03-01-2017, 09:50 PM
Quote: 1997-04-30: John Ramsey Interrogation by Steve Thomas, Tom Trujillo
John Ramsey Interrogation by Steve Thomas, Tom Trujillo
Also present, Pat Burke, Bryan Morgan, Pete Hoffstrom, Jon Foster
April 30, 1997 - Boulder, Colorado
http://www.jonbenetindexguide.com/1997BP...mplete.htm
JR: Ah, well, I remember they took me aside, and we sat in John Andrew’s room which is the one next to JonBenet’s and she went through what I should do when we talked to the caller and I must insist that I talk to JonBenet and that we need until 5 o’clock to raise the money. I’d actually called my (inaudible) and arranged for the money. Ah, and I think we had by that time started to wonder if one of the housekeepers might be involved. And there was some activity around that direction. We waited until past 11 and then we, and then I think we were in the living room and Linda said why don’t you take someone and look through the house and see if there’s anything you notice that’s unusual. And Fleet and I, Fleet was standing there and said he’d go with me. And we went down to the basement, went into the train room, which is, you know, the train set is, and that’s really the only window that’s, would let in entrance into the basement. And actually I’d gone down there earlier that morning, into that room, and the window was broken, but I didn’t see any glass around, so I assumed it was broken last summer. I used that window to get into the house when (inaudible) I didn’t have a key. But the window was open, about an eighth of an inch, and just kind latched it. So I went back down with Fleet, we looked around for some glass again, still didn’t see any glass. And I told him that I thought that the break came from when I did that last summer and then, then I went from there into the cellar. Pull on the door, it was latched. I reach up and unlatched it, and then I saw the white blanket, (inaudible).
ST: Well, let me follow up on this John. John I’m very sensitive to how tough this is, and you’ll appreciate that we need to get through this. On that trip to the basement, shortly after 1 p.m. on the 26th, Fleet showed you the window, the broken basement window.
JR: No, I, I think was the first one to enter the room.
ST: OK, but . . .
JR: I said, you know, this window’s broken, but I think I broke it last summer. It just hasn’t been fixed. And it was opened, but I closed it earlier and we got down on the floor and looked around for some glass just to be sure that it hadn’t been broken again.
ST: And Fleet had talked about earlier being down there, I think alone at one point, and discovering that window. When you say that you found it earlier that day and latched it, at what time of day was that?
JR: I don’t know. I mean it would have been probably, probably before 10 o’clock.
ST: Was that prior to Fleet’s first trip down?
JR: I didn’t know he was in the basement. I didn’t know that. I mean other than that trip with me.
ST: And on the trip that you latched the window, were you alone when you went down and latched the window?
JR: Yep.
ST: And on this, what I’m assuming is only your second trip to the basement on the 26th with Fleet, how much time did you spend in the basement before moving to the cellar room door?
JR: Not very much time. A minute maybe, or less, probably less than that.
ST: And on the morning of the 26th, you made one trip alone to the basement, and it was only on the second trip with Fleet that you, then shortly thereafter that you went to this basement room?
JR: Right.
ST: OK. When you had previously broken that basement window to gain entry to the home when you had been locked out, can you approximate what month that was?
JR: Well, I think it was last summer. Because Patsy was up at Lake (inaudible) all summer, and it would have been July or August probably, somewhere in that time frame.
ST: Did you remove that grate and get down into the window well?
JR: Uh-huh.
ST: And what did you use to break the pane?
JR: Ah, I don’t remember. Might have been my foot, I don’t know.
ST: OK. You reach in, I’m assuming, unlatched it and gain entry through that small window.
JR: Yeah.
ST: Did you then replace the grate onto that window well?
JR: Oh I probably would have done it that night. I’m sure I didn’t the next morning or, you know, or thereafter.
ST: Did you remove that whole grate off onto the, off the well, to jump down there and get in?
JR: Ah, probably. I don’t remember.
