Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [184]
Shortly afterward, Green visited Hunter in his office. The meeting went well, and as the months passed, they talked more and more. Their occasional meetings would last for an hour or so. Green gave his direct phone numbers to both Wise and Hunter and agreed to contact them more often when checking the accuracy of his columns.
The following month, Wise and his wife, Diane, bumped into Boyles and his wife, Kathleen, at the July Fourth Cherry Creek Arts Festival. Wise made Boyles the same offer he’d made to Green. Boyles agreed to listen to what Wise had to say. In the coming months, the two couples met for dinner and became friends. Afterward, Boyles’s coverage of Hunter’s office became far less aggressive. Wise told a reporter covering the story that he hadn’t tried to put Boyles and Green in his pocket. All he’d wanted to do was curtail the unwarranted criticism of the DA’s office. One writer who met with Hunter felt that the DA wanted to be portrayed as a guy on a white horse defending justice.
CITY OF BOULDER NEWS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JUNE 17, 1997
Members of the Boulder Police Benefit Association executive board met on Monday, June 16, with Boulder Police Chief Tom Koby to discuss issues raised during the membership’s recent vote of no confidence. A list of four general concerns were presented to Chief Koby.
Leadership/management issues
Direction and philosophy of the Boulder Police Department
Boulder Regional Communication Center issues
Hiring/promotion policies
The BPBA executive board and Chief Koby agreed to additional meetings to be held throughout July.
—Boulder Police Benefit Association
Press Release
Sheriff Epp didn’t like the union’s press release, especially because it was issued on city letterhead. That same week, Epp asked Steve Ainsworth, who had been working with Hunter’s people for just over three months, to brief him on the status of the Ramsey case. Ainsworth told his boss that Koby continued to insist Eller was the right man for the job. Yet Eller hadn’t assigned anyone in the police department to read the entire investigation file, Ainsworth said. How do you run a case you haven’t read? he wanted to know. At least Hunter had instructed Trip DeMuth, Lou Smit, and himself to read everything they’d been given by the police. Also, the police refused to seriously consider any suspects besides the Ramseys. All he and Smit could do was run down possible suspects the police had missed or discarded, because Hunter had guaranteed Koby that he and Smit wouldn’t backseat-drive the police investigation. The only real lead they’d uncovered so far was the stun gun.
Epp became more and more frustrated as he listened to Ainsworth, and he assumed he was no different from the majority of Boulder’s taxpayers on that score. Eventually, Epp knew, the union would force Koby out of his job, especially now that city manager Tim Honey had left. Epp began to hear from his officers that Koby was being called Dead Man Walking. It was a cruel but accurate description.
Epp didn’t know what to do.
No matter which direction the police went in the Ramsey case, Alex Hunter and Pete Hofstrom told their staff that they themselves had to consider every possibility in the case. It wasn’t likely that John and Patsy weren’t involved, but it was still possible.
Lou Smit always found it useful to reread the police files. He was getting an overview of the case that no one else had. His partner in that was Trip DeMuth, who, like Smit, read every document as they cross-indexed the files with the help of a new computer program. Working side by side, the two men bonded. Smit admired DeMuth for his objectivity and fairness, and DeMuth looked upon Smit’s experience as an invaluable tool.
Meanwhile, Steve Ainsworth met with Detective Jane Harmer to discuss several possible suspects the police might want to