Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [72]
While John was low-key, Patsy was off the scale as an extrovert. Once John made a mildly sarcastic remark: “Patsy spent more money renovating the house than I did buying it.” As I got to know John better, I saw the impact of his older daughter’s death on him. Beth was her name. He was just eaten up inside. He read a lot to try to come to terms with it. It changed him.
Our families went on getaways together, sometimes into the mountains, where we stayed at our family’s condo. We did the usual things families do—we skied, we cooked our own meals. Just hung out. In the summer we hiked. There was never any display of money on John’s part. John enjoyed being outside. He loved Boulder. He loved his kids, and whenever I saw them, he always gave JonBenét and Burke equal time. He invited my family over for dinner several times. Patsy cooked.
The speculation that I ended on bad terms with John is just not true. In October, just before JonBenét died, I was trying to get John on our board of directors, but our bylaws limited the number of directors. At the same time, he was in discussions with Lockheed about possibly reacquiring Access Graphics and going public. So all this other stuff is just gossip, innuendo, and gross speculation. When I left, Jim Hudson was just coming back to run the European and Canadian operations.
I’d blow into town every couple of months and I’d call John or whoever was in town and we’d have dinner. I’d hoist a few.
—Mike Glynn
During the following week, Thomas and Gosage continued their interviews with Access Graphics employees. Michael Minard and Jason Perkins, who Don Paugh had noticed at the dinner at Pasta Jay’s, were questioned. Curtis Fisher, a close friend of John Ramsey’s and a consultant to Access Graphics, was also interviewed. The police had heard that Fisher and Ramsey had a disagreement, and they found it interesting that Fisher left Access Graphics just before Christmas. In their interviews with him, however, Fisher said he had left the firm on friendly terms. On the morning of December 26, he had been on his way to San Antonio.
When they reached the end of their interviews with company employees, the police had not yet uncovered any evidence to suggest a link to the murder of JonBenét.
9
Though the Ramseys were the unofficial target of the police investigation, less and less of the forensic evidence turned out to point to them. At the same time, none of it pointed to anyone else.
Since the autopsy, the police had thought there was semen on JonBenét’s upper thighs. Then, on January 15, the CBI came back with the analysis. The substance thought to be semen was in fact smeared blood. There was no semen. JonBenét’s body had been wiped clean, leaving a residue that was visible under the flourescent light at the autopsy.
This news changed everything, drastically.
The DA’s staff knew the police now had to delete “slam dunk” from their vocabulary. Clearly, the CBI’s findings disturbed Commander Eller even more than they did Pete Hofstrom. There was no evidence that John Ramsey or any other sexually mature male had ejaculated on the body. But the vaginal injuries the coroner had found, as the police detectives observed, certainly suggested sexual contact.
For his part, Hofstrom saw that the case seemed to be slipping away from the police, that there would be a very bumpy road ahead before the perpetrator could be identified, indicted, and convicted.
THE RAMSEY TEAM
PARENTS OF SLAIN GIRL HAVE AT LEAST 9 PROFESSIONALS WORKING ON THE CASE
Experts say John and Patsy Ramsey already have spent well over $100,000 on their investigation into the murder of their daughter.
[They have retained] nine professionals, including three high-powered lawyers, a Washington, D.C. publicist, a former FBI criminal profiler, two Denver private investigators, and two handwriting analysts.
—Charlie Brennan
Rocky Mountain News, January 19, 1997
On January 19, I was sitting on a bench by the church’s side entrance with a friend of mine. The photographers were still camped outside.
My