Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [263]
WRITER: You mean the answers to the questions that I asked you on the day of the grand jury selection?
LAURION: Let me go through the log from that day. I know Talkington is absolutely ready to give you an interview.* It’s not him. It is really a time when every body is zipping their lips for fear of violating the notion of “no one ought to be talking right now.”
WRITER: Could you find out if Hofstrom had his coat on or off when the individual voir dire took place? Same with Hunter. Did the judge have a coat or robe?
LAURION: Just some general atmosphere?
WRITER: Correct.
Three days later Laurion called the writer back.
LAURION: Your question “Who was wearing a coat and who wasn’t?” Alex didn’t want to answer that. I don’t know why not. I said [to him], “You can at least speak about your own wardrobe that day.” And he said, “I just don’t want to answer that right now.”
On Sunday, April 26, Steve Thomas was working at home on his part of the police presentation. He was excited that they would finally be making their case after sixteen months of work. He was giving it his all, he owed it to JonBenét.
One of the most critical elements to clarify in the presentation were the events of December 26, 1996, which Thomas was covering. He spent several days speaking to the officers who had worked the case that first day. Linda Arndt had been the first detective to arrive on the scene and had then been the only detective in the house from 10:30 A.M. until JonBenét’s body was found at 1:05 P.M. Arndt had filed a lawsuit against the Boulder PD and Chief Koby for allowing her name to be maligned but was still employed by the department and was working on other cases. One morning Thomas stopped by her cubicle to discuss her reports about December 26, some of which lacked specifics as to when certain events took place.
Looking Thomas directly in the eye, she said she would not give him or any other officer help on the Ramsey case. Thomas pulled up a chair next to her and patiently explained that her firsthand knowledge was invaluable. He would not be able to present the events of that day clearly and fully without her input, he said.
“Besides what is in my written reports,” Arndt said, “I have forgotten everything.”
“But this isn’t about Koby,” Thomas protested. “It’s about the murder of JonBenét.”
Arndt wouldn’t budge. “I no longer have any memory of that day,” she said.
In his presentation, Thomas would have to say that Arndt refused to cooperate with him and the department.
4
We have a fire drill every month at school. From my classroom we go straight out in front of the building. Last month we happened to congregate right beside the tree that’s dedicated to JonBenét.
As we waited, the kids began talking among themselves and the conversation came around to JonBenét: “Well, you know she is buried right here.”
That’s the impression some students have, because there’s a plaque, like a tombstone, beside the tree. And I said, “No, she’s not. She’s buried in Atlanta. This is just in memory of her.” And then they started to relay some of the rumors they’d heard about her death.
“I think her dad did it,” one student said. “My dad thinks that her dad did it.”
I tried to steer the conversation away from the subject. The children didn’t get upset that I did that. They were just being detectives, like the rest of the world.
—music teacher Yvonne Haun
Unlike most reporters covering the Ramsey story, Jeff Shapiro was out in the cold. The police no longer had any use for him, and everyone in Alex Hunter’s office knew not to talk to him.
On May 30, after obtaining John Ramsey’s unlisted home number, Shapiro called him in Atlanta. Ramsey himself answered the phone. After identifying himself and saying he was an investigative journalist for the Globe, Shapiro said he was sure Ramsey was innocent and apologized for any pain Ramsey may have suffered because of