Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [57]
“I think the parents have made some terrible decisions thus far by hiring lawyers and a publicist and refusing to talk to police,” Marc Klaas said in an interview aired Monday by AM Live on WPVI, the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia.
—Charlie Brennan
Rocky Mountain News, January 7, 1997
On Tuesday, January 7, two detectives went to the Ramseys’ hangar and interviewed Michael Archuleta, John Ramsey’s private pilot: Richard Bjelkovig, his copilot; and other personnel. The officers learned that the Ramseys had planned to leave for their Christmas vacation at 7:00 A.M. on December 26. Archuleta mentioned that they had expected to leave their home for the Jefferson County Airport at about 6:30. Archuleta said he woke at about 4:30 A.M. and left for the airport at around 6:00.
About ten minutes after Patsy Ramsey called 911 and three minutes after Officer Rick French arrived at the Ramseys’ house, John tried to call Archuleta at the airport. Instead he reached copilot Bjelkovig. Ramsey told Bjelkovig that JonBenét had been kidnapped. Archuleta was still en route to the airport. Bjelkovig reached Archuleta’s wife at home to tell her the news.
By 6:05 the police, the Fernies, the Whites, and the Ramseys’ pilots all knew about the kidnapping, though the ransom note had threatened that JonBenét would die if Ramsey informed anyone. The police were puzzled about why John Ramsey was in such a hurry to tell his pilot that his daughter had been kidnapped.
When Ramsey finally talked to Archuleta that morning, he instructed the pilot not to fly to Minneapolis. Instead, Archuleta was to notify the commercial airline on which Ramsey’s children were arriving from Atlanta and leave word for them to call their father. At 1:30 P.M., just twenty-five minutes after JonBenét’s body was found, John Ramsey called Archuleta again, at his home.
“She’s gone,” Ramsey said. “They’ve killed her.” Then he told Archuleta to ready the plane for a flight to Atlanta that evening. Fleet White then called Archuleta at 3:00 P.M. to say that the trip to Atlanta was canceled. Ramsey’s flight plans raised more questions for the police: Why had Ramsey called Archuleta so soon after JonBenét’s body was found, and why did he want to leave Boulder?
Like so many other questions, these would remain unanswered until the Ramseys could be interviewed.
Also on Tuesday, January 7, Pete Hofstrom and Trip DeMuth were in the courtroom of Boulder County judge Diane MacDonald requesting that the search warrant and supporting affidavits, which included facts about the crime and a list of everything taken from the house by the police, be sealed from the public for ninety days.
Hofstrom argued that in the midst of an ongoing investigation, disclosing crime-scene details known only to the killer and to the police would hamper both the investigation and resolution of the case. Bruce Jones, a Denver lawyer experienced in First Amendment issues, responded on behalf of ABC KMGH—Channel 7 TV and other media outlets. He said that the public deserved to know how the case was being handled. They had been leaked only bits and pieces, and the public was seriously concerned. Tom Kelley, representing the Daily Camera, echoed that sentiment. He told the court that the public would only be confident in the investigation if they were given the facts.
Judge MacDonald decided to seal the documents for thirty days or until an arrest was made—whichever came first. A month later, on February 4, Trip DeMuth would ask for another thirty days. Judge MacDonald would grant fifteen.
By now the Ramseys had agreed that JonBenét’s nine-year-old brother, Burke, could be interviewed about what he remembered from the night his sister had been murdered. At 9:00 A.M. on January 8, Detectives Harmer, Arndt, and Gosage arrived at the Child Advocacy Center in Niwot to observe the interview. The detectives stood behind a one-way glass window as Boulder child psychologist Dr. Suzanne Bernhard talked to the boy. Patsy Ramsey waited in another room, sobbing, her