INFAMOUS: A Conversation with JonBenét Ramsey's Father

Hi, crime junkies. Today, I have something a little different for you, a conversation about a cold case, but it's not between me and Brett. Anyone with a crime junkie's social media algorithm knows that this month, the Boulder PD released a public briefing on the Jambane Ramsey case. Now, for those who haven't heard it or seen the video, let me get you up to speed. Hello, my name is Stephen Redfern and I serve as the police chief for the City of Boulder, Colorado. I'm speaking on behalf of the Boulder Police Department as I did this time last year to give you an update about the ongoing investigation into the tragic murder of Jambane Ramsey. Jambane was murdered in December of 1996 and our officers responded to investigate. While I was not at the Boulder Police Department then, I've worked in policing for more than 25 years and I want to assure the community that our agency is committed to doing everything we can to bring justice to Jambane and hold her killer responsible. My direction to our department has been clear. Leave no stone unturned. Follow the leads wherever they go. Engage with and use outside partners resources and expertise and never stop working to bring justice in this case. Last year we gave you an update about a lot of the work that has been done to solve this crime and those efforts have continued. This case remains the top priority for our department. This past year, our detectives have conducted several new interviews as well as re-interviewed individuals based on tips that we've received. We've also collected new evidence and tested and retested other pieces of evidence to generate new leads. Techniques and technology constantly evolve. This is especially true with technology related to DNA testing. Scientists continue to consult with outside experts across the country as well as our state and federal partners to strategize and explore all options when it comes to evidence testing. This will ensure we continue to use the most forensically sound and up-to-date methods in all aspects of the investigation as they become available. I've also met personally with the Ramsey family to let them know about some of this work. I've told them that we share the same goal to find and bring John Vene's murderer to justice. Our detectives will not stop following up on every lead and every tip until that person or persons is found. While we cannot go into the specifics of who we interviewed, what we tested and what we've learned without compromising this act of investigation, we know it's important to share this update with our community and that is why I'm speaking to you today. It is never too late for people with knowledge of this terrible crime to come forward. And I urge those responsible for this murder to contact us. Next year will be 30 years since John Vene was murdered in her own home. She should be with us here today, living a full and happy life with her family. Let me be clear, the Boulder Police Department will continue to work diligently to investigate this crime, follow up on every lead and evaluate all technological advances that can help us solve this crime and bring John Vene's killer or killers to justice. Now I too can't go into specifics about who I've interviewed and what I've learned. But since releasing our episode on John Vene's case last year, I haven't stopped looking into the case and I hate to be as painfully vague as the Boulder PD, but that's all I can say for now. Now Boulder PD hasn't said what evidence it is that they're looking at specifically, but last year as part of my coverage on John Vene, I got to sit down with her father John Ramsey and there were specific items that he wanted tested, which could be what Boulder's focused on now. Now we released that conversation I had with him a year ago on YouTube, but because most people consume our podcast in audio only, many of you haven't heard that conversation yet. So that is what I'm bringing you here today. In early November 2024, John Ramsey invited me into his home for a one on one conversation. Here's what happened. To start, I feel like there is this perception that when you do kind of interviews that they're very orchestrated or there's this party line and they go, "John's so composed, or it's John's tales." We reached out to you. There is no off the record on it like you told me. I've done a number of interviews over the years and my main reason for engaging the media is to keep pressure on the police to do their job and I've never wanted the questions in advance because I want to respond spontaneously. If I have a made up answer, then I think what was my answer for this question? I'd rather just ask the question and I'll spontaneously respond. It could be, "When did you stop beating your wife?" No boundaries. I've got a lot of questions. Yeah. It's easier for me. It's almost like I'm ready to prepare. I deal. Why did prepare? For the vote of that? I think. Okay. Good. I think she would be, we were talking about this earlier too, she would be almost my age right now. Yes. I realize that. What is she, when you picture her, she's stuck at six. I would imagine. Oh, absolutely. She's still my little girl and I can't imagine what she would be like as an adult. Do you feel like you're ever stuck in 1996? No, I may have learned two things, one life's not easy all the time and life's not always fair. It's like, okay, those are the game rules, let's keep at it. One of the things I've noticed with families is a lost child and I've looked at this in some detail, I don't know if the percentage is a majority percentage end up in a divorce. For Patsy and I, we fortunately really got us up off the floor or was a realization with three other children now that need us desperately to be strong. They're hurt, they're crushed, they've lost. At their age, they shouldn't have to deal with the loss and death of a family member. Do you feel like you're still in trouble? You don't get over the loss of a child. You get, you move beyond it. Did you ever give yourself time to have a pity party? Is if anyone deserves a pity party? You do once in a while, yeah. Well, it's interesting, sometimes I'd be down and pass you be up and we sort of could offset each other. We'll get into, I think, why they kind of looked at you guys as a whole. Even in looking at the family, I do feel like at least initially Patsy bore the brunt of that. She did. For a long time, I even watched something they did on Netflix a while ago called The Casting Jombini and there's like a line in there where the guy was like, "Oh, I bet she was probably a horrible bitch of a mother." Oh, she was a wonderful mother, an amazing mother. Why do you think they like, they latched under her so much? When I know that there was, if people want to have questions about what happened in the home, why is it her that everyone, I don't know, they fixated on it? Patsy is a very strong woman. Maybe didn't come across a good on television. I was told by people but she was a wonderful mother, a wonderful stepmother. I never heard her say anything negative about anybody. She's just a good person and so for her to take the brunt of that assault is just so unfair. When we lost Del Mane, she got very focused on Burke. I mean, that was our goal, was try to give him as normal a childhood as we could possibly give him, amidst all this chaos that was going around us. We were afraid, somebody had attacked our family. We don't know who it was and we were frightened quite frankly. And one of the challenges, we wanted to keep Burke out of video and pictures so that people would know what they looked like and so how do we get him from, we were living with friends when we were in Boulder, so we could finish his school year. How do we get him to school without being photographed? And it became a project and the way it was diversion from grieving. We would send out a decoy car. Burke would be at another car on the floor in the back seat. Just to go to school? Yeah, to go to school. And we get him to school, unphotographed, because we wanted to protect him. What were the kids at school like to him? Well, the kids are wonderful and yeah, yeah, yeah, like that's the first time I've ever heard that. Normally school-aged kids are awful. Well, I say that, I mean, from my perspective, they seem like they really were great. Did you guys have any moments with him where you, like, you're asking, I think about, like, kids, like, what are the things that the parents don't know? Like, what's happening? No. You know, you know you're children. and I'm a 9-star tall. talking about like him doing something, but I'm saying like, you know, they hang out together. They have the same group of friends like, was there someone that maybe she didn't tell mom and dad about, but she's going to tell her brother about or her brother like, did you guys have any of those like moments with Burke to be like, like, help us, and help us figure this out? No, because we really just wanted him to be separated from it, from the chaos and we wanted him to have to be normal, and that was very difficult, because being followed around by the media and going through the grocery store wide and seeing your sister's picture on the front of the tabloid, it was difficult to give him a normal life. Do you think he might still know something that he like doesn't even know he knows? Now, Burke's a very solid person, despite all, and with the college, graduated, had a good job, ever since, both thought of by his employers, and very, very disciplined by his used cars, and you know, he's a good adult, he was a good son. If he knew anything, it would not be something he would thought. Is important. That's what I'm saying. Like, I wonder if there's something in there, like, even, so I know in the Dr. Phil, one of the things that came out was the idea that you used a flashlight to put in your sleep, and that