Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [179]
Thomas assumed that Coffman was referring to an intruder theory.
“That’s not the way we think. That sounds like Lou Smit,” he replied. “They’re going by a different theory over there.”
Smit and Steve Ainsworth were still investigating the possible use of a stun gun. By now they had learned that Air Tasers were sold locally by Boulder Security, and that another stun gun, called the Muscle Man, had the same characteristics as the Air Taser.
When they had gathered sufficient information, Ainsworth, Pete Hofstrom, Trip DeMuth, and Detective Sgt. Wickman met with the coroner, John Meyer. After reviewing the photos and this new information, Meyer concluded that the injuries on JonBenét’s face and back were, in fact, consistent with those produced by a stun gun.
Soon after, Ainsworth learned of a 1988 Larimer County murder in which a stun gun had been used on a thirteen-month-old girl, Michaela Hughes, who had been sexually assaulted and killed. Ainsworth met with Dr. Robert Deters, the pathologist on the case, and showed him the autopsy photos of JonBenét. Deters agreed that the marks were consistent with a stun-gun injury, but he didn’t think the body had to be exhumed. Nothing more would be learned by examining the skin tissue. Ainsworth asked Deters if a child of six would be immobilized by a stun-gun’s electrical shock. Not only would the child be paralyzed, the coroner said, but she would have been unable to scream. That raised the question of whether JonBenét had screamed before the stun gun was used on her—if one was used.
In her June 3 column, Cindy Adams of the New York Post wrote that Commander Eller had applied for the job of police chief in Cocoa Beach, Florida. The next day, Charlie Brennan of the Rocky Mountain News obtained a copy of Eller’s résumé from Florida. Brennan told Bill Wise that he had Eller’s curriculum vita, and Wise asked for a copy. Since Hunter’s staff could also obtain the document, Brennan saw no reason not to fax him a copy.
A few days later, Hunter spoke to Brennan. “Charlie, you might want to do a little digging into the time Eller spent with the community policing consortium,” Hunter said. Brennan could tell that the DA was choosing his words carefully. “Apparently things didn’t go so well for him there,” Hunter told the reporter. “There might have been a charge of sexual harassment, or something to that effect.”
On page four of Eller’s résumé, it said that he had been a “loaned executive” from January to August 1995, serving as director of the Colorado Consortium of Community Policing.
Brennan decided to look into the matter. The media were well aware of the tensions between the DA’s office and the police, and Brennan knew that this story would serve Hunter’s purpose of discrediting Eller. Brennan had no interest in helping Hunter, but a charge of harassment against Eller would be legitimate news.
Brennan soon learned that indeed Eller had been loaned out to the community policing consortium for a year and that he had returned to the Boulder PD earlier than expected. Those Brennan spoke to praised Eller for the most part. A few confided that there may have been “personality conflicts” resulting in Eller’s early departure from the consortium. Brennan could find no evidence of the charge and dropped the story. John Eller didn’t get the job in Cocoa Beach.
If Hunter wasn’t happy with Eller, Pete Hofstrom wasn’t any happier with Tom Wickman, who was running the investigation for the commander. Hofstrom suspected that the police were not sharing all their information with the DA’s office. He felt that Wickman hadn’t been candid with him about whether a particular DNA report had been received. Hunter confronted Koby about it, and the chief admitted that his detectives were withholding information. Koby seemed to be more upset that Wickman had not been forthcoming than that Hofstrom had been deceived.
Hofstrom was also angry that the police still