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#8
The Media Circus

In June 2000, in what can only be described as the main event of what had become a media circus, the Ramseys challenged Steve Thomas to face them on national television and make his accusations in person.

Thomas agreed and appeared alongside the Ramseys on CNN's Larry King Live. It was the first time they had been face-to-face since Thomas, then a Boulder police officer, questioned them about their daughter's death.

The meeting quickly disintegrated into a verbal shouting match, with Thomas exchanging accusations with the Ramseys as King struggled to maintain control.

Finally, Thomas challenged the Ramseys on their offer to meet with Boulder investigators. John Ramsey said they would be willing to go along with their investigators to share their findings and also ask their questions and asked, "Why do we have to prove our innocence?" Thomas answered that evidence existed that pointed to them. "Tell me one piece of evidence that's admissible in the court of law?" John Ramsey asked

Thomas countered by telling Patsy Ramsey that there was enough evidence to arrest her for murder. Patsy replied, "I wish I had," explaining that if she had been arrested, then she could have been exonerated in a trial.

Several days after the show, Lin Wood announced that John and Patsy Ramsey had agreed to meet with Boulder police only if detectives were willing to take a new approach to the probe of their daughter's slaying and not interrogate them. "If they are looking to interrogate John and Patsy, that will not happen. Those days are over," Wood said. "John and Patsy are ready and willing to meet with Boulder police if they are truly interested in a new approach...to clear the air and exchange information in the investigation of their daughter's murder."

To this day, John and Patsy Ramsey have lived up to their promise and continue to search for their daughter's killer.

They have posted a composite sketch of a suspect compiled by the late psychic, Dorothy Allison, on their Internet site, with the attached message: "Have you seen this man? This man may have been in the Boulder area in December 1996. ... We firmly believe that this most horrible of killers will be caught based on information provided by people who care about right and wrong. ... Please help, so another innocent child will not be a victim and another family will not suffer unbearable grief."

Allison, who claimed to have assisted police investigations, came up with her vision of the suspect during an April 1998 appearance on a network television show. She died on December 3, 1999. Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner declined to comment on the late psychic's work.

A public opinion poll then conducted by a local newspaper suggested that only one in eight Colorado residents believed that the results of recent polygraph tests showed that John and Patsy were not involved in the December 1996 death of JonBenet. In answer to the results of that poll, Ramsey attorney Lin Wood commented that the poll accurately reflects the "anti-Ramsey" campaign that has been waged by the media since the day that JonBenet died.

But through it all, one important fact has been pushed further and further into the background: an innocent little girl was killed in a brutal manner and her killer is still at large.

The Interviews

On August 28, 2000, CNN reported that the long awaited "Ramsey interviews" with Boulder police finally came to fruition when Patsy Ramsey met with investigators for the first time in over 2 years. The meetings, conducted over two days, saw Patsy interviewed for a total of seven hours while the interview with John ran for just over two.

At the conclusion of the meetings, Ramsey attorney Lin Wood said his clients felt that "the line of questioning by the seven-member team was fair and pertinent to the case." Prior to the meeting, Boulder police chief Mark Beckner had indicated that questioning "would focus on evidence developed over the last two years, some of which came from forensic testing conducted after the grand jury disbanded, and statements the Ramseys made in their book (The Death of Innocence)."

As before, when questioned if the Ramseys were the main focus of the investigation he would only say that they were "under suspicion."

The following day, via a faxed statement to CNN and other media, Beckner stated that the meetings between Boulder investigators and the Ramseys produced "less than we had hoped for." It is believed Beckner was referring to attorney Wood's intervention during the Patsy Ramsey interview, when he called the line of questioning by special prosecutor Michael Kane "overzealous" and "obsessive." Beckner said his office had originally intended to explain to the Ramseys "what evidence we believed put them under suspicion, and explore whether they had any explanations for some of that evidence," but changed their minds when arguments between the respective attorneys broke out over questions concerning the couple's son, Burke.

Wood later told CNN that he had directed Patsy to answer all of the questions she was asked, except for the question about Burke, which he believed was irrelevant to the investigation calling it "the disgusting tactic of an overzealous prosecutor."

Chief Beckner countered, saying that Wood insisted on seeing the lab reports relating to forensic evidence before he would allow his clients to answer questions about them. At the time, Beckner refused, as he believed it "wasn't in the best interests of the investigation to release any further police reports on the crime." He also disagreed with Wood's decision to release portions of the interview tapes to the media, stating, "It is not in the best interests of the investigation to release any portion of videotaped interviews or their transcripts," Beckner said. "In fact, it potentially harms our ability to find justice for JonBenet."

