Denver – Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner has defended his department’s investigation into the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, saying more than 160 suspects were investigated and $2 million spent.
Beckner, who spoke with KCNC-TV, The Daily Camera of Boulder and the Rocky Mountain News, did not immediately return a call to his home seeking comment. His wife said he was out with his children.
The Ramsey family has criticized the police for allegedly focusing on them at the exclusion of evidence an intruder killed 6-year-old JonBenet in December 1996. Beckner told the News that notion was “an urban myth.”
In a statement published on the police Web site, Beckner said: “A few people have accused the department of focusing too narrowly in its investigation of this homicide when that was not the case. People who have spoken out that way have relied on the department’s inability to discuss case specifics, but I cannot allow the misperceptions to go unanswered any longer.”
Three lawyers who worked with police on the case, Dan Hoffman, Robert Miller and Richard Baer, defended Beckner in the statement on the Web site.
Beckner told KCNC: “For a long time we have remained silent.” His department said nothing about the recent arrest of John Mark Karr at the request of the district attorney’s office. Karr was cleared by DNA.
He remained in custody in Boulder, awaiting extradition to California to face child pornography charges in Sonoma. The sheriff’s office refused Saturday morning to take questions about when Karr would leave for California.
Meanwhile, Beckner said he has an entire room with files from floor to ceiling to prove how exhausting the investigation was. He noted that phone calls of at least five people other than the Ramseys were intercepted.
“If they have alibis and the forensics don’t match and there’s no reason to believe they had a motive, how far do you continue?”
A potential suspect was arrested after a roadside stakeout but forensics cleared him.
“We deserve some of the criticism we’ve received and we’ve acknowledged that mistakes were made. We have a lot vested in this case and we want to see it solved probably as badly as anyone,” Beckner said.
The department still gets two to three tips a week. Beckner, then a commander, took over the case in October of 1997.
Beckner told The Daily Camera: “I don’t want to talk now, but I’m not going to let our detectives have their credibility attacked over things that are not true.”
He disputed claims by a former assistant district attorney, Lawrence “Trip” DeMuth that leads were ignored. DeMuth told the News that his staff were barred from doing their own investigation.
Beckner didn’t deny DeMuth’s claim, but said the responsibility for friction between the two sides was shared.
“They were out there doing things … that we didn’t even know they were doing until after the fact,” said Beckner.
Beckner said the DA’s team wouldn’t give up on leads even after forensic evidence and alibis cleared the people.
“You’ve got to be able to put someone at the house. That the fact they’re a weirdo or a strange character doesn’t make them the killer of JonBenet.”
Beckner, a year after the murder, said the Ramseys remained “under an umbrella of suspicion” in their daughter’s death.” In 2003, U.S. District Judge Julie Carnes in Atlanta concluded that the evidence she reviewed suggested an intruder killed JonBenet. She ruled in a libel lawsuit. Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy has said she agreed with Carnes.
