Suspect BILL ‘SANTA’ MCREYNOLDS

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samarkandy Administrator 802 posts

samarkandy

Right from the start, Bill McReynolds raised the suspicions on people by the way he was behaving and the things he was saying about JonBenet

Bill McReynolds quoted in The Gazette, Colorado Springs, CO - December 29, 1996

"She had an angel's spirit, which is unusual not only among adults, but children, and I'm just devastated that she's gone," said Bill McReynolds, who played Santa at the Ramsey family's Christmas celebration the past three years."

SANTA CLAUS' SHAKEN BY GIRL'S DEATH

Rocky Mountain News January 12, 1997 Michael O'Keeffe

JonBenet Ramsey's death disturbed Santa Claus so much he might retire."It really knocked me for a loop,'' said Santa, who is known the rest of the year as Bill McReynolds, a retired University of Colorado journalism professor. "I don't know if I'll do Santa again. This is so heartbreaking,'' he said. "I cried the first day and night.''

McReynolds played Santa Claus at the Ramseys' Dec. 23 Christmas party, three days before the 6-year-old's body was found in a windowless storage room in her Boulder home. "It was really a festive time,'' McReynolds said from his hotel in Spain, where he's vacationing. "There was nothing out of the ordinary that indicated what would happen. It was a happy party.''

Forty to 50 guests attended the party, including 10 or 15 children, McReynolds said. The Ramseys spared no expense when it came to the holidays, he said.

"If anyone wanted to really hurt the Ramseys, they would do it at Christmas,'' he added. "It was a special time for them. That's why I think this was deliberate.''

McReynolds met the Ramseys three years ago, when he was the Pearl Street Mall's Santa, greeting children and their parents outside the New York Deli. Patricia Ramsey asked him to work at their annual Christmas party. "I told my wife when I met JonBenet that I thought I met an angel,'' he said. "This girl had an inner beauty that had been overlooked in the discussion about her participation in beauty pageants. It's best described as a spiritual glow.''

McReynolds bristles at suggestions that Patricia and John Ramsey, or any other family member, killed the little girl. "It's incomprehensible that they would do something like this,'' McReynolds said. "There are no people nicer. I don't think it's fair to say that.''

RAMSEY `SANTA' GIVES HAIR SAMPLE DETECTIVES RETURNING TO GEORGIA, STILL SEEKING EVIDENCE 6 WEEKS AFTER MURDER OF JONBENET

Rocky Mountain News February 12, 1997 Charlie Brennan

Bill McReynolds, a former University of Colorado professor who portrayed Santa Claus at a party in the John and Patrica Ramsey's Boulder home Dec. 23, said detectives visited him Friday and collected 'non-testimonial evidence' for testing. "I've told them from the beginning that I would cooperate with them in any way possible,'' McReynolds said. "I know they don't think I'm a serious suspect.''

The request of McReynolds comes at a time when many observers had assumed much of the forensic testing in the case was finished. Test results on material collected last week from McReynolds, for example, will likely not be finished for more than a month. McReynolds, 67, said investigators appeared at his Boulder County home the day after he and his wife returned from a month-long trip to Spain.

Police spokesman Kelvin McNeill would not confirm or deny whether others are still being asked for hair, blood and handwriting samples.

McReynolds said police first interviewed him before he left for Europe and believes his vacation might have prompted detectives to revisit him for samples 43 days after JonBenet was found sexually assaulted and strangled. "I wasn't available,'' he said. "I was over there (in Europe). "But I wasn't trying to escape being interviewed. These plans had been in the works for a long time.’' McReynolds said he was asked to give a handwriting sample in block letters, the same type of printing used in a 2 1/2-page ransom note Patricia Ramsey found in her home about eight hours before her husband, John Ramsey, discovered his daughter's body in the family's basement. He couldn't recall what words he was asked to print.

SANTA SADDENED BY DEMISE OF `ANGEL' MCREYNOLDS `SORT OF WISHES' HE HAD NOT AGREED TO PLAY ROLE AT CHRISTMAS PARTY

Rocky Mountain News March 2, 1997 Charlie Brennan

The first time Bill McReynolds saw JonBenet Ramsey, she was in a delicatessen on the Pearl Street Mall. It was 1994. She was 4. JonBenet was a name known to only her family and her friends. It was still unknown to the tabloid press. "She just had that inner glow,'' said McReynolds, who was working at the mall as Santa Claus for local business owners. "I went home and said to my wife, "I think I've seen an angel”.

McReynolds met JonBenet, her older brother, Burke, and her mother, Patsy Ramsey, that day. He agreed to play St. Nick at their annual Christmas party that year, again in 1995 and once more on Dec. 23, two nights before JonBenet's murder. "I sort of wish I hadn't gone this year,'' McReynolds said. "I sort of feel like I'm caught up in a Greek tragedy.''

