Jonbenet: Presumed Guilty //////

Summary

Podcast Summary: True Crime Garage – "JonBenet: Presumed Guilty"

Release Date: December 12, 2024
Hosts: Nic and the Captain
Guest: Stephen Singular and Joyce Singular

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Introduction

In the gripping episode titled "JonBenet: Presumed Guilty," hosts Nic and the Captain delve deep into the enduring mystery of JonBenet Ramsey's tragic death. Joining them are veteran crime journalist Stephen Singular and his wife, Joyce Singular, who bring an original perspective to one of America's most perplexing true crime cases. Drawing from Stephen's book, Presumed Guilty, the duo explores alternative theories, scrutinizes the investigation's integrity, and uncovers overlooked facets that may have hindered solving the case.

Background of the JonBenet Ramsey Case

JonBenet Ramsey, a six-year-old beauty queen from Boulder, Colorado, was found murdered in her family's home in December 1996. The case quickly captivated national attention, primarily due to the family's initial portrayal as either innocent victims or possible suspects. Over the years, numerous theories have emerged, but the case remains officially unsolved, leaving the public and true crime enthusiasts searching for answers.

Stephen Singular's Perspectives

Stephen Singular, in his book Presumed Guilty, methodically dissects the JonBenet Ramsey case, positing that the investigation was marred by public perception, media influence, and potential oversights by law enforcement. He suggests that beyond the two prevailing theories—the Ramseys being involved or an intruder committing the crime—there exists a third, more nuanced possibility that hasn't been adequately explored.

Key Discussion Points

1. Limitations of the Official Investigation

Captain: "There was no pathology at all emerging from the Ramsey family... So, we started just thinking, is there a third option here?" (07:38)

The Singulars critique the Boulder Police Department's handling of the case, highlighting a lack of thoroughness and potential biases that confined the investigation to either implicating the family or an unidentified intruder. They argue that this dichotomy overlooked complexities that could have provided a clearer understanding of the events.

2. Media's Influence on Public Perception

Co-host: "You have to remember that this was the beginning also of the 24-hour cable news cycle... People would, you know, making judgments." (08:55)

The hosts emphasize how relentless media coverage likely swayed public opinion, potentially influencing jury pools and overshadowing alternative theories that didn't fit the prevailing narratives.

3. The Randy Simons and Child Pornography Angle

Captain: "They kept telling us the same story over and over again that her primary photographer, Randy Simons, had behaved very bizarrely... saying, 'I did not kill JonBenet.'" (10:29)

Randy Simons, JonBenet's primary photographer, emerges as a figure of interest due to his erratic behavior post-murder and subsequent arrests for child pornography. The Singulars suggest that his connections within the child beauty pageant industry and involvement in illicit activities might hold untapped clues relevant to the case.

4. Grand Jury Report and Its Implications

Captain: "The grand jury concluded that John and Patsy Ramsey effectively expose their daughter to the person or persons or circumstances that led to her death... that's the middle ground for the case." (19:34)

The grand jury's findings introduce a middle ground, implying that while the Ramseys might not have directly committed the murder, their actions or associations inadvertently exposed JonBenet to harmful circumstances. However, only four paragraphs of the extensive report were made public, leaving the remaining details shrouded in secrecy.

5. Additional Leads and Investigative Oversights

Captain: "There was a huge disconnect... They were focused on the Ramsey family... I thought he was trying to do some of the right things." (22:48)

Despite uncovering multiple leads—ranging from other potential suspects like John Marker to various anonymous tips pointing towards broader criminal activities—the investigation seemed stagnant. The Singulars highlight instances where valuable evidence, such as John Mark Carr's missing computer, was inexplicably overlooked or dismissed.

Notable Quotes

• Stephen Singular: "Once upon a time, in the perfect town of Boulder... The riddle of the pretty little princess found mysteriously slain inside her castle." (01:39)

• Captain: "The media presents it in a certain way... there are two groups arguing. One will be IDs, the intruder did it. The other group will be RDI, the Ramseys did it." (15:46)

• Co-host: "Why doesn't the public have a right to know that? And what's being covered up? That's the fundamental question." (21:17)

• Captain: "What's being concealed? What's in the other 14 pages?" (22:01)

Conclusions and Insights

The episode underscores the complexity of the JonBenet Ramsey case, suggesting that the true narrative might be obscured by investigative limitations, media influence, and possible cover-ups. The Singulars advocate for a more expansive exploration of the evidence, urging listeners to question established theories and consider overlooked possibilities that could shed new light on the case.

Recommendations

Stephen Singular highly recommends his book, Presumed Guilty, particularly the updated 2016 Kindle version, for listeners seeking a deeper understanding of the JonBenet Ramsey case and the intricate web of media, law enforcement, and cultural factors that have influenced its investigation.

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Final Thoughts

"JonBenet: Presumed Guilty" offers a thought-provoking examination of a case that has long baffled the true crime community. By introducing alternative theories and questioning established narratives, the episode invites listeners to engage critically with the evidence and remain open to the myriad possibilities that may yet unravel the truth behind JonBenet Ramsey's untimely death.

