|
|
What the Ramseys Say In the June 1998 interviews with the Ramseys at a police station in a city near Boulder, a detective told Patsy that police had "trace evidence that appears to link you to the death of JonBenet (an apparent reference to the fibers from her jacket found on the duct tape on JonBenet's mouth)", thereby triggering the only speech Patsy made during three days of interviews. "That's just totally impossible," Patsy insisted. "Go re-test." "How is it impossible?" Detective Tom Haney asked. "I did not kill my child. I did not have a thing to do with it." "I'm not talking someone's guess or some rumor or some (newspaper) story. I'm talking...." "I don't care what you're talking about!" "...about scientific evidence." "I don't give a flip how scientific it is. Go back to the damn drawing board. I didn't do it. John didn't do it. And we didn't have a clue of anybody who did do it. So we all gotta start working together from here - this day forward to try to find out who the hell did it! I mean, I appreciate being here. It's very hard to be here, but it's a damned sight harder to be sittin' at home in Atlanta, Georgia, wondering every second or every day what you guys are doing out here. You know? Have you found anything? Are we any closer? Is the guy out there watching my house? Is my son safe? My life has been hell from that day forward. And I want nothing more than to find out who is responsible for this. Okay? I mean I wanna work with you, not against you. Okay? This child is the most precious thing in my life. And I can't stand the thought thinking somebody's out there walking on the street. God knows he might do it again to some other child. You know? Quit screwin' around asking me about things that are ridiculous and let's find the person who did this! Criminy." Because most of the fiber evidence was developed after the 1998 interviews, the Ramseys were not asked about it that year. Prosecutors wanted to do so in the interviews conducted in August of 2000 in Atlanta, where the Ramseys have lived since about six months after JonBenet died. John Ramsey was told fibers from the shirt he had been wearing Christmas Day were found in JonBenet's panties. "Bullshit," he said. "If you're trying to disgrace my relationship with my daughter.....that's disgusting." But Ramsey attorney Wood blocked questioning of Patsy on the subject, saying that he wouldn't allow his clients to answers questions about it unless he was given the lab reports. Without such access, Wood suggested his clients were being asked to comment on something that might be more accurately characterized as opinion than fact. "You're sitting here making a record saying that it's a fact, and I don't know that," he said, suggesting that many other fibers were likely found in those locations and that the lab result may have been that the fibers in the clothes of the parents were "similar to" the fibers found at the scene, not identical to. "I don't want this record to be accusatory based on your statement about the fibers," Wood continued. "Fiber evidence is... I won't say 'weak,' but let's just say that is the subject of a great amount of debate in the profession." Prosecutor Bruce Levin says he was simply trying to give Patsy an opportunity to offer an innocent explanation for the fibers. But prosecutors refused to give Wood the lab reports on the fibers, and Patsy didn't, therefore, have the opportunity to offer innocent explanations. In conjunction with this article, Crime Magazine offered Wood the opportunity for him and the Ramseys to answer questions pertaining to the JonBenet case. Crime Magazine's offer included the pledge to publish his or the Ramseys' responses or comments verbatim. Wood did not respond. The offer remains open. To see the questions Crime Magazine wanted to send to Wood, click here. Wood did, however, tell cable talk-show host Larry King last fall that he "knows for a fact" that black fibers were not found in JonBenet's underwear (he didn't say how he knows this). And he said "there's any one of many innocent explanations for why the fibers (found in the paint tray, on the brush, and in the ligature) might be consistent with something Patsy was wearing." He offered only one such explanation: that Patsy had put JonBenet to bed the previous night. But that couldn't account for the fibers in the paint tray, and they couldn't account for the fibers on the brush used in the ligature and "tied into" the ligature, unless the fibers somehow transferred from Patsy's sweater to JonBenet's clothing and then to the brush and "tied into" the ligature. Patsy also tried to provide an innocent explanation for the fibers when she spoke to CBS' "48 Hours." She said she had hugged her daughter's body after John discovered it in the basement of their home and brought it upstairs. Fibers from the sweater she was wearing at the time could have transferred to JonBenet's clothing, she suggested. But the fibers weren't found on JonBenet's clothing. They were found, among other places, in the paint tray, which was in the basement when Patsy hugged her daughter's body upstairs. In her 1998 interview, Patsy tried to explain why she wore the same sweater the day after Christmas that she had Christmas Day. "I do that (wear the same clothes two days in a row) a lot," she said. "I don't like to do laundry." That's surprising for someone as fashion-conscious as Patsy, a former Miss West Virginia. To Det. Thomas it suggests that Patsy never went to bed the night before, calling into question her entire account of what happened that night and the next morning. The forceful manner in which Ramsey attorney Wood parried questions from prosecutors to Patsy about the fibers evidence is an indication of how a defense lawyer would attack it in court. But if the fiber evidence is what prosecutors claimed it is in the interviews, the conclusions that can be drawn are simple and powerful: Officials have reason to believe John and Patsy Ramsey may have covered up the circumstances of their daughter's death, there was no intruder because the parents wouldn't cover up for an intruder, and there was no murder because the only three people in the house at the time JonBenet died either didn't have motive to intentionally kill JonBenet, or if Burke had motive, he was too young in the eyes of the law to be capable of having the intent to murder anyone. There is other evidence that is inconsistent with John and Patsy's account of what happened after they came home on Christmas Day evening:
