Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [212]
That same week, a reporter for the Star tabloid had discovered on file in a local recorder’s office a real estate partnership affidavit between Bill Gray, a civil attorney for the Ramseys, and Hunter. Channel 7, the local ABC affiliate, began broadcasting a series about various legal entanglements among players in the Ramsey case, implying conflicts of interest and a so-called web of influence. Hunter’s explanation that Gray had been his attorney only once, back in 1969, fell on deaf ears.
More problems loomed ahead. In the pipeline, as he put it, was a case in which it had taken his office nearly two years to file murder charges. The Boulder PD was furious about the delay, but Hunter’s staff had thought there were mitigating circumstances and had looked deeply into the reasons why Michael Grainger had killed his 300-pound bedridden wife, Sonia. Hunter knew that given the current climate in Boulder, he was sure to be attacked for being soft on Grainger.
It wasn’t only Boulderites who were doubting his methods, however. The eyes of the entire country were on him.
To:
Alex [Hunter] and Bill [Wise]
Fr:
Suzanne [Laurion]
I continue to be amazed at HOW MUCH reporters KNOW but are keeping out of their stories. If they’re to be believed, they have so many police sources they know more than we know.
On September 25, Geraldo Rivera, who had been pursuing the thesis that JonBenét’s killer must be a member of the Ramsey family, hosted “The Ramseys Fight Back” on his daytime TV show.
Jennifer Kay, a producer for Rivera’s show, had persuaded Nedra Paugh, Patsy’s mother, to give an impromptu interview from her home in Roswell, Georgia.
“Well, every day was Christmas to JonBenét,” Nedra said. She sat slumped in a chair, a defeated woman, her heartbreak palpable. “She [JonBenét] had a wonderful life. I often looked at her and Burke as well and thought how wonderful life had been to them. She was beautiful. She was gracious, intelligent, loved life, loved her friends, loved animals. She loved everything. And that was taken away by a thief in the night as she slept. Now she is in heaven, and I’m sure she’s a very good angel.”
When Nedra mentioned the crime, it was in a string of half-completed thoughts and seeming nonsequiturs: “I didn’t know that she had been mole…molested to some extent and hit on the head. I didn’t know that. And somehow I hoped that she had died very quickly, and I think that she did. I…I really do believe that whoever has done this strangled her, because I’m sure that she put up a tremendous fight. Although she had tape on her mouth, she couldn’t scream. But I knew she had fought.
“To think that a perfectly healthy, happy child, sleeping in her bed on Christmas Day, dreaming, as the story says, of sugar plum buds—and for someone to kill and murder, molest, and then, if that isn’t enough, strike her on the head, is something—it’s just more, because if that hadn’t happened, she would be well and alive, making a contribution to the world.”
After the segment with Nedra, Rivera chatted briefly with producer Kay, who shared her observations of Patsy, with whom she’d spoken the previous week in Atlanta without a camera crew.
“She told me, you know, she wishes that the police would not focus on her anymore but find who the real killer is,” Kay said. “And she also told me she didn’t care what the public felt about her being guilty or innocent. She knew in her heart she didn’t do it.”
After a panel discussion featuring various Ramsey friends and defenders, Rivera