Transcript

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[Stephen Singular]

Once upon a time, in the perfect town of Boulder, there was a pretty little princess who everyone loved. Little Miss Christmas they called her. She lived in a castle with the prince and the king and queen. She was very happy and quite wise for her years. Off to the fairest of them all contest. She would go with her mother, the queen before crowds of people. She would dance and sing in costumes and gowns atop of parade floats. She would smile and wave to the townspeople and their children. She was the envy of several and caught the eye of more than a few. At the very heart of a holiday season filled with parties and feasts. Twas the annual festival to celebrate the birth of the Christ child. A day of gifts and gathering good tidings and well wishes for the year to come. It was on this day that little Miss Christmas shined so bright with enthusiasm, laughter and cheer. She was a pretty little princess in a perfect little town. She was so happy and so was everyone around her. Or so they thought by day's end. It was on this night that the king and the queen would return, the little princess and the prince back to the castle for a night of slumber and dreams before the adventure of a new day. But something was not right. In fact, something was terribly wrong. And a great tragedy befell the little princess. Under the black cloak of the knight, the princess was mysteriously slain. Threats and instructions were delivered. A ransom was demanded, but never collected. Rules and promises were broken. The authorities were summoned and the priest and fellowship arrived. The castle was full and the king and queen surrounded. The princess was found. She'd been killed and displayed in a hellish fashion. Left strangled and bound in the darkest depths of the castle's dungeon. Surely the killer was an enemy. A monstrous maniac who penetrated the castle walls to slay the little princess. Or perhaps it was an evil from within. Was the princess a victim of a dirty little secret? Or the violent rage of one of her own? And so it was written, and so it was told. The riddle of the pretty little princess found mysteriously slain inside her castle. The authorities, the townspeople and the looky loos who came from near and far declared there were only two possible solutions to this quandary. The family or an intruder. This is true crime Garage Very excited today, Captain, because veteran crime journalist Stephen Singular is joining us here today in the garage with his wife Joyce to offer an original perspective on the killing of JonBenet Ramsey. Steven singular was in Boulder, Colorado for much of the murder investigation. In his book Presumed Guilty, Stephen Singular methodically details a volatile situation. He asserts that great confusion in the public perception of the case inflamed tensions among the District attorney and the Boulder Police Department and other factions to a point where the investigation may be stalemated. Singular's perspective exploration of the near universal call for the Ramsey's heads reveals the gritty power struggles and class schisms that underline the shiny comforting facade of the Boulder region. Steven Singular calls into question and overlooked possible very important aspect of this case. JonBenet was merely one of many little girls leeringly displayed as things of beauty by the child pageant industry, whose evil twin is the child porn producers and collectors, which in the 90s was hugely expanded because of the Internet. Although Stephen claims it points to have uncovered voluminous evidence, he incorporates a few of the particulars giving his own conspiracy theory. Singular's ultimate scenario. That neither parent personally murdered JonBenet but one parent's unwitting involvement led to attempts at concealment bears consideration. And that is why I invited Stephen and Joyce Singular to join us here today in the Garage to discuss many of the aspects of this case that I would wager that many have never heard of before.

[Joyce Singular]

We want to welcome you to the Garage and thanks for joining us here.

[Stephen Singular]

Today, Stephen and Joyce. For years we've been spoon fed this idea that we have to come to one of the following two conclusions in this case. Either the family did it or an intruder did it. And you say maybe there's some other questions that we should be asking about this still unsolved murder case.

[Joyce Singular]

So, Mr. Singular, why not the Ramsey's?

[Captain]

There was no pathology at all emerging from the Ramsey family, no even anecdotal examples of, you know, slapping a child or abusing a child in some way. No connection of John to that sort of thing either. So it was just looking like this might be a more complicated case than was basically being presented as soon as the patsy did it theory came out. On the one hand, you know, the Ramsey themselves were promoting or their team, I should say their legal team. More of the idea of the Intruder did it. But when you look at that, as far as I am aware, there has never been a case in American crime history where there's a body and a ransom note in the same location. And so that raised all kinds of questions and issues that didn't seem to make any sense. So we started just thinking, I mean, again, months go by and all of January, all of February, all of March, about 100 days, and there's no movement at all in the case. And we started to basically ask the question, is there a third option here?

[Co-host]

And then you have to remember that this was the beginning also of the 24 hour cable news cycle. So they kept repeating repeatedly showing that the images of Jon walking across the stage in various costumes, singing, dancing, this was shown a lot. And it got into people's psyche and consciousness. And people started, you know, making judgments. And, you know, people would, even local media, people, talk show hosts, would, you know, just pound into the microphone that, oh, Patsy did it. Patsy had to have done it. Patsy did it. You know, Patsy did this, Patsy did that. And we just thought that was wrong to be potentially influencing a jury pool, you know, and so we just decided to go look in other areas that hadn't and weren't being investigated.

[Captain]

Right. So as Joyce said earlier, when we, we started talking to the pageant mothers, who, again, some of them knew Patsy quite Well and knew JonBenet, and they kept telling us the same story over and over again that her primary photographer, Randy Simons, had behaved very bizarrely in the aftermath of the murder. They'd known him for years. He'd taken pictures of their daughters at pageants and other venues. And they said he was calling them up after midnight, screaming and crying, saying, I did not kill JonBenet. I did not kill JonBenet.

[Co-host]

But nobody had accused him of killing JonBenet.

[Captain]

Right.

[Co-host]

So it was like me thinks he does protest too much. It was very odd, very odd that.

[Joyce Singular]

He is defending himself when nobody's accusing him of the crime. Was there anything odd or weird about the Ramses?

[Captain]

The one thing about the Ramsey family that was unusual was that they did dress JonBenet up like this and, you know, put her out into the world of beauty pageants. Some of the mothers said that there were very suspect characters that came to the, to the child pageant. And we were in that world, even people they had asked to be removed from it. So it is true that that was unusual that Patsy did that with JonBenet, but that opens the whole case up to whole other subcultures.

[Co-host]

Well, it wasn't unusual in the fact that the pageant world was much more prevalent in the South. It was a much bigger deal in the Southern states than it was here in the Northern states. You know, of course, you would see the random kiddie pageant if you went to a mall back in those. But what we thought was that, you know, Jon was an extraordinarily beautiful child, and she had a lot of makeup on and a lot of provocative costumes. And the natural thought was, who might have inadvertently been sexually charged by watching her in those pageants or in those costumes? Who might you be inadvertently stimulating? You know, sponsor, a spectator, a judge, anybody.

