According to the following, it was 2 days after the body was discovered BBM:
DIANE SAWYER: (on camera) Why did they get a lawyer?
MICHAEL BYNUM: I went, as their friend, to help. And I felt that they should have legal advice -- nothing more, nothing less.
DIANE SAWYER: So you're the reason they got a lawyer?
MICHAEL BYNUM: I'm the one.
DIANE SAWYER: It did not occur to them first?
MICHAEL BYNUM: They certainly never made any mention of it to me.
DIANE SAWYER: I'm trying to imagine, if I am in the middle of this agony and my friend says to me, "You better get a lawyer " I think I'd go, "What? What?"
MICHAEL BYNUM: Well...
DIANE SAWYER: This horrible thing has happened to my child. There's a note here. I should get a lawyer?
MICHAEL BYNUM: Well, first of all, that was not the words that I used. I told John there were some legal issues that I thought needed to be taken care of. And John just looked at me and said, "Do whatever you think needs to be done," and he and Burke -- he went into a room to talk with Burke and so I did.
DIANE SAWYER: What made you think there were legal issues?
MICHAEL BYNUM: I was a prosecutor. I know how this works. I know where the police attention's going to go, right from the get go.
DIANE SAWYER: (voice-over) And he says that's exactly what happened.
By Saturday, two days after the murder that the police were openly hostile. An assistant DA gave him some news.
MICHAEL BYNUM: He said the police are refusing to release JonBenet's body for burial unless John and Patsy give them interviews. I have never heard of anything like that. I said to the DA, "I don't know whether or not this is illegal, but I'm sure it's immoral and unethical." I just was not willing to participate and facilitate or do anything other than to say "no." Not only no, but hell, no, you're not getting an interview. And I did say that.
DIANE SAWYER: Did they authorize you to say that?
MICHAEL BYNUM: John and Patsy? No. Absolutely not. They weren't in the room. They didn't know what was going on. And I wasn't going to bring them in on it. I did it.
DIANE SAWYER: (voice-over) In the end, the body was released. The funeral was in Atlanta. Bynum insists the Ramseys still didn't know what he had told police when they suddenly accepted an invitation to go on CNN.
PATSY RAMSEY (From CNN Tape): If anyone knows anything, please, please help us.
DIANE SAWYER: (on camera) Was it a mistake?
MICHAEL BYNUM: Yes and no. At this point in time, with everything that's happened to them, it's pretty difficult for them to do anything that isn't going to be criticized. If they do something, it's criticized that they did. If they don't, it's criticized that they don't.
DIANE SAWYER: But of all the things that solidified suspicions against the Ramseys, probably the biggest was that four-month delay in granting police a formal interview. Bynum says the Ramseys wanted to talk, but their attorneys insisted that a member of the DA's office be present. Why? He says because police were so hostile and the DA makes the final decision whether the prosecute. He insists that the big holdup was that police waited so long to let the DA's office in.
MICHAEL BYNUM: The primary issue preventing an interview for all that time, despite everything people were told in the media, was the issue of the presence of the DA in there.
DIANE SAWYER: What about this assumption on people's part that if it had been them and their child and they were innocent, they would have said, "I don't care what you say, attorneys, I am going down -- I'm going to -- I'm not going to just give an interview. I'm going to camp out down there to make sure they know everything I know, and that they're on the trail of who did this. Nothing is going to stop me."
MICHAEL BYNUM: I think there's nothing wrong with that approach and that idea. But I want to tell you, for anyone in the circumstance that John and Patsy Ramsey were in, you go ahead and do that and pick up the pieces later because you're going to be shredded. And I know that there are good police. I know there are good police in Boulder, Colorado, but I've also seen it from the prosecution side. I've seen it from the defense side if a focus occurs what that means. And it means they're coming, and you better get ready.
DIANE SAWYER: Innocent or not?
MICHAEL BYNUM: Absolutely. Absolutely.
ABC PRIMETIME LIVE (10:00 pm ET) SEPTEMBER 10, 1997
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