Perfect Murder, Perfect Town Read Online Free PDF Page A

grudge against the company? Against Ramsey? Who are the key players at Access Graphics?
    Merriman felt he had become a suspect. For the next five weeks, not only would the firm’s computers be searched but as many as thirty employees would be questioned.
    Later that evening, Merriman called Laurie Wagner, who had worked for Ramsey for ten years and was now vice president of worldwide market development. He told her what had happened, then he called the other executives. Some had already heard about JonBenét’s death. Those who hadn’t were horrified to find out.
     
    At about 2:30 P . M . Pete Hofstrom called Bill Wise again to tell him that the DA’s office now had a murder on its hands. Everyone was justifiably upset that Officer French hadn’t found the body in his initial search of the Ramsey house early that morning. Hofstrom, who generally had a poor opinion of the Boulder police, told Wise he thought the police had lost control of the crime scene before the body was found by allowing so many people into the house.
    Wise decided not to disturb his boss, Alex Hunter, the district attorney of Boulder County, who was on vacation in the Hawaiian Islands with his wife and two youngest children. Hunter was sure to call in within a day or two anyway. Wise would tell him then. There was no need for Hunter to rush back. For now, the police were in charge of the investigation.
     
    By early afternoon, the Ramseys’ property was surrounded by police cars and vans. Yellow police tape encircled the large brick house. Inside, the house was empty except for JonBenét’s body, which was being guarded by an investigator for the coroner and a single police officer. The coroner would arrive only after the search warrant had been obtained. Outside, other police officers waited until the law allowed them to reenter the house. It would take the Boulder PD six hours to prepare a five-page search warrant and have it reviewed by the DA’s office and signed by a judge. While the detectives huddled outside in the cold of the earlyevening, garlands and white Christmas bulbs lit up the snow on the lawn. A double row of red-and-white wooden candy canes bordered the front walk.
    Meanwhile, the investigation continued elsewhere. The ransom note and the writing pads the Ramseys had voluntarily given to the police were sent to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which housed the state’s forensic science lab.
    It turned out that FBI special agent John Gedney knew the mother of one of JonBenét’s schoolmates, Annie Smartt. In the late afternoon, Agent Gedney and Detective Jeff Kithcart went to see Mary Smartt and her husband, Bob, and asked if JonBenét had any unexplained absences from school. Mary didn’t know of any.
     
    At the same time, the Whites and the Fernies began to notify the Ramseys’ other friends that JonBenét had died. Patsy told Pinky Barber, the mother of one of JonBenét’s school friends, “Somebody came to my house and murdered my baby.”
    When Patsy’s friend Pam Griffin got home in the early evening after exchanging some Christmas gifts at the Crossroads Mall in Boulder, she found several frantic messages on her answering machine: “I need to talk to you. Call the Ramsey house.” The voice sounded like Patsy Ramsey or one of her sisters, Polly or Pam.
    Then there was a quieter message, almost a whisper, from Patsy’s friend Priscilla White: “I can’t talk to you about it over the phone—please call.” Pam called Patsy’s house and got her answering machine.
     
    At dusk, the Ramseys had their son, Burke, picked up from the Whites’ house and he was brought to the Fernies’ place in the Shanahan Ridge development on Table Mesa, below the foothills. There was room for all of them to stay overnight. The victim advocates, who had gone with them tothe Fernies’, left at 5:00 P . M . Shortly afterward, Detective Arndt left too. One patrol officer was left behind for security.
    Michael Bynum, John