Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [40]
In Boulder that same morning, Detective Patterson met Gary Merriman in his Access Graphics office. Now, the questions focused on John Ramsey. “Did John do this?” “Did John feel…?” “Isn’t it a fact that John resented JonBenét’s being in pageants?”
“I don’t find those questions legitimate,” Merriman told Patterson.
Gary Merriman had spent fourteen years working in the criminal justice system as an institutional psychologist, including several years at the Florida Department of Corrections. He knew a leading question when he heard one.
Merriman had to keep reminding the detective that his knowledge of John Ramsey was limited to his conduct at the office. “I’ve never been in John’s house,” Merriman repeated. When the interview was over, he was photographed and fingerprinted. Merriman also agreed to give the police handwriting, hair, and blood samples.
Meanwhile, Pete Hofstrom had received a fax from Bryan Morgan. The attorney restated his objection to testing that would destroy physical evidence. Morgan noted that this would include tests of bodily fluids and secretions.
Hofstrom realized that the Ramseys’ attorneys did not want to deal directly with the police and that he was becoming their go-between. He could only assume that John and Patsy Ramsey had been told about Eller’s plan to withhold their daughter’s body. Hofstrom felt that any cooperation the Ramseys gave the police would be highly guarded.
At midmorning on January 2, LaDonna Griego, a director of All Star Pageants, supplied ABC’s Denver affiliate with JonBenét’s December 17 All Star pageant video. Meanwhile, an amateur video of JonBenét’s December 22 shopping mall appearance sponsored by America’s Royal Miss popped up on local TV. Sunburst Pageants in Atlanta provided another television outlet with its video of JonBenét performing in a white Ziegfield Follies outfit.
That evening in households across the country, video clips of an angelic-looking six-year-old posturing suggestively in elaborate costumes appeared on network news programs. The televised images drew the public into a world that most Americans never knew existed. The CNN interview had made JonBenét’s death a national issue. The pageant videos added a sexual element to the story, which would transfix the country.
One day in the spring of 1996, Pam Griffin, who had met Patsy and JonBenét at a pageant, telephoned Kit Andre, a dance instructor she knew. “I’ve got a great child for you,” Pam said.
“Wonderful,” Kit replied.
The following week, Patsy and JonBenét drove to Kit Andre’s dance studio in Westminster, twenty minutes southeast of Boulder. Kit had danced in the Broadway companies of Hello, Dolly! and Peter Pan and had ballet credits in Paris and London, including a featured role under Dame Margot Fonteyn.
Patsy began by saying, “My little girl’s name is JonBenét. I’d like her to learn to dance and sing.”
Kit was impressed by Patsy. She was attractive and outgoing. However, JonBenét, who wore ordinary play clothes, was very plain-looking, she thought.
“Hello, JonBenét,” Kit said. “How are you?”
JonBenét answered, “Hi,” and smiled.
Patsy told Kit that JonBenét participated in pageants and she herself had been in pageants when she was younger. She’d brought an audiotape of music—“I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart.”
There was no time for JonBenét to learn the basics of ballet or tap, Patsy said, they needed a song and dance by summer. “And whatever it takes, I’ll pay for it,” Patsy added. Private lessons were $100 each, Kit told her. That was no problem, Patsy replied.
The following week when JonBenét came in, she was dressed in shorts and sandals. Kit still didn’t see anything special about her, though of course she wasn’t made up and her hair wasn’t styled.
“Can I join you?” Patsy asked.
Kit told her it would be better if she didn’t, and Patsy stayed in the reception room.
Kit had three dance studios, mirrored and with 12-foot ceilings. She took JonBenét into the “small” one, which