Read Online Perfect Murder, Perfect Town by Lawrence Schiller - Free Book Online
Authors: Lawrence Schiller
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behavior after his daughter’s body was found—together with national child homicide statistics, which showed that a large percentage of child murders are committed by fathers—made the Ramsey family automatic suspects. Ramsey’s two older children had arrived from out of town after the body was found, but they too were added to the list. John Andrew Ramsey, a college student in Boulder who often stayed at his father’s house, was under particular suspicion. The police would soon learn that the suitcase found under the broken window in the basement belonged to him.
The police would take weeks—and even months—checking and rechecking alibis and taking handwriting, fingerprint, blood, and hair samples from almost everyone known to have come in contact with JonBenét, as well as from those who had no known contact or motive to kill her. The initial list included over two dozen people, and it grew larger as the public provided further leads.
John Eller assigned thirty officers to the case. Larry Mason led the team in day-to-day field assignments, but he and Eller butted heads over who should be interviewed and when, and over how to prioritize the investigation. Mason, with a battered face and a prizefighter’s compact body, stood no more than 5-feet-9 to Eller’s 6-feet-1. The tension between the two men was obvious and palpable. Particularly galling to Mason was the dismissal of the FBI’s investigators from the case. Mason had been a police officer for twenty-five years, and he knew how helpful the Bureau could be.
Larry Mason was a fourth-generation Coloradoan. His father, Allen, had been with the Boulder Fire Department, and he had an uncle who had been with the sheriff’s department for thirty years. Another uncle was the first marshal in Jamestown, Colorado. Mason had joined the sheriff’sdepartment in 1972, a year when Boulder had witnessed another horrifying crime. Two eleven-year-old girls were kidnapped, sexually molested, and shot, then thrown into Boulder Canyon in the middle of winter. One girl survived and stumbled into the Gold Hill Café seeking help. The perpetrator, Peter Roy Fisher, had been caught and was still serving a life sentence.
On the afternoon of December 27, when Pam Griffin got home from her interview with Detective Mason, she found a telephone message from Patsy’s sister Polly. “Patsy needs you right now!” Polly had left directions to the Fernies’ house.
At the Fernies’, Pam and Kristine found that Patsy was overdosing on Valium. She’d been taking the powerful tranquilizer every few hours and had probably lost track of the amount. Pam, a former registered nurse, touched Patsy’s skin and realized she was dehydrated. She brought Patsy some water and made her drink it.
Later that afternoon, Kristine and Pam sat on either side of Patsy, holding her hands. “You know,” Patsy said quietly to Pam, as if she were telling someone for the first time, “they’ve killed my baby.” Pam noticed that Patsy used the word they .
“You need to brush your hair,” Pam told her. “You need to lie down a little bit.” But Patsy stood up to greet each new person who arrived, and as she did, tears streamed down her face. These friends, Pam observed, were entirely different from the people she and Patsy knew in common—their pageant friends. The people visiting her here were strangers to Pam. Hours later, Patsy finally took Pam’s advice and lay down in the Fernies’ bedroom.
Kristine went to the bathroom to get a cool washcloth for Patsy’s forehead. While she was gone, Patsy reached up and touched Pam’s face. “Couldn’t you fix this for me?” sheasked. Pam thought she was delirious. It was as if Patsy were asking her to fix a ripped seam. “Patsy said something like, ‘We didn’t mean for that to happen,’” Pam would say later.
After Patsy napped for almost an hour, Pam took her into the shower and washed her hair. Patsy was unable even to dry herself, and
The police would take weeks—and even months—checking and rechecking alibis and taking handwriting, fingerprint, blood, and hair samples from almost everyone known to have come in contact with JonBenét, as well as from those who had no known contact or motive to kill her. The initial list included over two dozen people, and it grew larger as the public provided further leads.
John Eller assigned thirty officers to the case. Larry Mason led the team in day-to-day field assignments, but he and Eller butted heads over who should be interviewed and when, and over how to prioritize the investigation. Mason, with a battered face and a prizefighter’s compact body, stood no more than 5-feet-9 to Eller’s 6-feet-1. The tension between the two men was obvious and palpable. Particularly galling to Mason was the dismissal of the FBI’s investigators from the case. Mason had been a police officer for twenty-five years, and he knew how helpful the Bureau could be.
Larry Mason was a fourth-generation Coloradoan. His father, Allen, had been with the Boulder Fire Department, and he had an uncle who had been with the sheriff’s department for thirty years. Another uncle was the first marshal in Jamestown, Colorado. Mason had joined the sheriff’sdepartment in 1972, a year when Boulder had witnessed another horrifying crime. Two eleven-year-old girls were kidnapped, sexually molested, and shot, then thrown into Boulder Canyon in the middle of winter. One girl survived and stumbled into the Gold Hill Café seeking help. The perpetrator, Peter Roy Fisher, had been caught and was still serving a life sentence.
On the afternoon of December 27, when Pam Griffin got home from her interview with Detective Mason, she found a telephone message from Patsy’s sister Polly. “Patsy needs you right now!” Polly had left directions to the Fernies’ house.
At the Fernies’, Pam and Kristine found that Patsy was overdosing on Valium. She’d been taking the powerful tranquilizer every few hours and had probably lost track of the amount. Pam, a former registered nurse, touched Patsy’s skin and realized she was dehydrated. She brought Patsy some water and made her drink it.
Later that afternoon, Kristine and Pam sat on either side of Patsy, holding her hands. “You know,” Patsy said quietly to Pam, as if she were telling someone for the first time, “they’ve killed my baby.” Pam noticed that Patsy used the word they .
“You need to brush your hair,” Pam told her. “You need to lie down a little bit.” But Patsy stood up to greet each new person who arrived, and as she did, tears streamed down her face. These friends, Pam observed, were entirely different from the people she and Patsy knew in common—their pageant friends. The people visiting her here were strangers to Pam. Hours later, Patsy finally took Pam’s advice and lay down in the Fernies’ bedroom.
Kristine went to the bathroom to get a cool washcloth for Patsy’s forehead. While she was gone, Patsy reached up and touched Pam’s face. “Couldn’t you fix this for me?” sheasked. Pam thought she was delirious. It was as if Patsy were asking her to fix a ripped seam. “Patsy said something like, ‘We didn’t mean for that to happen,’” Pam would say later.
After Patsy napped for almost an hour, Pam took her into the shower and washed her hair. Patsy was unable even to dry herself, and
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