Patsy Ramsey altered writing after JonBenet was slain, he tells ABC

By P. Solomon Banda
Associated Press

DENVER -- A former lead detective in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case says he believes the mother of the slain girl wrote the ransom note that was in the family home the day her daughter's body was found.

In an interview airing Monday on ABC's Good Morning America, Steve Thomas, who resigned in protest of what he called the lack of aggressive prosecution of the case, said Patsy Ramsey wrote the note.

Of 73 suspects whose writing samples were analyzed by experts along with the note, only Patsy Ramsey could not be excluded as its author, ABC quotes Thomas as saying. ABC released a portion of the interview Saturday.

The body of 6-year-old JonBenet was found beaten and strangled in the basement of the Ramsey home in Boulder on Dec. 26, 1996, about seven hours after the rambling three-page note was found.

Thomas interrogated the Ramseys four months after the slaying and was a lead detective until he resigned in August 1998, saying Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter sacrificed procedure for politics.

Thomas has written a book called JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation. He is scheduled to appear on ABC programs this week to promote it.

He said Patsy Ramsey changed her handwriting after the slaying.

"In the ransom note, almost exclusively the lowercase manuscript a was used, I think, 98 percent of the time," ABC quotes Thomas as saying. "But what was telling was that after the Ramseys were given a copy of the ransom note, the lowercase manuscript a almost disappeared entirely from Patsy's post-homicide writing."

Writing samples from Ramsey's personal letters and notes she wrote before the killing contain 732 manuscript a'sthat look like the lowercase typewritten a, but they are written by hand, Thomas said. He said she switched to a cursive a after JonBenet's slaying.

Thomas said the ransom note was signed "S.B.T.C." -- which stands for what the note described as "a small foreign faction" that it said kidnapped JonBenet for a $118,000 ransom.

Thomas said Ramsey often used acronyms. A Christmas note to a friend, for example, was signed "P.P.R.B.S.J." -- which he said stood for Patsy Paugh Ramsey, Bachelor of Science in Journalism.

The former detective also said the tear pattern of the ransom-note paper matched Patsy Ramsey's personal note pad, and the felt-tip pen used to write the note matched a pen found in a cup in the Ramseys' kitchen.

No fingerprints were found on the note, though Ramsey said she found it on the back stairs. Police found the note on the hardwood floor, Thomas said.

A call to Ramsey attorney Hal Haddon was not returned Saturday.

In 1998, Thomas appeared on ABC's 20/20 program along with handwriting analyst Donald Foster, who helped the FBI solve the Unabomber case. Foster said he believes Ramsey wrote the ransom note based on punctuation and indention styles.

Last month on CNN's Larry King Live, Hunter said the ransom note remains a key piece of evidence and that new analysis of the note could benefit the ongoing investigation.

John and Patsy Ramsey, who now live in Atlanta, have consistently denied any involvement in their daughter's death. They have written their own book and have appeared on television programs recently to discuss aspects of it, including their theory that an intruder killed JonBenet.

April 9, 2000