasm became simply resigned frustration, acquiescing to that which should never have been tolerated. In the media blitz, the pressure of the whole world watching, important decisions seemed to premised on “how it would play” publically.

Among at least a few of the detectives, “there’s something wrong here” became a catch phrase. I witnessed others having to make decisions which impacted their lives and careers, watching the soul searching that occurred as the ultimate questions were pondered. As it goes, “evils that befall the world are not nearly so often caused by bad men, as they are by good men who are silent when an opinion must be voiced.” Although several good men in the police department shouted loudly behind closed doors, the organization stood deafeningly silent at what continued to occur unchallenged.

Last Spring, you, too, seemed at a loss. I was taken aback when I was reminded of what happened to Commander Eller when he stuck his neck out. When reminded how politically powerful the DA was. When reminded of the hundreds of other cases the department had to file with the district attorney’s office, and that this was but one case. And finally, when I was asked, “what do you want done? The system burned down?’, it struck me dumb. But when you conceded that there were those inside the DA’s office we had to simply accept as “defense witnesses,” and when we were reduced to simply recording our objections for “documentation purposes” – I knew I was not going to participate in this much longer.

I believe the district attorney’s office is thoroughly compromised. When we were told by one in the district attorney’s office, months before we had ever completed our investigation, that this case “is not prosecutable,” we shook our heads in disbelief. A lot could be forgiven, the lesser transgressions ignored, for the right things done. Instead, those in the district attorney’s office encouraged us to allow them to “work their magic.” (Which I never fully understood. Did that “magic” include sharing our case file information with the defense attorneys, dragging their feet in evidence collection, or believing that two decades of used-car-dealing-style-plea-bargaining was somehow going to solve this case?) Right and wrong is just that. Some of these issues were not shades of gray. Decisions should have been made as such. Whether a suspect is a penniless indigent with a public defender, or otherwise.

As contrasted by my experiences in Georgia, for example, where my warrant affidavits were met with a sense of support and obligation to the victim. Having worked with able prosecutors in other jurisdictions, having worked cases where justice was aggressively sought, I have familiarity with these prosecution professionals who hold a strong sense of justice. And then, from Georgia, the Great Lakes, the East Coast, the South, I would return to Boulder, to again be thoroughly demoralized.

We delayed and ignored, for far too long, that which was “right,” in deference of maintaining this dysfunctional relationship with the district attorney’s office. This wasn’t a runaway train that couldn’t be stopped. Some of us bit our tongues as the public was told of this “renewed cooperation” between the police department and district attorney’s office –this at the very time the detectives and district attorney’s office weren’t even on speaking terms,, the same time you had to act as a liaison between the two agencies because the detectives couldn’t tolerate it.. I was quite frankly surprised, as you remarked on this camaraderie, that there had not yet been a fistfight.

In Boulder, where the politics, policies, and pervasive thought has held for years, a criminal justice system designed to deal with such an event was not in place. Instead, we had an institution that when needed most, buckled. The system was paralyzed, as to this day one continues to get away with murder.

Will there be a real attempt at justice? I may be among the last to find out. The department assigned me some of the most sensitive and critical assignments in the Ramsey case, including search warrants and affidavits, the Atlanta projects, the interviews of the Ramseys, and many other sensitive assignments I won’t mention I crisscrossed the country, conducting interviews and investigation, pursuing pedophiles and drifters, chasing and discarding leads. I submitted over 250 investigative reports for this case alone. I’d have been happy to assist the grand jury. But the detectives, who know this case better than anyone else, were told we would not be allowed as grand jury advisory witnesses, as is common place. If a grand jury is convened, the records will be sealed, and we will not witness what goes on inside such a proceeding.

What part of the case gets presented, what doesn’t?

District Attorney Hunters continued reference to a “runaway” grand jury is also puzzling. Is he afraid that he cannot control the outcome? Why would one not simply present evidence to jurors, and let the jury decide?

Perhaps the DA is hoping for a voluntary confession one day. What’s needed, though, is an effective district attorney to conduct the inquiry, not a remorseful killer.

The district attorney’s office should be the ethical and judicial compass for the community, ensuring justice is served – or at least, sought. Instead, our DA has become a spinning compass for the media. The perpetuating inference continues that justice is somehow just around the corner. I do not see that occurring, as the two year anniversary of this murder approaches.