DeDee
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http://www.acandyrose.com/02002000NEWS-jonbenet-inc.htm
Under the headline: FOOTPRINTS IN WHAT SNOW?
By Katherine Rosman
<snip>
Tabloids such as the Globe, which kept JonBenet on the front page for three years (and counting), fabricated stories outright, says Jeffrey Shapiro, a freelancer who exclusively reported for the Globe from February 28, 1997, to February 11, 1999.
Such a manufactured news bulletin began, Shapiro recalls, over the weekend of August 22, 1998. Shapiro was facing more pressure than usual to find a blockbuster headline.
Days after the Enquirer's 911 scoop, Shapiro's editor had a big lead for him. Late in the night, on August 22, 1998, Shapiro says, one of his editors, Joe Mullens, called him at home to tell him that Mullens had found a source with the perfect juicy nugget. The lead, Shapiro recalls, was that John Ramsey had handed his pilot, Michael Archuleta, a box potentially filled with evidence, such as the cord used to strangle JonBenét and the tape found covering her mouth.
Shapiro says that when his editor filled him in on the details of the tip, he questioned the accuracy of the main source, who turned out to be Archuleta's brother. Apparently, in addition to telling Mullens about Ramsey's having allegedly dropped off the murder weapon at his pilot's home, Archuleta's brother gave Mullens another tip that Shapiro knew was demonstrably incorrect -- the details of a conversation Shapiro knew could not have taken place.
Mullens defended his source, Shapiro says, telling the young reporter that although the pilot's brother may have been wrong about the conversation, he was sure about the box delivery. Shapiro says he wasn't convinced.
<snip>
Meanwhile, inside the house, Archuleta got a phone call from a Globe editor. According to the pilot, the Globe editor said that Archuleta's brother had told the Globe that John Ramsey had given Archuleta a box of evidence. Would he care to comment? The Globe editor inquired.
Archuleta told the editor that he had been estranged from his brother for about five months. "If you're taking information from my brother, that shows me how stupid you people are," he recalls having told the Globe editor.
<snip>
From the beginning, the story was never based on legitimate sources, according to Shapiro: "They initiated the whole thing fed it to the police, got the police to react on it so they could write the story."
