Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [315]
An FBI agent, whom I didn’t even know, quietly tipped me off about what the DA’s office was doing behind our backs, conducting an investigation the police department was wholly unaware of.
I was advised not to speak to certain witnesses, and all but dissuaded from pursuing particular investigative efforts. Polygraphs were acceptable for some subjects, but others seemed immune from such requests.
Innocent people were not “cleared,” publicly or otherwise, even when it was unmistakably the right thing to do, as reputations and lives were destroyed. Some in the district attorney’s office, to this day, pursue weak, defenseless, and innocent people in shameless tactics that one couldn’t believe more bizarre if it were made up.
I was told by one person in the district attorney’s office about being unable to “break” a particular police officer from his resolute accounts of events he had witnessed. In my opinion, this was not trial preparation, this was an attempt to derail months of hard work.
I was repeatedly reminded by some in the district attorney’s office just how powerful and talented and resourceful particular defense attorneys were. How could decisions be made this way?
There is evidence that was critical to the investigation, that to this day has never been collected, because neither search warrants nor other means were supported to do so. Not to mention evidence which still sits today, untested in the laboratory, as differences continue about how to proceed.
While investigative efforts were rebuffed, my search warrant affidavits and attempts to gather evidence in the murder investigation of a six-year-old child were met with refusals and, instead, the suggestions that we “ask the permission of the Ramseys” before proceeding. And just before conducting the Ramsey interviews, I thought it was inconceivable I was being lectured on “building trust.”
These are but a few of the many examples of why I chose to leave. Having to convince, to plead at times, to a district attorney’s office to assist us in the murder of a little girl, by way of the most basic investigative requests, was simply absurd. When my detective partner and I had to literally hand search tens of thousands of receipts, because we didn’t have a search warrant to assist us otherwise, we did so. But we lost tremendous opportunities to make progress, to seek justice, and to know the truth. Auspicious timing and strategy could have made a difference. When the might of the criminal justice system should have brought all it had to bear on this investigation, and didn’t, we remained silent. We were trying to deliver a murder case with hands tied behind our backs. It was difficult, and our frustrations understandable. It was an assignment without chance of success. Politics seemed to trump justice.
Even “outsiders” quickly assessed the situation, as the FBI politely noted early on: “the government isn’t in charge of this investigation.” As the nation watched, appropriately anticipating a fitting response to the murder of the most innocent of victims, I stood bothered as to what occurred behind the scenes. Those inside this case knew what was going on. Eighteen months gave us a unique perspective.
We learned to ignore the campaign of misinformation in which we were said to be bumbling along, or else just pursuing one or two suspects in some ruthless vendetta. Much of what appeared in the press was orchestrated by particular sources wishing to discredit the Boulder Police Department. We watched the media spin, while we were prohibited from exercising First