Spontaneous utterances can take many forms, and by way of further example, I refer to the well-publicized California murder investigation involving the family of Scott and Lacy Peterson. Scott had uttered an interesting question during his conversations with the detective who was investigating the disappearance of his pregnant wife.
When advised that the police department had been using K-9 teams to assist in the investigation, Scott asked if they “had used cadaver dogs yet.” 63
The question gave the detective pause: Why would Scott ask if a dog trained in the recovery of dead bodies was being brought into the investigation? At that early point in their inquiry, Lacy Peterson was only thought to be overdue and missing. What possible benefit would a cadaver dog bring to the investigation?
This spontaneous utterance was a red flag for the investigator, and this statement, combined with many of the other behavioral clues discovered during their investigation, proved to be instrumental in helping prove Scott Peterson’s consciousness of guilt at trial.
Another illustration of a spontaneous utterance involves a sexual assault investigation that I directed in the early 1990’s. I refer to some aspects of this investigation in other portions of this book, but the specific reference to be made here is with regard to statements made by the suspect who became the primary focus of our pursuit for the perpetrator.
We had obtained a court order for the collection of non-testimonial evidence in the case, i.e. blood samples that would be compared against DNA evidence left at the scene of the assault. When served with notice of the 41.1 Court Order demanding his compliance in the collection of this physical evidence, the suspect read the cover page of the warrant and uttered the following words:
“First degree sex assault? No way, first degree!”
I viewed these spontaneous comments as representative of his consciousness of guilt. Though not stated, he apparently thought that the commission of this residential burglary and rape constituted the crime of a Second or Third Degree Sex Assault, and that our warrant had it all wrong.
There was good reason that this suspect had flunked out as a self-sponsored student of a police academy, and the evidence collected in our court order eventually sealed his fate. He subsequently entered a plea of guilty to this crime and served eleven years in the Colorado Department of Corrections.
We are all creatures of habit, and the fact that the ransom note had been written on Patsy’s personal notepad served to drive this home for me as one more red flag that needed to be considered.
Under the stress of the moment, confronted with the sudden and violent death of her daughter, I wondered whether Patsy, if she were the writer of the note, had failed to consider the possibility of finding a different pad of paper and pen when it came time to craft the evidence of a kidnapping. She would have been acting as she normally did when writing something down –grabbing her own pad and a felt-tip pen that she frequently used over the course of her daily activities. While thought was being given as to how attention could be diverted away from the family, another key detail was overlooked as the staging of the crime scene took place.
I don’t know exactly how many pads of paper were available in the home that day, but I had to wonder what the odds would be that an intruder had located her pad of paper to write the ransom note, and then that handwriting experts would be unable to eliminate Patsy as the author.
Boulder investigators had located the pad in the rear kitchen hallway, and the Sharpie pen that was eventually identified as the instrument used to write the note was in a cup below the kitchen phone Patsy had used to call 911. They thought the note had been crafted shortly before the 911 call to authorities, hence the placement of the pen near the phone.
I am certain that many of those in the reading audience could think of the many habits and routines that have become a part of your daily experience. Do you always start shaving on the same side of your face? Does the right shoe always go on before the left? Do you drive the same path to work every day, even when another route may be available? It takes some conscious effort to alter those activities, but when stress is added to the equation, we frequently fall back on what we are used to doing – primarily because the habit has served us well.
Take for example police firearms training. There is an old axiom that has developed over the years, and it is this: we are likely to perform in the field as we train in the classroom.
Several decades ago investigators were sometimes confronted with trying to figure out why an officer involved in a shooting incident took the time to retrieve the spent shell casings dumped from their revolvers - all while engaged in the heat of a gunfight with bad guys. In a number of instances, officers fatally wounded during the exchange of gunfire were found to have their own empty shell casings in their pockets.
Investigators were stumped. What could possibly be the reason for an officer engaged in a deadly gun battle to take the time to collect his empty brass? It soon became apparent that the officers, acting under the duress of the moment, had merely been acting on behavior that had been ingrained during many hours of firearms training. In some jurisdictions, it was routine to immediately collect your empty brass after you had fired your weapon at a paper target. It made for easier clean-up at the end of the day at the range.
Training soon adapted to this realization, and spent brass stayed where it fell until the end of the day. Officers fatally wounded in shootouts no longer were being found with empty shell casings in their pockets.
It was my thought that the combination of things taking place in regards to the ransom note pointed to a matter of habit and routine. As hard as Patsy may have tried to alter the crime scene, she had not been able to overcome the habit of using her own notepad when it came time to craft the ransom note left behind by the intruder. The same could be said of her punctuation, use of language, and style of handwriting.
Investigators frequently look to “post offense” behavioral changes when attempting to narrow a list of suspects believed responsible for a crime. In this instance, BPD investigators could not understand why the Ramsey family had taken refuge behind a wall of attorneys so early in the investigation. They had expected the family to be pounding down their doors wanting information about the status of the search for their daughter’s killer.
