Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [28]
In the months that followed, the police would confirm that John Andrew, his mother, and her friend Harry Smiles had attended the Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta on Christmas Eve and that John Andrew had returned to his mother’s home at 1:00 A.M.
Melinda, who worked at a hospital in Marietta, Georgia, finished her shift at about 7:00 A.M. on Christmas Day. That afternoon, John Andrew, Harry Smiles, Melinda, and her boyfriend, Stewart Long, exchanged gifts at Lucinda’s home in Marietta. In the afternoon they all went across the street to a neighbor’s for dinner.
Melinda and Stewart Long left the dinner party about 7:00 P.M., and Melinda started to pack for an early flight the next day. At 9:00 they went to visit Guy Long, Stewart’s uncle, and after visiting other friends were home by midnight.
At about 8:30 P.M., John Andrew went to his friend Brad Millard’s home in Marietta to play video games. After an hour, they left to catch a 10:30 show at the Town and Country Movie Theaters in Marietta with another friend, Chris Stanley.
John Andrew said that after the movie he went back to Brad Millard’s house to get his car and arrived back at his mother’s house at 1:00 A.M. The next morning he left his mother’s house with Melinda, who had come there to pick him up. Together they boarded a flight to Minneapolis at 8:36 A.M. local time. That was forty-four minutes after Patsy called 911 to report that JonBenét was missing.
Could John Andrew, with one or more of the friends who provided his and his sister’s alibis, have left Marietta, Georgia, flown to Boulder, Colorado, and returned in time to be seen by his sister’s boyfriend, Stewart Long, at about 6:15 A.M. when John Andrew and Melinda left for the airport?
The police figured that John Andrew had a minimum of four and a half hours he could not account for—longer if he didn’t stay to see the entire movie. It would have been longer still if he never went to the theater but went to an airport instead. That scenario would give John Andrew almost nine hours to get from Marietta to Boulder and back. Until all airline and private plane flights were checked, John Andrew Ramsey would remain a suspect.
Late on Saturday evening, December 28, DA Alex Hunter, who was still in Hawaii, called Bill Wise. He learned that the police had not only asked a heavily sedated Patsy Ramsey for a handwriting sample, they had asked her to copy out parts of the ransom note. She had become hysterical and could not complete it. Hunter agreed with the police procedure but was upset to hear from Wise that John Eller had tried to barter with the Ramseys—JonBenét’s body in exchange for formal interviews with them.
The DA expected the police to follow the law and not jeopardize the integrity of the case. Hunter had always protected the constitutional rights of Boulder’s citizens from overzealous police officers. To Hunter, Eller seemed to be such an officer.
UNEASE SETTLES OVER BOULDER MYSTERY STILL SURROUNDS CHILD’S SHOCKING DEATH
The gloomy mystery surrounding the strangulation of JonBenét Ramsey the day after Christmas has tarnished Boulder’s reputation as a little slice of nirvana.
The investigation has mushroomed into one of the biggest in recent years here. More than 30 detectives and uniformed officers from Boulder Police Department and the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department are participating. Combined, they represent nearly a third of the local police force.
In reality, Boulder’s mellow reputation is a bit undeserved. According to 1994 statistics, the latest available, the city ranked as the fifth-most dangerous in Colorado, with 10.3 serious crimes per 1,000 residents.
Boulder officials objected that the data were misleading