Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [240]
Local freelance writer Frank Coffman mentioned to Patsy’s onetime friend Judith Phillips, whom he had met through Jeff Shapiro, the phrase and hence in the Christmas message. Phillips remembered that and hence appeared in the ransom note too: “if we monitor you getting money early, we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence a [sic] earlier pick-up of your daughter.”
Phillips told Steve Thomas about the similarities they had seen and Coffman told Lou Smit, who said it was a good find. He agreed with Coffman that the writer of the ransom note was educated and seemed too sophisticated to be a typical sex criminal. It sounded more like someone with business experience, who was in the habit of writing. It might even be a friend of the Ramseys, Smit thought.
Hunter was also told about the phrase and hence and he told Donald Foster. The Vassar professor thought it was significant. All these little things add up, he said. Hunter, who had recently found Foster erratic during their conversations, told the linguist that the police would soon be contacting him with additional writing samples. To one confidant of Hunter the DA seemed to be losing interest in Foster.
That same week, Lou Smit received a letter from John Ramsey, who gave the investigator his list of suspects in his daughter’s murder: Jeff Merrick, Mike Glynn, and Jim Marino—all of whom had once worked for him—and Bill McReynolds, who had been Santa at their Christmas party. To Smit it was clear that Ramsey was desperate for the police to check these men, because they had all but stopped looking for suspects other than him and his wife. Smit, too, was frustrated. He was eager for the case to be turned over to the DA’s office, because he knew Pete Hofstrom would be a fairer arbiter of the evidence.
After the first of the year, Smit showed Ramsey’s letter to Alex Hunter, who then showed it to the police. The detectives found it odd that Ramsey had written to Smit at home and that he had named Jim Marino as a suspect when Marino was appearing on television in support of the Ramseys.
As soon as the detectives finished one task, Mark Beckner moved them to the next. Now they were recanvassing the Ramseys’ neighborhood, on the possibility that the duct tape and the rope had been obtained from a nearby home and the remnants returned to their original location. Detective Weinheimer asked Margaret Dillon, who lived at 756 14th Street, across the Ramseys’ back alley, if she’d had any tape or white cord in her garage at the time of JonBenét’s murder.
“Why, I don’t have a garage,” she replied.
“OK,” Weinheimer said. Then he asked: “Do you have a stun gun, or a taser?”
“What’s that?” she asked. “Is it something like a cattle prod?” Then he asked about Hi-Tec shoes. She knew nothing about them, either.
When the detective left, Dillon wondered why he had asked her only whether she kept duct tape and white cord in her garage. Why didn’t he ask her if she had those things in her house? From his manner, she was surprised he didn’t ask her if she had run across the alley and killed JonBenét. In Dillon’s opinion, Weinheimer had simply wanted answers—any answers—to a short list of questions. He hadn’t seemed interested in investigating.
On December 8, Hal Haddon learned that Lisa Ryckman of the Rocky Mountain News was about to break a story about the unidentified Hi-Tec shoe imprint that had been found next to JonBenét’s body. Within an hour, he faxed her a letter.
HADDON, MORGAN & FOREMAN, PC
ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW
December 8, 1997
Ms Lisa Ryckman
Rocky Mountain News
400 W. Colfax Avenue
Denver, Colorado 80204
Re: Ramsey Stories
Dear Ms Ryckman:
Pat Furman [another Ramsey attorney] advises me that the Rocky Mountain News, under your byline, intends to print a story tomorrow which will identify a key item of evidence in the Ramsey investigation. One other news organization has known about this evidence for several months but did not print