According to Wood, Patsy Ramsey felt the interview process produced nothing that would lift the "umbrella of suspicion" she and husband John have been under since JonBenet's death. John Ramsey commented that he and Patsy could "never clear our names, after what's been done to us." He added that he felt no animosity towards the authorities and was thankful that they were still pursuing the case. "The last thing I want is for this to go into a file drawer," he said.

Attorney Wood told CNN that the Ramseys were cooperating with the police and had handed over "significant information" as a direct result of having their own investigator working on the case full time. "We have given them leads. They'll have to determine if those people are viable suspects. That's a determination for the police, not this family," he said. Wood also dismissed the suggestion that the meeting was just a publicity stunt, saying that the Ramseys had readily agreed to be questioned in the hope that they could help the police investigation. "Only a fool would subject themselves to questioning by seven investigators as some sort of publicity stunt," Wood said, "And my clients are not fools."

Put Up or Shut Up

On August 31, 2001, CNN reported that Patsy Ramsey had issued a challenge to the Boulder police, via her attorney, that urged them to "file charges against her if they think they can prove that she killed her daughter."

Following the challenge, Patsy told USA Today, "I'm beyond being hurt or embarrassed, if you think I did it, let's have a trial and get it over with."

Ramsey attorney Lin Wood followed up on CNN's Larry King Live, when he demanded that Boulder County special prosecutor Michael Kane "explain why a grand jury did not indict either of the Ramseys after a 13-month investigation."
He added that Kane should either "put up or shut up" about charging the Ramseys.

Kane countered, saying, "I'm not going to be dictated, nor is the Boulder Police Department going to be dictated, by a demand by Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey or anybody else to put up or shut up. That's not how the criminal justice system works," he said.
He further stated that he "could not release any information about the grand jury proceedings without the court's permission."

During the King interview on CNN, attorney Wood and prosecutor Kane agreed to release the complete videotape of the interview and to seek the release of the grand jury transcripts, with Kane telling Wood, "I'll tell you what: If you will go to court with me, and ask the presiding judge to authorize a release of that information, I will release it."
Wood replied, "I will walk into that courtroom with you."

In another CNN report on September 1, 2000, however, the offer was recanted when Boulder prosecutors stated they would not be releasing the grand jury investigation transcripts. Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter later told CNN, "Colorado law prevents his office from releasing the information. The rule clearly states that grand jury proceedings are secret and shall remain that way until either an indictment is returned or a report is issued, and neither event has occurred," he said.

The following November, attorney Wood told CNN that he "hopes that newly elected Boulder district attorney, Mary Keenan, would publicly admit that there is no case against the Ramseys."

Keenan, who replaced District Attorney Alex Hunter after his retirement in January 2001, is a specialist in sex related crimes and a 15-year veteran of the Boulder County District Attorney's Office.

In his statement, Wood fell short of asking for his clients to be officially cleared, but stressed that he would like "a public statement that the investigative efforts have been exhausted and there is insufficient evidence to bring charges."
In answer to Wood's request, Beckner said, "That's not something we would do."
Keenan was not available for comment.


The Confession

On September 10, 2001, the case leapt back into news when The Daily Camera reported that an email dated August 8 had been sent to Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner from an informant, (THAT WOULD BE ME) stating that an AOL subscriber had allegedly posted a message on an Internet bulletin board claiming to have witnessed the 1996 slaying of JonBenet Ramsey.
In response, the Boulder authorities contacted the Loudoun County police in Virginia, where AOL's Internet service is based, and requested that a search warrant be filed to "seek information that may lead to the identity of the subscriber."
AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham confirmed that the warrant had been served and complied with within days of the request.
After extensive investigations, the Boulder police later announced that the supposed "confession" was nothing more than a hoax, the work of a 14-year-old Ohio girl.
Boulder detectives, who had traveled to the girl's home to investigate the claim, told CNN that she and her parents had been "cooperative" and no charges would be laid.
Police Chief Mark Beckner later told the media, "We never thought that this was legitimate because what was being reported didn't match the evidence."
The "informant," Susan Bennett, was the same woman who sent two DNA samples of "possible murder suspects" to Boulder authorities earlier this year. Bennett manages a web site devoted to the Ramsey case.
Bennett claimed she had an online conversation with the girl, who told her "she had been abducted by three men after she overheard their plan to murder JonBenet. The men then forced her to go inside the Ramsey home and watch as they undressed JonBenet, assaulted her, then dressed her."


