Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [261]
Unknown to Hunter, Ramsey discovered during his interviews for the documentary just how isolated from the case he had become. He learned that his attorneys and closest friends, like the Stines, had been shielding him and Patsy to such an extent that they no longer had a clear picture of what was happening. Sherry Keene-Osborn described to him a different Alex Hunter than what he had pictured. More important, Ramsey discovered that what he wanted said wasn’t always being communicated to the DA or the police. After the TV crew left Atlanta, Ramsey sat down and wrote Hunter a letter.
“You can give this to him,” Ramsey told Bryan Morgan, “or you can throw it away. But you can’t change one word of it.” The following day, Morgan met with Hunter.
In response to Ramsey’s letter, Hunter told Morgan that the case was still in the hands of the police, and his office could not conduct interviews without the police at this time. Hunter told Morgan that the next day he would officially reveal that he had asked the police to make a full presentation of the case during the first week of June. Then the case would be in the DA’s hands. The two men agreed to wait.
Thinking ahead, however, Morgan and Hunter agreed that Burke Ramsey’s interview should be conducted first. They should work toward conducting the interviews right after the police presentation, Hunter said—the second week in June. Hunter agreed that the interviews should be held in Atlanta and said he’d have Hofstrom contact Jim Jenkins in the coming weeks.
Because Morgan was so cooperative, Hunter felt—correctly, it turned out—that John Ramsey was calling the shots.
That same afternoon, Morgan visited Hunter again, this time to discuss conditions for the interviews. He didn’t want the police to be consulted and refused to allow the sessions to be videotaped. Hunter knew he would need videos if for some reason he couldn’t subpoena the Ramseys again or if his office was notified that they would take the Fifth Amendment. In that case, the tapes were as good as a signed statement and could be used before a grand jury or in a trial.* Hunter reminded Morgan that his client had said “no conditions” other than the absence of the police. Morgan backed down. That evening, Hunter felt that after standing out in the rain for so long, he was finally seeing sunlight.
The next day, Hunter told Beckner about Morgan’s visit and Ramsey’s letter. Beckner thought that Ramsey’s actions were a last-minute effort to avoid the grand jury, which would soon be sworn in. Then the public would be clamoring for him and his wife to be called.
On April 22, chief district judge Joseph Bellipanni’s courtroom in the Boulder County Justice Center was packed with fifty-seven potential grand jurors. Also on hand were twenty-seven reporters, who came to watch what they called “the Ramsey grand jury.” Representatives from USA Today, Time magazine, The New Yorker, Fox TV, the Globe, ABC, NBC, CBS, and the New York Times, as well as all of Denver’s and Boulder’s local press, filled the courtroom and adjacent hearing room.
First the jury candidates completed the two-page questionnaire that the judge and prosecutors would use during voir dire.* The first-page questions aimed at constructing a personal profile—occupation, marital status, possible connections to law enforcement, and so on. The second page asked questions relating to the Ramsey case; for example, “Are you involved or do you know anyone who is presently involved in any current criminal investigation? (including but not limited to the investigation into the death of JonBenét Ramsey). Explain.” Another question asked, “Please describe any opinions you now hold based upon what you know of the investigation into the death of JonBenét Ramsey.”
After the potential jurors had completed the forms, Bellipanni turned the proceedings