Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? (7 page)

Heeding the FBI’s advice, he wanted to know what the family was saying and doing in the aftermath of the discovery of JonBenét’s body.

In the interim, following the autopsy of JonBenét, Sergeant Mason was tasked with attempting to arrange an interview with family members. There were a number of questions that investigators had not been able to ask of John and Patsy Ramsey during their wait for the ransom call. He and Detective Arndt visited the Fernie home, temporary quarters for the Ramsey family, on the evening of Friday, December 27
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in an effort to schedule more detailed interviews.

Family friend Mike Bynum, a former Boulder County prosecutor, was present and apparently providing legal advice to John Ramsey. JonBenét’s pediatrician, Dr. Francesco Beuf, was also present. He refused to let Patsy be interviewed. She was under the influence of medication and described as being too distraught to even consider responding to the police department to answer questions about the murder of her daughter.

Mason and Arndt left the Fernie home that night empty handed, unable to secure a firm date and time for a follow up interview.

The following morning, Saturday, December 28, 1996, investigators were notified by Boulder County Assistant District Attorney Pete Hoffstrom that the Ramsey family was now being represented by attorneys.† Any questions of the family regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of their daughter would have to be put to writing and presented by Hoffstrom to their legal counsel.

No face-to-face interview between Boulder Police investigators and Ramsey family members would be scheduled for months.

D
etectives Tom Trujillo and Linda Arndt were tasked with attending JonBenét’s autopsy which began early on Friday morning, December 27, 1996. A handful of people stared down at the small body bag on the examining table that contained the remains of the 6-year-old girl. Present within the cramped spaces of the morgue’s autopsy theater were representatives from the Boulder Police Department and the Boulder County Coroner’s and District Attorney’s offices.

Each of the men and women present attempted to mentally prepare themselves for what was about to come. The cold act of dissecting the lifeless body of a child was something you never become accustomed to, and child homicides in Boulder were a rarity. It is difficult to put aside the thoughts that the child lying on that examination table could be one of your own.

The stench of death never seems to leave these particular environs, invading every pore of your body and having been there before, you sadly realize that it may take days for the distinctive odor of the morgue to fade away from memory. The visual aspects of this type of work, however, rarely leave your consciousness.

Eventually the coroner’s office began the process and removed the custody seal that had secured the body bag the previous evening.

The small bag containing JonBenét was unzipped, pulled away, and she was gently placed on the examining table. She was observed to be wearing several pieces of clothing that included a white, long-sleeved knit shirt bearing a star of sequins on the chest, a pair of size 12 Bloomies brand underwear, and a pair of long underwear type pants.

They all watched as Dr. Meyer removed the loosely tied piece of white nylon cord that remained attached to JonBenét’s right wrist. Her father had already removed the loop that had encircled the left wrist when he had discovered her body. Dr. Meyer noted that the loop was loose enough that he could place his fingers between the cord and JonBenét’s wrist.

The length of the cord between the loops that had been placed around her wrists was determined to be approximately fifteen and a half (15 ½”) inches and both ends of this cord were frayed. The loops of the cord had been tied so loosely around JonBenét’s wrists that they left no telltale marks or abrasions on her skin.

Another piece of similar looking cord was embedded in JonBenét’s neck. The loop around her head was determined to be configured with a slip knot, with the trailing end leading from the midline of the back of her neck and wrapped around a splintered stick. The stick measured approximately four and a half (4 ½”) inches in length, and both ends were splintered. The word “Korea” was printed on the stick.

The trailing end of the cord extended approximately four (4”) inches beyond the slip knot, and the end of the cord was frayed. The length of cord departing the portion of the slip knot encircling JonBenét’s neck to the stick measured approximately seventeen (17”) inches. The end of the cord that had been wrapped around the stick was observed to be burned / melted.

The cord around her neck was situated in a horizontal fashion with a slight vertical cant as it reached the back of her jaw line. This position indicated that the cord had been applied manually and was not consistent with a death caused by a vertical hanging.

Hair from JonBenét’s head was entangled in the slip knot, and it appeared that force had been applied by pulling on the end of the cord with the wrapped stick, embedding the cord in the flesh of her neck. Dr. Meyer had to clip some of JonBenét’s hair in order free the ligature from her neck.

The stick was later determined to be a portion of a broken paintbrush handle found in an art tray near the entrance to the Wine Cellar. The slip knot was situated at the rear of her head, so it was presumed that JonBenét had been facing away from the perpetrator as they had tightened the noose around her neck.

Dr. Meyer carefully cut, marked, and removed the garrote from JonBenét’s neck. The remaining furrow was dark red in color and revealed how deeply embedded the cord had been buried into the flesh of her neck.

An examination of her eyelids and the conjunctiva of her eyes revealed the presence of petechial hemorrhages, pinpoint blood vessels that had burst when JonBenét had been strangled. These hemorrhages indicated that JonBenét had been alive when the garrote had been applied and tightened around her throat.

A triangular shaped bruise was observed on the front of JonBenét’s throat and below the line of the embedded cord. It was approximately the size of a quarter and located left of the midline of her throat.

Dried mucous from her nose had been smeared down the right lip and cheek. Marks from the straight edge of the duct tape that had once been placed over her mouth appeared visible, suggesting that the mucous was already in place before the duct tape had been applied.

Photo 8 - Neck abrasions and garrote. The triangular shaped bruise was thought to have been caused by the twisting of JonBenét’s shirt while tightened around her neck. Note the other lower abrasions, and suspected fingernail marks above the cord. Source: Boulder PD Case File / Internet

There was an orange-red colored circular shaped mark on JonBenét’s right cheek, between her ear and jaw line of undetermined origin.

