LENGTH: 2042 words

HEADLINE: SEXUAL ASSAULT CASE SIMILAR TO JONBENET RAMSEY MURDER CASE IS DISCOVERED

ANCHORS: GERALDO RIVERA

REPORTERS: LEANNE GREGG

BODY:
Mr. JOHN RAMSEY (Father of JonBenet Ramsey): (From May 24) You need to realize there's a killer of
children that walks among us. It's not Patsy, and it's not I. Let's get on with finding the killer. That is
our single and only objective in doing any of this.

GERALDO RIVERA, host:

John Ramsey made that emotional statement back in May, again vigorously repeating the consistent
denial that he and his wife, Patty, had absolutely nothing to do with their daughter, JonBenet's,
horrific death.

Now, for the first time in three and a half years, there is a real new development that could
conceivably--maybe that's a stretch, but I think, you know, conceivably support the couple's claim
of innocence. Police in Boulder, Colorado, are testing evidence from an attempted assault on a
teen-age girl who attended the same dance studio as JonBenet. NBC's Leanne Gregg says authorities
are looking for any connection between the two crimes.

LEANNE GREGG reporting:

The crime scene: a basement of the Ramsey home where JonBenet's body was found. Police in
Boulder are running more tests on evidence found here. They're checking to see if palm prints at the
Ramsey crime scene match prints found at the scene of a sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl that
happened after JonBenet's murder.

Chief MARK BECKNER (Boulder Police): There is a killer walking the streets in this country. We just
have to figure out who that is.

GREGG: Comments from Boulder police Chief Mark Beckner months ago. This week Beckner says he
doubts there's a link between the two crimes, but admits it's worth a second look.

Police reports say the 14-year-old girl went to JonBenet's dance academy. She was attacked in her
bed. Her mother interrupted the assault, and the attacker got away.

Attorneys for John and Patsy Ramsey say by dismissing a possible link, Boulder police demonstrated a
lack of objectivity that's been evident from the beginning of the investigation. JonBenet's parents
consistently deny involvement in the case, but remain under suspicion. During an earlier interview,
the Ramseys said an intruder killed their daughter, and they won't give up on finding the person
responsible.

Mr. RAMSEY: (From WSMV-TV): Well, what we've wanted and what we continue to want is that the
investigation continue.

GREGG: A grand jury disbanded last fall after examining the case for 13 months. No charges have
been filed. Leanne Gregg, NBC News, Denver.

RIVERA: Yesterday John Ramsey called the development 'hugely significant.' Just hours ago he spoke
by phone with an Atlanta TV station.

Mr. RAMSEY: (Courtesy WXIA) My belief is that this killer probably has killed before and will act again.
So to know that it happened within two miles of the house, potentially, within nine months of
JonBenet's murder was--was shocking. As I say, on--on the one hand, it's tragic that it had to
happen, but it--to me, it's encouraging that what we believed would happen, we have a record of it
and--and some knowledge and some more information that can be put into the piece of the puzzle.

RIVERA: NBC's chief legal correspondent, Dan Abrams, joins us now from New York City. First of all,
Dan, is this indeed a significant development, and why the hell didn't we hear about it before?

DAN ABRAMS (NBC News): Well, look, I don't know why we didn't hear about it before. This is the
sort of incident that the police should have been looking into long ago. Now I--I spoke with the police
chief, Mark Beckner, yesterday at length about this, and his position is, 'We did know about it. We
investigated this. I personally'--I, Beckner--'knew about this as soon as I became briefed on the
details of the Ramsey case. And the fact that the press didn't know about it until now isn't our
problem.'

The problem is, though, that the DAs didn't know about it. The prosecutors who brought...

RIVERA: Ouch!

ABRAMS: ...who brought this case to the grand jury didn't know about this other incident. And that is
problematic, regardless of what you think about the Ramseys' guilt or innocence. And it boils down to
this--and this is sort of the same idea Beckner was--was saying to me--is if you believe that the
Ramseys did it, then this is really irrelevant. I--if you're convinced that the Ramseys did it, who cares
if there was an intruder in someone else's house? But if you leave open the possibility that the
Ramseys didn't do it or you believe the Ramseys didn't do it, then this is extremely significant. Nine
months later, another girl attacked sexually, went to the same dance studio, same sort of
lying-in-wait kind of attack. All relevant factors.

RIVERA: Right back. Hugely Significant, said Mr. Ramsey. Is it?

