Hunt for a Killer Goes On

Three months after John and Patricia Ramsey vowed to cooperate with Boulder County law enforcement in finding the killer of their daughter, they still haven’t granted interviews to police.

Despite expectations that forensic technology would soon unmask the murderer, Boulder authorities are still trying to get DNA tests underway.

And remember those early promises that the killer would be found posthaste? No arrests or filings of charges are in sight.

Thirteen weeks after a killer covered little JonBenet Ramsey’s mouth with duct tape, fractured her skull and tightened a nylon cord around her neck, this much is clear: This remains a labyrinthine homicide case without a whole lot of conclusive evidence.

Never mind the enormous pressure for a quick resolution. Boulder authorities, who have already conducted at least 176 interviews in Colorado and four other states, are preparing for a lengthy investigation.

Boulder Dist. Atty. Alex Hunter, who has a reputation for demanding clear-cut evidence before going to trial, is predicting that it may be several months before he decides whether there is enough evidence to file charges in the case.

“We’re in this for as long as it takes,” he said. “But my instincts tell me that this case will be solved, and we will get a conviction.”

Trouble is, Hunter can’t say when.

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A week ago, legendary Colorado detective Lou Smit the latest law enforcement expert to join the case--entered a newly created high-security office in the bowels of the Boulder County Justice Center for the first time.

In the so-called war room crammed with computers, paper-shredding machines and wall charts, Smit pored over stacks of 3-inch-thick notebooks containing 13,000 pages of police reports on JonBenet, the 6-year-old beauty queen found dead in the basement of her posh Boulder home the day after Christmas.

Large color photographs of the blue-eyed, blond girl have been glued onto the vinyl covers of the volumes by order of the 61-year-old Smit, who was called out of retirement to help solve the case that has filled the media void left by the conclusion of the O.J. Simpson trials.

He is part of a 10-member special prosecution team of seasoned forensic scientists, homicide detectives, child abuse experts and prosecutors formed by the Boulder district attorney’s office to review the mountains of data and find the murderer--and develop a foolproof court strategy.

But in what has become a legal game of cat and mouse, the victim’s parents have assembled their own handpicked team of experts: six attorneys, a former FBI profiler, a private investigator, a handwriting analyst, a DNA expert and a family representative who operates a Web site.

Despite being ostensibly retained to expedite the investigation, the family’s team has been at odds with Boulder authorities over such critical issues as key interviews, handwriting analyses and DNA testing.

The squabbles have resulted in delays in the processing of evidence and added to the confusion surrounding a case that is already rife with rumor and speculation.

Some observers have even begun to wonder if Hunter may ultimately have to go to trial with weak circumstantial evidence, or, as one lawyer put it: “Do a Pontius Pilate--call it a day and blame it on the ineptitude of Boulder police on the first day of their investigation.”

The Boulder police have been widely criticized for their failure to conduct a thorough search of the Ramseys’ 6,000-square-foot Tudor-style home immediately after responding to a 911 call placed by the girl’s mother on the morning of Dec. 26.

Hunter insists that the police did not lose important evidence. He also remains optimistic about the progress of the prosecution team that meets daily in the secure office with covered windows.

“Take Smit, for example. He’s a digger. He’s patient. He is into this case heavy duty,” Hunter said. “This morning in the war room, he put his hands on the notebooks, looked up at me and said, ‘Alex, the answers to this case are right here.’ ”

The last time the former Colorado Springs homicide detective delved into a stack of case books was in January 1995--as he searched for clues in the murder of 13-year-old Heather Dawn Church.

She disappeared from her Black Forest, Colo., home on Sept. 17, 1991. Her remains were found on a nearby road almost exactly two years later.

Smit approached the case as a botched burglary.

Three months later, authorities arrested Heather’s neighbor Robert Charles Browne, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.

Smit is joined by Henry Lee, the renowned forensic scientist who testified on behalf of Simpson; Richard Krugman, former director of the Kempe National Center for Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse in Denver; Barry Scheck, the New York law professor, DNA expert and Simpson lawyer who labeled the Los Angeles Police Department’s evidence laboratory a “black hole”; and four county prosecutors from across Colorado.

Orchestrator of this formidable talent pool is Hunter, Boulder’s district attorney since 1972, who, in an emotionally charged news conference more than a month ago, announced: “I want to say something to the person or persons who committed this crime. . . . Soon there will be no one on the [suspect] list but you.

“You have stripped us of any mercy we might have had at the beginning,” he said. “We’ll see that you pay.”

In a recent interview, Hunter divulged that his suspect list has been narrowed to about “a dozen” individuals. That number may decrease sometime next month when the results of DNA tests on evidence collected at the murder scene become available.

Key DNA analysis of that evidence--reportedly samples of hair, fingernail scrapings and fibers--was temporarily held up while the Ramseys decided whether they wanted a representative on hand to observe the testing.

On the advice of their attorneys, the family on Friday formally turned down an invitation by the Boulder district attorney’s office to observe the work at Cellmark Diagnostics Laboratory in Germantown, Md., saying they had nothing to gain.

“We decided to play it conservative and let them in during the testing,” said Boulder Deputy Dist. Atty. Bill Wise. “Not offering them that opportunity might have jeopardized the use of that evidence--if it is needed--later in court.”

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That delay was minor. Curious and incredulous as it may seem, investigators are still trying to negotiate their first formal interview with JonBenet’s parents. Attorneys for the Ramseys have advised against sitting down with investigators unless certain conditions are met.

Among them: John and Patricia Ramsey want to be interviewed together, accompanied by a physician in case one of them is taken ill.

“That’s unacceptable,” grumbled Hunter. “That’s not the way we do business.”

Another area of contention is the family’s claim that its private investigators have been providing helpful information to the police.

“That is simply not true,” said Hunter, who declined to elaborate.

“Mr. Hunter is incorrect,” countered Rachelle Zimmer, a Denver attorney who recently replaced New York publicist Pat Korten as the Ramseys’ representative.

“[Hunter] may not know what is going on,” Zimmer added, “between members of the Ramsey family’s investigative group, members of his office and the Boulder Police Department.”

In the meantime, hardly a week goes by that the little girl’s face doesn’t appear on the cover of some magazine or at the start of some television news program professing to have “inside information” about the homicide.

No sooner are they aired than these “exclusives” are tempered or dismissed by authorities or the Ramseys. But they point up a problem facing both legal camps: how to simplify the logistics of setting the record straight without being overwhelmed by a crush of intense national media attention.

Contrary to earlier reports, there never was any semen found at the murder scene, and JonBenet’s 20-year-old stepbrother was not in Colorado the day she was killed. In addition, handwriting analyses reportedly shows that JonBenet’s father, a multimillionaire and president of a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corp., did not write a 2 1/2-page ransom note found in his home.

The note, which demanded $118,000 for the girl’s release--an amount equal to John Ramsey’s 1995 company bonus--was found on a back stairway by 40-year-old Patricia Ramsey, a former Miss West Virginia. She came upon it about eight hours before her husband discovered his daughter’s body in the basement.

Patricia Ramsey has not been conclusively ruled out as author of the note, in part because medication she has been taking since her daughter’s death may have altered handwriting samples she has voluntarily provided investigators.

Leaning back in his leather-bound office chair, Hunter said, “This is a tough case, a peculiar case.

“I understand the impatience and desire for swift and sure punishment,” he said. “But I need to take the time necessary to do this job right.”