he came back down to play with the toy. Like, when he's down and people are sleeping, does he, has he ever talked, like, did he get the sense that someone else was in the home? Did he hear anything? I don't know how, like, how long was he up? No. We've never asked him that. I don't know. I didn't know, frankly, that he got up again. I'm not sure he did. Again, that's fiction. There's so much fiction out there. Because it's just thrown out there. It's just Dr. Phil, who says, you got up to play with the toy, and Burke says, yeah, I did. It was something that I wanted to put together. And then it kind of just like, well, you know, again, when we got home, job made fall asleep. I know you and Burke came. I put her to bed. When I sat down and tried to put together one of his little toys for a little while, just because he wanted to, and then he went off to bed. We were saying, like, whatever, whatever Dr. Phil said, and Burke said on the show, he didn't come back down. I didn't know that he came back down if he did. Does something like that make you want to be like, oh my gosh, maybe there's something, like, maybe there's something he knows? Burke would have said something, if something was weird, but he may have misunderstood the questions too. Do you think Burke regrets doing it? Well, probably. But you know, the things that were interpreted by the internet crowd, well, he's smiling. Burke talks with the smile, you know, just the way he is. You ask him, you know, what time it is, he'll smile. Yeah, they lit him up after that. I know it. And now, it was very unfair. Do you think there's like one thing that those people who will never believe you, like, hone in on, or like one thing you're like, man, if we would have done this thing, definitely? Well, I don't think there's one thing, but, you know, we were portrayed as very rich people. We didn't deserve a soul of rich. We'd build a little computer business, sold our interest to Lockheed and I mean, for like a pretty penny, though. But I got, that was more money than ever thought I have in my life, you know. But we didn't, I still was working, still figured I needed to have paycheck coming in. And, but we were portrayed as I was president of a company that had done a billion dollars around. Well, we were a distributor or like a grocery store. You got to sell a lot of milk and eggs to make a little bit of money. And that was the kind of business we're in. So, in our industry, that was not a huge business. But that was publicized a few weeks before Germany was murdered in the local paper. But they perceived, therefore, I must be a billionaire. Well, that was true. I was an employee of Lockheed, but people don't like rich people. And we were portrayed as super rich callous. Everybody knows rich people don't love their children kind of people. I think. I don't know. And then we got into this child duty thing, which Patsy and John Manet had fun with it. And John Patsy's philosophy with other kids is to let them try anything they want to try. Patsy, when John Manet was, she'd been maybe four, I guess, was diagnosed or maybe three or three or four, diagnosed with ovarian cancer, stage four, which has about a five year life expectancy. And that's it. And Patsy was so distraught, she'd say, "God, why did you give me these beautiful children if you're not going to let me be or to raise them?" But she was a fighter, and she beat it. She was in her mission. For here is a huge gift that she could now perhaps look forward to being with her children when they go to college, get married and have her grandkids. But I think deep down she knew that may not happen. And so she tried to cram a lot of mother-daughter stuff into their lives, together. She was a natural, she loved performing. It was a center, yeah. Yeah, that's just what she was. And she'd put on little skits at home and make us interrupt her dinner, watch the skit that she and her friends put on. So it just, that was her personality, and they had fun with it, but it wasn't an obsession. And of course, the media presented it as Patsy was this dominant mother who was living by a carrier's three-thousand-year daughter forcing him to do this stuff. That was nonsense. Tell him that they had fun with it and loved it. If people say that you profited off of it, what's your response to them? You're joking. I lost my job. I was not employable. I had a company tell me, "Look, we'd like you to come work for us, but we can't afford to have our good name on the front of the National Enquirer, so we can't hire you." I was unemployed for, I don't know, I don't know, five, six, seven years, and I couldn't get a job. Lockheed was wonderful to me. At this time, you know, they were, it couldn't have been more wonderful to me during the time I was still working for them, but they were in the process, they wanted, they had acquired our company to try to diversify their business model, and after a couple of years, they decided we can't do it. We don't think that way. We're, you know, a military, a industrial, government contractor. We don't out of the deal in the consumer world, and so they were in the process of selling us and four or five other companies, they bought to try to change their model, and they engaged a conversation, I guess, with GE, and GE was going to buy us, it looked like, and I'm sure, and I don't fault of me, great company, but this Ramsey guy is a, not a baggage. It's a baggage, it's a big baggage, we can't, this isn't going to work, and I didn't work for another, gosh, I don't know, five or six years, because it couldn't get a job. You were scraping by, basically, selling assets, selling our home, just trying to create it didn't come that way, but no, I, how can I have profited from this, is that's absurd. I think people would just look at the books, I think they would say, oh. Well, the book, the first book, we did get, what do we call it, an advance, and that kept us going for a while, financially. By the time I wrote the second book, the whole book market had changed, and the advances just weren't there, but I did that second book, mostly to help people, because I'd gone through this trauma of, of course, the loss of a child, my faith, you know, was really challenged, how could God let this happen to a child, and the book I wrote was really, I felt very compelled to try to help people, the journey I went through wasn't to make money at all. A lot has had to have changed over 30 years, like when you think about, like, you're in a day one in the house, you think it's a kidnapping, how do you think differently now about the ransom note than you did day one? Well, at least I have to imagine, like, if it were me, I imagine that I'd like pick this thing apart 10 ways to Sunday. It didn't make sense, first of all. I know in some of the interviews they bring up for Patsy, this, it goes back to the note, and I think one of the reasons they keep those who believe she wrote it perpetuate the idea that she wrote it is because it seems like it's not a clear answer or direction of, like, how much of the note she saw, because, like, initially, it's like, you're daughter, we have your daughter, and then she goes up and looks, but then she talks about later, looking out the window and seeing that it's a marked car and being concerned. And people will say, "Oh, how did you know that was later on the note?" People will say, "Oh," and she calls 911, "How does she know how it's signed?" If she only saw the first page, you know, 30 years ago. Yeah, I don't know. You know, it was chaos that morning and I really thought I could get Germany back. I really did. We'd arranged, you know, I don't have $118,000 laying around, but a friend of mine, who was my banker, got my ATM limit on my Visa card, jacked up. And I gave that card to a friend who was somebody that was there. I said, "Go get the money." And they came back and didn't get the money. And I was like, "Why didn't you get the money?" Like, "Well, no, I don't need to do that yet." But anyway. Why $118? That's something that everybody's got to do. Yeah, there's, it met something of the killer. What do you think it means? Well, the only number that correlates that I know of is my bonus that year from Lockheed was $118,000. And it was paid in January. Now we're in December. It was on in my pay stub, every. Did you have those somewhere in the house? Oh, yeah. I'm sure laying around somewhere. Did they ever find them? I don't know. So it comes back to somebody who's like, so clearly, I mean, clearly, they know she's in the basement. They're not actually looking to get the money, but you think it was more of a message? I think it was a mix. I mean, why not a million? Why not five hundred? You know, what's, why not a big number? I mean, that's a big number, but doable. And why $118? Why not $200? Why not 200? It met something to somebody. People will, they just pick it apart. It's crazy. It's like I was criticized for disturbing the crime scene when I found John Monet. Oh my God, he moved the body. If you're a parent, what would you do? You'd pick up your child. I was hoping I was relieved. I found her. Thank God. Took the tape off her mouth and tried to untie her wrists. I couldn't be good. They're tied so tightly. I didn't see the grote. It was so deeply embedded in her throat. Oh, he disturbed the crime scene. That, that's, that was wrong. It's like that's laughable, even say something like that. Of course you would. And have you ever been back in? The house? No. Would you ever go back in? No. No. We couldn't initially. It just wasn't even. Friend of ours helped us move. Back to bar stuff. And we moved to Atlanta, which was our home. That's where my, my family was. That's where past his family was. John Monet was buried there. My oldest daughter was buried there. So I was accused of the media of fleeing to Atlanta. But yeah, so that's something that people talk about is they say, Oh, so, I