Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [276]
At the same time, inside the Events Center, Hunter was holding a meeting with his staff, the FBI, and the police department’s pro bono attorneys.
“Now that the case is ours,” Hunter told the group, “we are moving ahead with interviewing the Ramseys.” He wanted to plan strategy. “The Ramseys need to fish or cut bait,” Hunter said. Dan Schuler said he was going to interview Burke “properly,” which seemed to some like a jab at the detectives’ prior work. The FBI objected to the interviews, saying it was time to put the Ramseys under oath before a grand jury, let the threat of perjury hang over their heads. Hofstrom said that the Ramseys were cooperating; the interviews were going to take place. Most likely he thought there was no alternative but to question the Ramseys, since he didn’t see a case worthy of going to the grand jury. One FBI agent said it was insane to question them now, in the presence of their lawyers, who would easily figure out what the prosecutors knew by the questions being asked. In a grand jury proceeding, the Ramseys’ attorneys would not be allowed to cross-examine or raise objections. The Ramseys had been protected by their attorneys long enough.
Hunter didn’t want to hear it. He was going to rely on his “trusted advisers” on this, he said.
“With no disrespect to your position as DA,” said Bill Hagmaier of the FBI, “I know the grand jury is your call—”
“Yes, it’s my call,” Hunter said, cutting him off. “And I’ll make that decision after I’ve considered all the alternatives—”
“But this little girl has been dead and buried for over eighteen months,” Hagmaier continued in a firm voice.
Hunter turned red. “This is a political decision,” he said. “It is not a police decision.”
Pro bono attorney Bob Miller said to Hofstrom that the DA’s office had an obligation to listen to the FBI. Trip DeMuth shouted at Miller that they were going to interview the Ramseys. They had made the commitment. “Don’t ever raise your voice to me,” Miller said pointedly.
“We’ve always wanted to help,” Hagmaier put in, “but considering what is going on here in Boulder, there’s no purpose in continuing here today.”
At that point the FBI agents left. Minutes later, Pete Hofstrom walked alone to his car.
When Beckner’s press conference was over, Hunter strode toward the cluster of microphones. His tough-guy expression was evident, but only briefly.
“This is the kind of weather that brings us all here,” he began cheerily, gesturing toward the cloud-free skies, the brilliant late afternoon sun. “How many of you are here from out of state?”
Clutching a legal pad with his notes, Hunter told the press that he thought it made sense to take the case to a grand jury. But, he added, no final decision had been made. People should make no assumptions about what was going to happen next. Even his rough timetable—that there would be a public decision within thirty days—could change, he warned.
“We do not have enough to file a case, and we have a lot of work to do,” he said. He was choosing his words much more carefully now than when he held his first press conference in February 1997.
“I will go back to my people and analyze what we heard and make sure it is sensible to ask Boulder citizens to spend the time it takes to run a grand jury.”
Two days after the presentation, New York radio commentator Don Imus was talking about the first game of the NBA finals between the Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz and said that the Bulls would have been better off to have “pulled Michael Jordan and substituted for him with Alex Hunter.” A friend told Hunter he was on the verge of becoming as well known as Kenneth Starr.
6
On Wednesday, June 3, the police detectives began to transfer the voluminous case file to Hunter’s office at the Justice Center. Two days later Hunter, Kane, DeMuth, Beckner, and Wickman met. Beckner said the police wanted to direct the continuation of the investigation.
“This is