Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [272]
Steve Thomas presented the tape, ligature, and cord evidence. According to their best conclusions, the cord and the duct tape had probably been bought at McGuckin Hardware by Patsy Ramsey. Thomas pointed out, however, that even though Patsy had purchased items that cost the same amounts as the tape and the cord, the store’s computerized sales slips did not list the name or number of the items purchased—only the prices. It was also possible that the duct tape had been purchased in Atlanta. The purchase of the items did not show intent to use them in a criminal act and, Thomas admitted, someone other than the Ramseys might have used those items in the crime.
The trace evidence lifted from the duct tape was presented. The CBI had established that the four fibers found on the duct tape were consistent with the jacket Patsy wore to the Whites’ house on Christmas, which Officer French observed she also had on the next morning. A photograph taken at the Whites showed Patsy in the jacket. The detectives were certain of this evidence and its importance. They considered it a match.
To Henry Lee, however, the word consistent was not the same as a definitive match. Lee, like Scheck, thought like a defense attorney. In his mind, fibers were fibers. When confronted with evidence like this, Lee always asked himself what other garments existed that were made of the same fiber. He knew it was impossible to match a fiber to a garment the way a fingerprint or DNA could be matched to a person. The fibers found on the duct tape here might be slightly persuasive to a jury, but in Lee’s opinion, they were not a smoking gun.
It was also possible that the fibers had gotten stuck to the duct tape in a secondary transfer. For example, the fibers could have been transferred to the child’s blanket as Patsy tucked her daughter into bed and then could have adhered to the duct tape even if Patsy never came into contact with it. The police had found the tape on the blanket.
Listening to the presentation, Tom Haney knew that trace evidence could be strongly convincing to a jury but that a good defense attorney could explain it away, especially when the defendant lived in the house where it was found. Haney also knew it was a tedious and enormous job to identify and trace every fiber that had been found on JonBenét’s blanket. They hadn’t even begun the process, and he would lobby for it in the coming weeks. For example, the pubic hair found on the blanket had to be thoroughly investigated. It was decidedly odd for pubic hair to be on a child’s blanket—especially one that was washed often. At first the police understood the hair to be somewhat like Melinda Ramsey’s, but the match didn’t rise even to the level of consistency. Only John Ramsey had been excluded as the source of the pubic hair, which meant that a lot of work still had to be done. It also could turn out to be a secondary transfer.
The police reported that they had been unable to find a match for the fibers discovered on JonBenét’s labia and on her inner thighs. The fibers did not match any clothes belonging to John or Patsy. The police were stumped.
The detectives presented a long list of suspects who had been considered and dropped. Randy Simons, Kevin Raburn, Bud Henderson, Linda Hoffmann-Pugh, Joe Barnhill, and Chris Wolf had been eliminated by forensics evidence. Others, like Sandra Henderson, had ironclad alibis. By now, all but two of the thirty-two known sex offenders in the Boulder area had been cleared.
As for other suspects, Steve Thomas had told more than one observer that Bill McReynolds was not involved in the crime because he was too infirm from his then-recent heart surgery.
The results of DNA testing were inconclusive at this time, the police said. The DNA found under JonBenét’s fingernails showed the possibility of contamination.