The shocker in the Ramsey case

Arrest is warning against rush to judgment

Published August 17, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Editorials

We frankly never thought we'd see this day. Back in 1999, when Gov. Bill Owens issued a melodramatic warning to the killer or killers of JonBenet Ramsey - "You only think you have gotten away with murder" - we cautioned against such bravado. Killers escape justice all of the time, we noted, and probably will in this case, too.

Now, nearly seven years later, Owens may turn out to have been right - although not in the way he evidently anticipated.

After all, the governor used that same press conference to call out John and Patsy Ramsey, JonBenet's parents, demanding that they stop "hiding" behind their lawyers. He claimed the killers had "stonewalled" and "covered their tracks" (note the plural "their"), thus directing further suspicion toward the couple.

And therein lies a broader tale that must be confronted head on.

If it turns out that suspect John Karr did in fact kill JonBenet, then the Ramseys - the father who survives and the mother who died not long ago - were mistreated by a number of public figures, members of law enforcement and, yes, journalists.

Craig Silverman, a former Denver prosecutor and co-host of a KHOW radio talk show, said Wednesday that the Ramseys will be counted among the most cruelly abused victims of a rush to judgment in U.S. history.

That's going too far, but it's hard to dispute the underlying point.

The record will show that this newspaper attempted to explore all possible explanations for the murder, including the theory of outside intruder. As a result of those efforts, the paper was contemptuously dubbed "The Ramsey Mountain News" by one fierce media critic of the family. This fellow also targeted a News reporter for regular on-air ridicule.

So much for the certitude of amateur detectives.

But the aura of suspicion was by no means the product solely of outside amateurs. Just weeks after the murder, Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter held a press conference in which he seemed to hint at the parents' involvement. Police conceded they were suspects. Some of the evidence did suggest an inside job. And for that matter, the Rameys shocked many observers (ourselves included) by rejecting requests for interviews with police and prosecutors.

The Ramseys' behavior, their wealth, JonBenet's involvement in beauty pageants, the mysterious "ransom note" and a host of other details virtually guaranteed that the murder investigation would become a national sensation.

Now the garish saga may be entering its final phase.

For everyone's sake, we at least hope that's the case.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News