The JonBenet Ramsey Case

Ramsey has hired bodyguard

JonBenet's dad upset with media coverage

By Tillie Fong

%%byline%%By Tillie Fong
Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer


John Ramsey told a trade publication he has hired a bodyguard to keep away intrusive media.
The father of slain beauty princess JonBenet Ramsey told VARBusiness he is upset with the way the Christmas night murder has been covered.
"We didn't choose to be a topic of conversation,'' he said in an interview Friday in Keystone. "The media, being the sharks they are, saw an opportunity to profit.''
It was Ramsey's first interview since he and his wife, Patsy, met with several reporters at a Boulder motel May 1, the day after their first formal interrogation by police.
A preview of the Aug. 1 article was posted Tuesday on VARBusiness' web page. Ramsey, president of computer company Access Graphics, granted the interview while at a conference.
Ramsey said he and his family have been hounded by supermarket weeklies snapping photos since his 6-year-old daughter's strangled body was found in their Boulder home Dec 26.
He said he hired a former cop to protect the family from the intrusions.
"We became a way for the talk shows and the Geraldo Riveras to make a lot of money. One (supermarket weekly) said their revenue went up 30 percent when they started putting our stories on the first page.''
He said the murder and subsequent media coverage have interfered with Access Graphics' plans to expand globally. The company, which grosses $1 billion annually, markets computer peripherals.
Ramsey said his recent move to Atlanta, where the Ramseys lived before moving to Boulder in the early 1990s, will allow the company to resume expansion plans. He said those plans will force him to spend more time abroad.
He reiterated his earlier denial that he had anything to do with his daughter's death.
"We're normal human beings and a good family that loved our children more than anything in the world,'' he said.
"The question that I'd like to ask some of these (media) people is, 'Would you kill your daughter or child? No.' Then why would you think I would?''

July 23, 1997