They weren’t finished talking. On Thursday, at a surprise press conference, the Ramseys insisted they had nothing to do with their daughter’s death. “I’m appalled that anyone would think that John or I would be involved in such a hideous, heinous crime,” Patsy said, staring down the camera. It made great TV, but the Ramseys’ sudden coming out seemed to raise more questions than it answered. Did they decide to cooperate with police because they have nothing to hide–or because they’re worried the cops might be closing in? Was the press conference a plea to find a killer, or a calculated attempt to seize control of public opinion and play on the emotions of potential jurors?
Though District Attorney Alex Hunter has said publicly that the Ramseys are the focus of his investigation, much of the evidence that may point to them–or someone close to them–is circumstantial. There were no footprints found in the snow outside the house, for example, and no signs of forced entry. A partial draft of the ransom note was found inside the house, and the note itself includes details only the Ramseys or someone who knew them well would have been familiar with–chiefly the amount of his year-end bonus and details about his military training. The note seemed to point to somebody who worked with John at his company, Access Graphics, and the Ramseys gave police their list of suspects, which included associates and former employees. And though handwriting experts have ruled out John as the author of the note, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab is still scrutinizing Patsy’s handwriting samples. Meanwhile, investigators are still waiting for potentially crucial DNA testing to be completed. In a city where there was just one homicide last year– this one–people are wondering: can this case be cracked?
When she at last emerged from police questioning, Patsy Ramsey was escorted to yet another room just down the hall. It was the office of Alex Hunter–probably the last man she wanted to see at that moment. But he hadn’t called Patsy in for a second grilling. Instead, he offered her his office while she waited for police to finish questioning her husband. For two hours she sat, perched in a chair facing a framed portrait of JFK, and scribbled drawings by Hunter’s children. She coolly deflected Hunter’s attempts at small talk, and he soon left her alone.
Though he’d been watching them for months, Hunter hadn’t met either of the Ramseys until that morning. Up to then, the couple would communicate with authorities only through the lawyers and other spokesmen they quickly hired after the murder. Neither side could agree on the terms for an interview. At last, and without explanation, the Ramseys agreed to the investigators’ terms, with one unusual condition: they wanted to see the police report taken at the time of the murder.
They arrived at the Justice Center at 8 a.m. Soft-spoken and congenial, Hunter spent an hour introducing the Ramseys to his staff before Patsy was brought into the interview room. She was directed to a stiff-backed chair across a table from Hunter’s chief prosecutor and two Boulder police officers dressed in suits. Alongside her sat her lawyer and a private investigator. While Patsy was being questioned, John Ramsey went to his own office to wait his turn.
Then, on Wednesday night, a family spokesperson phoned a small group of Colorado reporters to tell them about a private press conference the Ramseys would hold at an undisclosed location. Be in Boulder at 10 a.m., they were told. The invitation came with a warning: if word gets out, the deal is off. The reporters were told to go to the Marriot Courtyard hotel, where they would be asked for a password: “subtract.”
Inside the hotel room, with the cameras rolling, the Ramseys answered the questions they clearly knew were on people’s minds: Did they kill JonBenet? Why were they so quick to hire lawyers? Why had they refused to talk to the police for so long? Ramsey said he felt that “an interrogation of us was a waste of our time and waste of the police time.”
Hunter and his team weren’t impressed. “Are you still crying?” mocked one law enforcement officer after seeing the interview. But to many who watched the session, the Ramseys were convincing. And prosecution sources tell NEWSWEEK that the couple was controlled in their interview with police. “It was more than just actressing,” says one source, who described Patsy as “very charming, very collected.”
Hunter’s best chance at solving the four-month-old mystery may lie in test results he has yet to receive. DNA experts Cellmark Labs in Maryland are examining clippings from JonBenet’s fingernails for genetic material. And investigators have asked for a fifth handwriting sample from Patsy. Sources tell NEWSWEEK, however, that authorities aren’t counting on the results. A good defense attorney can explain away the presence of someone else’s DNA under fingernails, and handwriting analysis is often discredited in court. The police may do a chemical test that could reveal a palm print on the ransom note–but that process would destroy the document. Meanwhile, the crime scene was tainted when police allowed John Ramsey, among others, to search the house the day after the murder. At some point, Hunter will be forced to make a decision: should he gather the evidence he has and go to trial–or risk consigning a celebrated case to the unsolved file.
