00:00:09
n [Music] Once Upon a Time in the perfect town of Boulder there was a pretty little
00:01:14
princess who everyone loved Little Miss Christmas they called her she lived in a
00:01:20
castle with the prince and the king and queen she was very happy and quite wise for her years
00:01:30
off to the fairest of them all contests she would go with her mother the queen before crowds of people she would dance
00:01:39
and sing in costumes and gowns a top of Parade floats she would smile and wave to the town's people and
00:01:47
their children she was the Envy of several and caught the eye of more than a few at the very heart of a holiday
00:01:58
season filled with part and feast was the Annual Festival to celebrate the birth of the Christ
00:02:06
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
00:02:16
Christmas shined so bright with enthusiasm laughter and cheer she was a pretty little princess in a perfect
00:02:25
little town she was so happy and so was every one around her or so they thought by day's end it was on this
00:02:36
night that the king and the queen would return the little princess and the prince back to the castle for a night of
00:02:44
Slumber and dreams before the adventure of a new day but something was not right in fact
00:02:54
something was terribly wrong and a great tragedy befell the little princess under the black cloak of the night the
00:03:02
princess was mysteriously slain threats and instructions were delivered a ransom was demanded but
00:03:12
never collected rules and Promises were broken the authorities were summoned and
00:03:19
the priest in Fellowship arrived the castle was full and the king and queen surrounded the princess was found
00:03:29
she'd been killed and displayed in a hellish fashion left strangled and bound in the darkest depths of the Castle's
00:03:37
dungeon surely the killer was an enemy a monstrous Maniac who penetrated the castle walls to slay the little
00:03:47
princess or perhaps it was an evil from within was the princess a victim of a dirty little secret or the violent Rage
00:03:58
of one of her own and so it was written and so it was told the riddle of the pretty little princess
00:04:06
found mysteriously slain inside her castle the authorities the town's people and the luil L who came from near and
00:04:16
far declared there were only two possible solutions to this quandry the family or an
00:04:25
intruder this is true crab garage very excited today Captain because veteran crime journalist Steven singular
00:04:53
is joining us here today in the garage with his wife Joyce to offer an original perspective
00:05:00
on the killing of John Benet Ramsey Steven singular was in Boulder Colorado for much of the murder
00:05:07
investigation in his book presumed guilty Steven singular methodically details a volatile situation he asserts
00:05:16
that great confusion in the public perception of the case inflamed tensions among the district attorney and the
00:05:23
Boulder Police Department and other factions to a point where the investigation may be stalemated singular
00:05:30
perspective exploration of the near Universal call for the Ramsay's heads reveals the gritty power struggles and
00:05:38
class schisms that underline the shiny comforting facade of the boulder region Steven singular calls into a question
00:05:46
and Overlook possible very important aspect of this case John Benet was merely one of many little girls
00:05:53
leeringly displayed as things of beauty by the child pageant industry whose evil
00:05:59
twin is the child porn producers and collectors which in the '90s was hugely expanded because of the internet
00:06:08
although Steven claims at points to have uncovered voluminous evidence he incorporates a few of the particulars
00:06:14
giving his own conspiracy theory singular ultimate scenario that neither parent personally murdered John Benet
00:06:22
but one parents unwitting involvement led to attempts at concealment Bears consideration and that is why I invited
00:06:30
Stephen and Joyce singular to join us here today in the garage to discuss many of the aspects of this case that I would
00:06:38
wager that many have never heard of before we want to welcome you to the garage and thanks for joining us here
00:06:45
today Stephen and Joyce for years we've been spoonfed this idea that we have to come to one of the following two
00:06:51
conclusions in this case either the family did it or an intruder did it and you say maybe there's some other
00:06:58
questions that we should be asking about this still unsolved murder case so Mr Singler why not the ramies there was no
00:07:07
pathology at all emerging from the ramsy family uh no even anecdotal examples of you know slapping
00:07:16
a child or abusing a child in some way um no no connection of John to that sort of thing either so it it it was just uh
00:07:28
looking like this might be a more complicated case than was basically being presented as soon as the py did it
00:07:37
Theory came out on the one hand you know the ramies themselves were were promoting or their team I should say
00:07:44
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 there
00:07:53
has never been a case in American Crime history where there's a body and a ransom not in the same location and so
00:08:02
that raised all kinds of questions and issues that didn't seem to make any sense so we started just thinking I mean
00:08:09
again months go by and all of January all of February all of March about a 100 days and there's no movement at all in
00:08:18
the case and we started to basically ask the question is there a third option here and then you have to remember that
00:08:25
this was the beginning also of the 24hour C news cycle so they kept repeat repeatedly showing that the images of J
00:08:36
you know walking across the stage in various costumes singing dancing this was shown a lot and it got into people's
00:08:44
psyche and Consciousness and people started you know making judgments and you know people would um even
00:08:52
local media people um talk show hosts would you know just pound into the microphone that oh py did it py had to
00:09:02
have done it paty did it you know py did this paty did that and we just thought that was wrong to be potentially
00:09:08
influencing a jury pool you know um and so we we just just decided to go look in
00:09:17
other areas that hadn't and weren't being investigated right so as Joyce said earlier when we we started talking
00:09:25
to the pageant mothers who again some of them knew Psy quite well and uh and knew
00:09:32
John banet and they kept telling us the same story over and over again that that
00:09:37