ST: Is there any reason that window went unrepaired?
JR: No. I mean it’s, Patsy usually took care of those things, and I just rarely went to the basement, so it just, I guess, got overlooked. Although she did think that she asked the cleaning lady’s husband to fix it over Thanksgiving when they were doing some repair work there, but I don’t know if that’s ever been confirmed whether he fixed it or not.
ST: And you mentioned when you went down in the morning, the 26th, and it was unlatched, did that strike you as odd or did you bring that to anybody’s attention?
JR: I, I don’t know. I mean when I was, I think, yeah, I think it probably struck me as a little odd, but it wasn’t, I mean sometimes that window would be open because the basement got hot, or one of those windows would be opened. So it wasn’t . . .
ST: Particularly unusual?
JR: It was dramatically out of the ordinary, but, that is, I thought about it.
JR: I mean, based on what I understand, there was a practice not and all of that. Somebody obviously spent some time there, and I guess found their way around the house the same time, but my, I mean my theory is that someone came in through the basement window. Because it was a new Samsonite suitcase also sitting right under the window, and you would have had to, you could have gotten into the house without that, but you couldn’t have gotten out that window without something to step on. And to even have known those windows were there, wouldn’t have been obvious to somebody who just was walking by. But . . .
ST: You talking about the window in the back, was not obvious?
JR: Yeah. No, I mean, yeah, it’s not obvious, but that is to me because that is the way to get into the house, and we know that the grate could be pulled off and the windows were not painted shut and, you know, it’s just I guess that’s why we never gave it much thought about . . .
??: And we asked a couple of times that that grates kind of out of the way, and you have to, I wouldn’t have known it was there. I mean, you can’t see from the back alleyway, you can’t see from the front. It’s out of the ordinary, out of the way picture, excuse me, out of the way window.
TT: OK. And let’s also hop back to the grate for just a second, cause I picked the grate up, it’s really heavy, I mean fairly heavy. Picked it up, moved it out of the way, kind of hopped down, I mean first peaked into that window, hopped down into that window well, you ended up, have to kick the window, break the window somehow, reach in and unlatch it. How far of a drop is it, or is it difficult I should say, to drop from the window well.
JR: No.
TT: It seem like it’s, for me I think it’s probably . . .
JR: That high.
BM: Do you want an estimate of that?
TT: Certainly.
JR: it’s probably, I don’t know, four feel maybe, five feet.
TT: OK. But on the outside you’ve got that kind of skinny narrow window well. Did you have an difficulty sliding into that or sliding down the wall?
JR: Yeah, well, as I recall, I did it at night and I had a suit on, and I took my suit off and did it in my underwear. But, it’s not easy, I mean you can get in that way, you get dirty, but.
TT: It’s not a graceful way to get in.
JR: No, no.
TT: It’s difficult because of the angles.
JR: Right.
TT: All right.
ST: Tom, let me just ask John this. Do you sit down and slide through, buttocks first if you will, through a window like that or, do you recall how you went through the actual window, John?
JR: I don’t I mean, I don’t remember. Seems like, I mean, I don’t remember, but I think I would probably gone in feet first.
ST: Feet first, backwards?
JR: Yeah.
ST: And when you went through in your underwear, were you wearing shoes or?
JR: I still had my shoes on, yeah.
ST: And were those with a suit, were they business shoes.
JR: They were probably, probably those shoes.
St: OK. And what are those shoes?
JR: Business shoes.
ST: And for the record, are those, brown lace-up, men’s business
JR: Oxford, not these shoes, but they are shoes that I wear with a suit, just a pair of business shoes, dress shoes.
TT: John, when you went down in the basement the first time and found the broken window, it was unlock, you latched it, did you notice that the window, excuse me, if you notice if the room was overly cold or anything like that?
JR: No, it wasn’t. I didn’t notice that it was.