Paper bags had been secured over JonBenét’s hands before she had been removed from the living room of her home the previous evening. These were removed and the fingernails of each hand were carefully clipped into envelopes with the hopes that DNA, epithelial cells, or trace blood evidence would be there to help identify her attacker(s).

A heart drawn in red ink was observed in the palm of her left hand.

JonBenét’s clothing was removed and bagged for the collection of other trace fibers and evidence that might be present. Obvious items of trace evidence, fibers, hair, were collected from the clothing before they were removed from her body and bagged.

Upon their removal, the underwear and long-johns were observed to contain dried, yellowish colored urine stains and the underwear contained two small circular stains of blood in the crotch. The location of the urine stains were to the front of the clothing, and it was thought that JonBenét had been lying on her stomach when her bladder let go at the time of her death.

The examination of the outer skin of her body revealed some other minor scrapes, abrasions, and marks. Located upon the top of her left shoulder were signs of scrape marks. Her lower left leg had another abrasion that was thought to be a scratch mark.

On the lower left quadrant of her back were two distinct red marks that, upon closer inspection, Dr. Meyer identified as abrasions. They appeared similar in size and round in shape, measuring 3.5 mm in distance from one another.

At some point during the process, investigators decided to stop their examination of JonBenét and considered the possibility of fingerprinting her skin. Several telephone calls were made to other agencies in an attempt to determine if there was a successful method for retrieving latent fingerprints from the skin of a deceased person.

They weren’t able to determine if there was any tried and true technique that would be successful, but they did try a technique that involved the use of Magna powder, a specific type of fingerprint powder that utilized a magnetic brush to move and collect the powder over the surface believed to hold latent fingerprints. Investigators were not successful in lifting any latent fingerprints from JonBenét in this fashion.

Dr. Meyer conducted an external examination of JonBenét’s genitalia. He had observed spots of blood in the crotch of the underwear she had been wearing when her clothing had been removed, and this alerted him to the possibility that there was a cause for this evidence to be present.

He observed that there was fresh trauma located at the 7:00 o’clock position at the hymeneal opening. The area was inflamed and had been bleeding, and it appeared to Dr. Meyer that a foreign object had been inserted into JonBenét’s genitalia at or near the time of her death.

The site of the damaged tissue was excised and prepared for a pathology slide. Later examination would reveal the presence of ‘cellulose material’ in the membrane of the hymeneal opening that was consistent with the wood of the paintbrush used as a handle in the cord of the garrote.

He noted that he didn’t consider this injury the result of a particularly vicious assault with a foreign object. A very small splinter of material was discovered during microscopic examination, and more trauma to the site would have been expected if the perpetrator had been intent on physically torturing the child.

Dr. Meyer also observed signs of chronic inflammation around the vaginal orifice and believed that these injuries had been inflicted in the days or weeks
before
the acute injury that was responsible for causing the bleeding at the time of her death. This irritation appeared consistent with prior sexual contact.

An alternate light source (ALS) was used to scan JonBenét’s body in search of other trace evidence and fluids. The area around her upper thighs illuminated traces of fluid and indications that she may have been wiped clean with some type of cloth. Investigators thought perhaps that the fluid source reacting to the ALS was semen, but swabs of the area would later reveal it to be a smear of blood.

Per autopsy protocols, Dr. Meyer collected tissue samples from of a variety of internal organs, and this included the contents of JonBenét’s stomach. He found no traces of food present in her stomach but did collect the remnants of what appeared to him to be raw pineapple from the upper duodenum of her digestive tract. Scientific examination would later confirm his preliminary opinion: JonBenét had consumed raw pineapple not long before her death.†

There had initially been no outward appearance of an injury to JonBenét’s head. No trace of blood had been observed in her hair, and the scalp did not reveal signs of any type of injury. So as Dr. Meyer began his internal examination, investigators were surprised to learn that she had suffered a severe blow to the upper right side of her skull. A linear fracture covered the entire length of the upper right side of her head, from the parietal to occipital bones of her skull.

The injury was rectangular in shape measuring approximately eight and one half inches (8 ½”) in length by one and three quarters (1 ¾”) to one and one- half inches (1 ½”) in width, and fractured bone from the skull had caused extensive damage to the brain below. Fresh subdural hematoma was apparent as well as subarachnoid hemorrhaging. There was cerebral edema (brain swelling) observed.

Photo 9 - Rectangular shaped skull fracture that traverses the right side of the head. Source: Boulder PD Case File / Internet

Dr. Meyer told the investigators that it would have taken some time for the brain swelling to develop, and there likely had been a period of JonBenét’s survival from the time she received the blow to her head and when she was eventually strangled. He reported that this would have been a lethal blow, and that he did not think it likely that she regained consciousness.

The bulk of the autopsy had been completed by mid-afternoon, but Dr. Meyer wanted another opinion about the injuries that had been inflicted upon the genitalia. Over the course of the investigation, a number of forensic pathologists would study JonBenét’s injuries and offer their professional insight into what had happened to this little girl.

Dr. Meyer called together the Boulder County Child Fatality Advisory Review Team that afternoon, a protocol established by the coroner’s office that called for the review of all child fatalities that took place in the county. Members who served on the team were comprised of people from the Boulder Police Department, Boulder County Coroner’s Office, the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department, the Boulder District Attorney’s Office, and the Boulder County Department of Social Services.