Despite release of warrants, Ramsey case still holds secrets

Despite release of warrants, Ramsey case still holds secrets

3 documents remain sealed; crucial piece of evidence not listed

By Charlie Brennan

%%byline%%By Charlie Brennan
Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

BOULDER -- The second shoe has yet to drop.
For all the sound and fury accompanying the long-awaited release of search warrants and affidavits in the JonBenet Ramsey case last week, the fact is that all the secrets aren't yet on the table.
At least three more warrants in the case remain sealed; two of them are for searches executed at the Ramseys' vacation home in Charlevoix, Mich.
And a Boulder judge signed yet another warrant Dec. 26 -- the day 6-year-old JonBenet's body was discovered in her parents' basement -- for a still publicly undisclosed property in Boulder County.
The Michigan warrants are sealed indefinitely; the last remaining Boulder County warrant won't come open until an arrest is made in the child beauty queen's slaying -- if an arrest is ever made.
The mystery Boulder warrant gets a veiled reference in the motion that Boulder District Attorney appellate deputy Bill Nagel filed Sept. 25, in which Nagel said his office no longer opposed releasing most of the contents of warrants and affidavits relating to searches at the Ramseys' Boulder home.
"Several people in addition to police and the victim's family are mentioned in the documents,'' Nagel wrote in a phrase that was footnoted: "See, e.g., Item A dated 12/26/96.''
"Item A,'' according to Boulder district attorney's spokeswoman Suzanne Laurion, is the mystery warrant.
In Boulder County Judge Diane MacDonald's order unsealing the Ramsey property search records, she wrote, "The court finds that certain parties who have never been mentioned in the media and who are not considered suspects by the prosecution at this time are mentioned in Item A.
"... The court finds that the privacy interests of those parties do outweigh the public interest of access and Item A is to remain sealed until there is an arrest made in this case.''
Meanwhile, longtime Denver prosecutor-turned-private attorney Craig Silverman said the Michigan warrants could be more interesting than the warrants on the Ramseys' Boulder home.
"The home in Michigan is not part of the crime scene, and they (police) would have had to articulate the basis of their suspicion of the Ramseys,'' said Silverman. "The most interesting affidavits have yet to be revealed.''
Also, some believe that the most critical piece of evidence seized in the search of the Ramseys' Boulder home may be one that doesn't show up in the 65 pages of documents that were released last week.
It's a single pubic hair, found on the blanket that covered JonBenet's ravaged body, where she lay on the bare floor of a small basement room.
"It does not match any member of the Ramsey family,'' said a Ramsey representative who requested anonymity. The failure to trace that hair to anyone inside or outside JonBenet's family has also been confirmed by law enforcement sources.
It's a mystery that looms large, as the larger mystery of who killed JonBenet creeps toward the one-year mark with no end in sight.
"That single hair, I don't want to understate it, is the single most significant thing I've heard,'' said Denver attorney Scott Robinson. "It's far more significant than all the talk about melting snow, were there footprints or weren't there, a broken window, can you get in or can't you. But that hair -- a defense lawyer can make a lot out of it.
"Because,'' Robinson added, "if I'm the prosecutor, I have to be really worried as to how I can put together a plausible story ... that explains the existence of a pubic hair not belonging to anyone that they know of, on a blanket covering the child. That hair explains why the delay (in making an arrest), why the caution.''
But that hair doesn't show up on the itemized list of evidence seized at the Ramseys' Boulder home in any way that is clear or obvious.
The search warrant and related documents contain exhaustive detail on investigators' examination of all the computer hardware and software discovered in the Ramseys' 6,866-square-foot, 15-room residence. The search was for computer pornography, spurred by Boulder County Coroner John Meyer's finding that JonBenet had likely had "sexual contact.''
But that search yielded nothing of the kind -- a fact that shows up nowhere in the court documents, only in a deputy district attorney's accompanying notes.
The lesson, according to University of Colorado School of Law Professor Christopher Mueller: "It's absolutely important to say that the released warrants and related material provide just a snapshot of the investigation as it went forward in the first week -- which was the end of 1996.
"It doesn't tell us anything about what has happened in the nine months since.''
As for the pubic hair, said Mueller, who teaches evidence and civil procedure: "It could have gotten there if the blanket was loaned to somebody at some other point in time and used as a bed cover. But it could also be, in the end, the culprit's.''
The bottom line is that as yet there is no bottom line. It remains submerged in mystery; the public still sees only the tip of an iceberg, its complete form covered by the continuing silence of authorities.
It pays to heed a footnote to notes for the press prepared by prosecutor Nagel that accompanies the search warrants and affidavits released last week:
"The court is releasing 65 pages,'' wrote Nagel. "By contrast, by May 31, 1997, the police had submitted approximately 8,000 pages of documents to the district attorney's office.''

October 5, 1997