Jim Marino

[jameson245]

Quote:1997-09-16: Vanity Fair “Who Killed JonBenet?” by Ann Louise Bardach

"Jim Marino met Ramsey on a business trip to Syracuse in the late 70's. "We immediately became friends," says Marino. "He was going through a divorce at the time, but he'd always check in with the kids." However, in his own quiet way, John Ramsey also had an eye for the ladies. According to police reports, his former wife, Lucinda, said it was a romantic liaison with a co-worker that was the last straw for her. Although Marino and Ramsey caroused "and whored around together," Marino says Ramsey was notably discreet. "You never got much out of him," says Marino. "you wondered what he was all about."

Although Ramsey walked away from his first wife with little more than his clothes and a car, he slowly began to prosper as he worked his way through a series of computer companies. His success, says Marino, was part of his appeal to women. "He had money, he drove a Porsche, he dressed nice, but he was shy. However, you could say that whatever he went after he usually got." In 1978, Marino, after being injured in a motorcycle accident, was confined to a wheelchair for almost a year. "John came and visited me, and he gave me a job," says Marino. "He saved my life." Although the two went to work for different companies in 1980, they remained close friends.

In 1979, Ramsey caught a glimpse of a beautiful 22-yr old brunette in Atlanta and pursued her. Two years earlier, while a journalism major at West Virginia University, Patricia Ann Paugh had been crowned Miss West Virginia and had won a talent award for a dramatic reading at the Miss America pageant. Marino, who often double dated with Patsy and Ramsey said his friend was deeply smitten with her. "She was his Jackie Kennedy."

In 1980 they were married in Atlanta's Peachtree Presbyterian Church. At 37, Ramsey was 14 yr. older than Patsy. The couple settled into a modest Cape Cod house in the Dunwoody section of Atlanta. Ramsey ran his own company, Microsouth, from the house, and patsy worked along side him. After a series of business reversals, Patsy asked her father, Don Paugh, a retired Union Carbide engineer, to help her husband's struggling company. "The word is," says Merrick, "that John was going broke and Don bailed him out financially."

Although Don and Nedra Paugh were able to raise their three daughters- Patsy, Pam and Polly- in the middle -class town of Parkersburg, West Virginia, both had endured hardscrabble childhood. Rescued by the G.I. Bill, Don had obtained a college degree, which led to a career at Union Carbide. "Nedra saw Don as this great white knight," says Marino. In contrast to her laconic husband, the wiry Nedra was driven and relentless, determined to see that her daughters enjoyed more of the good things in life than she had. Nedra's vehicle for launching them into prosperity was beauty pageants.

"I did my first pageant when I was a junior in high school," Pam Paugh told me. "I won the national crown for that, and I won a local count-fair contest-at the Wood County fair-in 1977, which Patsy also won." In 1980, three years after Patsy held the crown, Pam was also Miss West Virginia and a Miss America contestant. Nedra had become a fixture on the pageant circuit. "She was involved in the whole Miss America Pageant organization when I met them," says Marino. "She was one of the coordinators."

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"In 1989, Ramsey merged his company with Boulder-based Access Graphics and another firm. He seized control of the new company and in 1991 relocated his family to Boulder. Among his new hires were his old friends Jeff Merrick and Jim Marino. Ramsey then hit the jackpot, selling Access to Lockheed Martin and continuing to run it as president and C.E.O. Judith Phillips, who had moved to Boulder three yr. earlier, wondered if Patsy would have a hard time making the transition from the antebellum capital of the South to a small town full of hippies, Buddhists, and mountain climbers. However, Patsy, now the mother of a four-year-old Burke and newborn JonBenet, assured her that she "was ready to have a different life." Don Paugh adapted easily and moved into a company condo on Pearl Street. Nedra Paugh, however, made no bones about her feelings concerning Boulder, referring to it as "that hellhole."

In Nov. 1991, the Ramseys purchased a 6,800-square foot Tudor style house in one of Boulder's choice neighborhoods for about $500,000. Over the next two years, Patsy remodeled and decorated her new home, spending, according to Jim Marino, $700,000. She was thrilled to have the house listed on the Boulder Christmas tour, as well as on the home tour. Visitors recall her greeting them at the door with JonBenet and Burke by her side, all of them in matching sweaters. Featured in JonBenet's room were her trophies, sashes, and medals. One visitor said that in the huge master-bedroom suite Patsy's Miss West Virginia dress and her Miss America competition sash were laid out on the bed.

Although the Ramsey's had been Presbyterians, they joined St. John's Episcopal Church. "Social climbing," says Marino sadly; "she wanted to be where the money was.' Friends were dropped as well, replaced by attractive, wealthy Boulderites. Marino says, "I was never invited to his house. John and I were 'Let's get a beer down at the local pub after work."

Patsy also redecorated their vacation home in Charlevoix, on Lake Michigan. "The only time I ever saw John really lose his temper was about Patsy and money," says Marino. "he would throw the credit cards on his desk and say, 'She's gonna spend every last penny I make.' "