CHAPTER 23

COLORADO GOVERNORS

Colorado Governor Roy Romer

Colorado Governor Bill Owens

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter.

CHRONOLOGY

1987 to 1999—Governor Roy Romer, a three-term Democrat, was governor when JonBenét Ramsey was murdered in 1996. He chose not to run for a fourth term.

1999 to 2007—Republican Governor Bill Owens served two terms, from 1999 until 2007, and was term-limited out of office. He was in office during the continuing Ramsey investigation.

2007 to 2011—Democratic Governor Bill Ritter served one term and chose not to run for a second term. Ritter had been a Denver district attorney in 1998 when he was appointed by Governor Romer to serve on a task force to advise Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter on the Ramsey murder investigation.

PEOPLE IN THIS CHAPTER

Trip DeMuth—Worked on the Ramsey murder investigation as a deputy district attorney in Boulder. The district attorney task force advising DA Hunter told him that Demuth must be taken off from the case. He was removed by Hunter.

Troy Eid—Governor Owens’s chief legal counsel who served on the Governor’s District Attorney Task Force to determine if there would be a special prosecutor. Eid later became US Attorney in the District of Colorado.

Bob Grant—Adams County district attorney who was one of four district attorneys advising DA Hunter under Governor Romer’s mandate.

Hal Haddon—One of John Ramsey’s attorneys.

Peter Hofstrom—Worked on the murder investigation as the chief deputy district attorney in Boulder. The Governor’s Task Force advising DA Hunter advised him that Hofstrom be removed from the case. He was removed by Hunter.

Alex Hunter—Boulder County district attorney

Bryan Morgan—John Ramsey’s lead attorney

Ken Salazar—Colorado attorney general who served on the Governor’s Task Force to determine if there would be a special prosecutor. Salazar later became a US senator from Colorado and then Secretary of the Interior under the Obama administration from 2009 to 2013.

Lou Smit—Retired Colorado Springs homicide detective hired by Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter with approval from the Boulder Police Department in order to increase experience, neutrality and professionalism on the case.

IT WAS INEVITABLE that the Ramsey murder investigation would become the hottest political currency in Colorado. Eventually it resulted in Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter removing two of his attorneys from the case: the chief deputy DA, who was his second-in-charge, and a deputy district attorney working with others on organizing and analyzing Boulder Police Department reports.

As weeks turned into months and months into years, the investigation into the brutal death of JonBenét Ramsey developed into a grim deadlock with pressure on all sides from higher-ups to stop the incessant bickering and resolve the case once and for all. It became a political liability for those who didn’t try to fix it, as reflected by the several newspaper editorials asking that the governor become involved.

Governor Roy Romer (1987–1999) wanted to “fix the mess” of the investigation that was reflecting badly on Colorado. Romer’s dilemma was compounded when, in August 1998, Boulder Detective Steve Thomas, who had resigned while on medical leave, venomously blasted the investigation. “I believe the district attorney’s office is thoroughly compromised,” Thomas said. A central “Patsy did it” proponent, he shared his resignation letter with the media. It was dated August 6, 1998, which would have been JonBenét’s eighth birthday. “It is my belief the district attorney’s office has effectively crippled the case,” Thomas wrote. “The time for intervention is now.”

Shortly afterward, Detective Lou Smit, who supported the intruder theory in the case, resigned on September 20, 1998 with a letter of explanation: “They [the BPD] are just going in the wrong direction and have been since day one of the investigation,” Smit stated.

Romer had already sought advice from several people about what he should do to bring the fractured investigation to a satisfactory conclusion by controlling the infighting in Boulder and bringing the killer to justice. He ultimately asked for input from four experienced Denver-area district attorneys who made up his appointed Governor’s District Attorney Task Force.

Romer said, “I listened carefully to what [my] district attorney advisers told me because all four were experienced and successful prosecutors.” Two of those district attorneys, Bob Grant and Bill Ritter, agreed there were three options. One was to appoint the attorney general in Colorado to act as a special prosecutor in the case. They quickly dismissed that option, however, because the attorney general’s office did not necessarily have the expertise or the time. The second option was to remove the Boulder district attorney from the case and appoint a special prosecutor from a metro-area district attorney’s office, assuming the special prosecutor would have some neutrality. The third option: bolster the Boulder district attorney’s staff with experienced outside prosecutors and leave the Boulder DA in place. Unfortunately, “bolstering” the staff evolved into “removing” the current staff from the case.