McReynolds, who at Christmastime was recovering from double-bypass heart surgery in August, was in the Ramsey home for about 30 minutes to perform at their December party.His wife, Janet, accompanied him for the first time this past year out of concern that his medical ordeal left him still "wobbly.''

Now, he is reeling from seeing the beautiful child he loved murdered, then seized upon by the global media and made a cover icon for supermarket weeklies. "The truth of the little girl is not in the facts,'' he said. "There really is no way I can define her spirit. She was a very precious child.’' He recalled his final conversation with her. "I told her, `When you get to the Miss America contest, you have to save a seat for ol' Santa,' '' he said. "She just smiled at me.''

`SANTA'S' WIFE CHECKED IN JONBENET CASE STRANGE PARALLELS IN COUPLE'S LIFE LEAD POLICE TO TAKE HAIR, HANDWRITING SAMPLES

Rocky Mountain News March 2, 1997 Charlie Brennan

Police this week collected hair and handwriting samples from the wife of a man who portrayed Santa Claus at the Ramsey home two nights before JonBenet Ramsey's slaying.

They did so, the Rocky Mountain News has learned, due to concerns about two perplexing parallels involving Janet and Bill McReynolds - one of which came to detectives' attention only in recent days. In 1974, the McReynolds' middle daughter, who was 9, was abducted with a friend in Longmont. She witnessed the sexual molestation of her friend. They were released, and there was never an arrest.The date was Dec. 26.

Twenty-two years later to the day, 6-year-old JonBenet was found sexually assaulted and strangled in her parents' basement. Janet McReynolds wrote an award-winning 1976 play, Hey Rube, which centers on the sexual assault, torture and murder of a girl whose body is found in a basement. That compelled police to re-interview 64-year-old Janet McReynolds on Wednesday. They also collected samples of her hair and her handwriting. Police had talked to her previously, but only to corroborate the alibi of her 67-year-old husband.

Janet McReynolds was in the Ramsey home the night of Dec. 23 - two nights before JonBenet's slaying - accompanying her husband, who played Santa Claus for the third consecutive year at a Christmas party thrown by the Ramseys. The previous year, he'd been given a tour of their 6,866-square-foot residence. Bill and Janet McReynolds told police that their alibi for the night of the little girl's slaying is that they went to bed at 8 p.m. JonBenet died sometime between her bedtime Christmas night and dawn the following day.

"They've always said they're doing this for the purposes of exclusion,'' Janet McReynolds said of being asked by police for evidence samples. "I'm sure we're very far down the list of potential suspects.’' "She could never be a suspect,'' said Bill McReynolds, a retired University of Colorado journalism professor who has assumed the Santa Claus persona and let his snowy beard grow unchecked in retirement. "I know I had absolutely nothing to do with it,'' he added. "You know, I always told my students to seek the truth. Now I'm on the other side of it. . . . I'm probably naive and stupid.''

Hair, handwriting and blood samples were taken from Bill McReynolds on Feb. 7, after he and his wife returned from a month-long trip to Spain. Officials connected to the case declined to comment on the McReynoldses' status in their investigation. Both Janet and Bill McReynolds say there is no significance in the events from past years and their odd parallels to the JonBenet tragedy.

Bill McReynolds told the News that until a reporter pointed it out, he had not realized that his daughter's abduction and the discovery of JonBenet's body came on the same day of the year. "You're kidding!'' he said. "That is peculiar.’' Seated on an overstuffed easy chair in the couple's snowbound cabin near Rollinsville, his faded plaid shirt tucked into a pair of bright blue sweats, he folded his hands. "That is surprising,'' he continued. "That's sort of a blow. . . . It's probably just a coincidence. A raw coincidence. I'm sort of stunned.''

Janet McReynolds, for 10 years a drama and movie critic for the Boulder Daily Camera, placed little significance in the fact that JonBenet was assaulted and slain in a basement, just like the character in her 1976 play. "I was surprised that the police wanted to talk to me about Hey Rube, because it never occurred to me that there was a possible connection,'' she said. Her play is a fictionalized account of a real crime, the 1965 torture and murder of Sylvia Likens in Indiana. The 16-year-old girl was brutalized by a gang of teen-agers and a woman who had agreed to board Likens in her home. "She was a teenager, and the torture took place over a period of months, and the whole neighborhood was involved,'' Janet McReynolds said.

"In JonBenet's case, the torture was over a short period of time - I hope.''

But Janet McReynolds would not provide a copy of Hey Rube, which won a 1976 Western States Arts Foundation regional prize and earned her a $7,500 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts the same year. Despite winning acclaim, the play was never published. And a worldwide search conducted by a Denver Public Library reference librarian at the request of the News failed to produce a copy. "It would sound very quaint now,'' Janet McReynolds said. "It was a '70s play. It was written for its time.''

