Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? Page 8

  Hoffmann-Pugh again exclaimed, “Oh my God,” and stated that she “would never do anything like that.”

  She told the investigators that several months earlier she had talked to Patsy about JonBenét and Burke walking to school alone, and JonBenét playing outside on her skates. She had wondered if Patsy was ever fearful of JonBenét being kidnapped under those circumstances. Hoffmann-Pugh reported that she had talked to no one other than Patsy about those concerns.

  Hoffmann-Pugh seemed to be unclear as to what was happening, and asked the investigators if JonBenét was gone, if she was still missing at that moment.

  The detective paused momentarily, and then told her that JonBenét had been murdered.

  Hoffmann-Pugh screamed, and broke down so completely that the investigators were unable to complete as thorough an interview as they had desired. The remainder of their questions would have to wait until the following day.

  Investigators would eventually learn that Hoffmann-Pugh had requested a loan of two-thousand dollars ($2,000.00) from Patsy to help pay the rent, purchase some car parts, and to complete some dental work her husband needed. He too had done some odd-jobs around the house over the years for the Ramsey family, and this included decorating the home for the Christmas holidays and family parties. The Christmas trees and decorations had been stored in the Wine Cellar and basement of the home.

  Like many others who would be interviewed by BPD investigators, Linda Hoffmann-Pugh described the home as a warren of doors and oddly placed rooms. Finding the specific door that led to the basement was no easy task, and she felt that whoever had perpetrated this crime had to have had some level of familiarity with the layout of the home.

  During her follow-up interview, Hoffmann-Pugh indicated that there were not a lot of extra sheets for JonBenét’s bed, and she reported that JonBenét had been wearing pull-up diapers during her first six months of employment with the family. She had been wetting the bed nearly every night of the week.

  Hoffmann-Pugh indicated that the bed-wetting eventually subsided, but that it had begun again in the month or so preceding the 1996 Christmas holidays. It went on nightly for about a week, and then she thought it to be occurring every other night. Hoffmann-Pugh indicated that she worked every other day. When she arrived at the home, the sheets to JonBenét’s bed were already stripped and in the washing machine located in the hallway outside her room. She indicated that this activity was taking place right up until about a week before JonBenét’s murder.

  Hoffmann-Pugh also told investigators that the bed-wetting problem extended to the soiling of her sheets. She reported once finding fecal material the size of a grapefruit in JonBenét’s bed.†

  JonBenét’s problem with bed-wetting was of interest to investigators, and it figured as one early component in their theory that Patsy Ramsey may have lost her cool with her daughter over this behavior.

  Investigators queried Hoffmann-Pugh about the type of duct tape and cord she had seen around the house during her employment with the family. Nothing that she could recall seeing matched the description of the implements used in JonBenét’s murder.

  Investigators wondered, given their examination of the cord used in the garrote, if one or both of these items had been recently purchased items. Their requests for a search warrant seeking credit card charges, like similar requests for telephone records, were shot down by the D.A.’s office, and it would be months later in November, 1997, that a white, Stansport brand nylon cord would be identified as the make of cord used to bind and garrote JonBenét.

  In May, 1997, investigators had purchased examples of this type of nylon cord from the Boulder Army Store and McGuckin’s Hardware. They would eventually determine that Patsy Ramsey had purchased an item from the sporting goods section of McGuckin’s on December 2, 1996, for $2.29, the same price as that of the nylon cord purchased by the detectives during their investigation.

  The McGuckin receipts did not specifically detail the identity of the items purchased, but investigators thought it too coincidental that the cord had come from the same part of the store, and had the same retail price as Patsy Ramsey’s receipt. By the time this information came into their hands, however, the video surveillance tapes at the store had already been recorded over.

  Investigators were surprised to learn that Ramsey attorneys and their investigators had already interviewed Fleet White on the afternoon of December 27th. In fact, they had called him on the afternoon of the previous day, not long after the discovery of JonBenét’s body.

  White’s interview with BPD detectives took place late in the day on December 27th, and ultimately, he would be interviewed on three separate occasions regarding his activities at the Ramsey home.

  White told investigators that Patsy had called his home early Thursday morning, December 26th, indicating that something had happened, and she needed them to come over immediately. He, and his wife, Priscilla, drove to the home and observed uniformed police officers on the scene. They soon learned that JonBenét had been kidnapped and that a ransom note had been left.

  Something apparently didn’t ring true to White, and despite the presence of a kidnap note that demanded ransom, he decided to take a tour of the basement to look for JonBenét. He indicated that this was within approximately 15 minutes of his arrival at the home.

  White’s daughter, 6-year-old Daphne, was a playmate of JonBenét, and she had gone missing about a year previously. She was eventually found asleep in the family home, so White was intimately familiar with the feelings of panic that were generated under such circumstances.

  Ransom note notwithstanding, White called JonBenét’s name as he moved through the rooms of the basement. He found himself looking at a broken window pane in a series of three windows that opened to a subterranean window well. The window was closed, but not latched, and he observed a hard-sided Samsonite suitcase standing flush against the wall directly beneath the window. He spent some time inspecting the area for signs of freshly broken glass and moved the suitcase to get a better look at the floor.

