CHAPTER 13 THE FIRST MEDIA INTERVIEW—CNN

Patsy Ramsey with her husband John (not shown) in their first public media interview on January 1, 1996. Courtesy CNN.

CHRONOLOGY

Wednesday, January 1, 1997—Ramseys give first public interview to CNN.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1, 1997

“WE HAD NO IDEA WE WERE SUSPECTS,” John said about the first media interview he and Patsy gave, which was with CNN. “We knew they would have to look at us first because we were immediate family. We didn’t know about the threatened refusal to return our daughter’s body because our attorneys hadn’t told us. They dealt with it because they thought we couldn’t handle it then, and they were right. We weren’t reading about the case. We knew something about the publicity, but we were concentrating on burying our daughter and the devastation that comes with that. When we did the interview, we were in shock. We really didn’t know what we were doing.”

Patsy agreed. “We didn’t know how the case had already been shaped against us. Our reaction was to help as much as we could. That’s what we thought we were doing with the CNN interview. It was hard for us to understand that the police, who were supposed to support us as innocent people, were actually working to arrest us.”

The decision to talk with Cable News Network (CNN) wasn’t really a decision, both said years later. They just “kind of moved in the direction we were pointed.” According to CNN reporter Brian Cabell, who interviewed the Ramseys, the president of CNN had contacted a Ramsey family friend in order to encourage John and Patsy to communicate with the public to help find their daughter’s killer and correct misperceptions. At this point, John and Patsy were still operating on the assumption that that’s what they were doing, and should do.

Their attorneys, however, had told them not to talk with the media and didn’t know about the January 1 interview until it was airing nationally that night on CNN.

Patsy, who was on heavy anti-anxiety medication and tranquilizers at the time of the interview, did not come off well on camera with her halting and disorganized speech. Her eyes didn’t seem focused. Her voice ranged from calm to almost hysterical. She did not appear sympathetic, according to some viewers, which created a conundrum due to her normally poised appearance and the fact that she had a beauty pageant background. Others who had watched and were asked their opinions after the interview aired said they wondered if perhaps she was guilty.

According to an expert in photojournalism who has studied people under stress in interviews, there is another perspective that should be considered.

“I always thought Patsy had built a wall, albeit psychologically and unconsciously, when she appeared on camera,” said Sonny Hutchison, a partner in High Noon Entertainment, a national television production company. “Every time she faced the glare of cameras, lights and microphones, it was a reminder of her daughter’s death and that she had not prevented it. With that weighing on her, how could she possibly let down her guard, raise her eyes and face the world as the person she was?”

The CNN interview didn’t quell the initial interest in the Ramseys. It exacerbated it. Television and radio talk show hosts sounded off about the couple’s behavior and their answers to questions. Photos and videos of JonBenét in beauty pageants, many of which had been slowed down and had seductive music added, rolled over and over across television screens and dominated newspaper and magazine covers. The glamour, the money, the strange and cruel killing, the ransom note, the inside views being expressed … all of this contributed to an explosion of voyeuristic interest and, along with it, satellite and cable television access.

From the media perspective, the Ramsey murder was viewed as a “great story” that was especially helpful for the numerous news shows required to fill a 24-7 news cycles. The mid-1990s—1994, 1995 and 1996—were just the start of the pressure of the 24-7 news week. Human interest stories were always needed. First, there was Susan Smith, who strapped her two children in car seats and drove her car into a lake to drown them. She initially reported them kidnapped and was found guilty in July 1995. In October 1995, football great O.J. Simpson was acquitted in a criminal trial of the brutal murders of his ex-wife and a friend. Those stories had kept the 24-7 cycle going, and now the media managers, reporters and producers were hungry for more. The Ramsey case stepped right up and provided exactly what was needed. It was a story “with legs” in the media vernacular; one that had the ability to keep going and going and going, creating its own momentum.

CNN had done something unusual with the Ramsey interview, especially since it was of such high interest. They’d edited it. Normally, an interview of this magnitude would be broadcast unedited so viewers could watch, hear and dissect every nuance and expression of the people being interviewed.

CNN’s Brian Cabell has since said the story was edited because the first ten minutes involved just “getting to know them.” “It was edited because we didn’t want to use 45 minutes for a sometimes rambling interview,” he explained. Cabell covered the story in Atlanta and said, “I knew the story was a pretty big deal.”

John felt the editing by CNN had changed the accuracy and total impact of their interview.