mean, day one, you know, they find John Monet and within like, within the hour, John's on the phone, saying, I've got to get to Atlanta. And people say it was for a business meeting. Like, what was that? Well, that's not quite the way it was. So there was so much misinformation out there. Yeah. It was hard to even come bad in any of it. But Atlanta was our home. We had a family cemetery plot. That's from John Monet was going to be buried. My oldest daughter was killed four years earlier in a car accident. She was buried there. That was her focus. To get John Monet buried, taken care of. Boulder was not her home. We had a house there. Had a job there, but it wasn't home. Home was Atlanta. Is home, do you mean like you had a support system? Yeah. And we lived there for 30 years. When you made that, would you make the call? Because did you or you didn't make a call to start? I remember that evolve. No, I didn't actually. I'd asked one of the detectives. There's only one detective there that morning that everybody else was on vacation. It was Chris day after Christmas. But there were lots of detectives from police there. And I just, I can't remember what I said. But like, I want to go home. And he said, yeah, that's fine. Go. And Lockheed sent one of their airplanes out, which is wonderful. And flew us back to Atlanta. So. And took one of our little Berks friends with him at the last minute. Oh, really? Yeah. What friend came with him? I can't remember his name. It's one of his buddies. And the mom, they were at the airport seeing us off. And I forget how it came up. But can whatever his name was, Taylor, could he come with us? And I'm like, I'm sure he could, but I don't know. His mother wouldn't want to go with like. And his mother's, yes, that's great. Wonderful. So Berk and Patsy and I and this little friend are on this Lockheed plane that flew us back to Atlanta. And that's as far as our planning had gotten. There was no planning. You're in shock. When we left the house that morning after we found John Lene and never went back in that home, we were staying with friends. Sharon took us in. And a lot of our friends were there to support us. And the police came several times. And we sat and talked to them. And when it started to not go so well, because we toasted the police with them like, ah, there, there are sabers. We got to, this is in their hands. And we trust them. And I had gotten a call from one of the fellows I worked with. He said, I got a call from inside the system, get the best defense attorney he can get his hands on because they think he killed his daughter. This is like the next day. And I was like, unbelievable. So anyway, anyway, the police would come to the house and we'd talk to him as much as they wanted. They'd ask questions and we did the best to answer them. And then they said, one of our friends that was there, bringing food and, you know, comforting stuff, was a former attorney with the district attorney's office. And he was kind of observing things, you know, Mike, Mike, yeah. And the police were saying, well, we need you to come down to the station. Now, please come here. We can't. We're, we're secure here. We're safe. Passies sedated in bed. She's not capable of getting dressed and going down to the station. You come here, please. Oh, no, we need you to come to the station. Why? And this, I think was Linda. I heard actually not to think about it. And then Mike stepped in and said, time out because he knew the police department. He worked with me before. And he said, we'll get back to you. We're not coming down to the station today. We'll get back to you. And the next day, and I'd gotten that call, which I hadn't told anybody about that I needed to get a defense attorney, because the police thought I killed my daughter. This is the day after they hadn't even looked at evidence or looked at our family history or anything. It was like, I had to be the father. It's always the evil father. Are they thinking it was you? So, this was little art. I'm sure that. So Linda thought it was you. And then this idea of patty comes from someone else, apparently. Okay. And so our focus was to get John Binet buried properly in our family cemetery in Atlanta. Get back to our family for support. And we did that within days of this happening. And what we learned, this was part of what made us really mistrust the police, was we went back to Boulder to get burnt back in school after we buried John Binet and helped the police. You know, in our attorneys, who Mike had brought in on his own, he said, John, would you allow me to do some things here that was necessary when we did this time out when I come into the station? I said, yes, absolutely. So the next day he's introducing me to my attorney, what an attorney can't represent both parties. So patty had to have an attorney. We had these crime junky rules and one of ours is always get a lawyer. So like, first of all, I would have done that day one. Yeah. And you know, our other is, we always say like, you don't ever know, you don't know everyone inside and out 100%. Yeah. That's true. But did you ever question like, does she know, does she know? So did you guys ever have a moment in private where you're like, or never, ever? Ever, ever. Patsy has survived stage for ovarian cancer was given the gift of life again for us a while, which he was so thankful for. And see, originally, our attorney said, look, this is nuts that you even looked at as suspects, but that we'll get this will get resolved in a couple months. So, you know, If you hire archers, you'd better hire a good one. - Yeah. It's going to be expensive, but it's only going to last a couple of months, and it lasted about three years. And we got to the point where we said, "We're out of money. We can't keep paying," and they said, "It doesn't matter." Well, we're committed to getting this horrible, correct it. And so they worked on our, on our behalf for several years for no be charged. But we're out of money, couldn't it didn't matter. When was that? How long did it take to burn through it? A couple of years, probably. Yeah, yeah, probably. What did they think about you guys doing CNN? Oh, that was, that was the mistake we shouldn't have done that. Was that like, like, do they advise against it? Did they think that? Or they, they strictly advised, or they, we never asked them, and we were back in Atlanta for the funeral. Some of our bolder friends were there, and they say, "Oh my God, you know, media is going crazy. You've got to show them that you're normal people, and bolders are a wonderful place, so they're really focused on making bolder, not suffer a reputational damage, nots, but that's, that was their focus. That's weird though, right? Oh, totally weird. What was their goal, like, to make bolder looks like, like, I don't think it makes bolder look good, because there's, I mean, you guys are saying there's a mad man in bolder. Yeah. Well, and of course, bolder was like, the authorities, the mayor at the time said, "Nothing to worry about. You know, there's no killer out there, because she'd been told by the police, I said, "Parents, we know it's parents. We just got to prove it." And it's weird, it was weird, but that we shouldn't have been doing an interview like that. What did your lawyers say when they, like, because, I mean, did they just see you on TV one day? Because I think that's the thing people would be like, "I don't understand, like, John's a smart guy. He's consulting his lawyers for everything. How does his lawyers not know he's going on CNN?" At that time, we'd been introduced to our lawyers, but we'd then immediately flew back to Atlanta for John Romney's funeral. We'd never had not met with our lawyers. Oh, okay. It was a horrible mistake. For several reasons, one, we were no shaped to do an interview. There's no point in doing an interview other than to satisfy our friends who were oppressing us to shores. I don't know. Why did they want you on TV so badly? That's a person that never made sense. Well, they were concerned that the media was instantly piling on us as the killer. That was horribly wrong, and you need to show yourself and defend yourself. Why are your friends like, "I mean, I appreciate that they care for you," but it's just like. Well, they don't know. They weren't any more expert at anything we were. So we just reluctantly agreed to do it, but in retrospect, that shouldn't have happened. And our attorneys. Well, in fact, from that point on, our attorney said, "No, we are not going to respond to the media. Accusations. You're not going to respond to them. We're going to defend you." In fact, they said, "Look, we'll guarantee you one thing. Money back guarantee, we'll destroy it with court. This will be a cakewalk, if it gets to that point." But they said, "We can't practice law from seeing an end-camera. That's not our job. We don't know how to do that." They were frustrated by that because we were being accused in the court of public opinion, but they couldn't respond. Because there seems like there was this huge rift that, like, I've not seen in such a stark way. I've seen it happen before, but between the DA's office and the police. And you had lawyers who, I think, they knew the DA kind of grew up with them, worked with them. So I think that you guys obviously had an amicable relationship there than when you eventually go and talk to. Right. I don't know. What I was told, the police were like, "Oh, we know who did it, go rest them and prosecute them." And the DA said, "Well, show me the evidence." "Well, we don't have that much evidence. We just know they did it." And so the DA wouldn't charge them. And the police took that as an offense. And apparently, that happened a lot. That happened in our case. I feel like there was like this circle where it was a lot of that where I kept hearing like the DA's like, "Get the evidence." The police would say, and