JonBenet : Inside the Murder Investigation (Hardcover)

by Steve Thomas (Author), Donald A. Davis (Author) "There was not another little girl in America with her name..." (more)
Key Phrases: unidentified pubic hair, vaginal abuse, intruder theory, John Ramsey, Patsy Ramsey, Team Ramsey (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Let's answer the burning question straightaway: Steve Thomas believes that Patsy Ramsey is responsible for the death of her daughter, JonBenét, Christmas night 1996. As a key member of the team assigned to investigate the murder of the 6-year-old girl, the former detective knows the facts of the case as well as anyone, and the conclusion he draws is convincing and clearly presented. And, as it turns out, his theory about who may be guilty of the crime is just one of the shocking revelations in JonBenét: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation.

From the outset, it was a textbook example of how not to run an investigation: JonBenét's body was moved from where it was discovered before clues could be gathered, evidence was mishandled or removed altogether, the coroner failed to conduct routine procedures to determine time of death, and the crime scene was not sufficiently sealed off for hours after Patsy Ramsey's 911 call first summoned the police. In all, the initial response was inept, and it served to undermine the entire investigation; the utter lack of cooperation with the police on the part of John and Patsy Ramsey then compounded the difficulties. Within hours of the murder, the Ramseys had their own team of high-priced lawyers, who effectively insulated them from any direct contact with detectives. Nearly four months passed before police were able to question the parents at length, and only then on the condition that the Ramseys be given full access to police reports and evidence prior to the meeting. In essence, they behaved like suspects, and when Thomas and other detectives tried to determine the Ramseys' guilt or innocence, they were stymied every step of the way by Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter and those under his direction.

The hostile relationship between the police and the D.A.'s office slowed the investigation to a crawl, and, in Thomas's eyes, proved the principal reason an arrest was never made. Despite copious evidence against them and glaring inconsistencies in their testimonies, particularly Patsy's, the Ramseys were not even officially listed as prime suspects until March 1998 because the D.A. would not permit it. All the while, Thomas alleges, Hunter was leaking sensitive information to tabloid journalists and allowing the Ramseys' lawyers to dictate the direction and scope of the investigation. Thomas eventually resigned from the police department after exposing the D.A.'s mismanagement of the case, and a grand jury was called. But the grand jury investigation was ultimately undermined by the D.A.'s refusal to hear the testimony of several detectives closest to the case.

Somewhere in the midst of the politics, the legal wrangling, and the in-fighting between the D.A. and the police department, the central focus of this case was lost: justice for an innocent 6-year-old girl. Steve Thomas has returned that fact to the fore in this important book. --Shawn Carkonen

Review
"From my investigation of the Ramsey murder, Steve Thomas was the lead detective on the case from the beginning and may know what happened better than anyone." --Lawrence Schiller, New York Times bestselling author of Perfect Murder, Perfect Town
-- Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 356 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1 edition (April 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312253265
• ISBN-13: 978-0312253264
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (188 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #753,255 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As a former prosecuting attorney....., April 26, 2000

By A Customer

As a former prosecuting attorney who specialized in crimes against children, I absolutely could not put this riveting book down. I literally finished it in one day. Mr. Thomas gives a true insider's account of the mess that was the JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation, from the bungled preservation of evidence by the first officers on the scene to the incredible stonewalling by both the Ramseys and Boulder DA Alex Hunter and his plea-happy bunch of senior attorneys.

The Boulder Police Department took a lot of heat, some of it well-deserved, for the lack of progress in making an arrest in this case. This book makes it perfectly clear, however, that the handful of dedicated and experienced investigators who were assigned to the case by Boulder's "New-Age" police chief, Tom Koby, were stymied at every turn by the DA's incredible fear of actually having to try this case against the experienced trial attorneys who were hired by the Ramseys less than 36 hours after JonBenet's lifeless body was discovered in the basement of her own home.