“Governor Romer made the final decision,” said Grant, the Adams County district attorney at the time. “I advised him I thought the better of the options was to bring in new attorneys for the Boulder district attorney’s office and to not appoint a special prosecutor. I made my recommendation on the fact that I felt it was important to keep the case in Boulder. But it was the governor’s decision.”

Then Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter recommended the same, because he felt a special prosecutor involving a Denver-area district attorney “would be a very significant undertaking for any prosecutor’s office. One that I felt my office couldn’t undertake because we had so many cases and weren’t staffed to take this on.” Ritter felt the best solution was to bring in new attorneys.

Romer gave Boulder DA Hunter a Hobson’s choice: call for a grand jury in Boulder and remove two of his attorneys from the case, or be removed himself and replaced by a special prosecutor.

Hunter found out about the change in his role in mid-August 1998, when he walked into a meeting with the Governor’s District Attorney Task Force with a smile on his face, apparently believing he was in charge and could “use a little advice,” according to First Assistant DA Bill Wise. Hunter walked out of the meeting silent and withdrawn.

“It was him or them,” said Wise, who had waited outside the meeting room for Hunter, as had Chief Deputy DA Peter Hofstrom, who would be taken off the case. “He had no choice but to fire his own people from the case, receive continuing advice from the Governor’s District Attorney Task Force and hire their recommendations for the three new attorneys who would be in charge of the grand jury.”

In making their recommendations, Grant and Ritter took sides: both advocated for new attorneys, which meant removal of DA Hunter’s people, Peter Hofstrom and Trip DeMuth.

“I have great respect for both Peter and Trip, but it is important to remember this was the first homicide in 1996 in Boulder, and it did strike me that there was a different level of homicide experience in the new prosecutors who would be brought in,” Ritter said. “It was about the experience level needed to take on a high-profile homicide case. There needed to be a different skill set … In my mind, the most important thing was to staff this case and staff it appropriately. How do you staff it? How do you staff it so you have the most competent prosecutors to investigate a high-profile homicide that was gaining international attention? And, in my mind, ultimately, that was done.”

Ritter, who would later become governor of Colorado, selected two of the three new prosecutors who would take over the Ramsey murder case. He chose one from his office and advised DA Hunter on another. Grant selected one from his office. The prosecutors who were chosen had district attorney backgrounds and, by nature of their jobs, had worked closely with police in the past on homicide cases.

The two attorneys removed from the case who had worked in the Boulder DA’s office, Peter Hofstrom and Trip DeMuth, were considered by the Ramsey lawyers to be capable and fair. Boulder police commanders had determined just the opposite about them, however, complaining that the prosecutors were unfairly helping the Ramseys and their attorneys. Both prosecutors helped organize and coordinate incoming evidence from BPD police officers. And neither automatically accepted the “Ramseys did it” theory favored by the Boulder Police Department.

Both Hofstrom and DeMuth had been involved in the Ramsey murder investigation since the afternoon of the first day after the discovery of JonBenét’s body. One had been on the scene. The other advised BPD officials. Their removal from the case took their experience of the investigation with them.

For the Ramsey lawyers, the decision to switch prosecutors on the case was devastating. Morgan remembers being called to Chief Deputy DA Hofstrom’s office. “Peter was very quiet and told me, ‘This will be the last time I can talk to you about this case. We’ve been removed from this case. Trip and I.’” Hofstrom continued, “I want you to know that Trip and I are very comfortable with what we’ve done on this case.”

Morgan said he was “stunned, because to me, Peter was the firewall, standing firm regardless of the politics. I don’t ever remember being lower in my life. Pete Hofstrom and Trip DeMuth were honest and straightforward. But no array of facts could get the Boulder Police Department to change their devil theory that the Ramseys were guilty.

“The problem was never with the prosecutors,” Morgan added. “They were knowledgeable and completely informed of the facts. The problem was with the investigators, mainly the Boulder Police Department, because of their unrelenting bias against the Ramseys.”