I don't know what's true, but the police would say, "We're trying to get the evidence, but you're stalling us." Right. That's kind of what- Do you feel like that? And I don't know what advice you were getting or what was happening, but I do see moments where there are certain things where I think, like, the phone records. Like, the police say they don't have phone records until like a year later. Oh, no. We gave them everything they asked for when they asked for it. Early on, we gave them phone records. We gave them credit card records, full access to our bank accounts, everything they asked for. The only thing they asked for a year later, which they should have asked for in the beginning, was our clothing that we were wearing that morning. Because they found unidentified fibers, pubic hairs, were not identified. A year later, somebody said, "Oh, you should have asked for their clothing." Well, they finally did, and we had a choice of picture. I didn't wear it, but we gave them everything they asked for when they asked for it. Hand-writing samples. We had to write that horrible note, right-handed and left-handed, so they had samples of our handwriting which didn't match. They wanted to arrest us on probable cause. They probably did this, so let's arrest them and be the confession out of them. In fact, we were told by the DA, two things later, a few years later, the whole police case was based on, they didn't think we acted right that morning. And the strategy to solve the case was to bring intense pressure on Pasey Amdai, so the innocent one would confess. What did they mean by you didn't act right? What were the things that were bothering you? Well, that's the interesting thing. I read that there was one detective there, this woman, who I don't know if she'd ever investigated a murder or not, probably- Linda Arne. Yeah, because she came when it was still a kidnapping, right? Yeah. They went to the sheriff's office, got a book on how to deal with kidnapping. They didn't know. And I read her report much later, and it was just nuts. But the things that she observed would say, "Yeah, that's not what you'd expect," because the way she wrote it. For example, she said, "John, I observed him going casually through the mail waiting for this phone call from the kidnapper." I was looking for another communication with the kidnapper. We had a pile of mail that had come through the front door slot laying on the floor. I was going through it and see if there's anything else from the kidnapper. She should have been doing that. But she interpreted as casually going through the mail while waiting for a call to come in. She also said, "10 o'clock came and went. John didn't go nuts," because the call didn't- we didn't get a call. The note said, "I will call you at 10 o'clock tomorrow." I didn't know if tomorrow was tomorrow or the day we were in. So when 10 o'clock came and went, I thought, "Oh my God, I had to wait another 24 hours for this call to come." So it wasn't a big surprise that he did call, because it said tomorrow in the note. What was the other thing? It was just nuts. When he found John Mane, he didn't cry, there was no tears. People were asked differently to trauma, but when I lost my daughter Beth and a car accident, John Mane's older sister, I was mad. I didn't cry. I was mad. I was mad. Why did this happen? I was mad at God with Beth and then with John Mane, it was- and what I guess they didn't understand was when they were making these observations of our behavior, when I lost Beth, I got a call, it was over. I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't get her to the best medical treatment. I couldn't go by her side and come for her. It was over. It was done. She was gone. With John Mane, it wasn't over. I could get her back. I really thought I would, but I had to keep my wits about me. I had to keep my head together and do whatever I could possibly do, not knowing what to do, but- Which is actually how I think I would respond to a traumatic situation as I'm very jump in and act. The thing that I think other people don't understand, this is the one that was hard for me, is it's said over and over by Linda Art that you and Patsy just completely separated. What was your opinion? She was literally sitting on the floor with a big bowl in front of her, ready to throw up. Quite honestly. She was devastated and so she was over there, that's fine, that's okay. I was focused on trying to get John Mane back. How do I get the money together? You wanted a hundred and eighteen thousand dollars in an attaché case. How do I get the cash to it together? I was working on that, it's what I wanted, I got to get my daughter back. That was my focus, past she's okay, she's-- She's got friends around her. She had friends around her. I got to get my daughter back. That was the other thing. Linda says her interpretation of things that you disappear for an hour. That's not true, yeah. No, I was looking out the window, occasionally, to see if I could see anything, but no, I didn't disappear for an hour. Linda aren't with nuts. She on national television said, "Well, I knew he was guilty because I saw it in his eyes." I thought, "Well, that's quite a talent." But she was way in overhead and not-- I don't think she's playing with a full deck. Aside from that first day, did you ever do other interviews with her or have much interaction with her? None. Did she-- did her and pass the end of having a relationship? Well, you know, she was our savior. I mean, she came to help us. You need to call the police. You expect them to come to help. We trusted her initially before we'd seen this report, all these crazy observations. And so she was kind of our policemen personified. We didn't know any of these other people that had come involved from the police department, but Linda was there that morning when we had this horrible tragedy in our life, so it's kind of a bonding in a way. So did they, like, even after her and Patsy had conversations afterwards? Yeah, a few. Okay, yeah. I've heard that, but I didn't know. It seemed like you guys had such a bad experience with her that I was the proudest. Well, at the time, we didn't know it was a bad experience. You know, you call the police. You think they know what they're doing. And that you trust them totally to do the right thing. Did Patsy ever tell you what they talked about? 'Cause I think that's like a big mystery to people. Is like, why. I think, well, I think I can't remember. It's been so long ago, but Patsy wanted to know who killed her daughter. And what are you doing? What's going on? You know, that was the kind of level of conversation. I'm pretty sure. Gary Oliva, did you want to talk about him? Oh, yeah, he. Well, he was the lead that the DA gave us. And I said, "The police won't follow up on this properly." But it's a significant lead. And it was back in the day. I remember reading. Yeah, it was early on. In like the 90. The interviews you guys did back in like '98 when they were like, "Do you recognize this name? Do you recognize this name?" Yeah. And Gary Oliva was on there. Yeah. And. I say, "The Circus Dancelley is very compelling." I don't. I know the. Our guys looked at it. Our investigators. kind of confirmed the Circus Dancelley information that was given to us and turned it over to the police. We. My memory is that they interviewed him, but didn't kind of blew it off. I don't know if they did DNA testing, handwriting samples. I've seen some handwriting recently, more recently. I don't know if they just recently got collected. They're bringing it up again. But I've seen some handwriting samples that look promising. But I also think that handwriting 30 years later now, people look at it sometimes the way they do it like bite mark, which is like kind of junk science. Uh, well, yeah, it's not admissible in court. Yeah. And so I don't even know if they would the way that they felt so strongly about Patsy in 1996. I don't know that they would. Anyone would feel that way now if we. Well, again, it was wrong to feel that way back then. She was 4.5 out of 5, which is pretty much no way, but. And then it was because it was her no pad pen from like to your point. Well, again, yeah, but so, you know, it was in the house. The person was in the house before we were. None of that, it was sort of paintbrush. That was a little, okay, sorry, we didn't have the paintbrush locked up. Yeah, it seems like there were these like cultural shifts. I think there was like that distinct moment in 2016 when everyone started looking at Burke. And that's become like the big throwing out. That's absolutely insane. Burke was a 60-pound, nine-year-old little boy. This was a sexual assault, a violent assault. It's just, even the police immediately said no. But he was interviewed by a child psychologist, which I guess is normal, for two days, early on, and they said no, absolutely no way. He was hadn't, wasn't aware of anything that happened. And certainly wasn't the killer. And so that's just absurd foolishness. Well, what was your thinking that morning when you're getting him out of the home? Because I know he. You guys go to check on him. You think he's still sleeping. He says when he does his Dr. Phil that he's awake, but he's, you know, clear there's something going on. He's like, I'm not messing with it. I just wait until they come and get me. Why did you guys want him to not be in that environment? Well, the police were there. It was crazy. He was a little boy. We let him be safe and protected. And he took some of his Christmas presents with him and went to stay with a friend in his house. It was a way to get him out of this nightmare into a safe place. Did you guys feel like he was safe? I think that was it hard. Because I think it would be hard for me to like, I'm missing one child. Like, I don't know if you could get me to let go of the other way. Well, no, we trusted our friends. There were good friends. Their son was Burke's age. There were buddies. They've been friends for a long time. It was a safe place for him to go. Did they have his fleet took him away? But then fleet comes back, right? It was, but were his in-laws or something at the house? So there was like someone there with the kids. You know, 30 years ago. Yeah, I don't know. You know, I was chaos that morning. I really thought I could get John Manay back. I really did. But I'd never dealt with that. John Douglas, who's probably the premier crime profiler, started that whole FBI program, crime profiling. We spent some time with him over a period of time. His profile of this was that this was a fairly young person. 