Soon after the burial of her daughter, Patsy seemed to be suggesting that she was interested in learning where investigators stood in their progress. During a conversation held with Mary Kaempfer, who had played “nanny” to Burke and her son, Anthony, during the funeral services held in Atlanta, Patsy stated that she wanted know why they had not heard from Boulder Police about the case. She wondered what progress had been made and was frustrated about not knowing anything.
A day or so later, after watching their CNN interview on television, Patsy commented on the news coverage that reported a group of Boulder detectives were boarding flights for Atlanta. Patsy was reportedly observed to turn to her husband and ask: “So, are we going to have company tomorrow?” 64
John responded, “I guess.”
I thought it ironic that she was voicing frustration about her lack of knowledge of the status of the investigation, and could have easily made arrangements to receive a briefing from Boulder authorities after their arrival in Georgia. Instead, John and Patsy Ramsey quietly slipped out of the state and took refuge in the Colorado home of family friend “Pasta Jay” Elowski.
Patsy’s interest in learning about the status of the progress of the investigation, and her husband’s willingness voiced during the CNN interview to return to Colorado and work with police, seemed to have quickly dissipated.
Another piece of post-offense behavior noted by investigators centered on Patsy Ramsey’s sudden change in handwriting techniques. In April 1997, Detectives Steve Thomas and Ron Gosage paid a surprise visit to the Georgia home of Nedra Paugh, Patsy Ramsey’s mother. Mr. and Mrs. Paugh were not particularly happy to see the investigators, and they reportedly gave an earful a
bout how they thought Boulder Police were persecuting their daughter.
At one point the discussion centered on the ransom note. Detective Gosage indicated that if Mrs. Paugh believed her daughter had not authored the note that perhaps she’d be willing to provide some handwriting examples to help investigators clear her of possible involvement.
Mrs. Paugh responded by thrusting a piece of paper into the detective’s hands, stating that her daughter had just written on it that morning.
After departing the residence, Gosage noted that the piece of paper contained a list of handwritten names, addresses, and telephone numbers. Gosage further observed that the second letter “a” in the name of Barbara Fernie had originally been written in the manuscript style, but had been written over with a black felt tip pen changing it to a cursive style of letter.
Investigators noted that the ransom note contained a total of 376 words, and the small letter “a” had been printed in manuscript style 109 times, and written in lowercase cursive style only 5 times. This was clear evidence that the author of the note was attempting to conceal his or her handwriting style in order to be precluded from being identified.
Unwittingly, Nedra Paugh had provided investigators with a sampling of Patsy Ramsey’s handwriting that indicated she was consciously making attempts to change her handwriting style. Investigators noted that in Patsy Ramsey’s pre-homicide writings that she had consistently used the lower case manuscript style “a” in her handwriting.
In her post-offense samplings however, Patsy Ramsey’s writing of the manuscript style of the letter “a” disappeared entirely. Investigators believed the evidence pointed to a conscious effort on her part to obscure her style of handwriting.
It is this type of post-offense behavioral change that investigators are looking for when evaluating evidence of a subject’s possible involvement in a criminal offense. Patsy Ramsey’s conscious effort to alter her handwriting style suggested she wrote the ransom note and had some type of participation or knowledge about the circumstances of the death of JonBenét.
There had been another discrepancy in one of Patsy Ramsey’s law enforcement interviews that caught my attention. Investigators had noted that the wrapping paper on a pair of Christmas presents observed in the Wine Cellar at the time of the discovery of JonBenét’s body had been torn. She told the detectives that she couldn’t remember what was contained in the presents, and hence the need to tear back part of the paper.
I learned, over the course of my inquiry, that it was Burke who had actually been responsible for tearing back the paper of the presents while playing in the basement on Christmas Day, and I wondered why Patsy would claim responsibility for doing this. Patsy had also told investigators that the unwrapped box of Lego toys in the same room was being hidden for Burke’s upcoming January birthday.
I didn’t give much thought about the presence of the Christmas presents in the room at the time, but would later think these played a role in some of the events that took place on Christmas day.
Photo 27 - Torn Christmas presents in the Wine Cellar next to the body of JonBenét. The wrapping on these presents are the same as those depicted in photographs of JonBenét and Burke in front of their Christmas tree on the morning of December 25, 1996. Source: Boulder PD Case File / Internet
It was reported that information about investigative steps being taken by Boulder Police investigators was leaking like a sieve to both the Ramsey camp and media. It seemed that any tidbit of information, whether it had substance or not, was being devoured by the press. In one instance early in the investigation, a tabloid offered thirty thousand dollars ($30,000.00) for copies of the ransom note that had not yet been released to the public.
Information about one critical piece of evidence was in Patsy’s hands before she interviewed with the D.A.’s office in June 1998. It is not clear how she came to know this, but it was apparent she was aware that pineapple had been found in the digestive track of her daughter. Armed with this knowledge, she denied feeding pineapple to her daughter, or knowing how it may have entered her system.
