Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [274]
The police listed twenty-five indications that pointed away from an intruder: Lab tests showed that the fine-line Sharpie pen with which the note was written was one that Patsy had used before. Also, the pad, the note, and the flashlight were all discovered in close proximity of each other. The pen in a cup with other Sharpies right beside the phone in the kitchen where Patsy always kept them. The detectives admitted that even though the handwriting analysis did not show definitively that Patsy had written the note, the evidence indicated that Patsy couldn’t be eliminated as the author. Moreover, the police said, Donald Foster had determined—although not scientifically—that she had written and may have composed the note. Comparisons of phraseology and punctuation were shown to the audience. Of everyone interviewed, Patsy was the only one who was not eliminated as the author of the ransom note.
Possible scenarios, speculation, and conjecture about what might have taken place Christmas night in the Ramsey home came up during breaks in the presentation. The police had presented no motive or theory, but almost everyone agreed it was unlikely that a mysterious intruder, heretofore unknown, would emerge as the killer. There was speculation that perhaps JonBenét had wet her bed or soiled her clothes and that Patsy had reacted violently but had not intended to kill her. Then perhaps she and her husband had conspired to cover it up and make it look like something else.
The police listed all the reasons why the case should be presented to a grand jury. They mentioned sixteen people who should be questioned under oath on twenty different topics. Some of them had so far been uncooperative. In other cases they simply didn’t know what real information, if any, people had, as with Fleet White. Also, some school, phone, and credit card records that were necessary could be obtained at this late date only by order of a grand jury.
Finally, in closing, Steve Thomas listed over a dozen reasons, in no particular order, why the police suspected the Ramseys. Some of them had been mentioned during the discussion of other categories.
1. The date engraved on JonBenét’s headstone was December 25, not December 26, 1996, which indicated they knew she did not die in the early morning hours. December 25—that is, before midnight—was the earliest approximate time of death judging from the state of the pineapple found in her small intestine.
2. Sound tests conducted by the police indicated that the scream heard by Melody Stanton across the street should have been heard by the parents in their bedroom.
3. The behavior of Patsy and John after Rick French arrived at their house was not in keeping with a kidnapping but more the way people would respond after a death.
4. The phone call placed by John Ramsey to arrange for a pilot to fly his entire family to Atlanta that evening was made within thirty-five minutes of his finding his daughter’s body.
5. Prior vaginal trauma was unlikely to have been caused by a person outside the immediate family.
6. The flashlight, the writing pad, and the Sharpie pen were all found in the kitchen area. The flashlight—which may have caused the head injury—was left on the kitchen counter.
7. The ransom note was written on paper torn from a writing pad that belonged to the Ramseys.
8. The Sharpie pen used to write the note was not found close to where the pad was discovered; but in a cup next to the kitchen phone where the pen was kept.
9. The writing pad was discovered close to where the ransom note was allegedly found.
10. Patsy Ramsey had not been eliminated as the author of the ransom note.
11. The enhanced 911 tape contradicted the version of the events of that morning told by both Patsy and John Ramsey on several occasions to different police officers.
12. Patsy’s statements about when she discovered that her daughter was not in her room and John’s statements about what he did with his daughter after taking her to bed on December 25, 1996, were inconsistent.
13. The paintbrush used in the “garrote