(Announcements)

RIVERA: A significant development in the JonBenet Ramsey case. I really do think it is significant, a
kind of a--a look-alike case nine months later. Dan Abrams and--and I have been pretty close to this
case, and neither of us, through our various sources heard it. Maybe because the cops didn't want to
tell us, Dan.

ABRAMS: Well, you know, y--that--that's--that's the interesting part is: Why didn't we know about
this? This is a 33-page police report of facts that sure do sound similar to the Ramsey case. And as I
made this point to Mark Beckner, the police chief, when I spoke with him, you know--and that is this
doesn't happen in Boulder. The notion that some...

RIVERA: Right.

ABRAMS: ...someone would be in someone's house, an intruder would be in a little girl's house while
the mother is home, sexually assaulting the girl, that in and of itself even happening once seems
extremely unlikely in Boulder. And the fact that the Ramseys have always maintained that that's
exactly what happened in their house in the JonBenet Ramsey case is something at the very least
worth looking into.

RIVERA: In Denver tonight, the city's former chief deputy district attorney, our pal Craig Silverman,
joins us. He's now a civil and criminal trial lawyer.

Craig, what the hell happened here?

Mr. CRAIG SILVERMAN (Civil and Criminal Attorney; Former Prosecutor): Well, I think it's another
interesting sideshow in this tragic circus of a case. It's hard to believe that the DAs did n--did not
know about it. I mean, what's the source of that information? And...

ABRAMS: I--my--my sources--my sources are good on that, and I can tell you...

Mr. SILVERMAN: Right.

ABRAMS: ...the DAs did not know about it.

Mr. SILVERMAN: Right, but the--you know...

RIVERA: Alex Hunter refused comment today, I must say.

Mr. SILVERMAN: Well, Alex Hunter has surrogates, and Alex Hunter benefits by putting out this story;
so do--so do the Ramseys. And, you know, Mark Beckner is going along with it and he is saying the
right things because they have a meeting scheduled toward the end of the month. And there's really
only one way this case is going to be solved at this point, and that's a confession by whoever did it.
It's time that the key witnesses cooperated, and you can bet there's more than one Boulder cop
who's fantasized about getting the confession of a lifetime from one or more Ramseys.

RIVERA: OK. In San Diego, we welcome Pete Peterson, a private investigator whose firm also has
branches in Denver and LA; Mr. Peterson hired by the family of the 14-year-old to look into the girl's
assault.

What do they think, Pete?

Mr. R.W. PETERSON (Private Investigator): Well, how do you mean 'What do they think?' I mean,
obviously...

RIVERA: Do they--do they think there's a link?

Mr. PETERSON: Well, let's put it this way. We think there's--there's a possibility of that. I don't know
that I'm directly convinced. There is--we investigated it for about a year and a half, as well as the
Ramsey case. We got involved in that because of it. There are d--some--some definite parallels with
regard also to handwriting, and some of the people...

RIVERA: How come you didn't tell anybody, Pete?

Mr. PETERSON: I did. You know, the only reason--this is a new development--it's not a new
development; this has been there for three years. And somebody by the name of Charlie Brennan, a
reporter, picked it up. I mean, we were out there with it--we were out there with it. We talked to
the DA; we talked to Lou Smit.

RIVERA: So you did--did you talk to the DA?

Mr. SILVERMAN: Right. So--so the Ramseys have known about this for a long time. Let's...

ABRAMS: No, if--if--but wait...

Mr. SILVERMAN: Let's put the cards out that we know. Ellis Armistead, a private investigator, quit the
case. I'm sure he had knowledge of this situation.

ABRAMS: If the Ramseys knew about this, it would have been in their book.

Mr. PETERSON: No, I don't think he had knowledge of it.

ABRAMS: If the Ramseys knew about this...

RIVERA: I agree with Dan.

ABRAMS: ...I guarantee you it would have been in their book. This would be a bombshell for the
Ramseys.

Mr. SILVERMAN: You know...

ABRAMS: Why wouldn't they want to make it public if they'd known about it?

Mr. SILVERMAN: Dan--Dan, you make a good point about this being somewhat rare in Boulder. But
here, a few miles away in Denver, I prosecuted a lot of rapists who sneak into the house and wait for
their prey.

ABRAMS: Yeah, but--and, Craig...

Mr. SILVERMAN: That happens.

