Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [173]
At times Carol McKinley felt as if she’d become a psychotherapist. Her source needed to vent, and he needed someone who would listen.
Lou Smit was another problem, though the detective didn’t reveal the reasons to McKinley. He wouldn’t listen to them and had his own ideas—like his nutty stun-gun theory. Smit thought there was a strong possibility that an intruder had entered the house. He kept talking about the pieces of glass that had been found on top of the suitcase under the broken basement window, about the shoe imprint they’d found near JonBenét’s body, and about the unidentified palm print on the wine cellar door. The police had learned that the imprint was from a Hi-Tec shoe. But whenever the police came up with a good idea—like the question of how a stranger could even find the light switch to the basement—Smit ignored it. In the detectives’ eyes, he was old, out of touch. Smit kept saying to them, “I want you guys to prove it to me.” It was irritating, and the detectives resented him.
On May 19, Suzanne Laurion, who had been on the job as Hunter’s press representative for less than three weeks, wrote him a memo: “One of the roles of the media is to listen to, organize and direct the public’s response to political actors (e.g., Koby and Hunter). Hence, we can view…commentaries from this weekend as important to our understanding of how the general public may be feeling…. This is the sort of thinking we could address in a piece on the prosecutor’s ethical obligations to contain trial publicity, and our commitment to serve and preserve the criminal justice system.”
She enclosed two articles as examples of what she meant:
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
The new reward ad the Ramseys placed in Sunday’s Daily Camera has exposed a level of incompetence in Alex Hunter’s office that cannot, and should not, be tolerated by the people who elected him to protect our interests and, in this case, our children.
Sunday’s ad requested that Boulderites call in any information they have about a well-dressed man who may have been seen talking to children around Christmas, the time of JonBenét’s murder.
Now we’re supposed to believe that, for all the D.A. knows, any well-dressed white guy talking to kids may be the actual murderer. If Hunter can’t do better than that, then he needs to make the information he has public in hopes that someone else can solve the crime.
Or there is another scenario. The investigation is rolling along fine. The cops are closely watching the prime suspects. And our kids are safe. If that’s the case, Hunter’s office should let the Ramseys, provided they’re not the suspects, in on the news. That way John and Patsy could stop wasting money on ads.
If the Ramseys are the prime suspects, then Hunter’s office should stop moonlighting as part of the Ramsey PR team. If Hunter believes that the Ramseys will one day be tried for JonBenét’s death, then he should be smart enough to realize that giving them permission to inquire about mystery murderers in ads will greatly weaken his case at trial time.
Hunter has stated all along that he wants to remain “open minded” during this investigation. That’s a good idea early on, but after five months of investigating it’s absurd. At some point, presumably long before now, being open minded creates incredible opportunities for the defense team of whoever is eventually arrested.
—Editorial
Boulder Weekly, May 15, 1997
AT A STANDSTILL IN BOULDER
The JonBenét Ramsey murder investigation has been dragging on for almost five months, and beleaguered Boulder Police Chief Tom Koby says he doesn’t expect an arrest for several more months—if then.
The DNA test results are back from a lab in Maryland, but Koby hinted they don’t seem to offer a solution.
Meanwhile