Perfect Murder, Perfect Town (22 page)

Douglas told
Dateline
’s Chris Hansen that he had sat across the table from some of the country’s, if not the world’s, greatest liars and that when he had met with the Ramseys for four hours, he left with the opinion that they did not kill their daughter.

In his new book, he wrote that parents who kill their children usually report them missing and leave a staged scene. When asked by Hansen if this fit the Ramsey case, Douglas said he couldn’t see any staging by the Ramseys. In his entire career, he had never seen a case where a parent put a ligature around a child’s neck or duct tape over a child’s mouth. Also, Douglas told Hansen, parents who kill their children take pains to avoid being the person to find the body.

“From what I’ve seen and experienced [in this case],” Douglas said, “I say they [the Ramseys] were not involved.”

Asked about the unusual amount of the ransom demand—$118,000—Douglas said that Patsy didn’t even know the amount of her husband’s yearly bonus. It was deposited electronically into a 401-K pension plan account. “This begins to tell me more about the person who’s responsible,” Douglas said. “This person has a very unique, intimate knowledge about his [Ramsey’s] financial workings. Therefore, the person would have to be somehow related to his employment.” This left a strong intimation that the murderer was probably someone John Ramsey knew.

On January 30, deputy county attorney Madeline Mason petitioned the court to seal the contents of the autopsy report. The coroner was still working on it, she said, and could not make it public.

Mason also argued, in a three-page motion, that the police investigation would almost certainly still be in progress when the report was completed and that its immediate public disclosure would probably hurt the investigation. The report, Mason pointed out, would corroborate or debunk various witness statements. If the public—including, of course, the murderer—had all the information, it would be far less useful to the police.

John Meyer planned to complete his report by February 11, one day before the scheduled hearing on the motion to seal the document.

EXPERT: KILLER KNEW JONBENÉT

When the
Star
received a tip on February 5 that John Andrew Ramsey had tried to arrange the death of his half-sister, JonBenét, they passed the information to the Boul
der police.

A sometime police informant had told the tabloid that on the weekend of either Memorial Day or July Fourth 1996, while the Ramsey family was vacationing in Michigan, John Andrew had offered him $10,000 to ram a power boat into a smaller boat that would be carrying him and JonBenét. Supposedly, John Andrew would jump overboard to safety just before impact and JonBenét, he hoped, would be killed. The informant told the
Star
that he had rejected the offer.

Detective Jane Harmer was assigned to follow up on the tip. The informant was interviewed by local police in Waterford, Michigan, where he repeated the story he’d told the tabloid. Two weeks later, the Boulder police discovered that the informant had a dubious history. A check of Michigan police agencies revealed that he had come under suspicion—first for possibly planting drugs in an alleged dope house and second for refusing to take a polygraph test to confirm information he had provided in a cocaine investigation. By the end of February, Boulder police had decided that the informant’s accusations were unfounded, and yet another lead in the Ramsey case would go nowhere.

In Denver, on Wednesday, February 5, Michael Tigar, the lead attorney for accused Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols, and Jeralyn Merritt, attorney for Timothy McVeigh, were arguing the reliability of handwriting analysis before federal judge Richard Matsch.

Alex Hunter took great interest in the proceedings, since he considered the handwritten ransom note the single most important piece of evidence in the Ramsey case. Besides, Michael Tigar was associated with Ramsey attor
neys Hal Haddon and Lee Foreman, so his motion in the Oklahoma City case might offer insight into the Ramsey team’s thinking.

The two defense lawyers representing Nichols and McVeigh were attempting to exclude testimony from the government’s expert witnesses, who would tell jurors that McVeigh’s handwriting matched that of a “Robert Kling” who had signed a rental contract for the truck used in the Oklahoma City bombing. In his oral argument, Tigar told the court that handwriting analysis was “junk science.”

During the hearing, Judge Matsch said, “The problem with handwriting is that there is no verification-type testing of these opinion results. In addition, there has never been within the discipline any agreement on how to express the results.” The judge added, “There is no standardized nomenclature. Therefore, it seems to me that we should draw the distinction between somebody getting on the stand and saying ‘Yeah, written by the same person, or no, not written by the same person’ versus ‘These are the similarities or these are the dissimilarities,’ and the jury can decide.”

Judge Matsch asked Merritt whether she would object if a government witness were instructed to note only similarities or discrepancies.