20s to 30s. Fascinated the movies because there's some movie quotes in that had some note. And it was either very angry. It's you, personally, John, or a very jealous of you, John. This wasn't about John Manay. That's John's assessment. And you still believe that? I think that's part of it. I really do. But whoever did this is a monster. You believe that you're the why? I accept John Douglas' theory is credible. I really do. Two weeks before her murder, our company had achieved a billion dollars in sales for the year. For us, that was a big deal. I wouldn't even pay an attention. Financial guy said, "Hey, we're going to get a billion dollars." Holy mackerel, we need to have a party for our employees and make a big deal of it. And our marketing lady, so let's let the newspaper know. And I had this gut feeling. Another lesson. Pay attention to your gut feelings. I had this gut feeling. That's a bad idea. But I let them do it. Yeah. Why does. Like, if it was about money and like, at your greed and going back to a lot of things, the note said, what do you think the way that they, the sexual component to this and the way that they staged it? Like, why that piece of it? If it goes back to being about you and about money. I know, it doesn't make sense. I agree. No, well, who did this is crazy, demanded, human being. I know it doesn't make sense. A lot of it. I don't know. I know you guys have been extremely clear that there was no sexual abuse on your part, any family members part. Our doctors could testify to that. Well, that was my question, so I know that you guys have been clear. Do you think that she wasn't abused by anyone ever, even if there's. We don't know that first. Okay. No, we don't. I mean, there's. We never suspected that, but we don't know that. Yeah, I mean, what most people don't, right? Like, you. But it's one in five girls are sexually assaulted. Yeah. We don't know. For sure. Do you know, did they ever look into knowing John Douglas's profile? I know he's a 20 to 30, but his profile of this being a young, really unsophisticated person, did they take a really hard look at like the other kids in the neighborhood? No, they never did any neighborhood survey. They never went door-to-door, which is a huge mistake. But so wild to me is like they. Like, the first officer. French, I think, was his name. He goes to the room that Johnny is having. He just doesn't open the door. It's latch, so he's like, "No, thank you." Right. How does Fleet White open the door and not see it? I don't know. If that's true. That's a huge red flag she was right there. I mean it is you look like the second you open the door You see the you see the microsecond Doesn't add up no it doesn't and that's again, you don't know if that's fiction or fact There's so much fiction that was put out by the police like I mean, so I know you guys don't have much of a relationship now But like are those some of the questions like the hard questions that like I mean again I think my like this is my friend that I'm gonna be like in their face Well, what I think happened first of all, I think the police took fleet away from the home we were in that morning or the day after and he came back after a couple hours and was different I Think the police were leveraging fleet to use him You know, we we have evidence that the family killed jump an A and you need help here And I don't know, but they said he was different when he came back from meeting with the police for two hours Because you guys have like a huge falling out, right? Well, it was just because it was bizarre. I mean he came back to Atlanta to attend the funeral and We made arrangements for our bowl with friends to stay with Atlanta friends in their homes and our Friends that we had that person stay with called They can call us, but they called somebody that was helping us and say we walk we want him out of our house There's these bizarre some screwy and So we put him with my brother My brother called me a day or so later and said Do you have a gun in the house and I said no? Well fleet is on his way to your house. We were with chitin past his parents Something's wrong and What was he saying like I mean for your brother to say he was a gun like that's very of my brother is as passive a person. He's never want to meet So what does he say when he gets to you because I know in Patsy's Deposition she's like, I don't know. I was in the basement like I'm not part of that conversation Yeah, and seems like she never like asked you, but like what is that conversation? I don't remember. I honestly don't remember And then he comes one more time when you're back in Colorado It like comes out you can kind of again like interrupt meeting with you. We were with our priest or minister. He barged in and I think I think it was just a hugely at best. It was a hugely upsetting Thing for fleet to be in the periphery of all this at worst Well, I don't know. I mean, I'd been I'd been with him a lot and I Have no doubt That the police used him Probably said well John thinks you killed his daughter and you got to work with us here No, no, never fact, but it wouldn't be surprised. I had Plea night used to sail it. Plea was a really expert sailor and I was not and I bought this sail. Are you in the Navy? Yeah That doesn't matter Too relevant I think it was a sail I don't know as a couple years later. I sent it back to him with the note said look. I don't know what the police told you. I'm sure They've probably told you things that weren't true, but I absolutely don't think you were involved in Our daughters murder and I never went back for him, but Just I knew him. I knew well. I knew his kids How do you not like go like like shake it out like this is the part that as I'm like I like so hard to understand and I Understand people spiral and then his wife I heard was telling Patsy like I you know I need a couple minutes. I might know something, but I'm just like God. There's is there something in there How do you how do you feel you have to like what is it that that like makes you not be be not be the fleet who's like holding on to people's callers Yeah, I've told people look If you were a male living in Boulder on the 26th or 25th of December, 1996 Your suspects in my book. I can't rule you out. I don't know. I'm so suspicious and frightened and bewildered Your suspect in my book. I don't trust you What was the deal with the 23rd 911 call in my favorite character fleet white Yeah, there's weird stuff like that What was the deal? He Somehow he dialed 911 from our home phone And meant to dial something else. I can't remember I'm a police came or or they just called us back, but we said no, that was that was a mistake. I guess You were asking about it Yes fleet. Yeah, no you know early on you know, I was just so crushed I wish I would die. What was that hurt? People say you think about suicide. Well, it crossed my mind, but that would impose more hurt of my children And that's That's dumb thing to do But I would have been happy to die I was so devastated So you don't think about much else. I guess other than Your loss and You know the as I say that the fleet stuff was weird, but It didn't it didn't fit with who I knew as a person. I mean, he didn't respect act well under stress I remember reading anecdote you had about a Sailing with him and how he just kind of like froze and you had to yeah, you guys had to come get saved by someone Well, we got into a really rough weather and Aligned to get wrapped around our propeller as we're coming to port we couldn't steer the boat and we're getting blown into a big rock wall and and Somebody's in a weather with blown like crazy and we're like okay. This is the end of the sailboat You know, we're not any killed, but that's going to be in a boat that crashes into that stone wall and so he just acted very Flustered and overwhelmed by difficulty And I saw our sort of attributed to some of his behavior to that I don't know I know I think I would just bulldoze through my life. I would like I would probably ruin every relationship I had like truly like if something I think it would I think it would consume me because I think I would Pick apart and maybe this these are the people who can survive it and the people who can't because I think I would I would hunt down Fleet White and I would like you know what I mean and I would like I would pick it apart Even if it was my own child and probably to the detriment of my child And I think that's what so many people we think we know what we're going to do in those situations Well, but you can't yeah, listen to that. I mean it's like getting hit by a speeding truck It's so devastating emotionally Your systems in shock. I mean Have you had different theories over the 30 years or or was it been pretty much the same or did it? I mean John Douglas's theory when he presented that to me was sobering. It's like Who hates who hates you that much like that? Well, that's what I said to John I said I don't I've never we had 700 employees. I knew most of them but not all of them We've had to fire some for different reasons but since I was the president and I guess Conceivably they could blame me for The loss of their job let's say But I I said I've never made