[Captain]

Right. So, again, 100 days went by. There was no movement in the case. I decided to contact the district attorney in Boulder, Alex Hunter. And to my real surprise, he invited me to come up there and meet with him and talk about some of the things that, you know, we've been looking into, some of the people we've been talking to, and the whole Internet angle of this, with child porn just seemingly running rampant.

[Co-host]

You know, he didn't know the name of Randy Simons when Steve presented it to him. He didn't know.

[Captain]

Yeah.

[Co-host]

And then he. And then when the more information Steve gave him about what we had seen on the. On the. On the Web, he said, why don't you conduct a parallel investigation and go look into this? Because the Boulder police were not looking at any of those angles.

[Captain]

Right. He said, I really can't get the Boulder police to investigate anything outside the Ramsey family. And what he was saying was extremely odd if you really stop and think about it, because, you know, going further into that Internet world, I mean, basically you're committing a crime if you're downloading child porn or if you're trying to, you know, access it off the Internet. So I think it was more just very indicative of his frustration in not being able to sort of enlarge the case. And so, you know, we continued to look into Simons and again, some of the pageant mothers, and again, we took information to him. This went on for a couple of months. So it was clear. I mean, as time went on, it was just seeming to be more and more clear that this is not a simple case. And why, if it's a complex case, should we be limited to two choices? So the book, the first version of Presumed Guilty, came out in July of. In June of 1999, which by that time is two and a half years into the case. There's still no movement in the case. And so that third scenario is being offered up and the third scenario essentially said, what if the Ramsey's. The Ramsey's have been presented either totally guilty or totally innocent? What if there's some space in between there? What if they would be maybe guilty of something but not guilty of murder? Is that a possibility? And would that explain some of the complexities on the surface of the crime, such as a body and a ransom note found in the same place?

[Stephen Singular]

You met a lot of the players involved. And at times your book dances around this idea that maybe there are certain people involved in this investigation that don't really want to fully investigate or solve this case. I found it so interesting that In April of 1997, the Ramsey's camp publicly stated that the leadership in the Boulder Police Department lacks the objectivity and judgment necessary to find the killer of JonBenet Ramsey. That's a quote. So that's similar ideas. Can you talk about some of the players that you met along the way and talk about the possibility that they may not either want to solve it or may not have the capabilities to solve this case?

[Captain]

One of the aspects of this and the kind of big, big view of it in the title, you know, there is the word the media. And one of the things that happens many times in criminal cases is that, you know, the event happens and then the media presents it in a certain way. And it is just extremely difficult to get past, you know, that first wave of what is presented to the public. I mean, that's been, that's been. The Ramsey case is sort of the ultimate example of it. So 27 years later, if you go on the Internet Today, you'll have two groups arguing. One will be IDs, the intruder did it. The other group will be RDI, the Ramseys did it. And there's no other alternative. And so that has always been a part of what's fascinated me, you know, with crime in the modern media. And the Ramsey case is the biggest example of it. I mean, 27 years later, you think a new idea might be able to enter the conversation. So what happened in the, in the Boulder Police Department? I mean, yes, they were understaffed on the day of the crime. Yes, they did make mistakes in the, in the initial hours. I mean, if you thought this was a, an actual kidnapping, you would probably want to get the people out of the house.

[Co-host]

And also, as a private investigator told us once, if you don't do homicides a lot, you don't do homicides.

[Joyce Singular]

Well, that's absolutely a great quote.

[Co-host]

And they weren't known for a lot of Homicide cases in Boulder.

[Captain]

They had one that year.

[Co-host]

Yes.

[Captain]

And so they. They did not, you know, handle the crime scene well, and all of that. The biggest part of that, at least from my perspective, is that in the fall of 1998, which is approaching two years into the crime, District Attorney Alex Hunter decides to call a grand jury. And so that process takes 13 months. Most murder cases did not take anything like 13 months to reach some sort of conclusion by the grand jury. And so my book came out in June of 99. The grand jury ended their work in October of 99, and Hunter called a big press conference, and he said, we're not going to indict anybody, and we're going to seal the grand jury's work forever. So here you are three months into the most notorious criminal crime or crime ever in Boulder or Colorado, and the public has spent a couple million bucks to try and get an investigation going. The grand jury heard from, reported about 100 witnesses, and there were about 30,000 pages of documentation. And the result of all of that is we're going to seal this forever and keep it away from the public. This. It's curious when it happened in 1999, it's a whole lot more curious what happens later on. And that is essentially that 14 years go by and the local paper in Boulder, the camera sues the district attorney's office, which is now on its third district attorney since the crime occurred, and they get four of the 18 pages of the grand jury report released.

[Co-host]

Really, four paragraphs.

[Captain]

Four paragraphs. And this is, I think, and we think then probably the most important thing to convey to the audience listening to this. The four paragraphs state that John and Patsy Ramsey effectively expose their daughter to the person or persons or circumstances that led to her death. And that that's count four. And count seven says that they then participated in the aftermath of the crime. So that is the middle ground for the case. That's not saying the Ramseys killed their daughter, and it's not saying an intruder came in the house and killed their daughter. It's saying that some other scenario unfolded on that night. And complete guilt or complete innocence is not the conclusion of the only legal body that's ever studied the case and reached a legal conclusion. It's not. That, to me, is not only the most significant thing that's happened in the last, you know, 27 years legally regarding the case, but what's just as significant is that the media effectively totally ignored this and totally stuck with the intruder theory or the Ramsey did it theory. And to Me, it's one of the reasons. It's just. It just shows why the case has been so hard to move forward, both from the legal perspective and the media perspective.

[Joyce Singular]

So do you think there's a fundamental question here about this case?

[Captain]

What. The fundamental question is this. Why does a district attorney sit a grand jury for 13 months, go to all that trouble and expense? They reach a legal conclusion that was clear, and then you choose to bury it. What is being concealed? What's in the other 14 pages? Why don't they want the public to know that? Does the public have the right to know that? And what's being covered up? That's the fundamental question. And in my view, it hasn't been pursued enough by the people really looking at the case.

