Parents of Slain Girl Set Conditions for Police Talks

DENVER — Twelve days after a child beauty queen was found strangled in the basement of her Boulder home, homicide investigators on Monday were still trying to negotiate their first formal interview with her parents.

Six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey’s parents have not met officially with authorities since she was found by her father the day after Christmas with a nylon cord looped around her neck and her mouth gagged with duct tape. The discovery came eight hours after the girl’s mother found a handwritten ransom note on a spiral staircase in their home.

Since then, John and Patricia Ramsey have retained their own attorneys, private investigators and a media consultant.

“Certainly, talking with the Ramsey family is an important aspect of this investigation,” said Boulder police spokesman Kelvin McNeill. “Hopefully, we will have those interviews conducted in the very near future.”

But media consultant Pat Korten said Monday that John Ramsey’s attorney, Bryan Morgan, was advising against a formal meeting with detectives unless and until certain considerations could be met.

Morgan is a well-known defense attorney. Patricia Ramsey is being represented by Patrick Burke, a former federal public defender who shares an office with Morgan.

“As long as we are still in this area where police must necessarily consider the parents to be potential suspects,” Korten said, “then obviously the attorney has to be very, very careful about the form, manner, timing and mode of the questions of his client.”

Korten confirmed that investigators have submitted written questions to the parents, who have yet to respond. “That process is not complete,” Korten said.

The legal standoff is another twist in the case that has riveted the nation. So far, investigators have seemed especially interested in talking with close friends and relatives of the family in both Colorado and Atlanta, as well as housekeepers and workers who had access to the Ramseys’ 15-room home near the University of Colorado campus.

Local newspapers have reported that the killer fractured the blue-eyed blond girl’s skull before tightening the cord around her neck. An autopsy revealed she had been sexually molested.

On Sunday, authorities completed an exhaustive 10-day search of the family’s home that included photographing footprints in the melting snow outside.

Investigators on Monday sought a search warrant to examine a summer home the Ramseys own in Charlevoix, Mich. The warrant was sealed, and authorities declined to comment on the results.

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A team of five homicide detectives spent the weekend interviewing family friends and relatives--and collecting handwriting, blood and hair samples--in the Atlanta area, where JonBenet was buried Dec. 31, wearing the crown she had won as Little Miss Christmas for Boulder. The family lived in Georgia until 1991.

About 5 o’clock, the morning after Christmas, JonBenet’s mother discovered the three-page ransom note demanding $118,000.

John Ramsey, president of a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corp., later found his daughter’s body hidden in the basement.

Police have been tight-lipped about the case. But peculiarities surrounding the slaying--the only one reported in Boulder in 1996--have triggered speculation.

“There are no named suspects, no arrests and no arrests pending,” McNeill said. “Our detectives and field officers are to be debriefed Monday night by case supervisors. Then we will determine the next steps in the investigation.”