John’s Journal:

Media people criticized our interview. She was too emotional.—He wasn’t emotional enough. Interestingly, CNN had cut out the part where I wavered with tears and emotion. We stated during the interview that now that we had properly laid JonBenét to rest, we wanted to return to Boulder to help with the investigation. The police had already leaked the false information that we had refused to be interviewed. That wasn’t true, but was to be the first of many lies told by the police department in unofficial leaks to the press.

During the interview, Patsy made the statement:

There is a killer on the loose. I don’t know who it is. I don’t know if it’s a he or a she. But if I were a resident of Boulder, I would tell my friends to keep your babies close to you.

(CNN, January 1, 1997)

Over the next few days, reactions from Boulder officials were swift, dismissive and accusatory:

Boulder Police Chief Tom Koby:

That’s not rocket science … There is a person who is responsible for a homicide and who has not been apprehended.

(Daily Camera, January 2, 1997)

Boulder Mayor Leslie Durgin, held a nationally televised press conference related to the Ramsey case on Friday, January 3:

It’s not like there is someone walking around the streets of Boulder prepared to strangle young children.

(Daily Camera, January 3, 1997)

There was no forced entry into the house. The person who did it apparently knew the house. That does not imply to me a random act.

(Rocky Mountain News, January 3, 1997)

People in Boulder have no reason to fear there is someone wandering the streets of Boulder looking for someone to attack. Boulder is safe, she said. Boulder is a safe community and will continue to be.

(Rocky Mountain News, January 4, 1997)

NO NEED TO WORRY ABOUT KILLER ON THE LOOSE, COPS AND MAYOR SAY

(Rocky Mountain News, January 3, 1997)

No reason for alarm for residents of Boulder.

(CBS, January 3, 1997)

No killer lurking in the streets … No signs of forced entry, according to Boulder Police.

(CNN, January 4, 1997)

John’s Journal:

It was the start of what was going to develop into a media fabrication of who we were that was fed by police leaks and foolish statements by Boulder’s pinheaded mayor, Leslie Durgin.

The JonBenét Ramsey Murder Book Index provides stark examples that show the mayor and Boulder Police Department were wrong or not being honest about there being no forced entry or access into the Ramsey home on Christmas Day and night, 1996. There are at least 100 windows in the home. More than half opened to the outside. The locks on them were mostly twist-type locks which, according to police, can easily be opened.

One door on the third floor of the Ramsey home opened to the outside. Two doors on the second floor opened to the outside. Six doors on the main floor opened to the outside, plus one more door opened into the garage. The total: ten doors opened to the outside in the Ramsey home, if you included the door from the home into the garage. More than eight areas of possible entry were discovered, including the solarium door, the broken basement window with the suitcase under it and the northeast basement bathroom window.

Window lock.

From the JonBenét Ramsey Murder Book Index:

“Solarium door (facing south): fresh pry mark damage near the dead bolt appeared to be two or three separate and distinct areas of attack. The ‘missing wood chips’ were not located in the vicinity of the door.” (BPD Report #1-59.)

“Living room: three-paned window; a wreath covered the middle pane, which was unlocked but closed. An extension cord ran between the window and its frame and led to the outside.” (BPD Report #1-59.)

“Formal dining room: the middle panes of the eastern- and western-most windows were both closed but unlocked. Statue and flower arrangements were in front of these windows, which prevented the windows from being opened.” (BPD Report #1-59.)

“French door along the west wall: no signs of forced entry to the door, which was ajar.” (BPD Report # 1-59.)

“South rear residence door northwest of the grate: the exterior screen door appeared to have damage in the area of the handle lock consistent with the door being forced open with the lock engaged. It looked like the force supplied to the lock mechanism came from the inside out. No pry marks on the exterior.” (BPD Report #1-59.) The pry marks on this door had been pointed out to Patsy Ramsey the summer before, according to a family friend, but there is no indication in the archive as to whether there were both recent and older pry marks.

“Butler kitchen entrance: non-opening windows are located on either side of the door. No forced entry observed at this location.” There was no forced entry, but an excerpt from interviews with two witnesses state the door was open. When John’s friend arrived at the Ramsey home at 6:01 a.m., he “found the butler kitchen door standing open about one foot while it was still dark outside and before the evidence team or Det. Arndt arrived.” (BPD Report #1-1490, BPD Report # 1-1315.) The time noted was 6 a.m., so it was one of the first things the friend noticed. At 8 a.m., a neighbor whose home was just to the north of the Ramsey home “got up and observed a basement door leading into a kitchen area was standing wide open.” (BPD Report 1-100, Source.) In another report, the same neighbor “said that this door was approximately 1/3 of the way open when he saw it.” Since there was no basement door on the north side of the house (or any other side of the house) that opened to the outside, it is understood that this was the same butler kitchen door the family friend noticed was partially open at 6 a.m. … and told police about.