anybody that man. I can't imagine that. He said you may not even know him They read a bunch of the paper they've observed your you know we were boulders are very liberal far-left community And um what's that mean? Well very um It's described jokingly is 32 square miles surrounded by reality um And we knew that going in We were capitalist we were businesses capitalists. They're not Really welcome here. It's feeling we got but um You know who could do this to a child? But anyway a John is very is lots of Credit on his resume to being right between him and your PIs Have you over the years come to at least your best working theory of Of what you think happened like the the order what was stayed? Oh, I think I think the person came into our home Uh when we were gone that evening went up for dinner Was there when we got home um And waited for us to go to bed That same scenario happened about nine months later in the same neighborhood with a little friend of jambanade Fortunately, the mother interrupted it. To me, they were very potentially the same person. Police blew it off as the same, but I know the father of that second little girl absolutely filled. There's a lot of similarities. They knew that the killer was in the house or the fortunately the child wasn't killed, but they came home, same, that we did, set the murderer alarm, went to bed. So the killer had the bad guy had to be in the house when they got home. So you think he's in the house waiting, and then what? And then we went to bed, and we believe that as two experts, the stun gun was used to silence John Manage, he was taken down the basement. Do you think that he went up to her room first, got her there, and then took her to the basement? Yeah. And do you have any, and I know this is a little bit of detail, details I know you've lived with for a long time. Do they have any ideas about what the intention was, like what some of the second to do some of the choking. You know, the loose Smith, this detective that was retired, brought out of retirement, legendary detective in Colorado, solved over 200 homicides, amazing man, was brought in by the DA, because I think the DA suspected the police had a kind of messed up, loose spent a couple of months looking at the evidence, and very conclusively in his mind said, "Nother, slots of evidence over the shooter." His theory was it was a kidnapping going wrong, based on the evidence. And I've always thought those two conflicted between John Douglas's theory and lose, but somebody pointed out to me, "Well, no, they don't necessarily conflict." And I was like, "Yeah, you're right." Do they think that the person wrote the note wall that he's in the house waiting for you guys to come home? Yeah. John Douglas said, "Nobody could write a three-page restaurant after murdering a child." Okay, so that's done it earlier. Their war brain is going crazy, and he said, "That note was written before." Where do you assume it went wrong? So if he wrote this note to get her out, like, "Why does he take her to the basement?" You think? Well, there was, I don't know, I mean, she was sexually assaulted, apparently. There was a suitcase, the so-called detective that was there that day said, "Well, go look through the house if you see anything unusual." And I reported to her that I went to the basement. There was a suitcase standing up on its bottom under a window, and the window was open. That suitcase shouldn't be there. It looks like it may have been a step to get out of the house. And apparently, they found, and I don't know this for a fact, but there's so much information out there. It's right. It's wrong, but they apparently found fibers from Japanese clothing in this suitcase, along with a dollar or something. And loose theory was they may have tried to get her out of the house in this suitcase, and it went wrong and it didn't work. I don't know. You first saw the window, because you had gone down initially, but you said, "When you first saw the window, you didn't think to mention it." No, no. I didn't believe it. Yeah, the window was open, and it had a pain broken in it, and the suitcase popped up underneath, and I told her in the orange, the detective, I said, "Look, that suitcase should not be there." And you told her this before? You guys found John Boney? Yeah. I said, "Maybe that window is broken by me. I don't know, but it shouldn't have been open, and that suitcase shouldn't have been there." And of course, the police came out and said, "Oh, nobody, a human couldn't get through that window." I did it. Luke Smith did it. It's crazy. It's crazy. They were so focused on convicting Patsy or me that nothing else mattered. And in January, they had sent some evidence in for DNA sampling, and the report came back middle of January. We've had covered unidentified male DNA from John Mane's clothing. Does not match any one of the family. John, Patsy, and Burke are excluded. Yeah, the first one I think that they found, it was from a blood spot in the underwear, and it was her blood, but it was what they determined, at least based on enzymes like saliva within the blood spot. Those are the first things that they tested and ruled the family out. Right. Well, the police kept that a secret from the DA for six months because it conflicted with their conclusion. It's like, "Holy crap, what do we got to do about this?" Because that's the first question to a physician who would ask, "Who's DNA is that?" "Oh, we don't know, but it doesn't matter. Well, it does matter." "Mail DNA found in a sexual assault case is a huge clue, and to discount it is absurd." And they do eventually go back and get another sample that they put into CODIS from it. They get a large enough profile to put in CODIS, right? Right. The first sample was CODIS qualified as well. A new DA came in and sat up her own investigative unit, on this case, took the case away from the police. I didn't position it that way in the media. It was like, "Oh, we want fresh eyes." No, I believe she took it away from the police, brought Luke Smith back in, who had left because he was disgusted with the direction it was going. And they started to investigate it again, and she did additional DNA testing. This is like in 2008? Yeah. The support of the earlier DNA sampling, that it was an unidentified male DNA at no explanation. Police tried very hard to explain it away. They even tried to get the county to pay for them to go to China. I followed that one. They wanted to go to China, and start sampling. But then they really honed in on, "Oh no, this isn't just like everywhere on the underwear. It's just in the blood spots, and we're showing these enzymes that show up in high levels with saliva." Yeah. And I don't know. I did learn a little bit about DNA, and it's complicated. It's very complicated. Really complicated. 2008, they do touch DNA on the side of her long-drawn pants, basically, saying like, we think that whoever would have pulled her pants down might have done it here. They get two profiles, one from each side. They're not nearly as big as the one that went into Kodas, but they say they're consistent with that one. Right. And I heard the same thing where they're saying, like, in no other case have I seen, where you see this much DNA of someone else, and we're not looking for someone else. Right. When they ended up testing the nylon rope that was around her neck. I don't think they ever did. I don't know that. They tested the rope, but not the wooden handle itself. And the rope came back with an unknown sample. I didn't know that. But it didn't match the other ones. And I don't know what that means. Like, has anyone ever considered this? Smith, and he, Lou, told me, first of all, Lou said, I'll get this guy, John. I'll get him. And he has a track record of getting them. And sadly, he died of cancer. He believed there are more than one person involved. But he also said, look, there's things I know that only the killer knows. And I'm not going to tell you what those are. I'm not telling you, buddy. But. Did it die with him? The baby may have. I'm not sure. Lou had an extensive database of information that now some of his former homicide detective colleagues have formed a group to finish Lou's work. Lou said, this is a DNA case, it'll be solved by DNA. Have you ever asked to see all of his materials? I mean, at one time, you were paying him. Well, it's huge, pardon? I mean, at one time, you were paying Lou, right? No. Lou would. I tried to buy Lou and I screamed for him one day. He wouldn't let me do it. He was that honorable. No, I didn't pay him. So you never asked to see his stuff? Like, I. Well. Well. I couldn't help it, I would want to. Well, it was voluminous. Yeah. And the group that took over, and they're doing it on their own. They've taken Lou's list and they start to go down the list and get DNA. And that costs money. And so they raise money over time to pay for the DNA testing, but they're not any of their expenses or anything. It's all on their own. And I was so grateful for that. You know, Lou felt that he had a good enough sample early on that that is the killer's DNA. You need nine markers of a 15 to be submittable to the database, the federal database. You probably know a lot more about this than I do, but. I'm learning. They determined that these 15 particular markers, it's like a hundred percent match, 15 out of billions. And we had nine. I wonder if it's still in there because I know back in the 90s the database was less, it was lower at nine and then I over the years, I believe they've raised it to be like 13 and I've seen other cases where it because it no longer meets the new standard. It drops out and people didn't even realize that it's not from there anywhere. I don't know. It's interesting. It's something I'll need to look into. Yeah, I don't know. I didn't know that they raised the threshold, but do you know, did they ever test the Jombani's bathroom? Someone