Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [70]
Thomas and Gosage then interviewed Access Graphics employees David Harrington, Susan Richart, and Jim Hudson and a former sales representative, James Marino. Detective Thomas told Marino, “I know you didn’t have anything to do with this. I just need for you to answer a few questions so we can cross your name off the list.” The detectives found nothing out of the ordinary about any of them. For the time being they were cleared.
Several days later, Thomas and Gosage returned to Access Graphics and interviewed Gary Merriman again. A month later, Merriman would be asked by police to write the figure 118,000 over and over again, although he was never asked if he knew the amount of John Ramsey’s bonus for the year. He did. It was within pennies of $118,000. After his seventh handwriting sample, Merriman felt he’d written enough to fill the Library of Congress. “If you need more, come back with handcuffs,” Merriman told the detectives.
That was when they said they didn’t think he’d killed JonBenét but that he might have written the note.
Appalled, Merriman said, “I want you to repeat to me what you just said.”
The detective repeated it.
“The next time you come into my office,” Merriman said, “I’m having my attorney here.”
In fact, his lawyer was present when the police returned for another handwriting sample. Gary Merriman understood that if his son had been killed, he’d want the cops to suspect everyone—his neighbors, the dog catcher, the milkman. Everybody. Nevertheless, he still felt he had to protect himself.
RAMSEYS HIRE FORMER FBI AGENT
Former FBI agent John Douglas, the inspiration for one of the central characters in the movie “Silence of the Lambs,” has been hired by John and Patsy Ramsey to help investigate the murder of their daughter, JonBenét.
Douglas, former head of the FBI’s behavioral science unit in Quantico, VA, worked on the Unabomber case, the Tylenol poisoning and other high-profile cases.
—Mike McPhee and Mary George The Denver Post, January 14, 1997
6-YEAR-OLD BEAUTY QUEEN’S MURDER
HOW DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL REALLY DIED
UNTOLD STORY OF THE MURDER
Authorities are convinced JonBenét’s death is a murder disguised as a kidnapping—and believe the little girl may have known her killer!
Sometime during the night after JonBenét’s mom tucked her into bed, the killer crept into the girl’s bedroom, not far from where her parents slept, and carried her silently to a little-used basement wine cellar.
The beauty queen was bundled in a blanket and her mouth covered with duct tape. Her skull was fractured by a blow…and she was sexually molested!
Then the killer wrapped a cord around her neck and used a wooden handle to twist the cord tighter and tighter around her neck until it choked the life out of her little body.
—David Wright and David Duffy National Enquirer, January 14, 1997
Early in the afternoon of January 14, Joann Hanks, the office manager of McGuckin Hardware in Boulder, received a phone call from an anxious-sounding man who identified himself only as John. He said that looking over his American Express bill, he had discovered two charges made by his wife, Patsy Ramsey, on December 2 and December 9, for $46.31 and $99.88, and he wanted to know what they were for. Hanks recognized the name Ramsey. She told John that since the purchases were from more than thirty days ago, the records had been purged from her computer and she’d have to do a hand search. Ramsey said he’d call back on January 20. Hanks told McGuckin’s head of security, John Christie, about the call, and he notified the Boulder police.