“I object to it because it is too subjective,” the attorney replied. “When we question these handwriting experts on the stand, you will see that they cannot answer basic questions, such as how many differences does it take before you will say that this is an irreconcilable, significant difference?”

“That’s the point I made earlier,” Matsch replied, “that there are no standards. And because there are no standards, it’s not verifiable.”

Later in the proceedings, Merritt added, “It’s not science; and it’s not science because it cannot be empirically tested. It isn’t subject to peer review or publication. There is
no known error rate. There is really a dearth of studies.”

Attorney Tigar added: “The problem is that handwriting analysis, like hair analysis, is one of those fields invented by a small group of people. These people did not have any outside folks criticizing their work. There is the danger of oversell.”

In the end, the judge ruled that he would not bar the government from presenting a witness to testify about similarities between the signature of “Kling” and McVeigh. But he would not allow any testimony offering definitive conclusions.

Weeks later, the court issued an even more restrictive ruling, and federal prosecutors dropped their plans to call handwriting analysts.

In Boulder, Alex Hunter asked his staff to study the limitations they might encounter in presenting handwriting evidence in court.

On February 7, Detective Arndt reinterviewed Bill McReynolds and his wife, Janet, upon their return from a long-planned trip to Spain. Again they said they had been at home the night of JonBenét’s death. When Arndt asked what McReynolds knew about JonBenét’s statement to Barbara Kostanick—that Santa would pay her a secret visit the day after Christmas—McReynolds said that though he was Santa at the Ramseys’ Christmas party, he had never spoken to the child about meeting her. McReynolds agreed to give the police handwriting, hair, and blood samples. Several days later, Detective Gosage began a series of interviews with the family members who, according to the McReynoldses, had visited them on Christmas Day.

That same week, Koby and Eller met with Alex Hunter in his office at the Justice Center. Hofstrom and Wise joined them. Chief Koby said that his department would no longer share
critical information on the case with the DA, because Eller thought that they might pass it on to the Ramseys’ attorneys. Hunter was about to defend his office when Eller cut him off. Staring at Pete Hofstrom, he said, “We have the power to kick your ass out of this case, and we may exercise it.”

Hofstrom knew Eller had the law on his side.
*

“When our job is done,” the commander continued, “we’ll bring it over and deposit it on your doorstep.”

Hofstrom said nothing.

“What are you going to do,” Wise asked, “bring us twenty thousand goddamn pages some Friday night and say, ‘We’re arresting somebody Monday morning’? That’s not a good way to run an investigation.”

Though Hunter remained calm, Wise could see that it took great effort on his part.

“I can’t believe how you respond to those people,” Eller continued, referring to Hofstrom’s handling of the Ramseys’ attorneys. “You’re such a Goody Two-shoes.”

The way Hofstrom remembered it, Eller had asked him to get a second handwriting sample from the Ramseys, who didn’t want to cooperate with the police because of Eller’s attempt to withhold their daughter’s body. Hofstrom had met with Bryan Morgan, and on January 4 Patsy Ramsey had given the detectives her second handwriting sample at a neutral location, Pete Hofstrom’s home. Now the commander was turning the incident against Hofstrom.

Wise could see that Hofstrom was furious. Meanwhile, Koby sat there Buddha-like, as if he were a disinterested party rather than the chief of police presiding over an increasingly notorious and baffling homicide, the same chief whose answering machine chirped, “Hi, this is Tom Koby. It’s a beautiful day here in Boulder, and I hope it’s beautiful where you are too. Leave a message, and I’ll call you back.”

“I can’t believe you used written questions,” Wise felt
obliged to say, referring to Arndt’s December fax to Bryan Morgan, even though by now Wise had learned that Hofstrom had approved Arndt’s actions. Eller ignored him and said to Hofstrom, “You’re so clubby. The handwriting samples should have been taken at police headquarters, not at your house.”

Hofstrom barely said a word. Finally Hunter spoke up. He asked Eller to explain how exactly the police and the DA’s office would move ahead with day-to-day business.

The police would do what
they
determined was right, Eller told him. If they had any questions or needed any legal advice, they’d call. But they would no longer share information.

Hunter knew he was facing a common problem. A colleague of his had once put it this way: “The cops are where the rubber meets the road, but the DA is where the Constitution meets the cops. The conflicts are endless.” Endless, yes. But not usually so acrimonious.

