Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [163]
“The impression that we haven’t spoken with police is totally false,” John Ramsey replied. He detailed the time he and Patsy had spent with police on December 26 and 27.
“What has been delayed has been this formal interrogation of us as suspects,” he went on. “Frankly, we…were, as you might imagine, insulted that we would even be considered suspects in the death of our daughter. And felt that an interrogation of us was a waste of our time and a waste of police time.”
“Mr. Ramsey, what do you want to say to the killer of your daughter?” Paula Woodward asked
“We’ll find you,” Ramsey said evenly. “We will find you. I have that as a sole mission for the rest of my life.”
“Patsy?” Woodward asked.
“Likewise. The police and investigators have assured us that this is a case that can be solved. You may be eluding the authorities for a time”—Patsy jabbed her finger toward the cameras as she spoke directly to the killer—“but God knows who you are, and we will find you.”
Those words would comprise the front-page headline of the Rocky Mountain News the next day.
Charlie Brennan asked the next question: Did the Ramseys fear a life spent under a permanent cloud of suspicion?
John replied that they weren’t concerned: their true friends knew what they were made of. Then he added, “An arrest is absolutely necessary in our lives for closure…an arrest must be made for us to go on with some semblance of a life and hope for the future.”
Both John and Patsy clasped and unclasped their hands as they spoke, and Patsy often had both palms pressed together as if in prayer. The two of them didn’t touch each other as they sat side by side on the love seat.
Clay Evans of the Daily Camera wanted to know whether they were now second-guessing anything they had done or not done to date. They said no. LeBeau then asked, “John, would you recommend the death penalty for the person convicted of killing JonBenét?”
Meeting LeBeau’s eyes directly, Ramsey said: “I would absolutely want the most severe penalty to be brought.”
“Patsy?” LeBeau asked.
She nodded slightly, then looked down. Her eyes welled with tears and her lips trembled, but she did not make a sound.
Then Bertha Lynn, pointing to the contrast between the JonBenét pictured in the advertisement and the child cavorting onstage in a provocative costume, asked the Ramseys whether involving their daughter in pageants now seemed a mistake.
“Those were beautiful pictures,” Patsy said. “I’m so happy that we have those pictures. They’re all that we have now.”
John added, “That was just one very small part of JonBenét’s life.”
“A few Sunday afternoons,” Patsy said.
“If you could,” Phil LeBeau asked Patsy, “what would you say to JonBenét right now?”
“I’d tell her that I love her and I will be seeing her real soon. It won’t be long.”
Abruptly, Rachelle Zimmer brought the session to a close. Within moments, the Ramseys and their lawyers were gone.
Out in the parking lot, the photographer for the Rocky Mountain News turned his key in the ignition and told Brennan, “If those people are guilty, then I don’t know anything about people.” Brennan agreed. Their gentleness allayed any suspicion that they had killed JonBenét. To Brennan, they seemed trustworthy.
As he drove back to Denver to write his story, he heard Carol McKinley and Mike Rosen talking on the radio. The host of a morning talk show on McKinley’s station, Rosen was a moderate conservative. Now he questioned McKinley aggressively.
“There was nothing substantial,” Rosen protested. “None of you pushed them. Now you know why they didn’t invite people like me or Peter Boyles,” he said, referring to another controversial Denver talk show personality.
Back in his office, Charlie Brennan turned on the TV mounted over the city desk. Switching from channel to channel, he watched key passages from the Ramseys’ news conference appear again and again. Some critics