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I had not heard anything about the murder the first couple of weeks after it happened. When Bruce and I went skiing in Aspen we happened to see something about it on TV one night. We wondered aloud whether there was so much attention on it outside of Colorado. I guess I know the answer to that one by now.
My general impressions early on were shaped by the media, which consistently reported that the parents were not cooperating with the police. That seemed odd to me, if they were innocent. But I assumed that if they were guilty then it would simply be a matter of time before they were indicted, arrested and tried. As with the whole O.J. thing, I mostly tried to ignore it, because it didn't really affect me. It appeared to be an isolated incident, so in the grand scheme of things it shouldn't have been all that important to the majority of the country.
After awhile it became clear that the only reason this incident was news was because they had good art. Not of the crime scene, but rather of the child pageant photos and videos taken of Jonbenet prior to her death. That the parents appeared to be rich and "...weren't cooperating with police." just added a little spice. If it hadn't been for those videos of a cute little girl performing on stage this would have been a purely local tradgedy that probably wouldn't have even been reported on the national news programs.
I had seen the A&E program (actually, a British company filmed it and they rerecorded the narration with Bill Kurtis for the US audience) about the case and the media frenzy around it. I don't remember many details of the program, but my general impression was that they were fairly normal people caught in the tabloid crosshairs. Again, mostly because of the pictures of the cute little girl on the front page sold papers.
In the book you learn that the Boulder Police Dept was inexperienced and ill-equipped to handle the case. They just didn't have many murders in Boulder, so apparently few if any of their detectives had prior experience. Nothing wrong with that.
The problem came when they jumped to the conclusion that the parents committed the crime. The book belabors the point by repeating it several times. But basically the the Boulder PD ignored any evidence that didn't support their theory of the crime. Instead, individual detectives came up with quite bizarre guesses at motives and means by which the crime was committed.
Finally, the Boulder PD refused all assistance from any organization, even if it clearly had more experience and tools for investigating a crime like this. The book never makes clear the context that the more experienced people and organizations approached the PD. But it seem likely that someone must have had an opportunity for a substantive discussion with one or more of the investigators on the case. I'm sure they had their irrational behavior pointed out to them several times. Yet, they refused to listen.
In the book, we also learn that early on, starting a few days after the murder, the Ramseys were fairly obstinate about not being interrogated at the Boulder Police station. The reason given was that Patsy wasn't up to it. I get the impression that might have been the genesis of the reports of the Ramseys not cooperating. But other than that, it sounds like they were very cooperative. Their trip to Atlanta was for the funeral and was blown completely out of proportion by the tabloid media. And it continued from there.
My own personal reaction to the tabloid culture we live in is, if the average person didn't buy these things, if they didn't watch the programs, then they would go away. The tabloid papers and shows don't make any money from me, because I never pay attention to them. I don't care who's dating who in Hollyweird. Over the entire year of the O.J. debacle, I probably saw a total of one hour about it. I hadn't even heard of the au pair trial until the day it was over. And the A&E special and this book are about all I know about the Jonbenet case.
As consumers, we need to demand greater integrity. We need to demand greater depth and more thorough investigations before they print/air their stories. I'm tired of hearing, "...It was reported that..." and then learning that I'm hearing unsubstantiated rumors printed/aired by their sister publications/shows. And we need to take responsibility for funding the trash news machine. We need to exercise some discrimination in what we pay for or watch.
The book ended up being a mix of autobiography, memoirs, and hype of their own. On Mighty's Total Book Value Scale, Paperback.
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