her primary photographer Randy Simons had behaved very bizarrely in the aftermath of the murder they known him
00:09:45
for years she'd taken pictures of their daughters at pageants and other venues and they said he was calling them up
00:09:53
after midnight screaming and crying saying I did not kill John banet I did not kill John banet but nobody had
00:09:58
accused him killing John he so it was like me thinks he does protest too much it was very odd very odd that he is
00:10:06
defending himself when nobody's accusing him of the crime was there anything odd
00:10:11
or weird about the ramies the one thing about the ramsy family that was unusual was that they did dress John Benet up
00:10:22
like this and you know put her out into the world of beauty pageants some of the
00:10:27
mothers said that there were very suspect characters that came to the to the child pageant were were in that
00:10:34
world uh even people they had asked to to be removed from it so it is true that that that was unusual that py did that
00:10:46
with John Benet but that opened the whole case up to whole other subcultures well it wasn't it wasn't unusual in the
00:10:54
fact that the pageant the pageant world was much more prevalent in the South it was a much bigger deal in the southern
00:11:00
states than it was here in the northern states you know of course you would see the random Kitty pageant if you went to
00:11:06
a mall back in those days but the the what we thought was that you know J was an extraordinarily beautiful child and
00:11:16
she would had a lot of makeup on and a lot of provocative costumes and we the natural thought was who might have
00:11:22
inadvertently been sexually charged by watching her in in those in those page or in those costumes who who might you
00:11:31
be inadvertently stimulating you know um sponsor a spectator a judge anybody right so again a 100 days went by there
00:11:44
was no movement in the case I decided to contact the district attorney and Boulder Alex Hunter and and to my real
00:11:54
surprise he invited me to come up there and meet with him and talk about some of
00:12:00
the things that that you know we've been looking into some of the people we've been talking to and the whole internet
00:12:08
angle of this with child porn just uh seemingly running rampant you know and sort the under he didn't know the name
00:12:16
of Randy Simons when Steve presented it to him he didn't know yeah and then he and then when the more information Steve
00:12:23
gave him about what we had seen on the uh on the on the web he said why don't you conduct a parallel investigation and
00:12:30
go look into this because the Boulder police were not looking at any other of those angles
00:12:37
right he said I really can't get the Boulder Police to investigate anything outside the Ramsey family and what he
00:12:44
was saying was extremely odd if you really stop and think about it because you know going further into that
00:12:51
internet world I mean basically you're committing a crime if you're downloading child poror or if you're trying to you
00:12:57
know access it off the internet interet so I think it was more just very indicative of his
00:13:04
frustration in in not being able to sort of enlarge the case and so you know we continued to look into Simons and uh and
00:13:15
again some of the pageant mothers and again we took information to him this went on for a couple of months so it was
00:13:24
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
00:13:32
it's if it's a complex case should we be limited to two choices so the book the first version of Presumed guilty came
00:13:42
out in July of in June of 1999 which by that time is two and a half years into the case there's still
00:13:51
no movement in the case and so that's third scenario is being offered up and the third scenario essentially said what
00:14:01
if the Ramsay R the ramies have been presented either totally guilty or totally innocent uh what if there's some space
00:14:11
in between there what if they would be maybe guilty of something but not guilty of murder is that a possibility and
00:14:20
would that explain some of the complexities on the surface of the crime such as a body and a ransom not found in
00:14:28
the same place you met a lot of the players involved and at times your book dances around this idea that maybe there
00:14:35
are certain people involved in this investigation that don't really want to fully investigate or solve this case I
00:14:43
found it so interesting that in April of 1997 the ramsy camp publicly stated that
00:14:50
the leadership in the Boulder Police Department lacks the objectivity and judgment necessary to find the killer of
00:14:57
John Benet ramsy that's it's a quote so that's similar ideas can you talk about some of the players that you met along
00:15:05
the way and talk about the possibility that they may not either want to solve it or may not have the capabilities to
00:15:14
solve this case one of the aspects of this and the kind of big big view of it and the title you know there is the word
00:15:23
the media and one of the things that happens many times in criminal cases is that you
00:15:32
know the event happens and then the media presents it in a certain way and it is just extremely difficult to get
00:15:41
past you know that first wave of what is presented to the public I mean that's been that's the Ramsay case is sort of
00:15:50
the ultimate example of it so 27 years later if you go on the internet today you'll have two groups arguing one will
00:15:58
be Idis the Intruder did it the other group will be RDI the ramsy did it and there's
00:16:05
no there's no other alternative and so that has always been a part of what's fascinated me you know with crime and
00:16:13
the modern media and the Ramy case is the is the biggest example of it I mean 27 years later you think a new idea
00:16:20
might be able to enter the conversation so what happened in the in the Boulder Police Department I mean yes
00:16:28
they they were underst staffed on the day of the crime yes they did make mistakes in the in the initial hours I
00:16:35
mean if you thought this was a an actual kidnapping you would probably want to get the people out of the house and also
00:16:43
as a private investigator told us once if you don't do homicides a lot you don't do homicides well that's
00:16:50
absolutely a great quote and they they weren't known for a lot of homicide cases in Boulder they had had one that
00:16:58
year yeah and so they they did not you know handle the crime scene well and all of
00:17:06
that uh the biggest part of that at least from my perspective is that in in the fall of
00:17:17