[Stephen Singular]

You had a close. I don't know if I would call it close, but a somewhat working relationship with Alex Hunter, who is the district attorney in Boulder at the time of the murder. And you had mentioned to Alex Hunter that you thought that one part of this investigation should be looking at these child beauty pageants and child pornography that at the time was blowing up on the Internet. And he tells you that, okay, why don't you go and investigate that? I can't get Boulder PD to look into different aspects other than the Ramses. So clearly, right away, very early on in 1997, we're already seeing a disconnect between the district attorney's office and the police department.

[Captain]

There was a huge disconnect. The police were essentially focused on the Ramsey family. You know, the bodies in the house, the parents are there, the ransom note is there. Yeah. And let's. Just like Joyce said, if. If you don't do homicide investigations well, if you don't follow the protocols, if you don't expand your pool of suspects. We talked to one of the mothers, and she said. She said, I'm appalled that they didn't come to me and take my DNA. They should have taken the DNA of a wide, wide number of people. They did over time. But she said, I, you know, I was around that child. My hands were on her because she was, you know, helping with various things, and she was just startled. And then she spoke to the grand jury, and she was one of the hundred witnesses because she was quite close to the situation.

[Co-host]

And we're not. We're not saying that we think Randy Simons is the murderer. We're just saying that there seemed to be some sort of connection between photography and child beauty pageants and photographers surrounding the pageants, and it should have been looked into. And then fast forward in time when we got a tip through our website. And was it 2013, 2019? No, no, 2013 when that woman came forward through our website and she lived in a trailer park in Oregon and she said that Randy Simons was living there too, and he had offered to take her small daughter, granddaughter to the restroom and she thought it was inappropriate that he should be asking to do that. So she googled his name and it came up in relation to presumed guilty. So she contacted us through the website and we had a telephone conversation with her. So there's that. And then in 2019, we get another tip from our website saying that Randy Simons has been arrested for 15 counts of child pornography again in Oregon. He had been sitting at a public restaurant and used their public WI fi and was downloading images of child pornography and somebody noticed it at the restaurant and they called the police and he got arrested and then he got indicted. And I think he gave him 10 years.

[Captain]

Right? Yeah, he pled. He pled out.

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Captain]

Yeah. So there were all of these other tangents to the case which led in the, you know, larger worlds. And I mean, I initially, I liked Alex Hunter. I thought he was very curious about the crime and was not close minded. And I thought, you know, he was trying to do some of the right things.

[Co-host]

And the one time that Steve did get a hold of Randy Stimonds, this was shortly after the crime was committed, and he talked to him on the phone briefly. And Randy Simons told Steve, I know more about this, but I'm not going to tell you.

[Captain]

And he may have said that to other people as well. So I. So it's, it's odd that 100 days into a criminal investigation, if you go back to April 1997, they don't know who this guy is. The district attorney doesn't know he is. I don't the police know who he is. And because all of their questioning, as I was saying earlier about this woman in the grand jury, was about, what kind of mother is Patsy Ramsey? Is she abusive? Have you seen her, you know, do something bad with her child? Or the bedwetting issue? And, you know, it's just, it just reveals, apparently, you know, how limited the investigation was, at least at that time.

[Stephen Singular]

Anyone that's looked at this case for any length of time knows that young JonBenet Ramsey participated in beauty pageants not just in the state of Colorado, but also in Michigan, Georgia and Dallas. But one thing that we learned that I found fascinating was that she was going to be or at least Patsy wanted her to participate in this very big, prestigious pageant that was going to take place in Las Vegas. But her husband, John Ramsey, says, no way. We're not going to Las Vegas to do a child beauty pageant. And that was going to take place in 97.

[Captain]

Yes. Not long after the murder.

[Joyce Singular]

And so why would it be so different to John Ramsey to have his daughter participate in a pageant in Las Vegas as opposed to Georgia, Colorado or Michigan?

[Captain]

You know, he lived in Colorado at a home in Michigan, was, came from Georgia, you know, with his business, I think he was probably a little more comfortable in those places, I think. And, you know, I don't, I don't want to speak for John, but we heard various, from various sources, he wasn't that comfortable, you know, with this whole dressing JonBenet up like a showgirl and sending her out on stage. But if his wife is, you know, a cancer survivor, this is something she loves to do with her daughter.

[Co-host]

And she was, she was in pageants herself, right? She was Miss West Virginia. She went to the Miss America contest. So, you know, this was a big deal for her. And she was, had just, she was in remission from ovarian cancer. So, you know, this is a, this is her, her passion with JonBenet.

[Captain]

Yeah. And John said, We've met with John, you know, and had long conversations. You know, I didn't know everything that was going on. I was very, very busy running my business there in Boulder, which had become a billion dollar business. And, you know, he actually said that. So, you know, I think he was just kind of going along with it.

[Co-host]

Well, he said something to the effect of we, we didn't know. We thought Boulder was a nice, good place to raise children. Our children.

[Captain]

Yeah. In interviewing him, he said that about four or five times. And about the fifth time, you start to interpret it as we did not know who our daughter was being exposed to, which is almost the language of the grand jury. What they're not. It's not exactly, but it is almost the same as saying we didn't really realize who we were surrounded by. And I think that, I think he's telling the truth. And I think that's about as much of. About that as he could say. So, you know, so I don't, I just think he drew the line at Las Vegas because, you know, it has a reputation for being quite a bit cheesier than Boulder, Colorado, or Charlevoix, Michigan. And I think he was, you know, street smart enough to think that could be getting into a whole other realm.

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[Joyce Singular]

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[Stephen Singular]

And from your understanding, not just within the state of Colorado, but regarding these child pageants, were there any types of licensing laws, standards or regulations for the pageant circuits or franchises?

