Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [4]
When Detective Linda Arndt arrived at the Ramsey house at 8:10 A.M. with fellow detective Fred Patterson, she found a crowd. Friends of the child’s parents, Priscilla and Fleet White and Barbara and John Fernie, were there, along with the family’s minister, Reverend Rol Hoverstock. Patrol officer Rick French and crime scene investigator Barry Weiss were also there with two victim advocates, Mary Lou Jedamus and Grace Morlock. Detective Arndt learned that the Ramseys had another child, nine-year-old Burke, who had been taken to the Whites’ home by John Fernie and Fleet White.
The mother, Patsy Ramsey, was out of control. She kept saying she wanted to trade places with her daughter. “Please let her be safe. Oh please, let her be safe.” She was tormented, incoherent. Her husband, John Ramsey, was saying he should have set the burglar alarm.
Earlier, Arndt had stopped at police headquarters to pick up a hand-held tape recorder and her notebook. There, she had read the ransom note which had just been brought in by Officer Veitch. It was written on white lined paper with a black felt-tipped pen. Arndt had three copies of the note made before it was booked into Property. She gave one copy to Paterson, another was placed in a sealed envelope and left on her desk and the third she took with her. Later the original note would be shown to the FBI.
After Arndt attached her tape recorder to the phone in the family’s den, John Ramsey was instructed to answer all telephone calls. When the kidnappers called, he was to say he couldn’t get his hands on the ransom money until 5:00 P.M. and had to talk to his daughter. At the same time, the police ordered a trap on the Ramseys’ phone.*
Some officers were already upstairs checking the bedroom of the missing child, whose name was JonBenét, for fingerprints. Detective Arndt began to question John Ramsey about whether he could think of anyone who might be involved in the kidnapping. Ramsey gave the detective the names of several ex-employees of his company, Access Graphics. Patsy Ramsey, who was sitting with Rev. Hoverstock in a corner, was at times confused and dazed. She mentioned to Arndt that her housekeeper, Linda Hoffmann-Pugh, had asked to borrow some money just a few days before. Linda had a key to the house and had major money problems. Patsy planned to make out a check for $2,000 that morning and leave it on the kitchen counter for Linda to pick up on her next scheduled cleaning day, December 27.
Later that morning, the police would obtain copies of checks endorsed by Hoffmann-Pugh from the Ramseys’ bank for handwriting comparison. The Ramseys’ housekeeper would become the first suspect.
As the morning wore on, the victim advocates, Jedamus and Morlock, decided to go out and get bagels and fruit for everyone. With fewer people hovering around, Arndt noticed for the first time that Patsy and John rarely sat together.
When Larry Mason’s pager went off at 9:45 A.M. he was at home, relaxing over a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Looking down, he read: “FBI agent is looking for Bob Whitson.” Mason didn’t stop to wonder why he had received a message for somebody else on his pager. He called police communications immediately and learned of the kidnapping. Light snow was on the ground when Mason left his home in Lyons for the twenty-five-minute drive to police headquarters in Boulder.
At headquarters, Mason met Special Agent Ron Walker, who had just arrived from the Denver FBI office with a four-man kidnapping team. The special agents were working with some police officers to set up phone taps and traps, which would give them immediate access to all incoming and outgoing calls at the Ramsey house. Agent Walker was treating