When Morgan objected publicly about the removal of the two attorneys, the counterattack against him in the rumor/gossip arena stated that Morgan was a close friend of Chief Deputy DA Peter Hofstrom, and therefore neither Hofstrom nor Morgan could deal with the case objectively.

Defense attorney Hal Haddon said about the decision, “Alex Hunter wanted everyone to get along, and I give him a lot of credit, at least until Peter Hofstrom and Trip DeMuth were purged. That’s when prosecutors who were pro-police and thus anti-Ramsey were put in place. Up until then, Alex had wanted to do the right thing, not the expedient thing.”

What wasn’t being said was that a special prosecutor could have brought in his own investigators, instead of using BPD investigators, by borrowing detectives from other jurisdictions or getting approval to hire detectives from outside Boulder. This would have had the effect of starting over inside both the district attorney’s office and the police department and ensuring more of a clean sweep with regard to the Ramsey murder investigation.

“Changing the police agency was on the table from the beginning,” Grant later recalled. “Governor Romer was concerned with police and the DA’s office. Legally, though, he could only appoint an attorney general or a special prosecutor. The governor did not have the right to replace the local law enforcement agency. The police agency has to ask for assistance, which they had initially refused to do, or a special prosecutor could replace the police investigators.

“Hunter was still the district attorney on the Ramsey case under the new agreement. The new prosecutors did not ask to have police replaced, or Hunter did not agree to have them replaced.” Grant added, “Governor Romer understood his options. And it was very clear that Alex Hunter understood the governor’s options. Romer decided his special district attorney task force would appoint experienced prosecutors. Hunter knew what it meant.”

As Ritter has put it, “Hindsight is 20-20 about changing the police on the investigation.” At the time he supported part of the deal in “bringing in a retired Denver police lieutenant who had vast homicide experience and would assist on the police side of the case.” That retired Denver homicide detective was Tom Haney. According to BPD and DA investigators who were present at private meetings with Haney, the former Denver investigator voiced his opinion at such meetings that the Ramseys had been involved in their daughter’s death. Haney has said that’s not true, that he was neutral. He added that he had refused a job offer from the Ramsey defense attorneys as an investigator very early in the case because, as he told them, he wasn’t able in his mind to switch from “homicide detective to defense investigator.”

In September 1998, a grand jury was seated on the Ramsey case. The three newly appointed attorneys, who had replaced the two DA attorneys removed from the case, were actively running the new grand jury. The four district attorneys from the Governor’s Task Force, including Grant and Ritter, were sworn in as officers of the grand jury and acted in an advisory capacity. Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter was also in the grand jury room for every session but did not run the hearings.

In 2010, former Governor Romer talked about the “no choice” he had given Hunter. “I felt this was the right decision then, and I believe it still is.”

The Ramsey case percolated on low until October 13, 1999, when DA Hunter announced the Boulder grand jury had reached its decision, and Hunter had decided there would be no indictment. The grand jury had reviewed evidence related to the investigation over a period of thirteen months.

At that point, Governor Bill Owens entered the fray. In office since January, Owens involved himself in the case by vaulting into the constituency of people who wanted John and Patsy Ramsey tried and found guilty of the murder of their daughter. He pushed this agenda with incendiary remarks that gained him valuable national airtime again and again, providing him with exposure that served to redeem his political career in the eyes of many who had followed a very close gubernatorial election in Colorado the previous fall.

Owens announced that he would consider a special prosecutor for the case and soon appointed a committee composed of prosecutors, the attorney general and a Colorado Supreme Court judge to advise him about his options.

John and Patsy Ramsey were desperate to talk with that committee. “We wanted a special prosecutor,” they each said at different times, adding their belief that continuing the investigation with someone outside Boulder would increase the likelihood of finding their daughter’s killer.

While the committee was making its decision, the main defense attorneys, Burke, Haddon and Morgan, sent a letter to the governor. They had spoken with one of the committee members, Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar,1 who had said he was concerned the committee process might be viewed as a media event and wanted to assure Haddon that he was objective. In that conversation, Haddon reiterated that the Ramseys were willing to cooperate and meet with the committee. Salazar recommended that the Ramsey attorneys contact the governor.

In their letter to the governor, Burke, Haddon and Morgan wrote: “The Ramseys ‘(plural)’ would be willing to meet with that group.” The letter continued by stating there were “very capable detectives who worked on the case and who did not share the Boulder Police view that the Ramseys were involved in their daughter’s murder” and suggesting that these detectives also talk with the committee.

