JonBenet Grand Jury Issues No Indictment for Killing

DENVER — A grand jury in Boulder, Colo., declined to return an indictment Wednesday in the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey as it finished its work after 13 months, apparently turning the focus of inquiry away from the child’s parents.

The case, in which the young beauty queen was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her home the day after Christmas in 1996, had riveted the nation and been tabloid fodder for three years.

The announcement disappointed those who hoped for a resolution of the sensational case and served as vindication to defenders of JonBenet’s parents, John and Patsy Ramsey. Almost since their daughter’s death, the wealthy couple have been, as authorities have defined it, “under an umbrella of suspicion.” The two have steadfastly maintained their innocence.

The jury of eight women and four men left the Boulder Justice Center under guard Wednesday afternoon, watched from across the street by a large media contingent. Boulder Dist. Atty. Alex Hunter then briefly appeared to announce that no charges had been filed by his office.

“I must report to you that I and my prosecution task force believe we do not have sufficient evidence to warrant the filing of charges against anyone who has been investigated at the present time,” he said.

Hunter, stressing that the jury’s work is secret, said that he would not discuss any aspect of its deliberations. It is unlawful in Colorado to do so.

Craig Silverman, a former Denver prosecutor and critic of Hunter, said: “This is a disappointing day to anyone who wanted justice for JonBenet. I’m sure he’ll say he’s going to redouble the efforts in the investigation, but, frankly, I would be really surprised if anyone is ever brought to justice by Alex Hunter in this case.”

Meanwhile, Gov. Bill Owens said he was considering appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the killing. He said he would make a decision soon.

“While I am not presently in a position to comment on the work of this grand jury, I do know one fact: A little girl was brutally murdered in Boulder, Colo., and the killer or killers remain free today,” Owens said.

The grand jury has been meeting since September 1998 and was presented with about 30,000 pieces of evidence. The jury had the option to indict, write a report on the case or do nothing.

The presumption of innocence has not inoculated JonBenet’s parents from fierce, often sensational speculation in tabloids and elsewhere. From the first, their actions have been second-guessed. The couple initially refused to agree to formal police questioning, then quickly hired attorneys and public relations specialists. The Ramseys were not questioned by police until four months after the murder.

John Ramsey’s hard-nosed business practices were cited as evidence of his temper, and authorities admitted that Patsy Ramsey could not be ruled out as the author of the ransom note left in the house.

Their Boulder home staked out, their every move noted and analyzed, the Ramseys eventually sold the property and moved to Atlanta. The family had no immediate comment Thursday.

In Boulder, a leafy college town, murders are rare. The 1996 holiday killing of a vivacious child in an upscale enclave shook the foundations of the community. It has also damaged more than a few reputations and led to a rift between the Boulder district attorney’s office and the city’s Police Department.

While police were seen as having made critical errors early in the case, the DA’s office has been portrayed as too cozy with the Ramseys’ lawyers. From the start, police suspected John and Patsy Ramsey of complicity in the murder, while the district attorney’s office considered theories such as an intruder or friend of the family.

Last month, former Boulder police Det. Linda Arndt said in a televised interview that she knows who killed the young girl and that she believes the killer will never be brought to justice.

Arndt, law enforcement experts have said, set in motion the events that compromised the crime scene. Arndt was the first detective on the scene, arriving before the child’s body was found. Operating on the assumption that JonBenet was a kidnapping victim, she spoke consolingly to the Ramseys. She allowed John Ramsey to leave the house for an hour and a half “to pick up the family mail.”

Then, at 1 p.m., Arndt asked John Ramsey and his friend Fleet White to search the house for anything that seemed out of place. Ramsey headed straight to the family’s cavernous basement and found his daughter in a small, windowless room.

JonBenet was lying on a cement floor, with duct tape over her mouth and a garrote still around her throat. She was covered with a white blanket taken from her bed.

John Ramsey picked up his daughter’s body, ripped the tape from her mouth and carried her upstairs. That seeming act of parental anguish, law enforcement experts said, destroyed potentially important evidence.

The case has placed Hunter, who has been in office 25 years, under tremendous pressure. He has assembled a team of advisors and investigators, including noted forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee. The investigation has thus far run up bills of nearly $2 million.

In Colorado, only the district attorney may convene a grand jury and the panel is endowed with sweeping investigative powers.

Although the grand jury’s work has been conducted in secret, some of the witnesses who testified are known. John Ramsey’s two grown children from his first marriage--who were not in Boulder at the time of the girl’s death--have been questioned by police and are believed to have testified before the grand jury. The same is true for JonBenet’s 12-year-old brother, Burke, who was in the home that night.

The Boulder district attorney’s office said that the boy is not a suspect but is at the center of an inconsistency in the story his parents told police. The Ramseys told investigators that Burke was asleep at the time JonBenet was discovered missing and when Patsy Ramsey called 911. However, authorities believe that Burke’s voice is audible on the 911 tape, asking what was happening. John Ramsey is heard rebuking him.

Neither John nor Patsy Ramsey is believed to have testified before the grand jury, a turn of events that legal observers have found puzzling.

The grand jury worked, at times, at a leisurely pace. Often they met only twice a week. Still, the jury required an extension of its April expiration date to complete its work. The latest court-mandated deadline was Oct. 20.

The panel has gone weeks without meeting, sometimes waiting for the analysis of additional forensic evidence to be completed.

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Times researcher Belen Rodriguez in Denver contributed to this story.