ABRAMS: Yeah, but--but that--that--that's not what I'm talking about. The reality--no--no, it's
not...

Mr. SILVERMAN: But there are so many innocent people nowadays, Dan.

Mr. PETERSON: But, gentlemen, it's not rare in Boulder.

ABRAMS: It is rare in Boulder.

Mr. PETERSON: It's not rare in Boulder.

ABRAMS: It is rare.

RIVERA: Wait, what do you mean--what do you mean by that, Pete? What do you mean by that?

Mr. PETERSON: It's not rare in Boulder.

ABRAMS: He's wrong.

Mr. PETERSON: Hold up, hold up, the talking heads there, please. It's not rare in Boulder. This
happened on three different occasions during a one-month period close to this case. There was
another lady we talked to who had a gentleman hiding in her apartment. Now you can go back...

ABRAMS: Right, but we're talking about children.

Mr. PETERSON: ...go back and--go back and check the police reports.

ABRAMS: Yeah, but wait...

Mr. PETERSON: There were three other incidents just like this, like the case we investigated, and we
talked to at least two of these people.

RIVERA: All unsolved, Pete?

Mr. PETERSON: Right. And these were people that were secreted in their house for a period of hours
until they came home or while they were home.

ABRAMS: But--but what makes this--but what makes this different...

RIVERA: Let me just explain to the folks...

Mr. PETERSON: Now this is common. This is fairly common in Boulder.

RIVERA: All right. Dan, I'm going to let you finish. I just--if the g--the intruder theory is that the guy
was in--was--was there when they all went to bed. I mean, in this--in this other case, Pete--Pete's
case, the intruder had to be there because there was an alarm system on the house

Mr. PETERSON: He was there. They set the alarm at 11 PM.

RIVERA: ...and the alarm only triggered when the mother and the--and the child fled the house to go
to the cops.

Mr. SILVERMAN: Yeah, but, Geraldo, what if the Ramseys--what if the Ramseys...

ABRAMS: Right, but--but here we're talking about attacking a child, Geraldo.

RIVERA: Dan, go ahead.

ABRAMS: That's the--that's the difference. In Boulder, it has happened that people have come into
people's houses, particularly college students. It's happened fairly often that intruders end up in
women's homes.

Mr. SILVERMAN: Right.

ABRAMS: The difference is here you have a child who is being attacked, a female child, while the
parent is in the house.

Mr. SILVERMAN: Right. But what has happened after that, Dan...

ABRAMS: That is the comparison that makes it particularly unique.

Mr. SILVERMAN: Dan, what has happened after that at the Ramsey house...

RIVERA: OK, listen, we're going to do more on this. And, Dan, certainly when you're in this seat
on--on Monday, you're going to--you're going to follow it up, on--I'm positive.

First, some additional facts:
Although 14, she was very slightly built, so this 6 versus 14 is not such a gap as one might think.

With the burglar alarm having been on, it seems the intruder would have been in the house for several hours. That is significant, but was immediately dismissed by the BPD.

It was not only that Lucy had been to the same dance school, but also that each had recently been on a rather public display: the Christmas parade for JonBenet a public dance recital for Lucy.

Neutrality issues? Well, when Lucy's father wanted the case investigated but the BPD thought it was a 'boyfriend thing', the BPD threatened to go to each and every student in Lucy's school and ask if 'they had ever seen Lucy with an older boyfriend that Lucy might have let into her home at night'.

You may be right - maybe the fact that JonBenét's killer got away with it made this one feel safer - - - but geesh - - Boulder is literally 15 square miles - imagine that 3 miles by 5 - - and so many problems there. Two crimes so similar - - I just hope Tom Bennett got the Lucy case checked out well - - maybe there really was some evidence there that might be compared.

I know each of the two homes was rather large and the neighborhoods were rather similar, but my main question would be: does anything at all link the two sets of parents?

One link we do know of is that both girls took classed at the same dance studio.

Consider some potential scenarios that have been bandied about in the past:

"Mr.Slow Burn"... if JonBenet was killed by someone with a long simmering grudge against John Ramsey for some real or imagined slight in the distant past, then the two crimes are not likely to be at all linked.

"Crack-Stepper"... if the two events are linked, then instead of being angered by a child being allowed to step on a sidewalk crack, he is perhaps angered by a child being allowed to be on some sort of public display, such as in a parade or in a dance recital.