[Co-host]

Well, we're not, we're not experts in that area. We.

[Captain]

I don't believe there were. I could be wrong, but we certainly.

[Co-host]

Haven'T seen any of them anymore. You know, I mean, but then after that, there was, you know, on reality television, you saw the rise of these toddlers and tiaras and those types of programs. People are oddly fascinated with that subculture. You know, dressing young girls up with false eyelashes and big hairdos and, you know, it's just, it's, it's kind of a strange world.

[Captain]

When the case began and we began looking into the online stuff, 97, there were 5,000 worldwide child porn sites. By 2000, there were 100,000. People simply don't realize how much of this activity was going on and that it wasn't just a sexual underground, but it was business. As Joyce alluded to earlier, there was money to be made from creating images, selling images, manipulating images, and all of that.

[Co-host]

Think how much more money a photographer could make if they were doing illicit things online as opposed to just doing portrait photography or pageant photography, kitty photography. But then what if they, you know, some of them had some sort of second job online, you know, altering images digitally and buying and selling. That's a much more lucrative business.

[Captain]

Now, our idea was never that Randy Simons was involved in the crime, but like others, he had knowledge of some of the things that we're talking about and may have. Well, he obviously was connected to it in some very tangible way, at least later on.

[Co-host]

And also two private investigators that we worked with that were prominent in this case, Lou Smith and Ollie Gray, both Told us that they thought that there was some sort of photography or videography involved surrounding the case. They didn't go into much more detail because private investigators are notoriously closed lipped about what they share with you. They usually want more information than you get back from them. But they both said that to us.

[Captain]

And they both had access to all of the evidence, you know, which obviously the public doesn't. And that goes back to the grand jury, which had access to all of the evidence in the case, which was massive. What led them to those conclusions, to the conclusions that they reached? The public doesn't know that. And it's hard to imagine that they didn't have access to some of this kind of information.

[Co-host]

Well, but didn't Ollie Gray even say to us that there was, you know, once he started looking into this in Boulder, there was a lot of sexual subculture going on.

[Captain]

Yeah.

[Co-host]

As there would be in most cities. You know, every city would probably have some sort of deviant, dark, sub, sexual subculture going on.

[Captain]

And as time went on, we heard about parties in Boulder involving children. And then after parties involving children. And this again raised a whole number of questions. And we heard about, you know, fairly prominent people persist participating in these things. And there is no place around more conscious of its image than Boulder, Colorado. You know, very liberal, very affluent, very educated, you know, very, you know, politically correct, etc. They don't want that image defiled.

[Co-host]

And then we were. And then we were given the poems.

[Joyce Singular]

This part I find very fascinating, but also very creepy. Tell us about these poems that you received.

[Co-host]

And the poems were given to an attorney friend who had appeared on Fox News after we had relayed information to him, telling him what we thought, you know, about these alternate theories. He goes on television and like, about, was it a year or so after Steve, he received these poems anonymously marked on the return envelope for the children, Boulder, Colorado, even though the postmark was in Denver. He ended up turning over these poems to us. And they're very sophisticated, very cryptic, like something Jack the Ripper would have written. But they, and they. And they turn phrases around in such a sophisticated way and it's astonishing. They're online now. Anybody can dig them up. But the way that they gave the names of principals in the case and turned them around and then implied that there was this underbelly going on of sexual abuse of children, you know, by prominent people.

[Captain]

Right. And one of the poems named an individual. This was written in 2001, 2000 or 2001, and it named an individual named John Rossi, who was not. Whose name was not associated with the Ramsey case at all. And five years later, Rossi was busted on multiple counts of child pornography in.

[Co-host]

Westminster, which is very close to Boulder.

[Captain]

Right. And so whoever wrote that poem knew about Rossi, knew about child pornography and knew it was kind of as if they were trying to get this information out to the authorities, but didn't want to be associated with it, which is very understandable. So Rossi was arrested, he was on parole. He was in the system. He was again, part of some, you know, subculture involving child pornography. I again went back to the district attorney's office in 2000, around that time and said, you know, take this to the Boulder Police Department. This guy's on parole, he's in the system. Why don't you go interview him and see if what he knows. And nothing ever came of it. A man in Fort Collins, Colorado, just, you know, 30 to 45 minute drive or so from Boulder, was arrested in the 1998, or was going to be arrested in the 1998 Wonderland bus, which is a national, international ring of child pornographies online. And he and several other people who were in it immediately committed suicide.

[Co-host]

And we continued to get information from different, totally different sources corroborating that photography may have played a role in this case somehow. A business associate in California called us one night and told us that someone had come forward and wanted to tell their story about what they knew about the Ramsey case. He was a photographer, but when he was still living in the States, his home was broken into and his laptop or his computers were stolen. He then subsequently moved to South America. He was so afraid. And then there was other. There were other people.

[Captain]

Oh, I mean, the whole John Mark car story is interesting.

[Co-host]

No, go ahead. That's the other.

[Captain]

Well, no, most people know. In 2006, the summer John Marker was brought back from Thailand to Boulder, he had more or less said that he was present on JonBenet died. His DNA was tested. It didn't match what was left on the body, and he was released very quickly. That all seemed, you know, pretty rogue.

[Co-host]

Because there was no DNA.

[Captain]

Yeah, no DNA. And I didn't buy into the story. Joyce didn't buy into the story that he was the killer, but he did have computers. Again, going back to the computer world with allegedly, I think, or possibly he was an involvement in child pornography.

[Co-host]

And then that laptop went missing. When the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department moved their offices, there was 175,000 pieces of evidence. The only thing that went missing was John Mark Carr's computer.

[Captain]

Yeah, this whole case just has this smell about it of do the authorities really want to solve it? And we're just posing the question, but that it's the evolution of Alex Hunter from 1997 to Going Face to face with him and thinking, this guy really wants to know what happened to let's bury the grand jury report forever.