On February 6, Alex Hunter’s elderly mother, Virginia, died suddenly in the Boulder nursing home to which she’d just been moved. A diabetic, she had been given a glass of prune juice, which has a high sugar content. She had died almost immediately. Hunter’s two sisters flew in from the East Coast to attend the memorial service, but he felt unable to grieve for his mother properly amid the almost hourly crises of the Ramsey case. After the family had spread their mother’s ashes in the mountains along the Continental Divide, Hunter went back to work. It wasn’t long before he was comparing his own situation with John Ramsey’s.

When Ramsey had lost his daughter Beth, he wasn’t under public pressure and, as Hunter understood the situation, had been able to grieve properly. Now, after JonBenét’s death, he appeared composed in public, though more than likely he
couldn’t grieve properly either, thought Hunter. Patsy, on the other hand, expressed her pain openly—anytime, anywhere.

Sheriff’s patrol deputy Kevin Parker was working traffic on February 10 when he responded to a possible felony–menacing call. As Parker pulled into the parking lot at 4939 North Broadway, just north of Boulder city limits, he found Jay Elowsky handcuffed and sitting in the backseat of a Boulder police car. A silver baseball bat and a 40 Caliber Sig Saur pistol had been found in a search of his BMW. Most cops knew Jay Elowsky, who owned Pasta Jay’s restaurant on Pearl Street.

The Ramseys had been staying at their friend Jay’s house since returning from JonBenét’s burial, and the media had been relentless, constantly shooting photographs through the windows of his home from a dirt berm nearby.

Lee Frank, a soundman working that day for NBC News, and his cameraman had been standing on the berm that morning, waiting to see if the Ramseys would come out. When they saw Elowsky’s BMW back out of the driveway, they returned to their van parked in a lot behind the berm. Just then Elowsky pulled into the lot, got out of his car, and started screaming and cursing. He was wielding a baseball bat. Frank took refuge in a nearby engineering firm and called 911. His cameraman ran in the opposite direction. A moment later, two men left the engineering firm and Elowsky mistook them for the men from NBC. One of the men, after seeing Elowsky with a bat, picked up a pipe and went after him. Elowsky ran back to his car and buckled on his fanny pack, which held a gun, just as the Boulder police responded to Frank’s 911 call. Elowsky was immediately apprehended.

Now, sitting in the patrol car, he still didn’t understand that he had gone after the wrong men. The man with the pipe said Elowsky had threatened him and his friend with a
gun. He wanted Elowsky jailed.

Sheriff’s procedure required Kevin Parker to talk to those inside Elowsky’s house to find out what had preceded the incident. Since the Ramseys were involved, Parker’s captain told him to call Pete Hofstrom in the DA’s office.

The officers would have to speak to Patsy Ramsey, who, according to Elowsky, was at home in his house. Hofstrom reached Patrick Burke, Patsy’s attorney, in his car. As it turned out, Burke had just left Elowsky’s home with Patsy. Burke explained the situation to Patsy, and she said that she would talk. The Boulder police had wanted to talk to the Ramseys for weeks, and now Patsy was coming in to speak to the sheriff’s department. Kevin Parker knew he had a hot potato on his hands.

Since January 3, John, Patsy, and Burke Ramsey and Don Paugh and his daughter Pam had all been living in Jay Elowsky’s home. Nedra and her daughter Polly would also come and go. Elowsky didn’t mind giving his life over to his friends. At a time when the Ramseys were unable even to set foot in a market to do their own grocery shopping, he offered them the full use of his large home and spent hours talking to John and Patsy.

John told Jay about selecting JonBenét’s casket and about how he’d wept when his brother had asked him to choose the color. When they were alone, Jay held John in his arms. They talked about God and how He would pro
vide for them and how God was caring for JonBenét even now. Jay would repeat again and again that the promise of her life had not been lost with her death.

Sometimes members of St. John’s stopped by and brought food, and on most days Rev. Hoverstock visited. One day Patsy saw someone on a TV talk show say that she should be arrested. The studio audience cheered. Patsy cried.

Jay tried hard to cheer up his friends. Once in a while he would open the door and holler out to Patsy and John, “Honey, I’m home!”

Now, Patsy entered the Justice Center by the backdoor with her attorney. She was wearing sunglasses, a sweatshirt, and jeans and was obviously trying to avoid looking like the well-groomed Patsy Ramsey familiar to TV viewers. Jeff Hendry, a sheriff’s sergeant working with Parker, thought that nobody would recognize her if she walked down the street in those clothes. To Hendry, she didn’t look like a former beauty queen.