It is no secret that Mr. Thomas believes that Patsy Ramsey murdered her child in the late evening hours of Christmas 1996. Based upon the mountain of evidence he discloses in this book, much of which was ignored or actually suppressed by the Boulder DA, I believe his conclusion is a fair one. Certainly the Ramseys themselves have done everything in their power to thwart the disclosure of the truth in this case, in the process naming as possible suspects just about every person who ever has been close to them. In fact, they just this week backed out of taking polygraph tests yet again. One can only wonder what they are hiding. As a parent, I would be the first one standing in line to do everything within my power to find the person who killed my child. After reading this book, however, you'll understand why the Ramseys have not cooperated with investigators.

Far from focusing exclusively on the parents from the outset, as the Ramseys have claimed, Mr. Thomas and the other investigators at Boulder PD, the FBI, and other police agencies in Colorado, Georgia and Michigan, have exhaustively cleared hundreds of suspects since JonBenet's death. Indeed, based upon the tremendous amount of scientific and circumstantial evidence which has been gathered in this case, the only people who can reasonably said to be prime suspects at this time are John and Patsy Ramsey. Mr. Thomas' very justifiable frustration with the Ramseys, the Boulder DA and many of the ranking officers of the Boulder PD is evident in this wonderful and extremely thorough book.

All Mr. Thomas wants is "justice for a child who was killed in her home on Christmas night." After eighteen months of of an investigation which the DA allowed to be dictated in large part by the Ramseys themselves (a practice absolutely unheard-of in accepted investigative methodology), Mr. Thomas finally resigned in protest when it became apparent to him that the Boulder DA would not even present the most compelling evidence in the case to the grand jury.

I haven't read a book this riveting since Daniel Petrocelli's inside tale of the OJ Simpson civil trial, Triumph of Justice. Although Alex Hunter and his inept staff have gone a long way toward assuring that JonBenet's killer may never be found guilty in a court of law, Mr. Thomas' gutsy account of the facts and evidence in this case leaves no reasonable doubt in the reader's mind as to who killed this beautiful little girl.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If it looks like a duck...., April 24, 2000

By A Customer

Thank you, Steve Thomas, for the courage to say what so many people think! The JonBenet case captivated me from the start, more than that it was the murder of a darling little girl - in the main, I was intrigued with the complete and utter lack of cooperation on the part of the parents. The less they cooperated, the more interested I became and the more convinced of their - especially Patsy's - involvement. Thanks to Steve Thomas' fine work, all the pieces seem to fit together, and I do not understand how any thinking person could come to any other conclusion than that of Patsy's guilt. It is just impossible to think anything else. There is one and only one thing (I think) that makes some people doubt her guilt; the fact that it is nigh onto unbelievable that a mother could kill her own daughter like that. There is no denying she did it, but I agree that no sane mother could do this. I have read every word that I can get my hands on about this case, and thought that Thomas' book would just be a rehash of what I already knew. Not so - I could not put it down. Thomas reveals many little known facts that again point irrevocably to the Ramseys' involvement. For example,the ransom note said that the kidnapper would call with instructions between 8 & 10 am, yet neither of the Ramseys made any notice of that time frame, nor even noticed when 10 o'clock came and went with no word. No way. They had to know there would be no call from a kidnapper; else they would have sat glued to the phone and agonized when no call came. It's called human nature. Finally, shame, shame on the DA's office and its sycophants. I admire Steve Thomas' courage in resigning and cannot help but notice that some of the people in that mess who showed the most integrity and courage, like Thomas and the Whites, have been demonized.

51 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thomas Debunks Intruder Theory, Calls Ramseys on Their Lies, April 14, 2000