[Co-host]

But Steve mention about what Wickman said.

[Captain]

And then in the summer of 97, I went up and talked to Detective Tom Wickman, who was on the Ramsey Force task force. And he was, as with all police, in the middle of an investigation. He wouldn't talk very much. But after I laid out some of the things we're talking about here, especially the Simons thing and the pageant angle and are people being protected in this situation? And he said, you know, he said, I understand that. He told me about being on a case a few years ago where they'd gotten too close to some prominent person in Boulder and they just took him off the case. And then he said, you know, this case is not what the public thinks it is. This is not what they think it's about. And he wouldn't really open the door much further than that. But he told me that the things that I was presenting to him were very incisive. And so, you know, he was not in the camp that he was absolutely certain that Patsy did this. And so, you know, there's just. There's an enormous frustration, I think, at the heart of this case and at the, you know, people who looked into it.

[Co-host]

And also in 2020, we met in here in Denver with a retired Colorado Springs homicide detective who was working the night, you know, a few nights after JonBenet had been killed. And one of the volunteers on their hotline for tips had him take a call because this guy wanted to give some information about the Ramsey case. So the detective gets on the line and he told. He told him, this case is not what you think it is about. It's connected to people in high places. And then the guy hung up. And they couldn't trace the call because it was. He called from a pay phone. So now we're getting the same information from totally different directions corroborating what we've been looking into all these years. That's what's kept us on this alternate path, that there. There must be some. A third door to be opened, Right?

[Stephen Singular]

So we have this thing with John Mark Carr. They bring him all the way from overseas, magically lose his computer with God knows what was on that thing. We also have somebody like Richard Bruce Thomas who commits suicide. And Boulder Police Department never look at his hard drive either.

[Captain]

And then we have Randy Simons arrested in 2019 when he had several computers clearly dealing in child pornography. And we went back to the Boulder police and said, are you, you know, are you interested in following up on this? Because they say the case is open. You know, they're still investigating. And as far as we know, you know, nothing ever became of it. I mean, there's no response, and I don't. I don't think that happened.

[Stephen Singular]

So, speaking of potential leads here, are you able to expand on or tell us who the person is that was referred to as the South California inmate?

[Captain]

Yeah, I'm not going to use names, but again, it was a fascinating situation. I'll try and make it brief, but we were contacted by A source in 2.99, I believe it was, that a contact person in the Ramsey case has been arrested in Southern California for child pornography, multiple counts. And so Joyce went on the Internet and located a recent arrest, and we identified the person. And I flew out there and just decided to meet with him in jail. I didn't want him to know I was coming. And he was very, very surprised and figured out quickly what I was looking into. And he just said, go talk to my lawyer. And so I. His lawyers nearby, and I did. And then the lawyer eventually said, this guy does know, have information about the case. He does want to talk. You know, it might help his legal situation. He was facing multiple. Multiple counts of child pornography and looking at, you know, serious time. It's also not a lot of fun to be a child molester in jail. And he. When I was with him, when he talked to his lawyer about it, and he said this, I'm being harassed and I'm afraid and all of this. And so the lawyer and I went back to Alex Hunter and said, here's the lead developing in Southern California. And he was again, seemed very interested. And then I flew. The lawyer in Southern California told me, come back out here and this guy's going to tell you what he knows. And then I went out again, and he shut up. He wouldn't say anything. So again, it reiterates the dead silence at the heart of this case that nobody has told what they know, in my opinion. And there are people who know things here about it, and they move right up to the edge of it. And then the fear is so great, and this may even include Boulder's legal system, the fear is so great of opening this door that you just shut it down. So I've made two trips to California. I'm sitting there in front of the guy in jail, and his lawyer just went bonkers. And he said, you said you talked to this guy. And he said, I don't know anything about that. I mean, it was. It was a classic scene. And so Hunter was very disappointed, and I was more than disappointed. And that's just. That's just been the theme of the whole thing. What is. So, I mean, what's the biggest taboo that humans have? You know, killing children and adding in some sexual component? And this case is exactly about that. It has been limited or tried to be shut down from the beginning from one angle or another. And, you know, I know that the Rams, you know, say that they have cooperated with the police after a certain period of time and all that. Give me one piece of information that's been generated from that that has helped the case. I. To my knowledge, it doesn't exist. So it is dead silence on every side. That's law enforcement, and that's the defense team. And so, you know, here we are. We have a document that says what a legal body concluded. And it is, again, it is astonishing that the media has not picked up on that and understood it, because it blows the other two scenarios to the side.

[Joyce Singular]

I'm sure, in your time of investigating this case and after the book, obviously, you probably had a ton of people reach out to you to get information. Have you had anybody from the grand jury ever reach out to you?

[Captain]

No, there are people we know who have reached out to the grand jury, and it's. It's not. That's a very dicey thing. Legally, we would not reach out to the grand jury. We don't. You know, we don't. We wouldn't do that because that. That's pretty secret stuff. And. But we have essentially been told that the grand jury did hear some things about these parties that went on in Boulder and things in that realm.

[Co-host]

Sexual underground.

[Captain]

Right. That's. That's the best way to put it, involving children. And we have heard that.

[Co-host]

Yeah, but you can't approach grand jury.

[Captain]

No, you can't. We.

[Co-host]

It's against the law.

[Captain]

Yeah.

[Joyce Singular]

No, I was just curious if any of them have ever reached out to you.

[Captain]

No, it's. Go ahead.

[Stephen Singular]

We talked about Pam Griffith a little bit, and she says, look, I don't know why the investigators never took my DNA. I'm somebody that was very close with the Ramsey family. I was a seamstress for JonBenet I had a lot of interaction with them. Is she someone. Do we know if she testified at the grand jury hearings?

[Captain]

We're not sure about that. She may have. We don't know, but. We don't know.

[Joyce Singular]

But Pam would definitely be an interesting source to talk to about this case.

