RiverRat
Patsy Ramsey to the Left
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2003
- Messages
- 2,909
- Reaction score
- 44
Jury cloaked in secrecy
Panel has been meeting in Boulder, but target a mystery
By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
June 3, 2004
Grand juries typically operate behind closed doors, but one that has met several times over the past four months in Boulder County is particularly shrouded by secrecy.
The criminal matter being investigated is unknown even to Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner and Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle, the county's two top law officers.
The use of grand juries in Boulder County is particularly unusual. One has not met on a criminal investigation in Boulder since the grand jury hearing the JonBenet Ramsey murder case disbanded in October 1999 after serving 13 months without returning an indictment.
JonBenet, 6, was found slain in her home on Dec. 26, 1996. The case remains unsolved.
"Usually, grand juries are never used" in Boulder County, said Pat Wittreich, county jury commissioner. But she confirmed a grand jury of 12 men and women, plus four alternates, was empaneled Feb. 9.
Citing grand jury secrecy rules, Wittreich would not identify the case Wednesday or reveal how many times the panel has met.
Wittreich said the prosecutor leading the grand jury is Chief Trial Deputy Bryan Quiram. Quiram was not involved in the Ramsey grand jury.
"I can't confirm or deny" that a grand jury is meeting, said Boulder District Attorney Mary Keenan.
"I can't tell you anything about it. It's an area we have to be very careful about," she said.
Bill Wise, assistant Boulder district attorney for 28 years until retiring in January 2001, said, "I can't recall the last time that a grand jury met on a criminal matter (in Boulder), other than Ramsey."
Colorado judicial districts typically have a grand jury sworn in and available for potential service at all times, but they are ordinarily convened on an as-needed basis.
The largest ongoing crime story in Boulder County in recent months has been the allegation that, since 1997, nine women were sexually assaulted by University of Colorado football players or recruits.
Although Attorney General Ken Salazar announced May 11 that his special prosecutor's investigation into the CU scandal would produce no sexual assault charges, it was disclosed May 20 that a state grand jury would investigate other potential wrongdoing stemming from that probe.
That grand jury is meeting in Denver. It is scheduled to reconvene on June 11.
Another high-profile case from Boulder that remains unsolved is the Dec. 21, 1997, slaying of 23-year-old CU student Susannah Chase.
Boulder police announced in January of this year that new DNA technology that can point to a suspect's ethnicity told them that Chase's killer was likely a Hispanic or American Indian.
Police Chief Beckner said Wednesday he did not know what matter was before the grand jury. He said even if it did involve the Ramsey case, he would not necessarily know about it.
Beckner's department has not had control of the Ramsey case since December 2002. He agreed to Keenan's office taking charge at that time because JonBenet's parents had said publicly they had lost faith in the Boulder department's competence and objectivity, and would not cooperate any further as long as it remained under Beckner's control.
Three more key developments in the Ramsey case came in quick succession the following spring:
On March 31, 2003, in Atlanta, U.S. District Judge Julie Carnes dismissed a civil case brought against the Ramseys by Boulder journalist Chris Wolf, who claimed they had libeled him for stating in their book The Death of Innocence that Wolf was a suspect in their daughter's death.
Based on the evidence she reviewed - which was limited to those documents and exhibits submitted by attorneys in the libel case, and not the entire 40,000-plus pages of the criminal investigative file - Carnes ruled, "There is virtually no evidence to support (the theory) that they murdered their child, but abundant evidence to support their belief that an intruder entered their home . . . and killed their daughter."
One week later, April 7, 2003, Keenan issued a statement supporting Carnes' decision.
"I agree with the court's conclusion that 'the weight of the evidence is more consistent with a theory that an intruder murdered JonBenet than it is with a theory that Mrs. Ramsey did so,' " Keenan said at that time.
". . . Since Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey have not even been charged, much less convicted, they must be presumed innocent and must be treated accordingly."
Then, in June 2003, Keenan announced the hiring of Tom Bennett, who had retired as a detective from the Arvada Police Department two years earlier, to work exclusively on the Ramsey case 20 to 30 hours a week.
At that time, Keenan said that Bennett and other personnel in her office were collectively devoting 70 to 100 hours per week on solving JonBenet's murder.