In a local newspaper interview in 1977, Janet McReynolds said, "I've always been interested in the way victims very frequently seem to seek their own death, or to deliberately choose their own murderer.’' In the same interview, she said, "It seemed improbable to me that this girl would have permitted herself to be physically and psychologically tortured over a series of months unless there was part of her that wanted to die.’' The New York Times, in a June 1, 1978, review of a performance of the play at New York's Interart Theater, said, "It is not clear what the author intended to write. "The play could be a psychological study of the killer, a sociological study of sexism, a sympathetic profile of the hapless victim, or a courtroom melodrama.’' One thing it is, Janet McReynolds said emphatically, is totally irrelevant to the Ramsey case.

And both Janet and Bill McReynolds say the only significance of their own child's abduction to the Ramsey case, regardless of what dates they occurred, is that it underscores the compassion they feel for John and Patsy Ramsey. Their daughter's ordeal "makes you sensitive to the horror'' of JonBenet's slaying, Janet McReynolds said. "It's unbelievable, to imagine what her final hours were like. To think that her fairy-tale life could have ended in such a horrible way.’'

The abduction and the play are nothing more than coincidences, said her husband of 34 years. "There were a lot of coincidences in the Kennedy assassination, too,'' Bill McReynolds said. "All I can say is, . . . I don't know. In my heart, I know there is no connection. Anything I'd say would sound suspicious. That's the nuts and bolts of it.’' He gazed silently out the window into the woods, where any sign of spring was still a well-kept secret. "Isn't life strange?'' said the man who plays Santa. "So strange.''

THE SANTA SCAVENGERS

Brill’s Content

Ed Shanahan March 1997

John and Patsy Ramsey aren't the only people who have been tried and convicted by a JonBenét press horde hungry to turn any scrap of information about the case into "news." Bill McReynolds has his own tale to tell.

In the JonBenét saga, McReynolds is known as Santa Claus. For three years, the Ramseys hired him to play Saint Nick at the annual family Christmas party. His last appearance, during which he was accompanied by his wife, Janet, who played Mrs. Claus, came just three days before the little girl's corpse was found in the basement of her family's house.

This put McReynolds and his wife on the media's short list of those suspected of having murdered JonBenét. "I'm caught in a spiderweb, and I feel like I'm being eaten alive," the 69-year-old McReynolds says.

A retired University of Colorado journalism professor, he talks while sipping coffee in the cramped kitchen of the modest New England condominium he shares with his wife. He wants neither the location revealed nor his picture taken-because, he says, he is being stalked by private detectives anxious to build a reputation on solving the Ramsey case.

What sent the McReynoldses into hiding? When the police approached him, McReynolds says, he was happy to answer questions and provide blood, hair, and handwriting samples, which he believed were meant to exclude him as a suspect. After all, he says emphatically, "there is not one iota of evidence that I or any member of my family had anything to do with the murder of this child."

From a legal viewpoint, the McReynoldses have a less-than-airtight alibi (they say they spent the night of the murder at home alone). There was also an unsubstantiated story that the girl told friends before her death that she was expecting a "secret visit" from Santa.

From a journalistic viewpoint, the collection of images associated with the couple was impossible for the media to ignore, says Lawrence Schiller, author of Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: The Uncensored Story of the JonBenet Murder and the Grand Jury's Search for the Truth. "Santa Claus. A murder at Christmas. A child who everybody called an angel," says Schiller, who mentions Bill McReynolds 21 times in the book, all but three of the references describing McReynolds as an object of suspicion.

McReynolds concedes that he was "very naive" in his initial dealings with the media: At first, he spoke freely with reporters. He even interrupted a vacation in Spain soon after the murder, returning to New York to appear on The Geraldo Rivera Show. "All I wanted to do was honor the grief of the Ramseys," he says.

But before long, the media turned unfriendly. In late February 1997, Charlie Brennan of the Denver Rocky Mountain News and Daniel Glick of Newsweek went to Boulder district attorney Alex Hunter and told him of two odd facts they had uncovered: The McReynoldses' 9-year-old daughter had been kidnapped on December 26, 1974 (she was freed unharmed), and Janet McReynolds later wrote a play based on the 1965 torture killing of an Indiana girl that took place in a basement.

The two reporters then confronted the McReynoldses. Brennan's March 2, 1997, story carried the subhead "Strange Parallels In Couple's Life Lead Police To Take Hair, Handwriting Samples," though he opted not to report that he had a hand in tipping police to the "strange parallels." Among the news outlets to pick up the story: the Chicago Tribune, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Associated Press, CBS This Morning, and the Today show. Despite conceding that the two factoids may not be "anything more than unusual coincidences," Brennan still considers the story one of the best scoops he turned up while covering the Ramsey case. (Newsweek never ran the story.)

