PB: amazing. professor michael tracey, the ward churchill of patty c., head of the journalism department, now no longer wanted to talk about the e-mails. i guess after he gives them to the morning rocky mountain news. it's wednesday, august the twenty third. i'm peter boyles radio free denver. a week ago today this all begins, and tonight on our televison show, channel twelve at 8 o clock inside out live, we will look at this media event of the jon benet ramsey story. on the line with us, i didn't get a chance to say good morning to her off the air, but already haven spoken to tony ortega, and again i want to think patty calhoun for tipping us off to the tony ortega piece. please say good morning and welcome to 630 khow. you're in florida, are you not, trisha?
Tricia: no, actually i'm in utah.
PB: utah, i apologize.
TG: that's okay, i'd love to be in florida.
PB: this time of the year, nah.
TG: that's true.
PB: wait a while. t.g is with us. i was told you were a disk jockey.
TG: yes, i am. i've been in radio since about 1980, so i'm one of the oldies.
PB: cool. you're working now?
TG: i'm working now-i'm just doing what's called voice tracking, which is basically just recording a show for clear channel in salt lake city, so it keeps my busy, keeps me out of trouble, and gives me something to do.
PB: did you know l.k when he was over there? does that name ring a bell?
TG: yes, yes, i do know how larry is.
PB: larry and i worked together, i didn't know you were a cheap channel person, that's pretty cool.
TG: cheap channel is a very appropriate name.
PB: it's also called--i also have dubbed it "the death star". remember in "star wars" when everything would die?
TG: everyone would die, that's it. it sucks the life out of people. yes, we know that.
PB: you are a radio person! i'll get yelled at for that. "why did she say that?" well, truth hurts.
TG: that's right, that's right, truth hurts.
PB: truth hurts. we spoke with someone that you know, tony ortega. the reason i thought you were in florida is because ortega's in florida, and i apologize for that.
TG: that's okay. but isn't it amazing that a gentlemen in florida, on what's basically a smaller newspaper was the first one to pick this up?
PB: alright, tell the story, your take on....you know by the way, we have a really good collegue of mine here is a woman named patty calhoun, runs westward, patricia calhoun....did you know the ward churchill story?
TG: oh, very well, yes.
PB: patty dubbed michael tracey the "ward churchill of the journalism department".
TG: that is so perfect.
PB: alright, tell the story and i'll just sit back. we have never spoken before. i've talked to ortega, who thinks you hung the moon. it's all yours, you're on the air, so you can do it.
TG: i'll just tell you the whole story. okay basically, we have a forum that's called "forum for justice", john ramsey refers to us as "beer can collectors", which we proudly wear that moniker. basically what we do at "forum for justice" is, yes we do discuss the case, but also, what we do is gather documents. we like to do documentation. we've got the 2,000 interviews from atlanta from the ramseys. we've got all kinds of things. anyway, we have people from all over the world that are interested and participate in forumsforjustice.org. well there is a very alert viewer, and a good friend of mine. she posts as the name "jay" on "forums for justice". she was in scotland and she said that there was a michael tracey documentary that was going to air in 2004. so i said "jay, watch it". we had no idea what it was going to be. well, she watched it and they talked about this mysterious person that knew, helgoth, and michael tracey made a tremedous lead -
PB: now tell the folks..i'm going to try and coach you through this..helgoth is the guy that michael tracey initially names.
TG: initially, right. michael helgoth is the gentlemen who unfortunately commited suicide shortly after alex hunter made his "we're going to find you" speech in 1997. so therefore, since he commited suicide after that speech, michael tracey made the incredible leap that he must be the intruder. well, when his DNA didn't match, michael tracey had to find another patsy-excuse the pun-and find somebody else to be the intruders. so the first part of the documentary was all about how scary michael helgoth was and how he was apart of this whole intruder thing, but he didn't do the killing, it had to be his friend, and this friend of his was a scary individual, and people were frightened of him. and they interviewed his friends, neighbors, and other people that knew him about how violent he was, and the authorities were looking for him cause he was the prime suspect, which was the name of the documentary, and they refused to name him because he hadn't been charged. well, what they did was they held up this guys police report with his name and address and everything blacked out. what they didn't black out was the case number, and "jay", bless her heart, took a screen shot of that case number and sent it to me and said "put this in the colorado justice system where you can look up case numbers". i did. i got the name of j.s.g. now keep in mind, traceys documentary said authorities were looking for him.
PB: can't find him.
TG: can't find him. i found him within a few seconds in a google search. selling jewelery on the internet.
PB: yeah, he's hiding.
TG: yeah. hiding big time. i call him, and let me tell you, that conversation was very interesting because how stunning is it to get a call one day to find out you're the prime suspect in the jon benet ramsey case? and yes he did have a police record, he had a violent police record and all that, but he didn't kill jon benet ramsey. anyway, he was just stunned. and yes, he did know michael helgoth, and everything they said about him in the documentary was pretty much true, except for he didn't kill jon benet. so immediately, mister g calls tom bennett, the D.A.s head investigator..
PB: and by the way, -- aside, did you see that goofy press conference last thursday?
TG: with m.k? the academy awards, "let me thank everybody"?
PB: we call it the radio awards.
TG: i couldn't believe it.
PB: wait a minute-but tom bennett's standing right there.
TG: i don't know why.
PB: but why didn't he have a pair of nuts big enough to say "hey, we've been through this before"?
TG: i can't imagine. i would like to hear tom's side, because i respect tom bennett and i think it came down to "you better stand next to me or you could lose your job". that's the only thing i could think of, it's got to be something drastic like that because i do respect tom bennett. he's not a kook like -- is. so anyway. g calls bennett and says "i've got all the documentation to prove i was in my home state when this happened. what do you need from me?" and tom bennett told him "you're not a suspect, don't worry about it, you don't need to send anything. we're not looking for you." but i didn't take sg at his word for that. when he called and told me that, i called tom bennett myself, fully expecting tom bennett not to take my phone call. he took it immeadiately, i verified everything that g told me, and that's when we broke to story in 2004. we sent out a press release and got zero, nothing, nobody cared. nobody cared. but the good news is tracey was trying to sell this documentary in america-he'd actually gone on "catharine crier live", on court tv to try to pitch it, saying "i'm looking for an american distributor". fortunately, nobody picked it up. but now here's the weird twist. "48 hours" was going to pick it up, and i had a real battle with their producer because the producer was saying "well maybe g is it". and i'm saying "my god, what more do you need? tom bennett said he isn't it." "48 hours" actually tracked down g, -- was hiding. but now he was hiding because he was afraid. they found him at an ex girlfriends house and talked to him and said "okay, we're going to do the sg angle". here's the interesting part. michael tracey releases a press release on the university of colorado website saying "watch '48 hours', the new documentary will be there." and we watched "48 hours"- it had nothing to do with traceys documentary; it was all about an intruder, but nothing to do with traceys documentary, so they totally trashed it. it wasn't shown in the u.s, thank goodness. and it just faded away until this. and the second i heard tracey was involved, i just went "this is another big scam". this is it.
PB: me too. me too. and i thank whoever. ---- when this thing happened on wednesday and i started getting the calls, i said "that's not the guy". --- fox news' headline, "killer confesses"?
TG: oh please.
PB: [unintelligable] i was trying to explain to, actually of all people, my wife, last night about how this comes together. i've dubbed this a media fraud; a hoax, perp by..i think you called him the nutty professor.
TG: yes i did.
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