RiverRat
Patsy Ramsey to the Left
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2003
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http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/city...2837578,00.html
April 26, 2004
The JonBenet cyber-sleuths are coming to the town where it all started.
A handful of members on the Web site Forums for Justice, which targets John and Patsy Ramsey in the 1996 slaying of their 6-year-old daughter, will be in Boulder and Denver this week trying to persuade Gov. Bill Owens to appoint a special prosecutor to the unsolved case.
The members will come from as far as New York and Florida to present a petition for a special prosecutor, echoing last week's request by Fleet White, a former friend of the Ramseys.
"This is great because it's going to be a one-two punch," said Tricia Griffith, a Utah resident who launched Forums for Justice after JonBenet's death. But Griffith said the two requests are unrelated.
She started the online petition last May, and it has gathered 1,407 signatures. It's more than she expected, she said.
"I thought, 'Boy, it's going to be really hard to get 500 signatures because everybody has moved on,'" she recalled.
Many people have "moved on." The number of Web sites dedicated to the slain Boulder girl, a child pageant queen, have thinned out in recent years. But for some of the die-hards captivated by the case, a new local scandal has only added fuel to the fire.
Gov. Owens appointed a special prosecutor in February to investigate allegations that the University of Colorado used sex to lure football recruits. Owens' first-ever appointment of a special prosecutor should set a precedent and pave the way for one in the JonBenet case, say both Griffith and Fleet White.
Boulder County District Attorney Mary Keenan, who took over the Ramsey investigation from Boulder police in 2002, said there's no correlation between the two cases.
Keenan said she requested a special prosecutor in the CU case for three reasons: It spans multiple jurisdictions; it involves a state institution; and she became a "lightning rod" in the case because of accusations she made against CU's football program in sworn testimony for a civil lawsuit at the heart of the scandal.
"None of these things are true in the Ramsey case," Keenan said. "That's completely a Boulder County case. There's no reason for it to go anywhere else."
Owens has tended to agree. He has turned down previous requests for the Ramsey case, as did his predecessor, Roy Romer.
Owens spokesman Dan Hopkins said the Ramsey investigation and CU case are "two different situations," but he said the governor will "certainly take a look at their petition."
Lin Wood, the Ramseys' Atlanta attorney, said the back-to-back requests were insignificant. He called Fleet White unpredictable and the Forums for Justice members "totally irrelevant."
"These are people that are somehow strangers to a case who have become obsessed with it over the Internet," he said of the cyber-sleuths. "I don't think they have any credibility."
Forums for Justice members take issue with that characterization. "We're not obsessed crazies; we're normal people," Griffith said.
The members who will fly into Colorado on Wednesday and Thursday have known one another for seven years over the Internet, but for the most part have never met in person and have never come to Boulder, she said.
*snip*
The point is to show that a murdered child won't be forgotten and to take action in a case that has bothered them for years, Griffith said.
"To feel like you've done something, even if it's just flying out and walking up the steps of the Capitol and handing the petition to an aide, you can say, 'I did something,'" Griffith said. "'I'm not sitting back like everybody else did.'"
Contact Camera Staff Writer Amy Hebert at (303) 473-1329 or heberta@dailycamera.com.
http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/city...2837578,00.html
April 26, 2004
The JonBenet cyber-sleuths are coming to the town where it all started.
A handful of members on the Web site Forums for Justice, which targets John and Patsy Ramsey in the 1996 slaying of their 6-year-old daughter, will be in Boulder and Denver this week trying to persuade Gov. Bill Owens to appoint a special prosecutor to the unsolved case.
The members will come from as far as New York and Florida to present a petition for a special prosecutor, echoing last week's request by Fleet White, a former friend of the Ramseys.
"This is great because it's going to be a one-two punch," said Tricia Griffith, a Utah resident who launched Forums for Justice after JonBenet's death. But Griffith said the two requests are unrelated.
She started the online petition last May, and it has gathered 1,407 signatures. It's more than she expected, she said.
"I thought, 'Boy, it's going to be really hard to get 500 signatures because everybody has moved on,'" she recalled.
Many people have "moved on." The number of Web sites dedicated to the slain Boulder girl, a child pageant queen, have thinned out in recent years. But for some of the die-hards captivated by the case, a new local scandal has only added fuel to the fire.
Gov. Owens appointed a special prosecutor in February to investigate allegations that the University of Colorado used sex to lure football recruits. Owens' first-ever appointment of a special prosecutor should set a precedent and pave the way for one in the JonBenet case, say both Griffith and Fleet White.
Boulder County District Attorney Mary Keenan, who took over the Ramsey investigation from Boulder police in 2002, said there's no correlation between the two cases.
Keenan said she requested a special prosecutor in the CU case for three reasons: It spans multiple jurisdictions; it involves a state institution; and she became a "lightning rod" in the case because of accusations she made against CU's football program in sworn testimony for a civil lawsuit at the heart of the scandal.
"None of these things are true in the Ramsey case," Keenan said. "That's completely a Boulder County case. There's no reason for it to go anywhere else."
Owens has tended to agree. He has turned down previous requests for the Ramsey case, as did his predecessor, Roy Romer.
Owens spokesman Dan Hopkins said the Ramsey investigation and CU case are "two different situations," but he said the governor will "certainly take a look at their petition."
Lin Wood, the Ramseys' Atlanta attorney, said the back-to-back requests were insignificant. He called Fleet White unpredictable and the Forums for Justice members "totally irrelevant."
"These are people that are somehow strangers to a case who have become obsessed with it over the Internet," he said of the cyber-sleuths. "I don't think they have any credibility."
Forums for Justice members take issue with that characterization. "We're not obsessed crazies; we're normal people," Griffith said.
The members who will fly into Colorado on Wednesday and Thursday have known one another for seven years over the Internet, but for the most part have never met in person and have never come to Boulder, she said.
*snip*
The point is to show that a murdered child won't be forgotten and to take action in a case that has bothered them for years, Griffith said.
"To feel like you've done something, even if it's just flying out and walking up the steps of the Capitol and handing the petition to an aide, you can say, 'I did something,'" Griffith said. "'I'm not sitting back like everybody else did.'"
Contact Camera Staff Writer Amy Hebert at (303) 473-1329 or heberta@dailycamera.com.