Through questioning, Patsy had indicated that she had cleaned up the kitchen and dining room after their late Christmas morning pancake breakfast. She didn’t think the family had had lunch that day due to the late breakfast and the fact that they were going to the White’s that afternoon for a dinner party.
Shown photographs of the dining room table that held a glass with a tea bag and a bowl of pineapple and spoon, Patsy declared that someone else had to have placed those items there. Her reasoning for believing this was that she “would never put a spoon that big in a bowl like that…”
Photo 28 - Bowl of pineapple and empty glass of tea discovered on dining room table: Fingerprints belonging to Burke and Patsy Ramsey were recovered from these objects. Source: Boulder PD Case File / Internet
At first view of the photographs, she stated that she couldn’t tell what the contents of the bowl were, suggesting that they were “grits, or apples, or cereal.”
Patsy continued to maintain that JonBenét was sound asleep when the family returned home from the White dinner party, and that she had not served pineapple to her daughter.
There was some brief discussion about the White’s not serving pineapple at their party, so the investigator was trying to pin down the time and location that JonBenét may have had access to the fruit.
Patsy stuck by her story, and further stated that she did not believe it possible that either of her kids would have got up that night to fix themselves a snack, because she would have heard the kitchen cupboards being opened and closed.
She suggested that the person who had murdered her daughter was responsible for feeding her the pineapple, and that this had actually happened while he was in the home that evening. I took this to mean that she believed the intruder had been a little more careful about opening and closing the cupboard doors as he prepared this snack for JonBenét.
Patsy had at one point asked if the bowl and glass had been fingerprinted, and when told that latent prints had been identified as belonging to one of them (John and Patsy), she continued to deny knowledge about the dinnerware found on the dining room table:
“I did not feed JonBenét pineapple. Okay? So, I don’t know how it got in her stomach and I don’t know where this bowl of pineapple came from. I can’t recall putting that there. I can never recall putting a tea bag like that in a cup.”
It is important to note that investigators determined that the Whites had not served pineapple during their dinner party.
Moreover, by the time of this interview, investigators had developed latent fingerprints on the drinking glass on the dining room table that belonged to Burke. Latent fingerprints found on the bowl of pineapple were identified as belonging to Patsy.
Assuming the bowl had been washed before use, this was proof that linked Patsy to a tangible piece of physical evidence that played an important role in this murder. The timing of the ingestion of this piece of fruit placed JonBenét at home after the White dinner party, having consumed it within approximately two hours before her strangulation at approximately 1:00 a.m.
JonBenét may very well have been asleep when the family arrived home that evening, but is it plausible to believe that she had ventured downstairs sometime later that night?
The red flag in this instance addresses Patsy’s adamant denial of having anything to do with the glass of tea and bowl of pineapple discovered on the dining room table. And yet the physical evidence in this instance suggests that she served a bowl of pineapple to Burke after returning home from the White dinner party.
Was Patsy denying this activity because the pineapple in JonBenét’s digestive system provides evidence of contact between Burke and his sister at a critical time?
I believe she gave voice to a specific motive on the day she accompanied Burke to the DSS interview that was conducted on January 8, 1997. Speaking with Detective Arndt as Burke was being interviewed by Dr. Bernhard, Patsy s
tated that she would have nothing left to live for if she lost Burke.
Was this a spontaneous utterance that betrayed a motivation for a lack of candor about this crime?
In my view, these were questions that required further consideration. In fact, from my perspective, the entirety of this investigation was awash in a sea of red flags.
And yet, remarkably, there were additional discoveries that would be made more than thirteen years after the murder of this little girl.
“You know, America has just been hurt so deeply with the tragic things that have happened. The young woman who drove her children into the water, and we don’t know what happened with the O.J. Simpson – and I mean, America is suffering because (people) had lost faith in the American family.
We are a Christian, God-fearing family. We love our children. We would do anything for our children.”
—Patsy Ramsey during the January 1, 1997 CNN interview
Chapter Thirty-Two
Enigma
As I became convinced that involvement of any intruder in JonBenét’s murder was not a viable possibility, I focused my attention on members of the Ramsey family who were present in their home at the time of the murder. In the preceding chapter, I have narrated my thoughts on statements and circumstances that suggest John or Patsy may have been involved.
My review of the investigation revealed that little attention had been paid to Burke Ramsey’s possible involvement in the events of December 25th and 26th. In this and the ensuing chapters, I address what we know about Burke and his circumstances at the critical times. My in depth examination of that information, I believe, shows that to reach the truth in this investigation requires a full inquiry into Burke’s family and mental health history, and his knowledge and conduct on December 25th and 26th, 1996. My analysis of what we know now provides the beginning, but by no means the end, of that inquiry.
From the outset of this investigation, the Ramsey family appeared to have gone to great lengths to distance Burke from Boulder Police investigators. Rick French attempted to speak to him on the morning of the kidnapping as he was departing the residence with Fleet White. John Ramsey intervened and told the officer that Burke had been asleep and didn’t know anything.
Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? Page 29