"What is your degree of certainty as you sit here today," Ramsey attorney Wood asked Epstein in a deposition last year, "that Patsy Ramsey wrote the note?" "I am absolutely certain she wrote the note," Epstein replied. "Is that 60 percent certainty?" Wood asked. "No, that's 100 percent certainty." Wood got Epstein to concede that he had reached that conclusion without having access to the original of the note. Vassar professor Foster had told Patsy Ramsey before having access to the note that he believed she didn't write it. The reliability of handwriting and linguistic text analysis is much disputed. And other experts have said they can't conclude Patsy wrote the note. In fact, D.A. Hunter testified in a 2001 deposition taken by Ramsey attorney Wood that the experts he had obtained analysis from concluded, by his estimate, that the odds Patsy wrote the note were 4.5 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being that she didn't. The Ramseys may also be able to find an expert concluding that Burke's voice is not on the 911 call. And there may yet be an innocent explanation for the fiber evidence and the pineapple found in JonBenet's stomach after her death that does not call into question her parents' account of what happened that night. Of course, the most reliable way to assess the strength of the defense the Ramseys can mount is to test it in court. A Prosecutable Case? Publicly, Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner will say only that the Ramseys are "under the umbrella of suspicion." Privately, he revealed in a 2001 deposition, the Ramseys are considered "suspects" because there is a "probability" they were involved in the death of their daughter. Boulder D.A. Hunter didn't comment publicly on his view of the evidence while he was in office, he has refused to do so since he retired in early 2001, and he didn’t respond to a request for comment for this article. (To view the questions Crime Magazine wanted to pose to former D.A. Hunter, click here.) But based on the public record in the case, the transcripts of the interviews with the Ramseys and applicable law, it's clear what some of the factors were that Hunter was weighing as he considered whether to bring charges against the Ramseys. If the aim was to bring murder charges, there was no evidence of motive, no murder weapon, no witnesses, and a deadly head wound that reflected death by accident as easily as murder. The Ramseys had opportunity and means to kill their daughter, but that's about it. Lesser charges associated with her killing would have been equally problematic. Negligent homicide would have meant having to prove that the Ramseys were negligent; manslaughter charges that they were somehow reckless and that their recklessness caused JonBenet's death. But Hunter didn't know what instrument had been used that resulted in JonBenet's death, much less who was responsible. There is, however, another set of charges that Hunter could have considered filing. Under Colorado law it is illegal to conceal a death if doing so "prevents a determination of the cause or circumstances of death." The first report the Ramseys made to law enforcement was that their daughter was missing and they'd found a ransom note indicating she'd been kidnapped. If the fiber evidence is what prosecutors say it is and if the Ramseys staged the crime scene, the Ramseys knew otherwise. If they decided to conceal the death of their daughter from law enforcement, they effectively "prevented" police from determining the circumstances of JonBenet's death. Police still don't know how she died. The maximum penalty for concealing a death is six-months imprisonment. It is also illegal for someone to make a report to law enforcement "of a crime or other incident [emphasis added] within their official concern when he knows that it did not occur." None of the statements in the interviews with the Ramseys could be the basis for perjury charges because the Ramseys were not under oath. But "false statement" charges do not require that the person making the statement be under oath. Anyone walking into a police station faces the charge if he or she makes a statement about an incident of police interest he/she knows to be false. The maximum penalty on conviction is a prison term of up to 18 months per false statement. "Concealing a death" and "false statement" charges are misdemeanors. D.A. Hunter also could have considered a felony charge of falsifying evidence. Under Colorado law, anyone who "destroys, mutilates, conceals, removes or alters physical evidence with intent to impair its verity or availability" or "knowingly makes, presents or offers any false or altered evidence" has illegally tampered with evidence if they believe a law-enforcement investigation is "about to be instituted." Violators are subject to a prison term of 18 months. Normally, these types of charges are filed in conjunction with charges involving an underlying crime. The cover-up was, say, hatched to hide a wrongful death, for example. But it's not a requirement for conviction that prosecutors prove — or even allege — an underlying crime. Coloradans have seen a recent, high-profile example of this in the case of Koleen Brooks, an ex-mayor of a mountain town, ex-stripper and Playboy pin-up, who was charged with tampering with evidence and false statements after she claimed she'd been assaulted. She was in the midst of a bid to stave-off a recall attempt at the time. Brooks said her political enemies were behind the assault. Prosecutors alleged she invented a phantom assault in a bid for sympathy from voters. Voters recalled Brooks, and earlier this year she was convicted of a misdemeanor count of making a false statement, but acquitted of the more serious felony count of tampering with evidence. |