1998 which is approaching two years into the crime um the district attorney Alex
00:17:24
Hunter decides to call a grand jury and so that process takes 13 months most murder cases did not take anything like
00:17:34
13 months to reach some sort of conclusion by the grand jury and uh so third the my book came
00:17:44
out in June of 99 the grand jury ended their work in October of 99 and Hunter called a big press
00:17:53
conference and he said we're not going to indict anybody and we're going to seal the grand jury work
00:18:00
forever so here you are 3 months into the most not notorious criminal crime or crime ever in Boulder or
00:18:09
Colorado and uh the public has spent a couple million bucks to try and get an investigation going the grand jury heard
00:18:18
from uh reported about a 100 Witnesses and there were about 30,000 pages of documentation and the result of all of
00:18:28
that is we're going to seal this forever and keep it away from the public this it's curious when it
00:18:35
happened in 1999 it's a whole lot more curious what happens later on and that is essentially
00:18:44
that 14 years go by and the local paper in Boulder the camera sues the District Attorney's office which is now on its
00:18:53
Third District Attorney since the crime occurred and they get four of the 18 pages of the grand jury report released
00:19:02
really four paragraphs four paragraphs and this is I think and we think the probably the most important thing to
00:19:10
convey to the audience listening to this the the four paragraphs state that John and paty ramsy effectively Expos
00:19:21
their daughter to the person or persons or circumstances that led to her death and
00:19:28
and that that's count four and count 7 says that they then participated in the aftermath of the
00:19:35
crime so that is the middle ground for the case that's not saying the ramsy killed their daughter and it's not
00:19:44
saying an intruder came in the house and killed their daughter it's saying that that some other scenario unfolded on
00:19:52
that night and and complete guilt or complete innocence is not the conclusion of the only legal body that's ever
00:20:01
studied the case and reached a legal conclusion it's not that's to me is not only the most significant thing that's
00:20:09
happened in the last you know 27 years legally regarding the case but what's just as significant is that the media
00:20:19
effectively totally ignored this and totally stuck with the Intruder Theory or the Ramsey did it Theory and
00:20:29
to me it's one of the reasons it's just it just shows why the case has been so hard to move forward uh both from the
00:20:38
legal perspective and the media perspective so do you think there's a fundamental question here about this
00:20:45
case what the qu the fundamental question is this why does a district attorney set a grand jury for 13 months
00:20:55
go to all that trouble and expense they reach a legal conclusion that was clear and then you choose to bury
00:21:04
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
00:21:15
the right to know that and what's being covered up that's the fundamental question and to in my view it hasn't
00:21:25
been pursued Enough by the people really look came out of the case you had a close I don't know if I would call it
00:21:33
close but a somewhat working relationship with Alex Hunter who's the district attorney in Boulder at the time
00:21:40
of the murder and you had mentioned to Alex Hunter that you thought that one part of this investigation should be
00:21:48
looking at these child beauty pageants and child pornography that at the time was blowing up on the
00:21:55
internet and he tells you that okay why don't you go and investigate that I can't get Boulder PD to look into
00:22:04
different aspects other than the ramies so clearly right away very early on in 1997 we're already seeing a disconnect
00:22:13
between the District Attorney's office and the police department there was a huge disconnect the police were
00:22:21
essentially focused on the Ramsey family you know the bodies in the house the parents are there and the ransom note is
00:22:30
there yeah and that's just like Joyce said if if you don't do homicide investigations well if you don't follow
00:22:40
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
00:22:50
appalled that they didn't come to me and take my DNA they should have taken the DNA of a wide wide number people they
00:22:59
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
00:23:06
with various things and and she was just startled and then she uh spoke to the grand jury and she was one of the
00:23:17
hundred Witnesses because she was quite close to the situation and we're not we're not saying that we think Randy
00:23:23
Simons is the murderer we're just saying that there seemed to be some sort of connection between
00:23:30
photography and child beauty pageants and photographers surrounding the the the pageants and it should have been
00:23:38
looked into and then fast forward in time when we got a tip through our website and was it
00:23:47
2013 2019 no no no 2013 when that woman came forward through our website and and
00:23:54
she lived in a um a trailer park in Oregon and she said that Randy Simons was living there too and he had offered to
00:24:04
take her small daughter granddaughter to the restroom and she thought it was inappropriate that he should be asking
00:24:10
to do that so she Googled his name and it came up in relation to presumed guilty so she contacted us through the
00:24:18
website and we and we've had a telephone conversation with her so there's that and then in 2019 we get another
00:24:28
a tip from our website saying that Randy Simons has been arrested for 15 counts of child
00:24:37
pornography again in Oregon he had been sitting at a public at a restaurant had used their public Wi-Fi it was
00:24:44
downloading images of child pornography and somebody noticed it at the restaurant and they called the police
00:24:51
and he got arrested and then he got indicted and I think he they gave him 10 years right yeah he pled he PL out out
00:25:00
yeah yeah so there were all of these other tangents to the case which led into you know larger worlds and I I mean
00:25:12
I I initially I liked Alex Hunter I I thought he he was very curious about the the crime and was not closed minded and
00:25:24
and uh I thought you know he was trying to do do some of the right things and the one time that Steve did get a hold
00:25:31
of Randy starmans this was shortly after the crime was committed and he talked to him on the
00:25:37
phone briefly and Randy Simons told Steve I know more about this but I'm not going to tell you he may have said that