  White told investigators that he only found a “small kernel” of glass on the floor and placed it on the windowsill before leaving the room. He left the window in its closed, unlatched condition.7

  He then moved out of the Train Room, and down a short, dead-end hallway to a storage room that would later be identified as the Wine Cellar. A block of wood rotated on a screw to secure the door to this room, and he reportedly “unlocked” the door and peered inside. It was pitch black inside the windowless room, and unable to find a light switch, he closed the door and secured it with the wood block.

  White returned upstairs and didn’t mention his tour of the basement to anyone at the time.

  The house began to fill with people that morning, as additional police officers, CSIs, and victim advocates arrived to take care of business. Father Rol Holverstock had been summoned to help console Patsy. It wasn’t long before family friends were inquiring about the status of Burke. Was he okay? Was he still asleep?

  Patsy was a veritable wreck, and they thought it probably wasn’t a good idea for Burke to see his mother in her condition. Fleet White volunteered to take Burke to his house, where visiting family were caring for his children. The Fernies decided to send their children there as well.

  White indicated that Burke was retrieved from his bedroom by his father, and according to the latter, was told that his sister was missing. He was going to spend some time at his friend’s house, Fleet White Jr., so he quickly dressed and grabbed his new Nintendo computer game before heading out of the house.

  White left the Ramsey home with Burke before the first detectives arrived on the scene, which was at approximately 0800 hours. He later told investigators there had been very little conversation between the two of them in the car, and that Burke asked him no questions about his sister’s disappearance, or about the presence of uniformed police officers in his home that morning.

  White returned to the home after d
epositing Burke with his relatives and would ultimately accompany John Ramsey to the basement when Detective Arndt suggested that the house be checked “from top to bottom” for anything unusual early that afternoon.

  White reported that he had followed Ramsey to the Train Room where they spent some time talking about the broken window. Ramsey told him that he had broken into the house through that window earlier that summer, and that he had failed to have the glass repaired. He had said nothing about the placement of the suitcase beneath the broken window.

  They looked around for signs of more broken glass, and finding none, Ramsey then moved from the room.

  Concurrent with this activity, White had stopped to move a fireplace grate that was blocking a closet in the Train Room. Quickly checking the interior, he had moved the grate back into place and was headed out into the hallway when he heard John Ramsey scream. He indicated that he was right behind Ramsey and saw him kneeling down next to JonBenét’s body in the Wine Cellar.

  An overhead light had been turned on in the room, and he saw that JonBenét was wrapped in a blanket on the floor. Her feet were sticking out at the bottom, and he bent over to touch them: they were cold to the touch.

  White stated that he then immediately ran upstairs, shouting for someone to call an ambulance. Ramsey was close on his heels, carrying the body of his daughter outstretched before him. Detective Arndt directed Ramsey to put her down at the top of the basement stairs, and she then subsequently moved the body to the floor of the living room.

  Detective Arndt had directed White to stand guard at the top of the basement stairs before moving into the living room with JonBenét. For unknown reasons, he again went to the basement and took a quick look around the Wine Cellar. He told investigators that he handled a piece of black duct-type tape from the floor and had also handled a cigar box in the room. Leaving these items behind, he then returned upstairs and awaited the cavalry.

  Investigators learned that Ramsey attorneys had been quick to contact the Fernie family as well. It seemed that the family had been dedicating resources to the search for the killer(s) as quickly as law enforcement authorities.

  John Fernie reiterated a tale similar to that of Fleet White: the early morning phone call of some emergency taking place at the Ramsey home and the request that they come immediately. Fernie had arrived by way of the back alley and had approached the rear kitchen door to see the ransom note spread out upon the floor inside the home. It was upside down from his perspective, but he was able to read the salutation, “Mr. Ramsey,” and the sentence of the first page before heading around to the front of the house.

  Fernie joined the company of two uniformed officers and the Whites at the street-side entrance to the home. He was directed to the solarium, and later that morning, was able to read a photocopy of the full three pages of the ransom note that had been brought back to the home. He thought the note was very personal, and written in a “condescending” manner towards John Ramsey. He noted at one point during his interview with detectives that the note didn’t make sense to him, and that it seemed to contain “some kind of fakey stuff.” Things just weren’t adding up to him.

  Fernie seemed to recall that someone, John Ramsey he thought, had said that the doors to the home had been checked the previous evening and that all had been dead-bolted and securely locked. Ramsey had checked the doors again that morning to be certain that JonBenét had not gotten out of the house. At one point that morning, the time uncertain, but as police were processing the scene, Fernie reported that a draft was coming through the house, and he located the source: the door on the north side of the house by the Butler Pantry was standing open, and he shut it.

  Over the course of interview, conducted on January 1, 1997, Barb Fernie shared a concern that had raised a question for her. As things were developing in the house on the morning of December 26th, she had begun to ask if Burke had awakened yet. She was aware that like her son, Burke was an early riser and typically got up in the morning around 5:30 a.m. She and her husband had been at the house for a while, and like others, were beginning to wonder if Burke was sitting up in his bedroom, awake and alone, while all of the commotion was going on downstairs.

