Read Perfect Murder, Perfect Town for Free Online

properly presented in court when the time came.
    To Eller, the prosecutor’s demands seemed a challenge to his authority. The commander made it clear once more that he was in charge. Hofstrom had better stay out of it or chaos would follow.
    Commander Eller had been rotated into his job as head of the detective division only eleven months earlier, and he had never once directed a homicide investigation. Pete Hofstrom had twenty-three years behind him in the DA’s office, fifteen of them as head of the felony division. In the last four years, he had overseen twenty-three murder cases in Boulder County.
    Rather than argue any longer, Hofstrom went overEller’s head. He called police chief Tom Koby, who had been given periodic briefings since JonBenét’s body was found. Late that night, Koby suggested to John Eller that he consider the recommendations of the DA’s office very seriously and continue to search the scene. In the coming weeks it would become apparent that Eller could neither forgive nor forget Pete Hofstrom’s questioning his skill, professionalism, and his authority.
    In the end the police would continue their work at the crime scene for ten days, during which there would be constant disagreement between them and the DA’s office. Hofstrom wanted three times what was needed—according to the cops. The police wanted half of what was necessary—according to Hofstrom. Differences of opinion between branches of law enforcement are to be expected, but nothing like this.
    Â 
    At 10:45 P . M . Larry Mason stepped outside the Ramseys’ house and made an official statement to the two local reporters there. The TV crews had left earlier, to get on the air by 10:00. The dead child’s name was JonBenét Ramsey, age six, said Mason. He refused to answer any questions.
    Â 
    Except for his terse statement, Mason had ignored the media throughout the evening. By 11:30, he found only Elliot Zaret from Boulder’s Daily Camera . The Camera was holding the presses till Zaret filed a story. The reporter wanted to know exactly what had happened inside. Were there any signs of a break-in?
    â€œI don’t give a fuck about your First Amendment,” Mason growled. “All I care about is solving this fucking case. I know what you journalists do—you’re in everybody’s face.”
    But Zaret persisted. He’d already been led astray once that evening, when the coroner’s investigator, PatriciaDunn, told him that they had custody of the body, which suggested that the body had been removed when in fact it was still in the house.
    â€œNobody’s telling me anything,” Zaret said. “There’s a dead little girl, and I don’t know if there’s a murderer on the loose. People reading the story tomorrow will be worried if they don’t know.”
    Zaret asked Mason to talk to him off the record at least, then tell him what, if anything, he could print.
    â€œWhat do you want to know?” Mason finally said.
    â€œThe cause of death.”
    â€œI can’t tell you that.”
    â€œWas she shot?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWas she stabbed?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSo she was strangled,” Zaret said.
    â€œI didn’t say that. You can’t print she was strangled.”
    â€œCan I print she wasn’t shot or stabbed?”
    â€œYes. And if you burn me, I’m never going to say another word to you again.”
    Zaret printed only what they’d agreed on.
    Â 
    At 11:44 P . M ., seventeen and a half hours after Linda Arndt was first paged, she was the last person to leave the Ramsey house.
    Â 
    At midnight that night, Dr. Beuf and his wife, Penny, were still at the Fernies’ house, along with Patsy’s friend Patty Novack, who had become her unofficial nurse. Patsy had to be helped even in the bathroom.
    Finally, the Valium she had taken made Patsy drowsy. She fell asleep again on the living room