A Blocking Move

On October 17, 2001, The Daily Camera reported that attorneys for former Boulder detective Steve Thomas, who was involved in the Ramsey murder investigation, had moved to "block a deposition from a related case from becoming public."

The newspaper report stated, "The deposition is part of a lawsuit filed by former Boulder County journalist Chris Wolf against the Ramseys. In their book about the 1996 murder of their daughter, John and Patsy Ramsey named Wolf and a former housekeeper, Linda Hoffman-Pugh, as suspects in the case."

Ramsey attorney Lin Wood called Thomas's move to keep the deposition private "the height of hypocrisy: This is a man who has written a book accusing my clients of murder. Steve Thomas does not want the public to know the truth. When truth comes out, the people who were attacking the Ramseys want to run from the truth." Wood said that the Ramseys wanted "everything put on the table and the murder file made public."

Following those instructions, Wood subpoenaed files held by Thomas that related to the investigation, including police reports.
Attorneys for Thomas assert that "their client's deposition is confidential based on sections of the confidentiality order entered by U.S. District Court Judge Julie E. Carnes in Atlanta."
Attorney Wood later told The Daily Camera, "It is my clear belief that when the public learns about his testimony, they will realize Steve Thomas ... would have been fired in 1997, probably prosecuted, without question disgraced and would not have been in a position to write a book and make hundreds of thousand of dollars."


On October 26, 2001, Court TV news reported that Fleet White, the former Ramsey friend and neighbor who was present when John Ramsey found his daughter's body in the basement of their home in 1996, had ignored subpoenas to appear in court for a bribery case related to JonBenet's death. As a consequence, White was charged with contempt of court and given a 30-day jail sentence.
The subpoenas related to the trial of attorney Thomas Miller, who was charged with commercial bribery after one of his clients attempted to buy a copy of the JonBenet ransom note.
Miller was later acquitted.
In his defense, Fleet White told the court that he had "ignored subpoenas in the best interest of the unsolved murder investigation, the justice system and his family."



Smit's Investigative Analysis

Patsy and John Ramsey

2002 did not begin well for the Ramseys when in February, Patsy Ramsey learned that her ovarian cancer had returned after 8 years. "It's been a tough blow to learn that it has recurred," Ramsey attorney L. Lin Wood said.

In an excellent piece of investigative analysis, retired detective Lou Smit presented his evidence on why he believed that JonBenet was killed by an intruder.
Smit had a number of key points to make:
• The Ramseys are loving parents with no motive for killing their child and no history of criminal or abusive behavior.
• Lovely JonBenet was a "pedophile's dream" and her visibility in the community made her a target. Likewise, the Ramseys' wealth and high profile made them potential targets of a kidnapper.
• Three suspicious events point to an intruder: unknown vehicles parked outside the Ramseys' home near the time of the crime; JonBenet's comment to people that she was going to get a "special visit from Santa," even though Patsy never heard JonBenet say anything about a visit from Santa.
• Police statements about there being no footprints in the snow were misleading as there was no snow around most of the perimeter of the house.
• The open basement window, movement of the window well grate and the presence of leaves and debris in the basement below the open window and a number of other clues point to the window being the entry point for the intruder.
• Pieces of debris from the window well were found in the wine cellar where JonBenet's body was discovered.

• The suitcase below the open window, which was moved there by someone other than the Ramseys, appeared to be the way an intruder boosted himself up to the open window to exit the house.
• Many hairs and fibers connected to the crime do not belong to the Ramseys or any other family member.
• Marks on JonBenet's body are consistent with the use of a stun gun which would have kept her quiet while she was removed from her bedroom.
• Fresh unidentified footprints which were visible in the mold on the wine cellar floor did not belong to any family member.
• Tests showed that a scream reported by a neighbor could have come from the basement without the Ramseys hearing it.

• The expertly constructed garrote used on JonBenet indicates an experienced sexual sadist.
• JonBenet's vicious injuries occurred before her death and were not part of some post-mortem staging.
• Unknown male DNA was found under JonBenet's fingernails and other unknown DNA was found on her body and her panties.
• The ransom note was almost certainly written before JonBenet died by a brutal, calm and deliberate person.
• Experts concluded that John Ramsey did not write the ransom note and it cannot be concluded that Patsy did.
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