According to Hal Haddon, “Attorney General Salazar said that while he was a member of the group, [Governor Owens’s counsel,] Troy Eid² was the person to whom these requests should be conveyed.” On October 15, 1999, Haddon called Eid and, when he got Eid’s voice-mail, left a message that reiterated what the letter from his firm to the governor stated.

Eid wrote back to Haddon, saying he understood only John Ramsey had offered to talk with the committee and not Patsy, and that Haddon had been “inaccurate.” Regardless, the committee did not ask John, Patsy or the recommended BPD detectives to talk before them. It heard only what the grand jury heard.

As an investigative reporter for KUSA-TV in Denver at that time, I spoke with Governor Owens about whether he would talk with the parents of JonBenét Ramsey. I told him I was aware both of them wanted to talk to him. The governor told me there were considerations I was not aware of, and he wouldn’t discuss sitting down and talking with the Ramseys.

I also spoke to Patsy in a phone conversation she wanted kept off the record at the time. She told me, “Both John and I are begging our attorneys for us to talk with the governor or his committee. They agree. But the governor won’t talk with us. I don’t understand why he won’t.”

The explanation of why John and Patsy were not called to talk with the committee came from the governor’s attorney, Troy Eid, who served on that committee. “We looked at no new evidence whatsoever. That was not our role,” Eid has said. “The Governor appointed a Special Prosecution Task Force that, among other things, double-checked what DA Hunter did and, based on a review of the admissible evidence his office collected, did not find probable cause to believe his office had erred by not charging someone with a crime. It would be an extreme injustice for a Governor and the State Attorney General to undo a local DA’s decision unless that DA had engaged in misconduct. The Governor appointed some of the state’s most respected legal experts—including the retired Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court—to determine independently whether Hunter erred in not prosecuting based on the admissible evidence his office had collected. The task force determined that there was no probable cause for Hunter to charge either the Ramseys or anyone else, in connection with this terrible crime. The Ramseys were not called before the task force because they did not testify before the grand jury.” Yet Detective Lou Smit, who eventually did testify before the grand jury, was not asked to testify before the Governor’s Special Prosecution Task Force even though he asked to. The decision on who would appear before the committee was made by the Governor and Eid, according to two of the committee members.

In an October 27, 1999 news conference, Governor Owens said “no” to appointing a special prosecutor to the Ramsey murder case. During the news conference, which reporters had expected to be a basic question-and-answer session, Owens took a surprising tack, using the force and credibility of his office to launch a full frontal assault on John and Patsy Ramsey and their right to be presumed innocent.

“Quit hiding behind your attorneys,” Owens said, speaking directly into the microphones and looking straight into reporters’ cameras. He was talking to the Ramseys through the assembled media. “Quit hiding behind your public relations firm. Come back to Colorado and work with us to find the killers in this case, no matter where that trail may lead.”

Ramsey attorney Haddon was furious. “Owens was not qualified, was uninformed and simply decided to publicize himself in a case where he became another person victimizing these tragic people,” he said. “Except that he had the powerful platform as the Governor of Colorado. It was a cynical ploy to get national television exposure, which he got, by pandering to public sentiment.”

While the Ramsey defense attorneys did hire a public relations firm at the beginning of the case “to handle the media onslaught,” that contract ended in 1997, almost two years before Owens criticized the Ramseys for it.

In his October 1999 news conference, Governor Owens also claimed, “The killers in the case made some very serious mistakes.” He did not flinch at using the plural word “killers.” It was easy for people to translate “killers” to “Ramseys.”

On the CNN television show Larry King Live on the same night of the news conference, King asked Governor Owens whether he was “impressed by the statement of Lou Smit, who said that he thinks they’re not guilty at all.” Owens responded that the evidence Smit presented, including “a so-called stun gun,” had been investigated and “unfortunately, dismissed.” Adams County DA Bob Grant publicly contradicted the governor, stating “That’s not true” with regard to the stun gun being “dismissed” as potential evidence.

