Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [153]
It wasn’t long before the daily status meeting, where each detective and deputy DA brought the group up-to-date, fell apart. Nobody wanted to reveal anything for fear of leaks by the other side. The daily reports became monotonous: “Haven’t done anything. Nothing on tap for today.” Some detectives were even afraid to use the phones in the war room for fear the DAs would hear who they were talking to—the pay phones in the halls of the Justice Center were in constant use.
The media made this not only a police case but the DA’s case. Hunter was no longer in a peripheral position. The case was thrown into disarray by the fact that there were three cameras and four tape recorders operating every time anybody opened his mouth.
The war room became a liability when it acquired a media life. It had been designed as a setting for open communication, but suddenly the media depicted it as the setting for potential breakthroughs—a place from which truth would emanate. It became a liability.
—Bob Grant
On April 22 the FBI’s Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit heard about the terms for the Ramseys’ scheduled interviews. They told the police that “the conditions would not likely lead to a productive investigative interview.” The FBI proposed open-ended interviews for Patsy and John and no breaks between the sessions for the Ramseys to consult each other or their attorneys. The venue should be a bare room in a law enforcement establishment, not an attorney’s office. Providing the Ramseys’ attorneys with police reports was also a mistake, the FBI said, but it was too late to do anything about that because they had been delivered the day before. Convinced that the FBI was right, Eller canceled the interviews one day before the agreed-upon date. Patrick Burke was informed by phone. Both Hunter and Koby foresaw disaster—not only for the investigation but in terms of public relations.
The next day, April 23, attorneys Haddon and Burke wrote the following letter to Hunter on behalf of their clients and released it to the media with several pages of supporting documents.
VIA HAND DELIVERY
Alexander M. Hunter
Boulder County District Attorney
Boulder County Justice Center
1777 Sixth Street
Boulder, Colorado 80306
Re: John and Patsy Ramsey
Dear Mr. Hunter:
By this letter, we express our profound dismay at yesterday’s actions by the leadership of the Boulder Police Department. After representatives of the Boulder Police Department and your office requested and agreed to a format for separate interviews of John and Patsy Ramsey beginning at 9:30 A.M. today, we were advised at approximately 4:00 P.M. yesterday afternoon that the interviews were canceled because Boulder Police Department leadership no longer agreed to the format of the interviews—despite previous statements to the contrary.
This action is incomprehensible in light of the previous history of this issue. The Police Department, directly and through a campaign of leaks and smears, has portrayed the Ramseys as unwilling to grant police interviews or assist the investigation. Although we know this innuendo to be false, we have avoided criticizing the police because we believed that it would only fuel a media war which would be counterproductive to the overarching goal—finding and prosecuting the killer of JonBenét Ramsey. Yesterday’s actions make further silence untenable.
The letter went on to chastise the police, and then restated almost the entire lengthy history of Ramsey/police negotiations from the Ramseys’ point of view. The lawyers revealed that the police had tried to withhold JonBenét’s body in return for interviews with the Ramseys—the first of many insensitive and incomprehensible actions,