Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [177]
If the CBI were to state definitively that Patsy had written the note and Foster were to confirm that finding, Hunter would have something. He worried, however, that even with such positive findings, his staff might be unable to arrest Patsy. Linguistic analysis had never been used by experts in Colorado courts, so there was a question about whether Foster’s findings would be admissible. The professor had never before testified in a criminal trial.
Meanwhile, Eller and his detectives were slowly coming to the realization that without a break in the case, Hunter would not arrest the Ramseys. One detective was sure that if the DA had charged them earlier, Patsy would have broken down and confessed. When that didn’t happen, he suggested to his superiors that a grand jury be used to compel the Ramseys to talk. Hunter rejected the idea, saying it was premature. When immunity was discussed, he said he didn’t want to give someone protection in exchange for testifying. Most of Eller’s detectives believed that the moment had been lost forever. They didn’t much care if the Ramseys suffered the shame of public condemnation for the rest of their lives.
Bill Wise, like the detectives, had been sure earlier in the year that the Ramseys were guilty. But that was before the alleged semen turned out to be something else. By May 1997 he was far less sure that a case against them could be proved. Wise hadn’t lost hope entirely, but as his certainty diminished, he continued to think that if the Ramseys had killed their daughter, they deserved to suffer.
PART THREE
Stories within Stories
1
Late in the morning of Monday, June 2, Suzanne Laurion greeted Ann Bardach of Vanity Fair and escorted her to Alex Hunter’s private office, where the journalist and the DA were scheduled for a fifteen-minute interview. Sitting down in one of the four old leather chairs that encircled a wood table, Bardach noticed a pencil sketch of President Kennedy hanging above Hunter’s antique rolltop desk. Sitting atop the desk was a black three-ring binder, on its cover a color photograph of JonBenét Ramsey.
Bardach’s fifteen minutes of interview time became half an hour before Hunter said they’d have to take a break. Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh’s verdict was to be announced. At 1:15 P.M. Hunter turned on his TV. Phil Miller, Jim Atherton, Pete Hofstrom, Susan Ingraham, Trip DeMuth, Bill Nagel, and several other staff members came in to watch. After it was announced that McVeigh was found guilty of the bombing and the murder of eight federal agents, Bardach stayed in Hunter’s office and soaked up the conversation.
In his interview, Hunter had told her his impressions of the Ramseys and their attorneys and referred to John Ramsey as “Ice Man.” When the DA talked about his team of investigators, he called Lou Smit “the ace” and “the fox.” By the time she left the Justice Center, Bardach had over two hours’ worth of tape-recorded material. A few days later, she called the DA’s office with follow-up questions. When Hunter heard them, he replied that the statements Bardach was referring to had been given “off the record” and therefore didn’t require a response. Afterward, Suzanne Laurion tried to clarify with Bardach which parts of her conversation with Hunter were off the record. Bardach argued that her tape recorder offered evidence of what was “on the record.”
By then, Bardach had already spoken with several friends and neighbors of the Ramseys. She had shown up at John and Barbara Fernie’s house uninvited. John Fernie would later tell a reporter covering the story that when he and his wife arrived home, Bardach was waiting for them. When they refused her an interview, she became pushy, said Fernie.
Not everyone reacted to the journalist the same way, however. In time, she would meet with two police detectives to hear the cops’ side of the story. It’s possible that after