[Co-host]

The reason why she was an interesting source is because she was very street smart, whereas some of the other pageant mothers were more innocent or. But she had a certain sense of, you know, who to be suspicious of and who not to let her child alone with more than the other ones that we spoke with. That's what made her interesting to us.

[Captain]

Yeah.

[Stephen Singular]

And Pam Griffin, she is one of the people that tells you that this guy, Randy Simons, who is involved in the pageants and taking photographs of JonBenet, he's calling me in the middle of the night and saying very strange things.

[Co-host]

She. And other ones.

[Captain]

She was. She. But other ones corroborated it.

[Joyce Singular]

But this weirdo is not just saying strange things.

[Captain]

Yeah.

[Stephen Singular]

He's not just saying, I didn't kill JonBenet. He's saying, I don't have an alibi for the night that she was killed.

[Co-host]

Why would he be so upset? His DNA was not found at the scene.

[Captain]

Right. I mean, his whole behavior is bizarre. And he did say. He did say that there was an hour or so the night of the crime that he couldn't account for, whatever that meant. But his hysteria in the wake of this just raised fundamental questions.

[Co-host]

Oh, that's right. Walking down the street of that town in eastern Colorado.

[Captain]

Genoa.

[Co-host]

Genoa. Yeah. And he was walking naked. How long after the crime was this? About a year.

[Captain]

This was in the fall of 98.

[Co-host]

Yeah. And he was. He was arrested for indecent exposure. He was walking naked down the street in this very small town in the Eastern Plains saying, I did not kill JonBenet. I did not kill John. Again, nobody accused him of killing Jomini.

[Captain]

It sounds like a lot of guilt.

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Captain]

And again, I don't.

[Co-host]

Guilt for what? Yes, for knowledge of something. Who knows? We just try to ask the right questions. We're not claiming to know who the killer is or what exactly happened. We just believe in asking the right questions and letting people decide. People are critical thinkers. Many are. And they can come to their own conclusion as to why this case hasn't been solved. And maybe there are some other arenas that need to be looked into.

[Captain]

If I were the Boulder police, and if this is, in fact an open case, and if they are investigating, I would have gotten on a plane and gone to Oregon and sat down with this guy. I mean, yeah, maybe he might have.

[Co-host]

Been some kind of a bargain.

[Captain]

Yeah, he might just like the man in Southern California and said, you know, this is a chance to help yourself. You know, what do you know? And to my knowledge, that that never happened. So there's this very odd push pull thing that's gone on for many years. You know, we want to solve the case, we want to know everything. But have you taken these steps to get there?

[Stephen Singular]

What's so strange, too, is he's not only telling Pam Griffin that I don't have an alibi for that night, but to be clear here, he's kind of saying there's an hour or so that I can't even account for what I was doing. Almost like, I don't know, like some kind of blackout situation.

[Captain]

Well, I don't. Yeah, he didn't really explain it again. It was just bizarre, hysterical.

[Co-host]

And he did sell pictures of JonBenet to, I think it's called the Sigma Photo Agency in New York. A lot of those pictures are what ended up in the media, you know, over and over again in the tabloids everywhere. Maybe he had some guilt about that. I know the pageant mothers weren't very happy about that.

[Captain]

Yeah, he, you know, I think he was upset about all of that, but I don't think it would explain walking down the street naked two years later and telling the police, you didn't kill her.

[Co-host]

Right.

[Captain]

When you've never been a suspect in any serious way.

[Co-host]

Right.

[Captain]

So.

[Stephen Singular]

And Pam Griffin is one of Patsy Ramsey's biggest protectors over the years. And in fact, she goes out of her way to take lots and heaps of criticism for protecting Patsy Ramsey.

[Captain]

Right. Pam had gone on television in the year in months after the crime and sort of spoken up for the Ramseys. I mean, she thought the whole idea that Patsy would kill her daughter was absurd. And, you know, she had been with Patsy two days or actually one day after the body was found on December 27, 1997. And Patsy was just, you know, sharing some things with her that I don't. I don't really think have come out in a lot of other venues. It seemed from what she was saying that the Ramseys were really frightened in the aftermath of the crime and that they, you know, perhaps they were even being threatened. I mean, we don't know. But their behavior in the aftermath of crime was also very unusual in some ways.

[Co-host]

Being afraid, being threatened, being possibly extorted, that could explain some unusual behavior on their part. Again, it's speculation, but it made sense to us.

[Captain]

Yeah. It could also explain what the grand jury concluded, that that they somehow expose the girl to the circumstances that led to her death. And I would insert the word very in capital letters, inadvertently.

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Captain]

If that's what happened. I do not, not think in any way, shape or form. And I want to make it totally clear that I think the Ramsey's intended any harm to come to John Benet. Yeah, I do not think that's what happened in this case. I think that if you go by what the grand jury said, she ended up in those circumstances. And in the aftermath of that, as Joyce said, if you were being threatened, if you were, if, if that was in the air, you know, what do you do in those circumstances? The grand jury concluded, not Joyce and Steve, singular, the grand jury concluded that they then participated in the aftermath of the crime. And you can go read the counts. The people who are out there count four and count seven. So that opens the doorways into more explanations for how possibly a body and a ransom node got in the same location. It might explain some of their behavior in the aftermath of the crime. Pam had said that, you know, they. One of the reasons they left Boulder was that they did not feel safe and they went back to Georgia. I believe so. I think. And again, we want to speak very precisely here, but I think the Ramseys were also victims of this crime.

[Joyce Singular]

Well, and if you've studied this case, you know about the neighbor's claims that little JonBenet Ramsey came to her and was telling the story about a secret Santa visit after Christmas. But now we know that that story just didn't come from the neighbor. It also came from Patsy.

