Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [69]
THIS MURDER IS OURS, CHIEF
ON THE POLICE, THE MEDIA AND THE DEATH OF A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG GIRL
Thomas Koby made an unusual appearance on local television. There was still no suspect, he said, but he thought it would be “healing” to let people know they were doing all they could. (Very Boulder, I thought, in keeping with a place where snow is cleared from bicycle paths before roads.)
Let’s get this straight. Chief Koby believes that this crime belongs to Boulder and that the rest of the country is just rubbernecking. Hello? Maybe I am new here, but when I think about JonBenét Ramsey, it is not a matter of prurient curiosity; I’m wondering what to believe in. Wanting to know who did it “is a natural response,” the chief allowed (though only for Boulderites). “It is often an effort to assure ourselves that such a tragedy will never happen to us.” Well, yes. Beyond that, there is the question of whether this is a work of the darkest evil imaginable or a more or less random act of malice and greed gone awry. Evil on this scale is impossible to comprehend. To know who murdered JonBenét Ramsey is to know what world we live in, where we are.
Not incidentally, the national press is in Boulder because despite its tabloid aspects and despite what the tabloid press will do to exploit the story, the murder of JonBenét Ramsey is important. Listen to her mother, who said on CNN: “You know, America has just been hurt so deeply…the young woman who drove her children into the water, and we don’t know what happened with O. J. Simpson. America is suffering because we have lost faith in the American family.”
Give the rest of the country a break, Chief. And don’t kill the messengers. They work for you.
—James R. Gaines, former managing editor of Time
Time, January 13, 1997
Meanwhile, Bryan Morgan, who had just received Eller’s response to his proposal for the Ramseys’ interviews, wrote to the commander about requests he’d made of Pete Hofstrom. The police scheduled the testing of evidence, and Morgan wanted it on record that no physical evidence should be destroyed during the testing process. In addition, he reminded Eller that care should be taken in conducting DNA tests so that they didn’t consume all the DNA and leave none for the defense to test independently. Morgan also objected to the use of RFLP DNA testing and wanted to know which PCR DNA systems were being used.*
More important, he made a formal request that representatives of the Ramseys be present when the swabs that contained the substances to be tested were split. The vials or other packaging should be preserved with the swabs themselves, Morgan wrote. In addition, he asked for the names of all the labs being used.
Hofstrom and Bob Keatley, the Boulder Police Department’s legal adviser, could see a legal battle looming. The Ramseys’ attorneys were raising many of the same points concerning the preservation and contamination of DNA that had come up in the Simpson criminal case.** The battle on the horizon was made even more obvious on January 15, when Patrick Burke, Patsy’s attorney, advised Keatley that JonBenét’s death did not void her physician-patient privilege.
On January 13, the day Morgan wrote to Eller, Detectives Thomas and Gosage continued their investigation of ex-employees of Access Graphics. They interviewed Kathy and Jeff Merrick for a second time at their home. Merrick confirmed Don Paugh’s story about his having dinner at Pasta Jay’s with current Access Grphics employee Tom Carson