Our Reaction to the CNN Special Report: JonBenet

I didn’t have much hope for the CNN special, to be honest. With the usual suspects like Pam Barday, Bob Whitson and clips of Lou Smit talking about the broken window that John could care less about on December 26th, you can expect Apologia. At least in their marketing efforts they didn’t hoodwink us like the 20/20 special did. We’ll get to that program in our next blog.

If you want a sense of how fluffy this “special report” really is, just visit Jean Casarez’s Twitter feed where you’ll find a picture of her and John together draped by a beautiful, sweeping background. Doesn’t exactly look like a murder interrogation; more like somebody who’s awe-struck and didn’t do their homework.

Jean sends out another tweet that says: “It was really amazing to learn so much more about this case…” Whatever she learned, she must have learned it off camera, because from what I saw, it was rehash and nonsense. She mostly sat doe-eyed through the interview with John, never once challenging him on things like why his and Patsy’s fingerprints are absent from the ransom note that they were man-handling on the morning of December 26th.

How about this gem:

When John is asked about being indicted for abuse/neglect, he admits, he should have been better about locking the doors and checking the alarm. Does John really think we’re that dumb? Do people really get indicted for feloniously neglecting their children to the point they die because they didn’t lock their door?

Even better, when asked how he felt about being labeled an “accessory,” John doesn’t know what that means. Not only that, he doesn’t seem to remember that particular indictment at all.

“Really? I didn’t know that. I don’t even know what that means, frankly.” – John Ramsey

While we’re being frank, let’s take a look at what John has to say about the indictments in their book Death of Innocence [originally published in 2000, excerpts in green].

“After thirteen long months of looking at all the evidence presented by the special prosecutors and police, the Boulder grand jury said no to an indictment.

It takes a mountain of evidence to convict, but only a paltry amount of evidence to indict. Yet in the eyes of the grand jurors, even that did not exist.”

Hmm. Did his lawyers fail to mention to him and Patsy in 1999: Oh by the way, you dodged a bullet? Are we really to believe they had no clue? Or, is it more likely they knew that we’d have no clue, since everything was sealed?

Perhaps we’ll cut Jean Casarez some slack, and assume she hasn’t read their book.

“Of course, in the months that followed the grand jury’s secret decision, there was much speculation by the media on what the grand jury did conclude. To suggest that it voted to indict and that the D.A. refused to go along, as some of the media speculated, is pure folly.”

Pure folly, indeed.

The “special report” ends with John and his new wife, Jan, taking a leisurely stroll through the red rocks of the Southwest. I guess the paid-for PR message of the month is if they can move on, why can’t we? I guess the joke’s on us.