  She pointed out a discrepancy that created some additional concern for her. She told the investigators that Patsy Ramsey had told her on the morning of December 26th that she had just “given the ransom note to John,” after finding it on the spiral staircase.

  More importantly, however, Mrs. Fernie stated that she didn’t know Patsy had screamed out for her husband that morning. She apparently was under the impression, based on her conversation with Patsy on the morning of the kidnapping, that she had somehow just handed off the note to her husband. Several days later, it didn’t make sense to her that Burke would not have been awakened when Patsy screamed John’s name.

  Mrs. Fernie had been pondering the question: If John Ramsey had been able to hear Patsy scream from his bathroom on the 3rd floor of the house, why not Burke? His bedroom was just down the hall.

  The Fernies offered their home as temporary shelter to the Ramsey family after police secured their home for search warrants. Barb Fernie would be interviewed again by BPD detectives not long after returning from the Georgia funeral services, and details of some of her observations are covered in a later chapter.

  Father Rol Holverstock, pastor at the St. Johns Episcopalian Church, had been called to the Ramsey home on the morning of December 26th by John Fernie. The Fernies had earlier recruited the Ramseys to the church, and the pastor was well known to Patsy.

  Interviewed by detectives on December 30th, Father Holverstock indicated that he had been summoned to the home to help calm Patsy, and estimated that he had arrived between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. He described his observations of the activities taking place at the time of the discovery of JonBenét’s body.

  Father Holverstock advised he had been heating a glass of water in the kitchen microwave when things began to happen. Fleet White had a look on his face that he’d “never seen before,” and racing past him through the kitchen, exclaimed that JonBenét had been found.

  The next thing he knew, he was standing in the foyer area near the top of the basement stairs, and John Ramsey had his daughter in his hands. It was Holverstock’s recollection that Ramsey blurted out, “I don’t think he meant to kill her, because she was wrapped in a blanket,” or that “she was warm, she was wrapped in a blanket.”

  Ramsey told Father Holverstock that he had taken “the tape off her mouth,” and mentioned something about removing something from JonBenét’s wrists or hands.

  The scene was described as being “frantic” and “out of control” once JonBenét’s body had been found. He did his best to lead the group in prayer after JonBenét had been moved to the floor of the living room. Father Holverstock described JonBenét’s body as being cold and stiff, and that he had tried to conceal the ugly bruise on her neck by moving a blanket over her torso. He shared with the detectives that he was having a difficult time letting go of that image.

  In their effort to continue to gather possible leads, Boulder investigators interviewed a number of other people. Some were family friends, employees of Ramsey’s business and those involved in the beauty pageant circuit. One interview took place with family friend Barb Kostanick.

  She reported that JonBenét had told her about a “secret Santa Claus,” who was going to make a special visit to her after Christmas. This bit of information seemed to suggest that someone who had access to JonBenét may have been responsible for setting up this “secret” arrangement.

  Investigators had to consider the possibility that JonBenét had gone willingly with her abductor because he was known, and familiar to her. Some began to point the finger at Santa Claus himself, Bill McReynolds.

  “Santa Bill” was an elderly man who had played Santa Claus at several of the Ramsey holiday parties in previous years. He was not in the best of health in December 1996, but had somehow convinced Patsy to hol
d another Christmas party where he again was able to play the starring role for the children in attendance.

  Boulder Police detectives would subsequently clear Santa of any involvement in the crime, but that didn’t mean that other intruder theorists didn’t resurrect his name from time to time.

  A neighborhood canvas was also conducted to determine if anyone, or anything suspicious had been seen on the night of the kidnapping.

  The Colby family, who lived in the alley behind the Ramsey home, had a 10-year-old son who sometimes played with Burke. They also had two dogs that reportedly barked every time they heard someone in the alley. Mrs. Colby indicated that her dogs did not bark at all Christmas night.

  The Brumfit family, who lived directly south of the Ramsey home, reported that a southeast corner, ground-floor room light typically left on during the night had been observed to be out around 0230 – 0300 hours on the night of the murder.

  The neighbor on the immediate north, Scott Gibbons, told detectives that he had been in his south-facing kitchen around midnight on Christmas night. He observed that the upper lights in the Ramsey kitchen were on, but dimmed low.

  Gibbons didn’t observe anyone inside the residence at the time, and noted that it was not unusual for lights to be on in the home at night. The following morning, around 0800 hours, he had seen the north kitchen door standing open. Investigators noted that this would have been during the time that CSIs were photographing and processing the home for latent fingerprints.

  Investigators were initially told by Melody Stanton, who lived across the street and southeast of the Ramsey home, that she didn’t want to become involved in the investigation and reported that she had heard nothing unusual that night.

  During a follow-up canvass, Stanton appeared to be more willing to cooperate. She told detectives that she had gone to bed around 2200 hours on Christmas night. Her open bedroom window faced in the direction of the Ramsey home, and she thought she had heard a child scream sometime between the hours of midnight and 2:00 a.m.