John and Patsy Ramsey, with their now 17-year-old son Burke, left Colorado in 1997 and now live in Charlevoix, Mich.
http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_2934486,00.html
Panel has been meeting in Boulder, but target a mystery
By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
June 3, 2004
Grand juries typically operate behind closed doors, but one that has met several times over the past four months in Boulder County is particularly shrouded by secrecy.
The criminal matter being investigated is unknown even to Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner and Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle, the county's two top law officers.
The use of grand juries in Boulder County is particularly unusual. One has not met on a criminal investigation in Boulder since the grand jury hearing the JonBenet Ramsey murder case disbanded in October 1999 after serving 13 months without returning an indictment.
JonBenet, 6, was found slain in her home on Dec. 26, 1996. The case remains unsolved.
"Usually, grand juries are never used" in Boulder County, said Pat Wittreich, county jury commissioner. But she confirmed a grand jury of 12 men and women, plus four alternates, was empaneled Feb. 9.
Citing grand jury secrecy rules, Wittreich would not identify the case Wednesday or reveal how many times the panel has met.
Wittreich said the prosecutor leading the grand jury is Chief Trial Deputy Bryan Quiram. Quiram was not involved in the Ramsey grand jury.
"I can't confirm or deny" that a grand jury is meeting, said Boulder District Attorney Mary Keenan.
"I can't tell you anything about it. It's an area we have to be very careful about," she said.
Bill Wise, assistant Boulder district attorney for 28 years until retiring in January 2001, said, "I can't recall the last time that a grand jury met on a criminal matter (in Boulder), other than Ramsey."
Colorado judicial districts typically have a grand jury sworn in and available for potential service at all times, but they are ordinarily convened on an as-needed basis.
The largest ongoing crime story in Boulder County in recent months has been the allegation that, since 1997, nine women were sexually assaulted by University of Colorado football players or recruits.
Although Attorney General Ken Salazar announced May 11 that his special prosecutor's investigation into the CU scandal would produce no sexual assault charges, it was disclosed May 20 that a state grand jury would investigate other potential wrongdoing stemming from that probe.
That grand jury is meeting in Denver. It is scheduled to reconvene on June 11.
Another high-profile case from Boulder that remains unsolved is the Dec. 21, 1997, slaying of 23-year-old CU student Susannah Chase.
Boulder police announced in January of this year that new DNA technology that can point to a suspect's ethnicity told them that Chase's killer was likely a Hispanic or American Indian.
Police Chief Beckner said Wednesday he did not know what matter was before the grand jury. He said even if it did involve the Ramsey case, he would not necessarily know about it.
Beckner's department has not had control of the Ramsey case since December 2002. He agreed to Keenan's office taking charge at that time because JonBenet's parents had said publicly they had lost faith in the Boulder department's competence and objectivity, and would not cooperate any further as long as it remained under Beckner's control.
Three more key developments in the Ramsey case came in quick succession the following spring:
On March 31, 2003, in Atlanta, U.S. District Judge Julie Carnes dismissed a civil case brought against the Ramseys by Boulder journalist Chris Wolf, who claimed they had libeled him for stating in their book The Death of Innocence that Wolf was a suspect in their daughter's death.
Based on the evidence she reviewed - which was limited to those documents and exhibits submitted by attorneys in the libel case, and not the entire 40,000-plus pages of the criminal investigative file - Carnes ruled, "There is virtually no evidence to support (the theory) that they murdered their child, but abundant evidence to support their belief that an intruder entered their home . . . and killed their daughter."
One week later, April 7, 2003, Keenan issued a statement supporting Carnes' decision.
"I agree with the court's conclusion that 'the weight of the evidence is more consistent with a theory that an intruder murdered JonBenet than it is with a theory that Mrs. Ramsey did so,' " Keenan said at that time.
". . . Since Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey have not even been charged, much less convicted, they must be presumed innocent and must be treated accordingly."
Then, in June 2003, Keenan announced the hiring of Tom Bennett, who had retired as a detective from the Arvada Police Department two years earlier, to work exclusively on the Ramsey case 20 to 30 hours a week.
At that time, Keenan said that Bennett and other personnel in her office were collectively devoting 70 to 100 hours per week on solving JonBenet's murder.
John and Patsy Ramsey, with their now 17-year-old son Burke, left Colorado in 1997 and now live in Charlevoix, Mich.
http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_2934486,00.html