Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [17]
“Beneath the long underwear are white panties with printed rosebuds and the word Wednesday on the elastic waistband.” The panties were also stained with urine. At the crotch, the coroner spotted several red spots that were each up to ½ inch in diameter.
Meyer then recorded the injuries that were visible with the body clothed. Beneath her right ear, at the point where the jawbone forms roughly a right angle, was a rust-colored abrasion about 3/8 by ¼ inch. There was pinpoint hemorrhaging on the upper and lower eyelids.
Meyer described the cord around the child’s neck: “Wrapped around the neck with a double knot in the midline of the posterior neck is a length of white cord similar to that described as being tied around the right wrist.” He cut through the cord on the right side of her neck and slipped it off.
“A single black mark is placed on the left side of the cut and a double black ink mark on the right side of the cut.” Meyer stated these specifics in case it would be necessary to reconstruct the cord as evidence. He knew the police would want the knot left intact, to study the technique used to secure the ligature.
There were two tails of cord trailing from the knot. One was 4 inches long and frayed. The other was 17 inches long and had multiple loops secured around a wooden stick that was about 4½ inches long.
“This wooden stick,” Meyer said, “is irregularly broken at both ends, and there are several colors of paint and apparent glistening varnish on the surface. Printed in gold letters on one end of the wood [stick] is the word Korea.”
Fine blond hair, Meyer noted, was tangled in the knot of the cord around the child’s neck as well as in the knot of the cord tied around the stick.
“The white cord is flattened and measures approximately ¼ inch in width. It appears to be made of a white synthetic material. Also secured around the neck is a gold chain with a single charm in the form of a cross.”
Meyer then recorded a series of observations about a groove left in JonBenét’s neck by the cord. In front, it was just below the prominence of her larynx. The coroner noted that the groove circled her neck almost completely horizontally, deviating only slightly upward near the back. At some points, the furrow was close to half an inch wide, and hemorrhaging and abrasions could be seen both above and below it. The groove included a roughly triangular abrasion, about the size of a 25-cent piece on the left side of the neck, that Meyer had seen when he first viewed the body at the Ramseys’ house.
Continuing with the external examination, Meyer noticed—and Detective Arndt also observed—a number of dark fibers and hairs on the outside of JonBenét’s nightshirt. Using forceps, Meyer lifted these for later microscopic analysis. Everyone in the room could also see strands of a green substance tangled in the child’s hair. Arndt believed she’d seen the same thing the day before; it was probably some of the holiday garland decorating the spiral staircase that led downstairs from JonBenét’s bedroom.
Meyer then removed her clothes and set the garments aside to be placed into evidence.
“The unembalmed, well-developed, and well-nourished Caucasian female body measures 47 inches in length and weighs an estimated 45 pounds,” Meyer dictated. “The scalp is covered by long blond hair, which is fixed in two ponytails, one on top of the head secured by a cloth hair tie and blue elastic band and one in the lower back of the head secured by a blue elastic band. No scalp trauma is identified.”
Meyer began an internal examination of the body.
An hour later on that same morning, December 27, Detectives Fred Patterson and Greg Idler began their first formal interview with Fleet White at Boulder police headquarters. By now the police knew that John Ramsey considered White a close friend—possibly his closest friend. The Whites had keys to the Ramseys’ house.
White told the detectives that he and his wife, Priscilla, had invited relatives and friends from California to join them for the