Quote:1997-04-30: Patsy Ramsey Interrogation by Steve Thomas, Tom Trujillo
Patsy Ramsey Interrogation by Steve Thomas, Tom Trujillo
Also present, Pat Burke, Bryan Morgan, Pete Hoffstrom, Jon Foster
April 30, 1997 - Boulder, Colorado
http://www.jonbenetindexguide.com/1997BP...mplete.htm
TT: Okay. Do you remember if John ever went down to the basement to check any of the windows down there before the police arrived?
PR: You know I, you’re just going to ask him I don’t . . .
TT: Okay.
TT: When did John break that window in the basement?
PR: He, I don’t know exactly when he did it, but I think it was last summer sometime when we, the kids and I were at the lake.
TT: In Charlevoix.
PR: In Charlevoix and he told me to come back from out of town or whatever and he didn’t have a key and the only way he could get in was to break the window.
TT: Okay.
PR: The little um, like door, little window to the basement there.
TT: He had to life the grate out of the way to, to get in there.
PR: Yeah, that’s the one, um hum.
TT: Okay. Any reason why that one wasn’t replaced or the pane wasn’t fixed or anything?
PR: No, I don’t know whether I fixed it or didn’t fix it. I can’t remember even trying to remember that, um, I remember when I got back, uh, in the fall, you know . . .
TT: Um hum.
PR: . . .uh, went down there and cleaned up all the glass.
TT: Okay.
PR: I mean I cleaned that thoroughly and I asked Linda to go behind me and vacuum. I mean I picked up every chunk, I mean, because the kids played down there in that back area back there.
TT: Um hum.
PR: And I mean I scoured that place when, cause they were always down there. Burke particularly and the boys would go down there and play with cars and things and uh, there was just a ton of glass everywhere.
TT: Okay.
PR: And I cleaned all that up and then she, she vacuumed a couple of times down there.
TT: To get all the glass.
PR: In the fall yeah cause it was just little, you know, pieces, big pieces, everything.
TT: Do you ever recall getting that window replaced?
PR: Yeah, uh, I can’t remember. I just can’t remember whether I got it replaced or not.
PR: And uh, they also washed the windows, so they may be able to recall whether that window, and he was going to do some odd jobs.
TT: Mervin was?
PR: Uh huh.
TT: Okay.
PR: Uh, fix some shelves in the playroom and some uh, closet doors that had come off their track and some stuff like that.
TT: Um hum.
PR: And so I would, it seems to me like she and I talked about that window or did, somehow I vaguely remember that if it would have gotten fixed he very likely would be the one to fix it. And at any rate they were going to wash all the windows, so they would have known……
TT: Whether it was fixed or not?
PR: Yeah.
ST: And I have spoken with Linda, and she’s identified this suitcase as belonging to, well not necessarily belonging to, but a suitcase that she has used and that John Andrew has used, and that John Andrew likely had left at your house.
PR: Right.
ST: Do you recognize that blue suitcase?
PR: Yes.
ST: OK. Can you tell me anything about it?
PR: Well, just it’s old hard Samsonite or whatever, you know.
ST: And what this something that John Andrew let at the 15th Street home while he went to school at CU?
PR: Yeah, yeah, that’s to my recollection. Yeah, he moved out here with a bunch of stuff and then he left a lot of stuff t our house that he didn’t want to take to the dorm.
ST: Do you know where he kept that in your home, or where you last saw that?
PR: No, I don’t remember where I last saw it.
ST: OK.
PR: He, I don’t know.
ST: Where would John Andrew store his other items and affects?
PR: Some of the things are in his room I think, in the closet, and I think he put a bunch of stuff down in the basement. A computer, he had a computer and a printer, and I think that might have been in the basement too. It’s pretty big, I think it was in the basement.
ST: Do you know what room in the basement he would have, his stuff was stored in? Was it in the train room, or the…
PR: It wasn’t, I don’t know now, there was so much stuff down there. I can, it could have been anywhere.