Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [59]
Of course I did. He was my boss. Why lie? I just closed the door.
—Laurie Wagner
GRAND JURY IN RAMSEY CASE?
The death of JonBenét Ramsey may be one of those rare situations where a grand jury probe may be necessary, legal observers said yesterday.
Bob Miller, the former U.S. attorney for Colorado and a longtime district attorney in Greeley, yesterday called grand juries a strong instrument for breaking logjams caused by the refusal of people to talk or hand over evidence. Miller said it is not commonly understood that police don’t have the power to subpoena witnesses or documents, while grand juries do.
“It would be a real tool, if they are road-blocked,” said Miller. “It is true that nobody has to cooperate with the police—I mean, you don’t even have to be a suspect. You can just tell them to go to hell.”
Dave Thomas, district attorney in Jefferson County, assumes the Boulder D.A.’s office has “considered” or “pondered” the use of the grand jury in the Ramsey case.
—Howard Pankratz
The Denver Post, January 9, 1997
On January 9, a radio station reported a rumor that John Ramsey had confessed. Access Graphics was flooded with calls. Karen Howard, director of worldwide communications, was in her office trying to come to grips with the possibility that the report might be true. When a local station made the announcement, her boss, Laurie Wagner, went white. Still, Wagner waited, not wanting to compound the problem by acting too quickly. Nevertheless, Howard began to prepare an e-mail to employees, just in case the rumor was true. When it proved unfounded, Howard sent out an e-mail saying that this was an example of how the media should not be considered a reliable source of information.
Detectives Thomas and Gosage were at the Access Graphics office that day, conducting interviews. Among others, they talked to Patsy’s father. Don Paugh, who had helped get the company off the ground in Atlanta, continued to work with his son-in-law when John made the move to Boulder in 1991. At the time of JonBenét’s murder, Paugh owned a condominium in Boulder, where he spent most of his time, and a home in Roswell, Georgia, with his wife, Nedra, who would often come to Boulder to visit. Paugh’s Boulder home was just down the street from a restaurant called Pasta Jay’s in which John Ramsey happened to be an investor. When the detectives interviewed Paugh on January 9, he said that on December 18, Jeff Merrick and his wife, Kathy, Jason Perkins, Cameron Hindson, Tom Carson, and Mike Glynn had eaten together at Pasta Jay’s. Paugh thought it strange that former Access Graphics employees were dining with a current employee like Carson.
The next day, Thomas and Gosage would follow up and interview Tom Carson at the Access Graphics office. They asked him where he’d been on Christmas night. Carson said that on December 24 he’d taken a United Airlines flight to Chicago and then gone on to Paris, where he spent Christmas Day. Later Thomas was able to confirm that Carson had indeed been on the transatlantic flight at the time JonBenét was murdered.
By the evening of January 9, the national press, as well as journalists from England and the Far East, were swarming on the front lawn of the Boulder Public Library, which also houses the studio of Channel 8. The parking lot along nearby Boulder Creek was packed with satellite trucks. That afternoon an arctic cold front had settled on Boulder, and the weather contributed to everyone’s foul mood.
The media were indignant. In scheduling his roundtable, Chief Koby had not only snubbed all the national press, which had advised his office of their presence in Boulder, but also seemed to be avoiding local writers who were breaking important stories on the case. It was obvious that Koby had invited only reporters he thought would go easy on him.
When Kevin McCullen of the Rocky Mountain News walked into the library’s foyer, he was astounded to see more than a hundred reporters who hadn’t been invited. Though