00:25:44
to other people as well so uh I so it's it's odd that a 100 days into a criminal investigation if you go
00:25:54
back to April 1997 they don't know who this guy is the district attorney doesn't know who he is
00:26:02
I don't think the police know who he is and because all of their questioning as I was saying earlier about this woman in
00:26:12
the grand jury was about what kind of mother is py Ramsey is she abusive have you seen her you know do something uh
00:26:21
bad with her child or or the bed wedding issue and you know it's just it it just
00:26:29
uh reveals apparently you know how limited the investigation was at least at that
00:26:35
time anyone that's looked at this case for any length of time knows that young Jean Benet Ramsay participated in beauty
00:26:42
pageants not just in the state of Colorado but also in Michigan Georgia and Dallas but one thing that we learned
00:26:49
that I found fascinating was that she was going to be or at least paty wanted her to participate in this very big
00:26:57
prestigious pageant that was going to take place in Las Vegas but her husband John Ramsay
00:27:03
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 yes yeah
00:27:13
not long after the the murder and so why would it be so different to John Ramsay
00:27:19
to have his daughter participate in a pageant in Las Vegas as opposed to Georgia Colorado or Michigan hey know he
00:27:28
lived in Colorado atah Home in Michigan was came from Georgia you know with his business I think he was probably a
00:27:36
little more comfortable in those places I I think and you know I don't I don't want to speak for John but we
00:27:44
heard various from various sources he wasn't that comfortable you know with this whole dressing uh uh John B up like
00:27:54
a show girl and sending her out on stage um but if his wife is a you know a cancer survivor this is something she
00:28:03
loves to do with her daughter and she was she was imp pageant herself right she was Miss West Virginia she went to
00:28:10
the Miss America contest so you know this was a big deal for her and she was had just she was in remission from
00:28:17
ovarian cancer yeah so you know this was a this was her her passion with johnan yeah and John said we we've met
00:28:27
with John you know and had long conversations uh you know I didn't know everything that was going on um I was
00:28:37
very very busy running my business there in Boulder which had become a billion- dooll business and you know he actually
00:28:46
said that so you know I I think he was just kind of going along with it well he he said something to the effect of we we
00:28:55
didn't know we thought Boulder was a nice good place to raise children our children yeah in interviewing him he
00:29:04
said that about four or five times and about the fifth time you you you start to interpret it as we did not know who
00:29:14
our daughter was being exposed to which is almost the language of the grand jury
00:29:21
what not it's not exactly but it is almost the same as saying we didn't really realize who we were surrounded by
00:29:31
and I think that I think he's telling the truth and I think that's about as much as that about that as he could say
00:29:40
so um you know I so I don't I just think he drew the line at Las Vegas because you know it has a reputation for being
00:29:51
quite a bit cheesier than than Boulder Colorado or charoy Michigan and I think he was you know street smart enough to
00:30:01
think that could be getting into a whole other Realm and from your understanding not just within the state
00:30:36
of Colorado but regarding these child pageants were there any types of Licensing Laws standards or regulations
00:30:43
for the pageant circuits or franchises well we're not we're not experts in that area we I don't believe there were I I I
00:30:51
could be wrong but certainly haven't seen any of them anymore you know I mean but then after that there was you know
00:30:58
on on reality television you saw the rise of these Toddlers and Tiaras and those types of programs people are oddly
00:31:05
fascinated with that um that that subculture you know get dressing young girls up with false eyelashes and big
00:31:13
haird and you know it's just it's it's kind of a strange world when the case began and we began looking into the
00:31:24
online stuff 97 there were five 5,000 worldwide child porn sites by 2000 there were
00:31:34
100,000 people simply don't realize how much of this activity was going on and that it wasn't just a a sexual
00:31:46
underground but it was it was business as Joyce alluded to earlier there was money to be made from creating images
00:31:54
selling images manipulating images yeah of that think think how much more money a say a pho a photographer could make if
00:32:03
they were doing illicit things online as opposed to just doing portrait photography or pageant photography Kitty
00:32:09
photography but then what if they you know some of them had some sort of second job
00:32:15
online you know um altering images digitally and buying and selling that's a much more lucrative business now our
00:32:24
our idea was never that Randy saw sign was involved in the crime but like others he had knowledge of some of the
00:32:34
things that we're talking about and and may have well he obviously was connected
00:32:40
to it in some very tangible way at least later on and also two private investigators that we worked with that
00:32:47
were prominent in this case L Smitt and olly gray both told us that they thought
00:32:52
that there was some sort of Photography or videography involved surrounding the case they didn't go into much more
00:32:58
detail because private investigators are notoriously closed lipped about when they what they share with you they they
00:33:06
usually want more information than than you you know get back from them but they
00:33:10
both said that to us and they both uh had access to all of the uh evidence you know which obviously the public doesn't
00:33:20
and that goes back to the grand jury which had access to all of the evidence in the case which was massive what led
00:33:29
them to those conclusions to the conclusions that they reached the public doesn't know that and and it's it's hard
00:33:38
to imagine that they didn't have access to some of this kind of information well
00:33:43
but didn't Oli gray even say to us that there was you know once he started looking into this in Boulder there was a
00:33:48
lot of sexual subculture going on yeah as there would be in most cities you know every city would probably have some
00:33:56
sort of deviant dark sub sexual subculture going on and as time went on we heard about parties in Boulder
