Wise later backtracked, but in Boulder the implications of his remark seemed clear. The name of JonBenet’s father, wealthy businessman John Ramsey, continues to hang over the investigation into the 6-year-old beauty-pageant star’s death. The family’s spokesman unequivocally maintains Ramsey’s innocence. The police and the district attorney’s office have avoided identifying Ramsey–or anyone else–as a suspect. Top officials running the case, however, tell NEWSWEEK they are convinced that the killer is one of the family. But investigators apparently still don’t have enough evidence to arrest anyone. Instead, police and prosecutors have begun a public ““psywar’’ in hopes that they can intimidate the killer into giving up.
It is a quiet but ruthless kind of battle. In recent weeks investigators have allowed key pieces of evidence to leak to the press, letting it be known, for example, that fibers were found from a disposable cloth used to wipe down the body–a sign that this is a sophisticated police operation. Then unnamed investigators falsely leaked to reporters that arrests in the case were imminent. On Thursday Hunter addressed the murderer directly. ““Soon there will be no one on the list but you,’’ he said, looking into the camera. ““We are going to bear down on you.''
Hunter announced that he has already arranged for an ““expert prosecution task force’’ to eventually try the case. Among the members are two of the stars from O. J. Simpson’s original–and victorious–““Dream Team,’’ DNA expert Barry Scheck and famed crime-scene analyst Dr. Henry Lee. Some evidence from the body and the house has been sent to Cellmark Diagnostics, a DNA lab used by the Simpson prosecution. The high-profile intimidation is clearly designed to rattle the killer–and leave no doubt that the county is prepared to take on top-dollar defense lawyers.
It’s still unclear how much physical evidence Hunter’s Dream Team will have to work with. Late Friday District Court Judge Carol Glowinsky released a heavily edited version of the autopsy report, which showed that JonBenet was strangled and sexually assaulted at the time of the murder. Definitive conclusions about whether she had suffered a history of sexual abuse could not be made from the published report, however. (JonBenet’s pediatrician has said he never saw ““any evidence of any abuse of any kind.’')
Still, the list of possible suspects has narrowed. Last week John Ramsey’s first wife said their son, John Andrew, was with her in Georgia on Christmas night, when JonBenet was murdered. Tabloids had speculated that the son, a University of Colorado student, might be a suspect.
Friends say JonBenet’s mother, Patsy, has had it with the endless speculation about her family. A moving company has cleared out the house where JonBenet was killed. Over the weekend the family was in Atlanta, where Patsy Ramsey reportedly began looking at private schools for their 10-year-old son, Burke. The spokesman says the Ramseys have made no decision on where they’ll live. Meanwhile, a source close to the family says they offered three weeks ago to talk to police together but the cops turned them down; the authorities insist on interviewing the parents separately.
Publicly, at least, investigators appear unfazed by how long the probe is taking. Hunter has hinted that he may seek the death penalty for the murderer, something the liberal D.A. usually opposes. All three of Boulder’s commissioners voted to approve additional funds to bring the killer to justice. Handing down the decision, one of them, Paul Danish, had a message for the murderer: ““You can run, but you’ll just die tired.''
