Ex-Boulder detective's book says police hoped to record killer's graveside confession

News Staff

Boulder police detectives broke into an Atlanta cemetery and bugged JonBenet Ramsey's grave, according to a new book on the case written by ex-investigator Steve Thomas.

Thomas revealed the graveyard stakeout in a Time magazine story on newsstands today.

Time reports that police were frustrated seven months into the stagnant investigation, so they recruited a Georgia state cop to pick the lock on St. James Episcopal Cemetery. It was the eve of what would have been JonBenet's seventh birthday.

Hoping to catch a mourner's confession, Boulder detectives planted a hidden microphone and camera a few feet from the slain 6-year-old's burial place, Time reports. They listened in for three days.

John and Patsy Ramsey, the primary targets of the stakeout, did not visit the grave.

Neither Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner nor Patsy Ramsey's attorney Patrick Furman had any comment Sunday on the incidents.

Thomas was one of five core police detectives who worked on the case before resigning in frustration in 1998.

His book, JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, is scheduled for release Tuesday.

Thomas believes that Patsy Ramsey is the killer and elaborates his theory in the book that she accidentally killed JonBenet in a late-night rage over bed-wetting and then covered it up as a botched kidnapping.

The Ramseys have denied the allegations.

It is one of several new books currently being released on the unsolved three-year-old homicide.

The cemetery bumblings of the Boulder police, as reported by Time, bordered on the comical.

The tapes picked up little more than a salesman who signed up an elderly couple for a plot.

Four months later, on Christmas Eve, the detectives returned to the cemetery. This time, they had a special-effects company fashion a fake tombstone to hide the equipment.

But a youngster discovered the fake tombstone and announced loudly that it was made of wood.

The magazine also reports that the book describes Boulder detectives planning to have a technical specialist break into the Ramsey's Atlanta home and install listening devices. The plan was shot down by Boulder police supervisors.

Thomas, a narcotics detective with no experience investigating homicides, blasted the Boulder County District Attorney's Office when he resigned, saying prosecutors hampered the case by not approving more search warrants.

April 10, 2000