Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [19]
White also told the police that he and Ramsey went down to the basement again at about 1:00 P.M. and first went into Burke’s train room, where they both looked at the broken window. Ramsey told White he had broken it to get into the house a few months earlier, when he came home one day without his house key. Then White described what had happened when John Ramsey found JonBenét’s body. He couldn’t forget seeing John standing in the doorway screaming, his back to White, the light being turned on and, when he entered the room himself, seeing Ramsey on his knees beside JonBenét. It all happened so fast, White said. He had no explanation for why he himself hadn’t seen the body on his first trip to the basement.
At about 1:30 P.M., White said, his wife called home and told her niece that JonBenét had been found dead. White also said that around 3:00 P.M., he had called Ramsey’s pilot to cancel a flight to Atlanta that John Ramsey had made arrangements for after finding his daughter’s body. White told the pilot the Ramseys might not be allowed to leave that night because of the police investigation.
Around 4:00 P.M. Priscilla left the Fernies’ house, where they’d all gone with the Ramseys, and returned home. White went home later, he said, and they told their children, Daphne and Fleet Jr., that JonBenét had gone to heaven. Later that night, White stopped by the Fernies’ house on his way to Denver International Airport to pick up Jeff Ramsey, John’s brother, and Rod Westmoreland. Ramsey asked to go along. The four men were back at the Fernies’ home by around 11:00 P.M., White said.
3
I remember Boulder when there was no mall on Pearl Street, just a drugstore, some dress shops, and Valentine’s Hardware. Valentine’s had 20-foot ceilings, and you’d get a ladder out and climb up to find what you wanted. That was back in ’71, when my wife and I moved to Boulder. I’m a CPA. And I’ve been a devoted member of St. John’s and a member of its vestry ever since we arrived.
Boulder used to be a crossroads for teenagers and kids in their early twenties who were crossing the country—runaways, hitchhikers, activists, the whole spectrum. Our Father Jim created some havens for them. He got the parish involved in providing food and temporary housing. His one condition for their getting help was that they had to call their parents. He didn’t ask anything beyond that.
Father Jim was the most open-minded person I ever met. He was an activist. He could reach all those young people marching through Boulder. He’d say, “This is who I am, and I’m not going to change. If you don’t like it, go find another church.” So in those days, St. John’s actually lost a lot of parishioners.
These days, Rol says, “Look within this parish. Look at a lot of different members. Come join us and we’ll work things out.”
Not long ago we had one parishioner who took it upon herself to research the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program. It’s designed to teach four- and five-year-old children about the sacraments. It was quite an expensive thing, with lots of specially constructed child-sized furniture and icons and vessels. Hard work. Patsy and John decided to finance the entire project, which cost several thousand dollars. They were always generous in pledging.
Patsy was dynamic—to the point where she could be annoying. She absolutely could be. She was a take-charge person with very definite ideas. And she had this living angel. JonBenét was an actual angel. I don’t remember ever seeing any child more beautiful. Always dressed stunningly. I heard about the murder on NPR radio.
—Robert Elmore
At 10:00 A.M. on Friday, December 27, Pam Griffin and her daughter, Kristine, a senior in high school, sat before a tape recorder in a small windowless room at police