had gone to the bathroom and not flush. Did they ever test that? Do you know? I don't know. It seems like a perfect example for DNA and I don't know if they tested and it was hers or. Well, the forensics people only spent two hours in our house after job, but he was found looking for evidence. The DA said, catch your, you know, what back in there, two hours is not enough. So they went back. I don't know how long they spent when they went back. They did find. You know, they recovered the evidence of evidence and a poem print that didn't match anybody on the door going into that room where Jombani was found. Didn't match anyone. I thought they saw Patsy's and Jombani's, but Patsy was, I know, rap and presence in that room and stuff like that. She'd go in and out of that room. It was storage room with all of the wine cellar, but there wasn't no wine. No wine. It was just an old coal cellar. I don't think I realized that there was an unidentified print. As far as I know, that's still unidentified. As there was in the same case nine months later, unidentified poem print. Did they check them? No. In the, in the other case, very similar to Jombani, I think in the reporting they call her Amy. Yeah, they blew that office similar. Because as the police chief said, there's so many quotes I could give you that they said we're just nuts. First of all, we didn't treat Jombani's abduction as a crime scene. We thought it was a kidnapping. It's a crime. It's a crime. I'm sorry. Yeah. On a little girl, the police chief came out and said, well, they're not the same because second little girl wasn't killed. Because her mom walked in and mom interrupted it. It just nuts. We're dealing with, and that's a real fundamental problem with our system. That little boulder color out of police department's island of authority. People can't come on that island and help unless they're invited and boulder police never invited anybody to come in and help. Lots of was offered, but that's the fundamental problem with our system. Would that be your hope with Jombani's case? Like who in a perfect world, who would you want to take over? Well, you know, early on, we didn't care who had it. We just wanted it out of the police hands because we knew they were a focused on us and being competent. Give it to the sheriff's department. Give it to we didn't care. Just get it out of their hands because they're not capable. Like the evidence to be turned over to the FBI, with the FBI run with the evidence to some additional DNA testing. So where do you think the evidence is? Do they still have it? What do you think is still can be tested? What could we pull this thing out from? Well, we were told, we know from looking at reports and stuff early on in January, 97, there were a number of items sent into a lab. Some were returned untested, don't know why. Whether it's a cost issue or they had a sample, they didn't get a sample of what they tested. Maybe they said that's good enough. I don't know. We want those other items tested. We want the items that had previously been tested 15 years ago, most recently, retested, developing this new format that's needed to do the genealogy research. That's who we're asking. So far as we know, there's items that are crime scene evidence that was taken from the crime scene, sent to a lab that was never tested. It seems pretty straightforward. What do you feel is? Because to me, on the outside, I'm like, why wouldn't Boulder want to solve its biggest case? There's only two logical reasons. One is they've lost the evidence, which I hope isn't true. Or two, they're protecting somebody that is very, that's a silly number two. But I can't think of any other reason. They've lost the evidence. Do you feel like you're somebody who has amazing connections and political pull? Do you feel like there's anything that you can do or you tried it all? We've tried a lot. We've petitioned the Attorney General in Colorado. We petitioned the governor. This is early on to meet with us and they wouldn't meet with us. Do you think this would be a great case for someone to, I mean, if they're going to at least work the system, do you solve the jump in a Ramsey case? Well, you think so, and I've told that the board said five police chiefs since this happened. Have you met with the newest one? Yeah. Does he say anything about whether they have the evidence? Don't have the evidence. Are you waiting? I've never challenged him on. Did you have you lost it? What do you mean, John? Well, I've got another meeting coming up. Well, at first meeting, he's trying to be a nice guy and not jump all over. He was a new guy at his job. I liked him. We had a nice conversation. It was like, I need to. What does he say? Where does he say it stands? Well, he says there's things happening. I can't tell you about. And I think DNA testing isn't there yet. We want to wait. And I totally disagree with the last comment. We're going to ask the hard question. Have you. And you didn't lose it. You're the new guy. It's not your fault. But is the evidence still in your possession? Where is it? And if it's not there, what does that make you think? Well, it confirms my opinion that the Bullet Police was a pretty dysfunctional organization for years, frankly. That means just over for you guys? Well, that's a huge thing, yeah, to have. If that's the case, because we have the technology in my opinion privately to do testing that I think. I really believe has a good chance of leading to the answer. Do you think it's someone, whether you recognize them or not, someone that would have had some kind of interaction with your daughter before? Well, I think the person had been at our house before. No question. We have this car guy, our car. We've had two people that said, "Why saw that guy around you?" I know it's him. Our house. We had a lady that would come into our little house up in Michigan and clean it once a while before we got there. And she called after he became public and said, "That guy was in your garage this past summer." How do you make sense of that if the DNA. Well, I don't know. I either don't know. Does that make you go back in question to DNA? Well, I asked you that question. I said, "You believe that this is the killer's DNA, for sure." He said, "Yes, I believe that." So, okay. Based on that. Well, the other thing she said was, when I was in your home that day, somebody had been staying in a job in his room. There was a suitcase open. And obviously, somebody was saying, "I thought you'd given someone permission to stay in your home." I didn't think you know it. When this guy came out, she said, "I saw him in your garage," and then she told us about somebody staying in her home. I said, "No, we didn't give her a permission to stay in her home." And why would they have picked you up in his room? If you're going to squat in a house, you wouldn't have picked that room. It's second floor or way in the back. You couldn't get out of there easily if you were caught. I think new testing is going to be important. I don't know if you have thoughts or feelings on. Have you seen all this stuff that's been happening with the Colorado State Lab? Yeah. Do you have any concerns? So, Missy Woods, I believe is her name. She's been accused of falsifying, I mean, like, 600 in some cases between 2008 and '23. They're looking at even older cases. Is this something that you've talked to anyone in authority about? Do you have concern that it affects the testing that you guys had done? We were told, our attorney is looked into it, and they're still working on the case for free. They don't charge us. They're so committed to getting this right. They said she was not involved in our testing back then. Okay. So, that's the information we have. It's really good. What's it going to take to do a new testing? Well, we were told, probably years ago, now it's been over here. At that time, we accidentally met the head of the FBI region there. And he said, look, the government, we, the FBI, certainly not bolder, not CBI, do not have the latest DNA technology yet. And who said that? The Chief of Police. Because they've got a new one right? Or is this the last one? The current one? Yeah. Get the evidence into their hands. And let's see what they come up with. They have also the ability to do the job. genealogy research, create this family tree, even to give you, I mean, the phenotyping that they can do to answer the question of, okay, we know it's a male profile, but is it a white man? Right. Is it not? I don't know what else to do, but if they don't do that, then that's an unacceptable. It's ridiculous. It's there. It can be done. We said, I've offered to pay for it. I don't know what the issue is. I really don't, the way they won't do all that can be done. I'll have to ask some questions of them. Yeah. That'd be, we're going to get a little more hard noticed in our next meeting. First question, do you have the evidence, be honest, have you lost it? Where is it? Who has it? Sounds like a good next step. Yeah. Right now in my mind, that's the key question. Why? Where is it? If you're not going to test it, why? Because it's baffling, absolutely baffling to me. Maybe it's down to police departments still like to admit they've been wrong or they screwed up. I can't believe that with the new police chief, I mean, he didn't cause that problem, he didn't mess it up. Do you think they're afraid of opening themselves up to litigation? Possibly. Very possibly. Do you think you would sue them or are you? No, I look, I explored that early on because we were, again, told they knew it was, they knew it was one of the parents, had to be one of the parents, always the parents. And that's a flawed conclusion. There's no one theory that makes everything make sense. No, not really. I don't know. I'll lose it. This is a DNA case. It'll be solved by DNA, period. And that's why it's testing so important. No. I don't know. I