Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [76]
—Patricia Towle
National Enquirer, January 21, 1997
On January 21, Bryan Morgan hand-delivered his reply to John Eller’s letter concerning the Ramseys’ interviews. Morgan rejected the police department’s request that the Ramseys be interviewed on Friday, January 24. In his letter, he characterized Eller’s conditions as cruel and insensitive. To start an interview at 6:00 P.M. without a cutoff time meant that they could still be sitting there at 1:00 in the morning.
That same day, Patsy’s attorney, Patrick Burke, met with Pete Hofstrom to discuss the CBI’s insistence that only representatives of charged persons had the right to observe their physical evidence tests. Hofstrom, who may not have understood the law, suggested to Burke that he could designate the Ramseys as suspects for the purpose of permitting a representative to witness the testing. Burke said he would discuss the matter with his clients. Burke, solidly built at forty-seven, had once served as assistant attorney general for Colorado and, before that, had been a public defender. Hofstrom knew that beneath Burke’s sweet-guy demeanor was a tough opponent.
The next day Burke hand-delivered a letter to Hofstrom, agreeing to Hofstrom’s suggestion designating the Ramseys as suspects for the sole purpose of allowing their representatives to observe the testing procedures.
When Carl Whiteside was told about Burke’s reply, he faxed a formal letter to Alex Hunter stating that he would not let any of the Ramsey representatives observe the CBI’s testing unless the Ramseys were “charged defendants.” That was the way he read the law. He would not accept Hofstrom’s “designated suspects,” and he had made his position clear in Hunter’s office. The next day, Hofstrom told Burke the CBI’s reading of the law, and Burke withdrew his approval for the Ramseys to be named “designated suspects.” But Burke voiced no objection to the CBI’s tests as long as they did not destroy or consume the evidence.
In the meantime, the Ramseys’ attorneys had been looking for a prominent DNA expert to represent them. They contacted Barry Scheck, who at the time hadn’t been called by Hunter’s office but who later said on the Larry King show that he declined any association with the Ramseys.
During the same week, the CBI discovered that the stain found on JonBenét’s panties contained the DNA of more than one individual. JonBenét’s DNA was the major component, but there was a minor component consisting of DNA from another person—or possibly more than one. The CBI told the police that the Ramseys’ neighbor Joe Barnhill could be tentatively excluded as a source for the minor component of DNA, if the minor component came from one source, but that he could not be eliminated if the minor component originated from two or more sources. Further testing would take several months, the lab said.
A week later, on January 30, the police asked the Barnhills’ boarder, Glenn Meyer, for another handwriting sample, the first one having shown some similarities to the writing in the ransom note.
Meanwhile, Detectives Thomas and Gosage were still working on the list of Access Graphics ex-employees, and on January 21 and 22 they interviewed Bud and Sandra Henderson, who each owed Access Graphics $18,000.
Bud Henderson had come to Colorado in 1971 and married his fourth wife, Sandra Chiselbrook, in 1984. That year the couple started Henderson Technology, which sold telecommunications equipment. One of their suppliers was CAD Distributors of Boulder. Henderson purchased equipment from CAD Distributors, while Sandra went to work for Jim Hudson, who owned the company. Before long she became operations manager, supervising the employees who took the orders and shipped the merchandise. Then CAD merged with John Ramsey’s Atlanta company and CAD Sources of Piscataway, New Jersey. This is the combination that became known as Access Graphics, with John Ramsey as president.
Henderson Technology ordered equipment from Access Graphics,