"Pedophile"... then the link of similar homes, neighborhoods could simply be a large home gives him "room" to do his work and he knows that rich people tend to be less alert to their safety than poor people.

"Alley Traipsing Bum"... okay, I guess its a bit easier to be 'invisible' if you are a bum near the Aquinas Youth Ministry Hall since there will be a variety of other bums and you sort of just blend in with the crowd, but its still possible to be a bum in Lucy's neighborhood because some bums are going to be just about everywhere and little attention is paid to them.

He liked entering the home and staying there to await their return and it is possible that his use of her name was from things learned in the home, so he may not have had any prior knowledge of her at all. I think the two crimes are unrelated but the fact that the homes are similar, as are the neighborhoods, there was entry and remaining in the home for a long time.

I think however this was a rapist and the dance school was a mere coincidence, as was her being slightly built and much younger looking than her chronological age.

The mother and the girl both must have gotten a pretty good look at him---but I don't recall much of a description being reported, and neither the girl or her mother recognized him.

I still think the perp is someone the Ramseys may know. Why disguise your handwriting if one is a total stranger? That would only necessary if one is danger of their handwriting being recognized.

Disguised can mean altered so as to make immediate recognition of a familiar style difficult or it can mean altered so as to make sustained forensic examination difficult.

I would tend to agree that a lengthy document would contain quite a few "lapses" into normal and routine lettering practices.

I would think that anyone at Access Graphics would have had to have altered their handwriting. I don't particularly see why a total and complete stranger should have to do so, but he might want to do so anyway. Consider perhaps the publicity the note has recieved. Its been viewed in Ketchikan, Alaska. Its sort of similar to a man who knows that he has never in his life been fingerprinted, so he is absolutely free to leave prints all over a crime scene. That doesn't mean he is going to do it though!

I still think it was a boyfriend who knew dad was out of town and the girl was afraid when her mom caught him. He ran out, instead of hurting either one of them. I'm not buying the girls's story.

I'm very skeptical when things don't seem to make sense. That is why I believed the Ramsey's were innocent. It did not make sense for them to have killed their child.

The man who went into her room was hidden in their house before they got home - once they got home they set the alarm. He waited until they had gone to bed to strike and he fled, didn't want to face an adult.

I don't know if it is the same intruder, but I hope they compare all evidence.

Why not? Once inside the house and no police response, he has no worries. Do not attackers lurk in shrubbery waiting for the right victim? Is there an investigative bias based on some theory that rapists do not lurk or linger?

>The mother heard muffled voices...not cries for help.
True. Therefore the investigator is concluding that a terrified girl will scream loudly for help rather than quietly plead. Or the investigator is concluding that a would-be rapist attempting to gain control over his victim will not make threats in a subdued voice.

>I still think it was a boyfriend
Assumption that because she was 14 she was sexually active or atleast socially active with boys and had a desire to become sexually active. Given the age difference the would have to be a further assumption that she was interested in a man rather than some young boy from her school.
>who knew dad was out of town
On the theory that neither burglars nor rapists ever do their dirty work when a dad is in-town?

>and the girl was afraid when her mom caught him.
I believe both the girl and her mother fled and that the girl needed no encouragement to do so.

>He ran out, instead of hurting either one of them.
True, he did not punch the mother and thereby leave forensic evidence that might lead to his identity. Doesn't mean he was being polite to his girlfriend's mother.

> I'm not buying the girls's story.
Neither did Linda Arndt.

I'm very skeptical when things don't seem to make sense. That is why I believed the Ramsey's were innocent. It did not make sense for them to have killed their child.

Kids, when caught, will lie, theres no doubt about it. Peterson only knows what he was told, dosen't mean it was the truth. Maybe she had her parents fooled pretty good. Sometimes when the parents are strict, the kids will do things behind their backs.

I think she let him in and then reset the alarm...otherwise the guy would have HAD TO be in the house for hours. What was he doing,sleeping?

The Mother set the alarm around 11 that night, they went to bed and the Mother was later awakened like 3 0r 4 in the morning. I just remember there was a four hour window between the time she set the alarm and the time he was seen running out of the house. Maybe I'm wrong?

I think it was an intruder in Lucy's home, but I don't think that particular intruder intended to kill or had anything at all to do with the JonBenet murder. I think he was just a prowling rapist.

He did so much damage and then just walks away without even so much as a look back. BIG JERK. He owes them.