Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [79]
I came to Boulder in 1972 and went to the University of Colorado law school. After graduating, I got a job in Brighton, Colorado, as a deputy district attorney. Fifteen years later I was elected district attorney of Adams County, and reelected in 1996.
Hunter’s approach to the Ramsey case is vintage Alex Hunter. We have Hunter saying, “Homicides I understand intellectually, but I don’t understand them experientially.” He never says, “I can take care of this. I’m Superman.” He looks for people who have experience, gets them together, and sees what they have to say. He’s got a prosecutor’s heart in a Boulder body. You could write volumes and volumes about that.
When we first met with Alex, he said, “I’m not abdicating my responsibility. I just hope you guys will help me.
“I don’t want you to take my heat,” he said. “If something goes wrong, I want you to understand that it’s all on me. That’s what I’m elected to do, and that’s what I want to do. But I need you to be candid and tell me everything and anything you can. Please don’t hold anything back. I’m just looking to suck things out of you.” Frankly, I don’t think I would have done what he did.
Hunter wanted our input about some specific evidentiary areas. He asked us what we thought about the direction he was thinking of pursuing. He wanted to know where we felt he was off base. “Is there something I’m not thinking about?” he asked. He took our experiences away with him. Now he’s attempting to adjust his relationship with the police in a complex case.
—Bob Grant
By now the DA’s office and Chief Koby had agreed that there was a case against the Ramseys based on probable cause.* But Hunter wanted to see evidence that proved their quilt beyond a reasonable doubt.** Some detectives believed that the department’s time and energy should be used to obtain the evidence to support beyond a reasonable doubt. Pete Hofstrom, however, didn’t see it that way. The officers, he said, should march out and investigate the entire case and not only the case against the Ramseys. Let the evidence fall where it fell naturally. If it filled the gap between probable cause and reasonable doubt, that would be OK, but he didn’t want the detectives to exclude anything that supported the notion that someone other than John or Patsy Ramsey had committed the murder. It was hard, though, because there weren’t enough detectives to do both jobs, and Eller wouldn’t request help from outside the Boulder PD.
Now that Larry Mason had been taken off the case, the police had to reinterview everyone he had spoken to during the first days of the investigation. The interview subjects were told Mason’s notes and tapes had been lost, which wasn’t true. Boulder detectives were required to write their own reports and transcribe their interview tapes, but Mason hadn’t yet done this when he was suspended on January 5, and nobody else in the department was likely to do his work for him.
On January 27, Detective Jane Harmer interviewed Suzanne Savage, one of JonBenét’s baby-sitters, who had a key to the Ramseys’ home. She told Harmer she had given a key to another helper, Linda Wilcox. The day after the murder, Mason had asked Savage if Burke and JonBenét got along. Yes, she said. Did the two kids do any roughhousing? Did they get very physical with each other? No, said Savage. Mason’s conversation with the baby-sitter had focused on the possibility that the family might be involved in JonBenét’s death. Harmer’s focus was different. What did JonBenét like to wear? Was she potty-trained? Savage repeatedly told Harmer that she only knew the family well when JonBenét was three. Since 1993, Savage had sat for the Ramseys only twice. Harmer still wanted to know if JonBenét had wet the bed on the nights Savage was there. No, she said. Would JonBenét cry if she was woken up? She might have when she was three, said Savage, but she had no idea about now. Back then, JonBenét had been a sound sleeper, and so was Burke. Then Harmer asked Savage if she knew whether John or Patsy were having