00:34:05
involving children and then after parties involving children and this again rais a whole number of questions
00:34:15
and we heard about you know fairly prominent people persist participating in these things and there is no place
00:34:24
around more conscious of its image than Boulder Colorado you know very liberal very affluent very
00:34:31
educated you know very uh you know politically correct Etc they don't want that image defiled and then we were and
00:34:41
then we were given the poems this part I find very fascinating but also very creepy tell us about these poems that
00:34:48
you received and the poems were given to an attorney friend who had appeared on Fox News after we had relayed
00:34:57
information to to him telling him what we thought you know about these alternate theories he goes on television
00:35:05
and like about was it a year or so after Steve he received these poems anonymously marked on the return
00:35:12
envelope for the children Boulder Colorado even though the postmark was in Denver he ended up turning over these
00:35:20
poems to us and they're very sophisticated very cryptic like something Jack the Ripper would have
00:35:25
written but they and they and they turn phrases around in such a sophisticated way it's
00:35:32
astonishing they're online now anybody can dig them up but um the the way that they gave the names of principles in the
00:35:40
case and turned them around and then implied that there was this underbelly going on of sexual abuse of children you
00:35:49
know by by prominent people right and one of the poems named uh an individual this was written in
00:36:00
2001 2000 or 2001 and it named uh an individual named John Rossi who who was not whose name
00:36:09
was not associated with the Ramsay case at all and five years later Rossi was busted on multiple counts of child
00:36:19
pornography uh in Westminster which is very close to Boulder right and and so whoever wrote that poem knew about rosi
00:36:29
knew about child pornography and knew it was kind of as if they were trying to get this information out to the
00:36:38
authorities but didn't want to be associated with it which is very understandable so so rosi was was
00:36:46
arrested he was on Parole he was in the system he was Again part of some you know subculture involving child
00:36:56
pornography um I again went back to the District Attorney's Office in 2000 um around that time and uh said you
00:37:08
know take this to the Boulder Police Department this guy's on parole he's in the system why don't you go interview
00:37:15
him and see if what he knows and nothing ever came of it a man in Fort Collins Colorado just um you know 30 to 45
00:37:25
minute drive or so from from Boulder was arrested in the 1998 or was going to be
00:37:32
arrested in the 1998 Wonderland bus which is a national and international ring of child
00:37:39
pornographers online and he and several other people who were in it immediately committed
00:37:45
suicide and we continue to get information from different totally different uh sources corroborating that
00:37:56
photography may have played a role in this case somehow a a a business associate in California called us one
00:38:03
night and told us that someone had come forward and wanted to tell their story about what they knew about the Ramsey
00:38:10
case he was a photographer but when he was still living in the states his his home was broken into and his his laptop
00:38:17
or his computers were were stolen he then subsequently moved to South America he was so afraid um and then there was
00:38:25
other there were other people oh well it well I mean the whole John Mark Carr story is interesting there that that no
00:38:33
go ahead that's the other well no as most people know in 2006 the summer John markar was brought back from
00:38:41
Thailand uh to Boulder he had more or less said uh that he was present when John B Ned his DNA was tested it didn't
00:38:51
match what was left on the body and uh he was released very quickly I that all seemed U you know pretty roge because
00:39:01
there was no DNA yeah no DNA and then I didn't buy into the story Joyce didn't buy any the story that he was a killer
00:39:08
but he did have computers again going back to the the computer world with allegedly I think or
00:39:18
possibly uh he was an involvement in child porography and then that laptop went missing when the Sonoma County
00:39:26
Sheriff's Department moved their offices there was 175,000 pieces of evidence the only
00:39:34
thing that went missing was John Mark Carr's computer yeah this whole case just has this smell about it of does
00:39:43
does do the authorities really want to solve it and we're we're just posing the question
00:39:51
but that it's the evolution of Alex Hunter from 1997 to going face to face with him and thinking this guy really
00:40:01
wants to know what happened to Let's bury the grand jury report forever but Steve mention about what Wickman said
00:40:10
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
00:40:19
he was as with all police in the middle of an investigation he wouldn't talk very much but after I L laid out some of
00:40:28
the things we're talking about here especially the Simon thing and the pageant angle and
00:40:36
and are people being protected in this situation and he said you know I he said I I understand that and he told me about
00:40:45
being on a case a few years ago where they he gotten too close to some prominent person in Boulder and they
00:40:51
just took him off the case and then he said you know this case is not what the public thinks it is if this is not what
00:41:00
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
00:41:08
I was presenting to him were very incisive and so you know he was not in the camp that he was absolutely certain
00:41:18
that py did this and and so you know there's just there's an enormous frustration I think at the heart of of
00:41:26
this case and at the you know and and people who looked into it and then also in 2020 um we met in here in Denver with
00:41:34
a retired Colorado Springs homicide detective who was working the night you know a few nights after johnan had been
00:41:44
killed and one of the volunteers on their hotline for tips had him take a call because this guy wanted to give
00:41:52
some information about the Ramsey case so the detective gets on the line and he told he told him this case is not what
00:41:59
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
00:42:07
because it was he called from a pay phone so now we're getting the same information from totally different
00:42:12