mean, I used to, Patsy, when we'd travel, Carrie took, always packed a blue dress, dark blue dress. She was going to wear, at the press conference, when Tom and A's killer was found. We were hopeful, confident, that that would happen. And she eventually quit packing the blue dress. How many asked me of the day, do you think Tom and A's killer would be found in your lifetime? I'm not so confident, now, at all. I think eventually they will be gone or identified, but maybe not in my lifetime. Given the fact that there's no movement in the government to do the right thing. If they do it, I think there's a, I don't know, pretty good possibility that we could find the killer. Early in the other killer, maybe dad, maybe who knows, but this forensic genealogy research is amazing. And eventually that won't be available, because the privacy advocates will fuss. They're already fussing, but so far, so good. So that can't, you can't wait on that forever, because eventually you won't have, the police will not have access to that. My idea is in the public database, I just paid my $25 to see who my relatives were. So it's my judgment. But do you use them in? It's a jet match. That's a different. No, I don't know what that puts out. So this is my, this is my advocacy, I always tell people. So like certain, like ancestry in 23 and me, they're no longer available to law enforcement. So people, I didn't know that. I know. Most people don't. And so you actually have to download your results and submit it to jet match. Jet match is the one that law enforcement can access. So there's, there actually is this big issue where people think they've done it, and they actually haven't, which would, which could build up the database in a really meaningful way. Wow. I didn't know that. Those are still available, that's a big problem. What's it called jet? Jet match. GEV. Jet match. Okay. Do you feel like you'll always have the indictment kind of hanging over you until there's someone else who's indicted? Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's always going to be. It's a known. Is there anything like, does that mean anything now? Like, could somebody say, oh, we, we have this indictment from 30 years ago, we can still go charge John, or would they have to get a new grand jury indictment? Like, is it, I don't know how scary of a looming thing that, yeah, I don't know. The grand jury, as I've told you, didn't convict a ham sandwich in a grand jury. It's a one sided argument. Right. It's, it's easy to get an indictment. It is. It's just the prosecution case. Yeah. But you guys weren't asked to even speak at that. I offered to do that. Yeah. And they didn't ask me, or subpoena me. My children were interviewed by the grand jury, Burke was interviewed, Melinda, my daughter, who was pregnant at the time, was brought in to Colorado to be interviewed by the grand jury. So their attorneys were present with them. It's straight, it's so strange they would interview everyone but you. I know. And I offer myself. Let me know. And I think they were afraid that, I think people think it's calculated. I think that's the thing that nobody's like saying, where people, you know, in the depths of the inner saying is like, it feels like there's someone pulling the strings. We had no rights. Police, the only requirement they had was to talk to us once a year on our case, that by law they had to do that. At first time we asked for that meeting, they said, oh, Jesus, we don't know how to do this exactly. You're a suspect and you're a victim. This homicide victim's Family Rights Act gives families like us the right, under law, to get the case out of the police hands if they're not doing their job, or they haven't done their job. What I read is that after three years it's still a cold case, you can submit to have a federal review. Yeah. Well, I'd thought about that a bit of it, like this law, this federal law, because that could be John Maynay's law. If it advanced the cause, it'd be good, but I'm not looking for that kind of a moralization of her, but you want to be sure your home is safe, as safe as it could be for your family. We were a foolish naive. We thought we lived in a safe community. We didn't check the door lots. We didn't set the alarm. Who in the world would come into the house where they're there? They came in, we were gone, steal the silverware, okay, whatever, never ever thought someone would come into our home and we were there and take our child from her bed. But it happens, and your home's got to be a sanctuary, a safe sanctuary, a safe as you could make it. Are you doing anything to get this victim's Family Rights Act pushed through to color? Well I just found out about it, and I've got to do that. If that's the one thing, if anything, I've always said, what can we do to change the system? System screwed up, big time. I don't know how to fix it. These 18,000 little independent jurisdictions of authority, with no higher authority, no ability to bring in the big guns when a child's murdered, this stupid makes no sense. But what can I do to affect it? And early on I was advocating DNA testing for anyone arrested for felony. It's always come back to how do you make these little islands of authority like Boulder, able or willing to accept the power of our country to solve cases like ours, the murder of a child. And so I then I was, I got to think, well, let's make the murder of a child, a federal offense, just like a bank robbery. That seemed very logical. Did you make any headway with it? Well, I met with the Department of Justice and they said, well, that's going to be a tough sell because we don't have, the federal government doesn't have that lexus, I think you called it, to have even that authority to try to do that, to overstep state law. He said, that's going to be a tough growth. So now this is your new mission? So my new mission, I learned about this just recently, and I'm retired now, so I got the time to do it, is I met, again, a Department of Justice, Federal Department of Justice Phil, that pushed the federal government to enact a homicide victims' family rights act. Are you going to focus that, because I know Biden signed it into law in 2021 federally, but just point not in a state, are you going to focus on Colorado or some of these things? Well, what it gets down to in the DOJ fellow, so look, it's easy, it's boilerplate, here's the law, Mr. Senator, state Senator, put your name at the top, vote on it, it's done, that's all I got to do, it's real simple. Colorado would be a tough sell, I think, because politicians don't want to be involved in our case. It's like a tar baby, if I touch it, I'm tainted, the media has been brutal. would you advocate for it in another state? - Sure. And I say I literally just found out about this recently and I've got to do it. But I think that's the purpose I could advocate and get behind and maybe make it, maybe make it their first we're just gonna take, like I don't know any politicians in Colorado. They probably don't me, but I don't know them. But, and maybe that's a good place to start. - What do you think, John Vanese legacy is? (whooshing) - She was kind of the spark plug of her family. I mean, and, you know, my minister told me early on, he said, "Look, memories for a while are gonna bring pain, but eventually they'll bring joy." And to the large extent, I found that, that you've been able to get past the pain period and memories make you smile. And I still get tug, my heart gets tugged when I see a little girl hanging under her dad's hands walking down the street, you know, that hurts. But I remember the neat things about John Vanese, the fun things. You know, I believe that she's in heaven. I don't understand heaven. I don't have my brain isn't capable of comprehending what that is, but, you know, I did get one reassurance that life wasn't over for her in that respect. She had won this little medal in one of her little contests, beauty contests. And I used to tell her, "Look, it doesn't matter if you're the prettiest or whatever." Your little talent makes is what you should concentrate on. And she was a singer and always with vigor, but sometimes all key, but she was, you know, boom. And she had her last little event was a couple of weeks before she died and I was late to get there. But I always tried to go to watch her little talent thing. And she came running up to me and said, "Dad, dad, I won this for you." And it was a medal and it was all talent winner. And she gave me that little medal and I border on my neck. And when she died in my mind, I wanted to get that medal back, it was in her house. But I didn't tell anybody. I just, in my mind, that's the one thing I want to jump in is that I can keep physically. And Pam, Patsy's sister went to her house a week later and gave us some clothes 'cause we just laughed, we didn't have any clothes to wear anything. And she said, "I went to the house, please you're kind of rude." But I felt drawn to going to John but he's room. And I felt like I should bring you this. It's your grand, it was a medal. And her room was full of stuff, you know? How she would bring this little round butt size of a silver dollar medal and feel like, I felt like I should bring this to you. And I just, I could have cried 'cause it's like, John, my name knew I wanted that. So, well, so there's more to life than we see here. Well, thank you, John. Well, you're welcome, Ashley. I'll make sure the stuff that we talked about, again, the legislation that you're doing, the petition to get the DNA sign. I'm sure everyone has the information for that. And I think everyone is going to have an eye on Boulder. Well, that's the objective. This boy's just isn't gonna go away. We're gonna be your worst nightmare until you do your job. All eyes on Boulder. Yep. (upbeat music) (soft music) - Crime junkie is an audio check production. I think Chuck would approve. (crying)