Free JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation by Steve Thomas

through a messy firing from Access Graphics. Then he added another ex-employee, whose name he had forgotten but who had been fired for lying on his application by saying he did not smoke. The company had paid a $15,000 settlement when he sued.
    When the detectives asked to speak to Patsy, Dr. Beuf said she was too medicated to talk to anyone tonight. The two police officers insisted that early interviews were imperative. Perhaps tomorrow morning? The pediatrician hedged, saying that Patsy’s emotional state was very fragile. John Ramsey was noncommittal about when he would talk with police again.
    Months would pass before he did, and when it happened, I would be asking the questions.

6
    Thirty-third Street in front of the police department was jammed with television satellite trucks, and reporters swarmed. At noon on December 28, I ducked into headquarters through the Bat Cave, a hidden back entrance used by undercover cops who did not want to be seen. I could not risk having my photograph taken because I might be back working narcotics in a few days.
    The square two-story building was a hive of activity. Uniformed cops, detectives, civilians from the department of social services, deputy sheriffs, and people I had never seen before were coming and going, all looking tired. Framed explosions of bizarre modern art flashed from the walls, reminders that I was back in the New and Improved Boulder Police Department, which had no place for traditional cop decor such as plaques and photos of decorated officers.
    I went straight to a corral of offices, cubicles, and government desks that occupied the southeast ground floor, where the line of authority was along one wall. The office of Bob Keatley, the department’s legal adviser, divided the patrol and detective divisions. In line away from him were the offices of Sergeant Tom Wickman, Commander John Eller, and Sergeant Larry Mason. I found Eller standing at his desk, fatigue etched on his face.
    “There’s a briefing this afternoon,” he said by way of a terse greeting. “Be there.” He had every available officer and detective working the case and a to-do list that was growing by the minute. “This is going to be big, Steve. It’s an APE.” I nodded at the police jargon—acute political emergency.
    The detective bureau folded away across industrial gray carpet, with the newest detectives having the desks closest to the sergeants and being the most likely to catch a “Hey, get in here” call. The veterans gravitated to the far side of the bureau, and Ron Gosage had one of the most distant desks of all, putting a lot of bodies between himself and the bosses. I found him coming around the corner with a cup of coffee in his hand and the usual wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth. We had known each other since we were patrol officers together in Wheat Ridge, and I considered him one of the best detectives in the house. He was assigned to crimes against persons.
    “We’ve got some problems with this thing,” he said, in perhaps one of the biggest understatements he had ever made. He described how the crime scene had been compromised big time and said we had not yet even interviewed the parents about the murder.
    It took me a moment to comprehend what he was saying. To a detective, the crime scene is Ground Zero in any investigation, the place from which we start piecing together the story of what happened. It is the source of evidence, and it changes from the moment the first police officer sets foot in it. The destruction of a crime scene puts the entire subsequent investigation at great risk because errors made in protecting it can never be undone. To hear that the Ramsey homicide scene had been wrecked was like a punch in the stomach. And it was just as bad to learn that forty-eight hours into this, we had not interviewed the parents. I felt that we were already in deep trouble.
     
     
    It was about to get much worse. As Gosage and I sat in police headquarters, Pam