By	"ctboone" (New York City) - See all my reviews

READ THIS BOOK! Jon Benet, by Steve Thomas, who was the leading police investigator and who interviewed both the Ramseys in Atlanta after they had stonewalled the police for a protracted time, and then ultimately resigned in disgust over the whole morass of a bungled investigation, has written the best book on the murder of Jon Benet thusfar. (I have also reviewed Mother Gone Bad and Perfect Murder:Perfect Town here on Amazon and I have read numerous other books about the murder of Jon Benet). Thomas very clearly details the evidence - what the police knew when, what the Ramsey's said and did when, and how they later contradicted themselves innumerable times. Thomas goes further. He offers the most intelligent rebuttal to the intruer theory and all the other stun gun nonsense propigated by Lou Smitt in a careful, step-by-step manner. In my humble opinion, if you read this book, Perfect Murder Perfect Town and Mother Gone Bad and still believe that an intruder broke into the Ramsey home that Christmas eve and then fed Jon Benet pineapple, changed her clothing, struck her over the head with a blunt instrument and took her to a closet room in the basement and garrotted her with Patsy Ramsey's broken paintbrush, then wrote a two practice ransom notes and a third "war and peace" of a ransom note with Patsy Ramsy's pen on Patsy Ramsey's notepad, then your elevator just doesn't go to the top floor. As an insider to the investigation, Thomas is best able to relate what the police knew when, to detail the unbelievable hostilities between the police and the DA and the degree that the DA (Alex Hunter) was playing into the hands of Team Ramsey (the Ramsey attorneys and investigators) and to the national press. The murder of Jon Benet is so gruesome, so heinous and the story so complex, the evidence so twisted and debauched and botched that no tabloid account or one liners on the evening news can begin to tell the tale. To really understand what happened here takes careful review and study. What has transpired since Jon Benet's murder is a travesty as horrid as the murder itself - and it is not just a confederacy of dunces. Within hours of discovery of Jon Benet's body, the Ramseys began stonewalling the police and began assembling Team Ramsey whose ostensible purpose is to solve the murder (better than the police) but who have done nothing other than obfuscate, confound and tamper with a proper investigation. This is most deliberate, no confederacy. The murderer has escaped trial - Mr. Thomas convincingly and painstakingly points the finger right where it belongs at Patsy Ramsey as the murderer. He offers his favored theory of the crime we've heard before - that Patsy snapped over a bedwetting incident. Whether or not that was the precipitating cause, there is so much evidence which points toward Patsy Ramsey that the Grand Jury's failure to indite is an absolute outrage, and the People of Colorado ought to be outraged at the waste of their taxpayer dollars and the total failure of the criminal justice system. The problem with the evidence here is a legal glitch: each item of evidence can be explained in some other way - sufficient to create "reasonable doubt", which is all the defense requires to acquit. However, there is an overwhelming pattern here, a pattern which simply cannot be coincidental - and the sheer number of items in the pattern very convincingly points to Patsy. If "preponderance of the evidence" (the standard in civil trials) were the standard to convict here (as opposed to "beyond a reasonable doubt", the standard in criminal trials), Patsy Ramsey would most certainly be behind bars today. Mr. Thomas was extremely courageous to resign in protest from his job as a policeman and he is even more courageous to break the blue wall of silence and be the first insider to write - besides the Ramseys - and he is able to analytically tie together a lot of loose ends and inconsistencies. Many of these things are things that if you have read all the other books most likely never occurred to you, even though you knew the details. (A fact which points out to just how professional the Boulder police and Mr. Thomas really are). He does an excellent - no extraordinary - job of wrapping up the murderer; Unfortunately, he lacks the power to indite her and put her behind bars. This book is the most coherent, most concise, most sensible book written about the murder of JonBenet so far. It is a must read for anyone who is interested in this tragic case. Mr. Thomas is a real straight shooter. I highly recommend it (especially Barbara Walters and anyone who was swayed by her recent interview)....And Thomas clearly states that he asked both the Ramseys more than once if they would take a lie detector test. Something which both Ramseys claimed to Barbara Walters the Boulder police never asked them to do. I am sorry but I do not think it takes much common sense to figure out who is most likely to be telllng the truth here - a man who believes perhaps too much in the law (to the point he was willing to resign rather than betray his conscience and his belief in that law) or the Ramseys who claim that as murder suspects who spent years blocking every attempt by the police to talk to them and who make a practice of making statements on the national media rather than to the police. It is not a haqrd call. Thomas holds nothing back in terms of his feelings about the Boulder police department, the Boulder District Attorneys office and the media circus. He also holds nothing back about his feeling for JonBenet and about the emotional impact of her life and death and how his life was irrecovably changed. Like I said, he is an extremely straight shooter. Perhaps too straight. He may be off here and there about a detail or two of what transpired, but he is overwhelmingly righton with the big picture. Read this book! And once you've read it, pass it around to all your friends. The truth will eventually vindicate JonBenet. God knows the justice system has failed. We owe it to JonBenet. Thanks.