Slain Girl’s Parents Set Conditions for Police Talk

DENVER — Twelve days after a child beauty queen was found strangled in the basement of her Boulder home, homicide investigators on Monday were still trying to negotiate their first formal interview with her parents.

Six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey’s parents have not met officially with authorities since her father found her body at 5 a.m. the day after Christmas with a nylon cord looped around her neck and her mouth gagged with duct tape. The discovery came eight hours after the girl’s mother found a handwritten ransom note on a spiral staircase in their home; it demanded $118,000 and warned her not to call the police. She did.

Since then, John and Patricia Ramsey have retained their own attorneys, private investigators and a media consultant.

“Certainly, talking with the Ramsey family is an important aspect of this investigation,” said Boulder police spokesman Kelvin McNeill. “Hopefully, we will have those interviews conducted in the very near future.”

But media consultant Pat Korten said Monday that John Ramsey’s attorney, Bryan Morgan, was advising against a formal meeting with detectives unless and until certain considerations could be met.

“As long as we are still in this area where police must necessarily consider the parents to be potential suspects,” Korten said, “then obviously the attorney has to be very, very careful about the form, manner, timing and mode of the questions of his client.”

Korten confirmed that investigators have submitted written questions to the parents, who have yet to respond.

On Sunday, authorities completed an exhaustive 10-day search of the family’s 15-room home that included photographing footprints in the melting snow outside.

Investigators sought a search warrant Monday to examine a summer home the Ramseys own in Michigan. The warrant was sealed; authorities refused to comment.

An autopsy revealed the girl had been sexually assaulted.