[Captain]

Right, right. That's what was told to us. But the neighbor woman, Barbara Costanek, had had an actual conversation that we're aware of that was documented that JonBenet had told her that on Christmas night she was going to meet a secret Santa. And Barbara Costanik said, well, you're confused because Santa only comes on Christmas Eve. And John Monet pushed back and said, no, it's Christmas night. And so that opens up a doorway right there into what she was talking about.

[Co-host]

And we've never. No, it's never been released. Who was at that Christmas party that they went to that night?

[Captain]

There was a Christmas party at The Ramsey's on December 23rd.

[Co-host]

The other. The night on the 23rd. Yeah, yeah. Those names have never been released. The names of those people. Why, why, why doesn't the public have a right to know who was at that party. How can that spin squelched, you know.

[Captain]

And what did something occur at that party that would have set up something for two nights later? That's another question. Is that what John Benet was referring to? That she was going somewhere to meet a Secret Santa? And that opens up the biggest, one of the biggest questions of all of the case. And this is speculation and we realize that did she die inside the house? Is that where the crime occurred or is it not? And Molly Gray, who is, you know, police captain for years in Houston and private investigator who worked for both the, both of the, for the BPD and the Ramsey. Ramsey's said that there. And this is a controversial point because. But he thought there would have been blood in the basement where she was found. That may or may not be true given the skull fracture that she endured that night. But it's a question worth asking. You can't source the duct tape that was on her mouth to the house. You can't source the cord that was around her wrist to the house. I mean, this is what's been reported. So all of these fundamental questions are in play, you know, rather than just, well, she died in the basement, it was an intruder, it was the Ramses. I think all of the evidence that's on the margins, if you really look at it, it opens up the definite possibility of other scenarios. And so that's what Presumed Guilty was saying in 1999, as far as I know, the only book that was opening a third door. And that's what the grand jury report appears to be suggesting in 2013 by the conclusions that it drew. And you put all of that together and maybe we have no idea what happened that night and we haven't really cracked that doorway at all. And as after 27 years of studying the crime, that's sort of, you know, what I, what I think, and I think what Joyce and I think. And again, as she said, we're not, we're not offering the answers. We don't know whose DNA is on the body. But something has to account for the silence around this case and for the non release of information around this case. And I think those are questions worth asking.

[Stephen Singular]

And again, Pam Griffin is so interesting because as you already pointed out, you found her to be very street smart. But we also know that she was one of Patsy's best friends and one of Pat's and one of Patsy's biggest supporters. But one of the most interesting things that she said to you was, quote, I've always thought that she, meaning Patsy, knew who did this, but she didn't know that she knew.

[Captain]

I think it's exactly what John Ramsey was saying when he said for the fifth time, we thought Boulder was a nice, clean, upstanding community. I think, I think to extrapolate from that and again, the speculation, you know, we were surrounded, we must have been surrounded by some dangerous people. And we didn't know that.

[Co-host]

Yeah. Whether socially, in their social circle or in business or in the pageant world, no one can say for sure. Right. It's speculation.

[Captain]

It's speculation. But I think that's what he was saying. We didn't know whom our daughter was being exposed to either through the pageant world with the performances on stage, or through our associations with, you know, others in the community. And so I, you know, it's almost like what Sam is saying is, you know, she doesn't really, she doesn't really want to know. It's dangerous. And I think.

[Co-host]

I think they would have been highly protective of their remaining young child, Burke, at that point, who was only nine. Yeah, if there, if your six year old gets murdered viciously like that, you would be very protective of your remaining small child. Now, John Ramsey still had, you know, John Edward, who's much older, But Burke was 9 and living with them. I, as a mother, I would have been extremely frightened for that other young child at home.

[Joyce Singular]

Well, that goes back to what you were saying earlier, how the Ramseys themselves were also victims of this crime.

[Captain]

I think the crime is larger than it's been portrayed or, you know, laid out to be. And I think it touches on some of what we're talking about, prominent individuals in a community. I had contacted the third district attorney in the case in 2009 and proposed bringing in an individual who touches on all of these things, a victim of, of child abuse and other, you know, related areas. And the district attorney said, yes, that's a good idea, set that in motion. And the next day he said, we're not going to do that. And again, whether there was merit to this individual story or not, the dynamics in play just were to let's shut it down. And so I just, I think that, you know, this case had the potential to possibly just blow a hole in that community. And that may be one of the reasons that the grand jury report was shut down. There are 14 other pages in the grand jury report. What's in those 14 pages are individuals named, you know, what kind of information in there about the crime has never been released. I mean, it would be fascinating to know those things.

[Co-host]

And if there was someone to be wary of or someone that you should be concerned about? You know, wouldn't that be of necessity to the public to know about that individual or individuals? You know, I mean, Steve, you're, you're better at this. But wasn't there multiple samples of DNA found on Jaminet's body? Not just one.

[Captain]

There were multiple samples and mixed samples.

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Captain]

Implying possibly that more people were present when she died than just one person. So again, it, I think it's a bigger situation than child wets the bed and mom kills her.

[Joyce Singular]

We want to give a big garage thank you and cheers to Joyce and Stephen Singular for being so generous with their time. Make sure you subscribe on whatever platform you are listening to us on. We thank you so much for joining us here each and every week in the garage. Colonel Old Spicy one Do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners?

[Stephen Singular]

Of course we do. This week, Captain, we're going to be recommending Stephen Singular's book, Presumed Guilty, an investigation into the JonBenet Ramsey case, the media and the culture of pornography. And Stephen and Joyce pointed out something very fascinating to me here. Captain. There's multiple formats for this book. The book was originally released in 1999, but there is an updated version on Kindle, the 2016 version, which I highly recommend. And the Singulars recommend that you check out that version of their book, presumed Guilty, all about the JonBenet Ramsey case. And if you want to learn more about their other works, you can go to stephensingular.com and that is Stephen S T E P H E N singular.com.

[Joyce Singular]

And until next week, be good, be kind, and don't litter.

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