Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [181]
Several days after I met with Thomas and Harmer, Pam Griffin told Frank Coffman that Patsy Ramsey wrote the words Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey on the same lined pad that the ransom note was written on. Pam said Patsy had told her that it was the beginning of an invitation she was writing: “Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey…invite you…” By then there was a rumor that the cops believed this writing was a false start on the ransom note. If what Pam said was true, it was important to the police.
Moments after I heard what Coffman had learned, I left a message for Thomas on his voice mail. He called me back from his car, and I told him what Coffman had learned. I literally heard Thomas hit the brakes.
“Jeff, that’s no fuckin’ invitation.”
The next day, the police asked Coffman and me to come down to headquarters so that Coffman could get Griffin on the phone and have her restate what she’d said. The police would tape-record the conversation. At first all we got was Pam’s answering machine.
While we were hanging around, Coffman told Thomas that I was having conversations with Alex Hunter and that he was confiding in me. I’d told that to Coffman, but I would never have wanted the police to know—as I would never want Hunter to know I was talking to Thomas.
A moment later, Thomas took me with him into a small interview room. Before he said a word, I started to talk.
“Can we talk off the record?” I asked.
“OK.”
I figured that if I didn’t make a deal with Thomas right then and there, he’d go straight to Eller, tell him what Coffman had said, and that it would be used against Hunter. For sure I would be fucked.
“Nothing we talk about leaves this room,” I said to Thomas.
Again he said, “OK.”
“I spend a great deal of time with Hunter,” I said, “like four fuckin’ hours a day—sometimes in his office and sometimes on the phone. I’ve learned a lot.”
Thomas just listened for a while. Then he asked if I knew Trip DeMuth or Pete Hofstrom. I told him I didn’t even know who else worked in the DA’s office.
“You really know Hunter?” Thomas continued. “I can’t even talk to him. How can you?”
“Steve, all I can tell you is he likes me a lot.”
“Jeff, if you’ve got Hunter’s ear,” he said, “do us both a favor—get him off the intruder path.”
“I’ll try,” I told Thomas.
“We’ve got more evidence in here to nail these people to the wall right now,” Thomas said, “and Hunter’s office is looking for intruders.”
Finally we reached Pam Griffin. As the police listened in on her conversation with Coffman, she told him it was Alex Hunter who, in a phone conversation with her, had suggested that the words Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey might be the beginning of an invitation.
—Jeff Shapiro
CITY OF BOULDER NEWS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JUNE 12, 1997
BOULDER POLICE ASK FOR INVESTIGATION OF POSSIBLE THEFT OF COMPUTER DOCUMENTS
Boulder Police have asked for an investigation by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation into a possible theft of computer documents from the police department computer located in the combined offices of the Boulder County District Attorney and the Boulder Police Department. This is the “war room” used by investigators assigned to the JonBenét Ramsey murder.
The police department has confirmed that someone gained access to a computer containing Ramsey case information at approximately 1 A.M. on Saturday, June 7.
—Boulder Police Department Press Release
When Carol McKinley read the police department’s press release, she paged her police source, who told her the break-in was proof that Hunter’s office was after the material in the police files. Tom Trujillo had turned on the computer in the war room, and when the start-up program didn’t ask for his six-character password, he knew the computer had been tampered with. The room was supposed to be secure, yet the system date in the computer suggested that a break-in had taken place at about 1:00 A.M. on June 7.
Later that afternoon, McKinley spoke to Hunter. He was furious because Eller had personally accused him of the crime. “I think