(Source: JonBenét Ramsey Murder Book Index.)

“Northeast basement bath: two areas on the bottom frame were clear of dust. The impressions were consistent with the application of fingers to the area. The associated area inside the residence showed smudge marks on both walls above and just south of the toilet. A piece of garland similar to that found in the wine cellar [storage area where the child’s body was found] was found stuck to the wall in the east impression.” (BPD #1-59.) The garland had decorated the spiral staircase from the first floor to the second.

“Metal grate: below the broken basement window directly under the grate were observed leaves and other exterior debris.” (BPD Report #1-61.)

The information about the open doors and possible forced entries was never publicly released in its entirety. What was written in the first police reports and leaked to the media and published repeatedly was “No forced entry,” which was not accurate. Even today, some reporters familiar with the case say they weren’t aware there was any evidence of forced entry into the home.

I interviewed former Boulder Mayor Leslie Durgin in June 2010 about her misstatements about “no forced entry” at the Ramsey home.

“The comments were innocent,” Durgin said. “I was not being fed information from Police Chief Koby about the case.”

“We had an agreement that he would not give me information that the full city council did not have,” Durgin told me in a later interview. “The comments were to calm the fears and try to quell some of the media hysteria in the community. There was a slight drumbeat that there was a killer in Boulder stalking young children, and I wanted to send the message there wasn’t.”

Yet in a 1999 documentary, which aired on various cable and network television stations in the U.S. and in Britain, Durgin said she regularly consulted with Chief Koby, and specifically cleared her statement there was not a killer on the loose with him.

From The Case of JonBenét—The Ramseys vs. the Media, (1999 Documentary):

Mayor Leslie Durgin: It was done in large part to allay the fears of the children in our community and to let people know that the information that I had at the time was that we did not have some crazed person wandering the streets of University Hill.

Interviewer: And who did you clear it with?

Mayor Leslie Durgin: The police chief.

But how could she have known that there wasn’t a killer in Boulder stalking young children?

SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1997

District Attorney Alex Hunter returned from his Hawaiian vacation and “couldn’t understand the atmosphere in Boulder and the media attention.” He told a few confidants that maybe he should have come back to Boulder earlier.

Meanwhile, more stories were published or broadcast that involved information acquired from quoted “sources.”

CLUES: NOTE WRITTEN IN HOUSE: PAPER MATCHES PAD IN RAMSEY HOME

(The Denver Post, January 4, 1997)

This information was only partially correct and was detrimental to the Ramseys. Only the killer knew whether the note had been written in the home or not. And yet the story also ran in the Daily Camera and the Rocky Mountain News and on NBC Nightly News. The consistency of the leaks that contributed to public suspicions of the Ramseys continued.

Boulder, Colorado police say there are new and disturbing clues.

(CBS Evening News, January 4, 1997)

The Ramsey story was reported for sixteen consecutive days on all of the four then-dominant national evening newscasts: ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC.1 National, international and local newscasts continued to report on the story for years after.

JANUARY 5, 1997

Ten days after JonBenét’s body was found, the Daily Camera in Boulder summed up the status of the case based on a few details that had been publicly released and on a lot of leaked information from unnamed sources. The story provided significant insights into how some detectives on the case were thinking:

Sources say the investigation is tightly focused on the home, and that key events associated with the murder appear to have taken place in the home.

Police and city of Boulder spokespeople repeatedly have told residents of the city there is no cause to worry that a killer is on the street.

The ransom note appears to have been handwritten inside the house, on paper taken from a pad in the house, casting doubts on whether it was a premeditated crime. Writing in the first portion of the note has been described as “shaky,” then improving.

Questions linger about the methods of the alleged kidnappers: Why kill the girl before giving the Ramseys an opportunity to meet ransom demands? Why not remove the girl from the house? Why request the relatively paltry sum of $118,000? Boulder police sent five detectives to Roswell, Ga., to interview friends and family members of the Ramseys.

Police were not casting a “wide net for suspects.”

The Ramsey attorneys, stating that they couldn’t handle the onslaught of requests from the media for information, hired a media consultant. The media consultant was quickly labeled a “paid spokesman,” “publicity relations manager” and a “spin doctor” in the ensuing weeks of reporting. This was an untenable situation, according to a well-known defense attorney in Denver, in which the media used the Ramsey lawyers’ response to its own demands to further condemn the family.