Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [77]
“Where in the hell did the money go?” an infuriated Bud asked Sandra.
“We spent it,” she answered.
Henderson later said that his wife had agreed to pay off the debt over the next twelve months, made only one payment, and then defaulted. Within a week Access Graphics fired Sandra Henderson when it was discovered that she had altered Henderson Technology’s account at Access. Henderson said that his wife tried to delete the balance that was owed.
The company that bonded Access Graphics employees paid the firm $100,000, leaving a balance of about $40,000 to be paid. The Hendersons made one payment of $4,000 before they divorced in 1995. In family court, their outstanding obligation of $36,000 was divided into two notes for $18,000 each. By then, Henderson believed that John Ramsey was furious at him and his ex-wife.
He told the police that on the night of JonBenét’s murder, he had been alone but had no witnesses to provide an alibi. Sandra’s alibi checked out. She was at the Independence halfway house, having just been released from jail on an unrelated charge.
During the interview, Detective Thomas gave Henderson a sheet of paper containing some typed words, handed him a pen, and asked him to print the words in capital letters—sometimes two, three, and four times. Henderson had to write out the words so many times that he memorized them. The police also took strands of hair from his head but didn’t ask for a blood sample. When they asked him to take a polygraph, he refused.
A month later, Henderson was asked for another handwriting sample. Now the police wanted both capital and lowercase letters. Detective Thomas tried hard to persuade him to take a lie detector test because the police needed to eliminate suspects. You’re just one of several suspects that need to be eliminated, Thomas told him.
Later in the year, Detective Melissa Hickman called him. Come down and take a blood test, she said. Later Hickman was taken off the case and the calls stopped. Bud Henderson never gave a blood sample and never took a polygraph test.
Everything they asked me to write was from the ransom note. I wondered if the police had my telephone tapped. You have to wonder, what do you say over the phone? You start to think people are following you. Every time I walk into a restaurant, go into a bar, the first thing I do is ask myself, Who in the hell do you see in here that looks like a detective? I’ve been stopped twice for absolutely no reason. They say I was weaving. They check my ID. These are Boulder cops.
I hear a knock on my door, I open it, and a video camera is running. The interviewer sticks a microphone in my face. “Have the police talked to you?”
Hard Copy went and taped Sandra going to prison. The media knew we owed Access Graphics money. How they found out, I don’t know. One writer told me Sandra orchestrated JonBenét’s murder from prison to get back at John. I have one friend that calls me “Killer.”
Finally I did a long interview for Hard Copy and American Journal. It wasn’t a hell of a lot of money.
I still get calls. A call a week. From Hollywood, from New York, even from the Daily Camera.
—Bud Henderson
Meanwhile, producers for TV shows such as Extra and Hard Copy started calling the Ramseys’ housekeeper, Linda Hoffmann-Pugh. She received so many calls that eventually she got an unlisted number. Then reporters started knocking on her door. One day, after she had stopped answering the door, someone from the National Enquirer left a note under her door, offering her $20,000 and a trip to Florida. That was enough money to buy a new car, which the family needed, so she agreed to give the tabloid an interview.
The Enquirer