directions corroborating what we've been looking into all these years that's what's kept us on this alternate path
00:42:19
that there there must be some a third door to to be opened right so we have this thing with John Mark Carr they
00:42:27
bring him all the way from overseas magically lose his computer with God knows what was on that thing we also
00:42:35
have somebody like Richard Bruce Thomas who commits suicide in Boulder Police Department never look at his hard drive
00:42:42
either and then we have Randy Simons arrested in 2019 when he had several computers and
00:42:50
he clearly dealing in child born and we went back to the Boulder Police and said
00:42:57
are you you know are you interested in following up on this cuz they that they say the case is open you know they're
00:43:04
still investigating and far as we know you know nothing ever became of it I mean there's no response
00:43:13
and I don't I don't think that happened so speaking of potential leads here are you able to expand on or tell us who the
00:43:23
person is that was referred to as the South California inmate I yeah I'm not going to use names but um again it was a
00:43:33
fascinating situation I'll try and make it brief but we were contacted by a source u in
00:43:44
February of 99 I believe it was that a a it said a contact person in the ramsy case has been arrested in Southern
00:43:55
California for child pornography multiple counts and so Joyce went on the internet and and located a recent arrest
00:44:05
and we identified the person and I flew out there and just decided to meet with him in jail I didn't I didn't want him
00:44:13
to know I was coming and he was very very surprised and figured out quickly what I was looking into and he just said
00:44:23
go talk to my lawyer and so I the lawyers by and I did and then the lawyer eventually said this
00:44:33
guy does know have information about the case he does want to talk you know it might help his legal situation he was
00:44:40
facing multiple counts of child pornography and looking at you know serious time it's also not a lot of fun
00:44:49
to be a child molester uh in in jail and he well I was with him when he talked to
00:44:54
his lawyer about it and he said this I'm being arrest and I'm I'm afraid and all
00:44:59
of this and so the lawyer and I went back to Alex Hunter and said here's a lead developing in Southern
00:45:07
California and he was again seemed very interested and then I flew the lawyer in
00:45:16
Southern California told me come back out here and this guy's going to tell you what he knows and then I went out
00:45:22
again and uh he he shut up he wouldn't say anything thing so again it it it reiterates the Dead Silence at the heart
00:45:33
of this case that nobody has told what they know in my opinion and there are people who know things here about it and
00:45:42
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
00:45:49
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
00:45:56
there in front the guy in jail and his lawyer just went Bonkers and he said you said you'd talk to this guy and he said
00:46:03
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
00:46:12
more than disappointed and that's just that's just been the theme of the whole thing what
00:46:19
is so I mean what's the biggest taboo that humans have you know killing children and adding in the some sexual
00:46:27
component and this case is exactly about that it it has been limited or tried to
00:46:35
be shut down from the beginning in from one angle or another and you know I know
00:46:43
that the Ramy you know say that they've cooperated with the police after a certain period of time and all
00:46:51
that give me one piece of information that's been generated from that that has helped the case I to my knowledge it
00:47:00
doesn't exist so it is dead silence on every side that's law enforcement and that's the defense
00:47:10
team and and so you know here we are we have a document that says what a legal body concluded and and
00:47:23
it is again it is astonishing that the med has not picked up on that and understood it because it
00:47:31
blows the other two scenarios to the side I'm sure in your time of investigating this case and after the
00:47:39
book obviously you probably had a ton of people reach out to you to get information have you had anybody from
00:47:46
the grand jury ever reach out to you no there are people we know who have reached out to the grand jury
00:47:57
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
00:48:06
don't we wouldn't do that because that that's pretty secret stuff and but we have essentially been
00:48:17
told that the grand jury did hear some things about these parties uh that went on in Boulder and
00:48:26
and uh and and things in that realm that's sexual underground right that's that's the best way to put it involving
00:48:35
children and we have heard that yeah but you can't approach Grand jur no you can't we it's against the law yeah no I
00:48:44
was just curious if any of them have ever reached out to you no it's go ahead we talked about Pam Griffith a little
00:48:52
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
00:49:00
ramsy family I was a seamstress for Jean Benet I had a lot of interaction with them is she someone do we know if she
00:49:09
testified at the Grand Jury hearings uh we're not sure about that she may have we don't know but we don't know but Pam
00:49:18
would definitely be a interesting source to talk to about this case the reason why she was an interesting Source was
00:49:25
because she was very straight smart whereas some of the other pageant mothers were were more innocent or but
00:49:31
but she had a certain sense of uh you know who to be suspicious of and who not to let her child alone with more than
00:49:41
the other ones that we spoke with that's what made her interesting to us yeah and
00:49:45
Pam Griffin she is one of the people that tells you that this guy Randy Simons who is involved in the pageants
00:49:52
and taking photographs of John Benet he's called calling me in the middle of the night and saying very strange things
00:50:00
she and other ones she was she was she but other ones corated it but this weirdo is not just saying strange things
00:50:09
yeah he's not just saying I didn't kill John Benet he's saying I don't have an alibi for the night that she was killed
00:50:15
why would he be so upset his DNA was not found at the scene right I mean his whole behavior is bizarre and he did say
00:50:24
he did say that he there was an hour or so the night of the crime that he couldn't account for whatever that meant
00:50:33
but his hysteria in the wake of this just raised fundamental question that's right
