Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [100]
In February John Ramsey met with Robert Phillips, his Boulder estate attorney, to deal with the financial matters relating to JonBenét’s estate, which included a trust in her name to which he and Patsy had contributed $10,000 yearly. During the meeting Ramsey mentioned that he and Patsy were now staying at the Stines’ house, where they had moved at the beginning of February and planned to stay until Burke’s school year ended. Ramsey suggested that Robert and his wife, Judith, whom Patsy knew, join them at a restaurant. When Phillips told his wife about the invitation, she was astonished that the Ramseys could think about eating out with the media following them everywhere.
A few weeks later, before the dinner was arranged, the Phillipses’ daughter, Lindsey, said that she wanted to play with Burke, so Judith drove her over to the Stines’ house, which was just around the corner from her own home. She rang the bell, and a moment later, two little eyes peered out through the blinds. When a housekeeper opened the door, Judith saw Patsy, fully dressed and made up, sitting on the living room sofa, and talking to a woman who was visiting from Atlanta. Lindsey went off to play with Burke and some other children, and Patsy greeted Judith, who could now see that despite her attempt to look composed, Patsy was in fact distraught under the thinnest veneer of normalcy. Judith thought she might be heavily medicated. Soon Patsy was crying on Judith’s shoulder.
“If only I had woken up. If only I woke up,” Patsy repeated. “Why didn’t I wake up?”
Later Judith asked Patsy whether she had seen Priscilla White.
“Oh, no, I can’t,” Patsy said.
“Why not?”
“Those memories…I just…I can’t even go into their home. I can’t.”
Judith knew that the Ramseys had been making derogatory comments about some of their friends—particularly Priscilla and Fleet White—and had also been told by their mutual friend Roxy Walker that the Whites were questioning whether the Ramseys were involved in JonBenét’s death.
Judith was a friend of Priscilla White’s and knew that the situation had been devastating for everyone. Susan Stine had called Judith and said, “Either you’re on the Whites’ side or you’re on our side,” as if this were a divorce. Susan Stine and Roxy Walker were “Patsy’s pit bulls.”
Like many Boulder mothers, Judith was infuriated when Patsy said in her CNN interview, “Hold your babies close to you because there’s a killer out there.” Judith’s daughter, Lindsey, wouldn’t sleep in her bedroom for six weeks after she heard Patsy say that on TV. Judith couldn’t understand how Patsy could be so callous as to arouse everyone’s worst fears.
She was certain that John and Patsy knew more about JonBenét’s death than they were saying. She couldn’t imagine Patsy murdering JonBenét, but she could imagine Patsy being involved in a cover-up.
Like JonBenét, most of the Ramseys’ friends’ children attended High Peaks Elementary. At High Peaks, kids were seen not as numbers but as individuals, each with his or her own special possibilities. To make this work, the school relied heavily on volunteers.
Patsy was generous with her time and commitment to High Peaks. During the 1995–96 school year, Patsy had been in charge of the science fair, in which 138 children in kindergarten through fourth grade had participated. She created an environment in which students could discuss their projects with professional scientists so that even the scientists felt their time was well spent. She found three judges to review each project. For a meteorology project, Patsy got a meteorologist, for biology, a biologist. Charles Elbot, the principal, said that Patsy’s science fair had been arranged with “thoughtfulness, finesse, and generosity of spirit.”
Many parents who worked with Patsy said that she dared to think big. She was audacious, bold, and a natural leader. A born manager. Her friend Roxy Walker, more of a detail person, rounded up a group of parents to implement Patsy’s ideas.
Patsy would call and say,