A few days later, Owens continued his attack via the October 30, 1999 issue of Rocky Mountain News, which stated, “Gov. Bill Owens continued firing barbs at the parents of JonBenét Ramsey on Friday, saying a meeting with John Ramsey would have allowed a ‘prime suspect’ to influence his decision whether to appoint a special prosecutor … It would have been wrong to grant the Ramseys a meeting, said the governor, because John Ramsey would have wanted a hand in deciding whether a prosecutor should be named—and if so, who that person might be.

“‘Mr. Ramsey is considered to be a prime suspect. It would be very inappropriate to meet with him.’ Owens said.”

This was the first time a public official had referred to John Ramsey as a “prime suspect.” It also represented a dramatic change in the reason why the governor and his task force did not meet with the Ramseys as explained by the governor’s attorney, Troy Eid.

On November 1, 1999 on KOA Radio, the governor said to a commentator in a discussion about the Ramseys: “If they’re innocent, they’re sure not acting like they are.”

State legislators and attorneys criticized Governor Owens publicly for his ongoing comments related to the Ramsey case. District Attorney Bob Grant, who had been on Governor Roy Romer’s District Attorney Task Force, declared that it was “totally inappropriate for the Chief Executive of Colorado to be placing blame on anyone.”

Several newspaper columnists wrote commentaries critical of Owens that ran with headlines such as this one in the Rocky Mountain News:

OWENS PLAYING TO A TABLOID NATION

Defense attorney Haddon noted that the governor was “inaccurate” in saying that only John Ramsey had wanted to meet with him. “Both John and Patsy wanted to meet with Governor Owens and his committee,” he said.

Five months later in March 2000, Owens continued his media campaign in an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America. “There was substantial new evidence in October and there’s even some new evidence in the last couple of weeks,” Owens said, refusing to divulge any details about such new evidence.

Then Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner discounted the governor’s statements about new evidence, saying the governor was likely referring to ongoing FBI laboratory tests of evidence. “I have not spoken to the governor in the last couple of weeks,” Beckner said. He added that he had spoken to the governor only “occasionally” since the October 1999 news conference.

Owens also argued live on television with ABC’s Barbara Walters, saying she hadn’t been tough enough during an exclusive interview with John and Patsy Ramsey. He also cited two male anchors who might have been tougher on the Ramseys than Walters. The criticism created more national attention.

Owens’s stature during this period continued to grow. In 2002, National Review, a conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley, named him “Governor of the Year.” Owens was mentioned as a potential GOP presidential candidate. He was a rising star in the Republican Party, and his strong stance against the Ramseys represented political gold. The former governor is currently a national and international business adviser living in Colorado.

Owens declined to be interviewed for this book. He did agree, however, to respond to the following questions from a longer list of questions that had been emailed to him:

1. The Ramseys and their attorneys asked if they could talk with you and your commission about the decision so you would have their input. Why didn’t you talk with them?

2. In retrospect, do you believe you should have taken such an active role as a governor, but not as a law enforcement investigator, in criticizing the Ramsey family in this unfortunate murder case?

3. I have quotes from people involved in the case saying you were “interfering in the case for publicity to gain national attention.” Do you believe that is accurate? If you believe this is not true, why did you make the statements previously mentioned, criticizing the Ramseys and strongly suggesting their guilt?

4. In 2008, former Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy issued a document clearing John, Patsy, Burke and other Ramseys of the murder based on new DNA evidence. What is your reaction to that?

Part of Owens’s response follows. Owens did not answer any of the specific questions, but focused instead on the qualifications of the people on his advisory committee.

Paula—the statement (below) will be all I have to say on the issue. Best, Bill

I stand by the statements made as the Governor of Colorado into the tragic murder of JonBenét Ramsey. As Governor, I worked with former Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar to convene a Special Prosecution Task Force to advise me as to whether a special prosecutor should be appointed, as provided by Colorado law, in connection with the criminal investigation into her murder, which was and remains the most high-profile such investigation ever conducted in our state. The members of the Task Force were all designated as Special Attorneys General by Mr. Salazar in order to ensure that their deliberations, and the advice they ultimately gave me collectively and as individual experts, would remain strictly confidential.

After meeting with the members of the Task Force and being briefed on their findings, I decided not to appoint a Special Prosecutor in this case. While there was a tremendous amount of evidence collected in this case, the difficulty of ultimately achieving a conviction or convictions led me to believe that such an appointment would not be productive.