00:50:39
walking down the street of um that town in eastern Colorado Genoa Genoa yeah and
00:50:46
he was walking naked how long after the crime was this about a year this was in the fall of 98 yeah and he was he was
00:50:53
arrested for indecent exposure he was walking naked down the street in this very small town in the Eastern Plains
00:50:59
saying I did not kill joh I did not kill jamine again nobody accused him of killing jate sounds like a lot of guilt
00:51:07
yeah and again I don't think guilt for for for what yes for knowledge of something who knows we just try to ask
00:51:15
the right questions we're not claiming to know who the Killer is or what exactly happened we just believe in
00:51:21
asking the right questions and letting people decide people are critical thinkers many are and they can come to
00:51:27
their own conclusions as to why this case hasn't been solved and maybe there are some other Arenas that need to be
00:51:33
looked into if I were the Boulder Police and if this is in fact an open case and
00:51:39
that they are investigating I would have gotten on a plane and gone to Oregon and
00:51:44
sat down with this guy I mean yeah mayed some kind of a bargain yeah he might just like the man in Southern
00:51:53
California and said you know this is a chance to help yourself you know what do you know and to my knowledge that that
00:52:03
never happened so there's this very odd pushpull thing that's gone on for many years you know we want to solve the case
00:52:12
we want to know everything but have you taken these steps to get there what's so strange too
00:52:19
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
00:52:25
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
00:52:33
of blackout situation well I don't yeah he didn't really explain it again it was
00:52:39
just bizarre hysterical and he did sell pictures of John Manet to uh I think it's called the sigma photo agency in
00:52:48
New York a lot of those pictures are what ended up in the media you know over and over again in the tabloids
00:52:54
everywhere maybe he had some Guild about that I I know the pageant mothers weren't very happy about that yeah he he
00:53:02
you know I think he was upset about all of that but I don't think it would explain walking down the street naked
00:53:10
two years later and telling the police you didn't kill her right when you've never been a suspect in any serious way
00:53:18
right so and Pam Griffin is one of pany Ramsay's biggest protectors over the years and in fact she goes out of her
00:53:28
way to take lots and heaps of criticism for protecting paty Ramsey right Pam had
00:53:36
gone on television in the year in you months after the crime and sort of spoken up for the Rams I mean she
00:53:43
thought the whole idea that py would kill her daughter was absurd and um you know she
00:53:53
uh had been with py uh two days or actually one day after the body was found on December 27th 1997 and and py
00:54:04
was just um you know sharing some things with her that I don't I don't really think have come out in a lot of other
00:54:13
venues uh I it seemed from what she was saying that the that the ramsy were really frightened in the
00:54:22
aftermath of the crime and that uh they you know perhaps they were even being threatened I mean we don't know
00:54:33
but their behavior in the aftermath of crime was was also very unusual in some ways being being being afraid being
00:54:42
threat and being possibly extorted that could explain some unusual behavior on their part again it's speculation but it
00:54:48
made sense to us yeah it could also explain what the grand jury concluded that that they
00:54:57
somehow uh exposed the girl to the circumstances that led to a death and I would insert the word very in capital
00:55:08
letters inadvertently if that's what happened I do not think in any way shape or form and I want to make it totally
00:55:14
clear that I think the Ramsay's intended any harm to come to J I do not think that's what happened in this case I
00:55:23
think that if you go by the what the grand jury said she ended up in those circumstances and in the aftermath of
00:55:32
that uh as Joyce said if you were being threatened if you were if if that was in
00:55:38
the air you know what do you do in those circumstances the grand jury concluded not Joyce and Steve singular the grand
00:55:46
jury concluded that then that they then participated in the aftermath of the crime and you can go read the counts uh
00:55:56
the people who are out there count four and count seven so it it that opens the doorways into more
00:56:04
explanations for how possibly a body and a ransom note got in the same location it might explain some of their behavior
00:56:14
uh in the aftermath of the crime um Pam uh had said that you know they one of the reasons they left uh Boulder was
00:56:26
that they they did not feel safe and and and they went back to to Georgia I believe so I I
00:56:35
think and I again you want to speak very precisely here but I think the ramies were also
00:56:42
victims of this crime well and if you've studied this case you know about the neighbors claims that little John Ben
00:56:50
Ramsay came to her and was telling the story about a secret santa visit at after
00:56:57
Christmas but now we know that that story just didn't come from the neighbor it also came from paty right right that
00:57:07
that's what was told to us but the the neighbor woman Barbara castanic had had an actual conversation that we're aware
00:57:16
of that was documented that John B had told her that on Christmas night she was going to meet
00:57:22
a secret Santa and Barbara castanic said well you're confused because Santa only
00:57:28
comes on Christmas Eve and John pushed back and said no it's Christmas night and so that opens up a doorway
00:57:38
right there uh into what she was talking about and we've never no it's never been released who
00:57:47
was at that Christmas party that they went to that night there was a Christmas party at the Ramsey on December 23rd the
00:57:54
other the the night on the 23d yeah yeah those names have never been released the the names of those
00:58:03
people why why have why doesn't the public have a right to know who was at that party how can that's been squelched
00:58:12
you know and when did something occur at that party that would have set up something for two nights later that's
00:58:19
another question is that what John Benet was referring to that that she was going
00:58:26
somewhere to meet a secret Santa and that opens up the biggest one of the biggest questions of all of the case and
00:58:36
this is speculation and we realize that did she die inside the house is that where the crime
00:58:43
occurred or is it not and Molly Gray who was you know police captain for years in
00:58:51
Houston and a private investigator who worked for both the both of the uh for the BPD and the ramse
00:58:59
and the Ramsay said that they're and this a controversial point because but he thought there would have been blood
00:59:08
in the basement where she was found uh that may or may not be true uh given the skull fracture that she uh
00:59:18
endured that night uh but it's a question worth asking you can't Source the duct tape
00:59:28
that was on our mouth to the house um you can't Source the cord that was around her wrist to the house I mean
00:59:39
the this is what's been reported um it so all of these fundamental questions are in play you know rather
00:59:49
than just well she died in the basement it was an intruder it was the Ramsey I I think
00:59:56
I think all of the evidence that's on the margins if you really look at it it opens up the
01:00:05
definite possibility of other scenarios and so that's what presume guilty was saying in
01:00:14
1999 as far as I know the only book that was opening a third door and that's what the grand jury
01:00:22
report appears to be suggesting in 20 13 uh by the conclusions that it Drew and you put all of that together
01:00:35
and maybe we have no idea what happened that night and and we haven't really cracked
01:00:45
that door doorway at all and there's after 27 years of studying the crime that's sort of you know what I what I I
01:00:54
think can I think what joyon I think and again as she said we're not we're not offering the answers we don't know whose
01:01:02
DNA is on the body but something has to account for the silence around this case and for the
01:01:12
non-release of information around this case and I think those are questions worth
01:01:19
asking and again Pam Griffin is so interesting because as you already pointed out you found her to be very
01:01:25
stri street smart but we also know that she was one of paty's best friends and one of Pat and one of paty's biggest
01:01:33
supporters but one of the most interesting things that she said to you was quote I've always thought that she
01:01:41
meaning paty knew who did this but she didn't know that she knew I think it's exactly what John Ramy was saying when
01:01:51
he said for the fifth time we thought Boulder was a nice Queen upstanding Community I
01:01:59
think I I think to extrapolate from that again the speculation you know we were surrounded
01:02:09
we must have been surrounded by some dangerous people and we didn't know that yeah whether socially in their Social
01:02:18
Circle or in business or in the pageant world no one can say for sure right it's
01:02:24
speculation it's speculation but I think that's what he was saying we didn't know
01:02:30
whom our daughter was being exposed to either through the pageant world with the uh performances on stage or through
01:02:39
our associations with you know others in the community and so I you know it's almost
01:02:51
like what Hannah's saying is you know she doesn't really she doesn't really want to know it's it's
01:02:59
dangerous and I think I I think they would have been highly protective of their remaining
01:03:07
young child Burke at that point who was only nine yeah if they if your six-year-old gets murdered viciously
01:03:15
like that you would be very protective of your remaining small child now John Ramsey still had you know John Edward
01:03:22
who was much older but Burke is not and living with them I I as a mother I would
01:03:29
have been extremely frightened for that other young child at home well that goes
01:03:34
back to what you were saying earlier how the ramies themselves were also victims
01:03:39
of this crime I think the crime is larger than it's been portrayed or or you know laid out to be and I think it
01:03:49
touches on some of what we're talking about prominent individuals in a community
01:03:57
uh um I had contacted the Third District Attorney in the case in 2009 and proposed bringing in a a uh an
01:04:11
individual who touches on all of these things a victim of of uh child abuse and and other and you know related
01:04:21
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
01:04:29
to do that and again whether there was Merit to this individual story or not the
01:04:39
Dynamics in Play Just were to let's shut it down and and so I just I think that you
01:04:48
know this case had the potential to to to possibly just blow a hole in that community and that may be one of the
01:04:59
reasons that the grand jury report was shut down there are 14 other pages in the grand jury report what's in those 14
01:05:07
pages are individuals named you know what kind of information in there about the crime has never been released I mean
01:05:17
it it would be fascinating to know those things well you and if there was someone
01:05:22
to be um wary of or someone that you should be concerned about you know wouldn't that be of necessity to the
01:05:30
public to to know about that individual or individuals you know I mean Steve you're you're better at this but wasn't
01:05:38
there multiple samples of DNA found on J J's body not not just one there were multiple samples and mixed samples yeah
01:05:47
implying possibly that more people were present when she died than just one person so again it I think it's a a
01:05:58
bigger situation than child WS the bed and mom kills her we want to give a big garage thank
01:06:22
you and cheers to Joyce and Steven singular for being so generous with their time make sure you subscribe on
01:06:30
whatever platform you are listening to us on we thank you so much for joining us here each and every week in the
01:06:38
garage Colonel old spicy one do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners of course we do this
01:06:46
week captain we're going to be recommending Steven singular book presumed guilty an investigation into
01:06:53
the John Benet Ramsay case the media and the culture of pornography and Steven and Joyce pointed
01:07:02
out something very fascinating to me here Captain there's multiple formats for this book the book was originally
01:07:09
released in 1999 but there is an updated version on Kindle the 2016 version which I highly recommend in
01:07:19
the singulars recommend that you check out that version of their book presumed guilty all about the John Benet ramsy
01:07:27
case and if you want to learn more about their other works you can go to Stephens
01:07:33
singular. and that is Stephen S Pen singular. comom and until next week be good be kind and don't litter
01:07:52
[Music] [Applause] [Music]