McReynolds and his wife soon faced a full-on media attack. Overwhelmed, the couple finally went on Larry King Live to make what they said would be their last public comments about the case. They had had enough.

Before talking to Brill's Content, the McReynoldses gave no more in-depth interviews-except for one, when they agreed to talk at length to Schiller. Schiller, Bill McReynolds recalls, told the couple he was preparing a profile of Boulder for The New Yorker. The McReynoldses agreed to discuss the town-and were dismayed at the result.

That interview never appeared in The New Yorker. It did appear, however, in Schiller's best-selling book. When the book was released, the couple was shocked at what they read. Perfect Murder repeatedly identifies the McReynoldses as suspects, and the McReynoldses are angry that Schiller painted this one-sided portrait in a book that as of December had sold an estimated 175,000 copies in its hardcover edition.

Schiller's book serves as a kind of historical record, one that depicts the McReynoldses as sinister characters. Schiller compounded the offense, Bill McReynolds says, by naming him as a prominent suspect while promoting the book on Today and Rivera Live. McReynolds is afraid the unfair portrayal will be spread even further by the movie version of the book.

Schiller calls McReynolds a "very nice man" who "lost sight of what the media can do." Nonetheless, Schiller defends his portrayal of McReynolds as a reflection of "the record of the case as it has been told to me by the police and those investigating the case for the district attorney's office.” Schiller has parlayed the book into a big-media trifecta: Perfect Murder's publisher, HarperCollins, is a division of News Corporation; NBC employs Schiller as a JonBénet consultant; and he has licensed CBS to air the movie version of Perfect Murder twice over the next four years. Meanwhile, McReynolds will have to tune in to the miniseries to find out whether it portrays him as a suspect. Even if it does, the police do not-they no longer consider Santa a suspect.

On December 10, Suzanne Laurion, the spokeswoman for district attorney Hunter, told Brill's Content, "We do not consider to be a suspect." Five days later, Laurion made the same statement about Janet McReynolds. Laurion says she doesn't recall a reporter ever asking her before whether the McReynoldses were suspects.

For more information about Bill McReynolds and his connection to Charles Kuralt:

https://jonbenetramseymurder.discussion.community/post/charles-kuralt-and-how-santa-bill-lied-to-patsy-in-order-to-get-her-to-10975925?pid=1317556744

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samarkandy Administrator 802 posts

samarkandy

In March 1997, three months after the murder, Janet wrote about herself and her husband for the Denver Post. She describes the impact the media coverage of the JonBenet  murder has had on their lives. It was never explained what motivated her to do this or why she felt it was necessary. Maybe the Denver Post offered her payment for the articles. Her story was published as a three-part series.

By Janet McReynolds
The Denver Post March 25, 1997
the first part of a three-part exclusive series

Santa's beard story brought joy to JonBenet Ramsey

The horrifying murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey last Christmas  night at her family's home in Boulder has shocked the world.  Because she had competed in beauty pageants with other girls her age, we've all seen the newscast videotapes of JonBenet prancing around on  stage, dressed in gorgeous costumes, looking precocious and seductive  beyond her years.  My husband, Bill McReynolds, who played Santa Claus at the Ramseys'  parties for three years, including last Christmas, knew a very different  child.

It was already dark when Bill and I drove up to the Ramseys' Tudor-style  mansion at 5 o'clock on the evening of Dec. 23, 1996.  He was dressed as Santa and had sprinkled gold glitter on his beard. I was going along as Mrs. Claus.  Up and down the street, Christmas lights flickered and glowed. Ice  glistened on the sidewalk and along the curving path lined with plastic  candy canes to the Ramseys' front door.  We found the trash bag filled with gifts left outside for us.  As we were transferring the gaily-wrapped gifts to Santa's bag, the door burst open and out tumbled a pack of children, led by JonBenet.  The children surrounded us, shouting, "Ho! Ho! Ho! We caught you,  Santa!" Carrying both bags of presents, they escorted us into the house to a  special chair for Santa beside the ceiling-tall Christmas tree. They sat in a cluster on the floor in front of Santa.

Two years earlier at the Ramseys' party, Santa had told JonBenet a story  to explain the glitter in his real-life beard. He said he had taken the  reindeer for a trial run.  Being somewhat rusty and out of practice, they bumped into a star and he  got stardust in his beard.  JonBenet loved that story.  A few weeks before the 1995 Christmas party, JonBenet rode on a float in  Boulder's Lights of December parade as the reigning Little Miss Colorado.  Santa had his own float, bringing up the rear of the parade.  When Santa arrived at the party, which was mainly for adults, JonBenet  met him at the door, took his hand and led him from room to room introducing him to the other guests with grave courtesy.  She was particularly anxious that they find her brother, Burke, so he could  have what JonBenet called the "full Santa experience."

During the evening, Santa told JonBenet three secrets: "Christmas is every day."  "Angels are everywhere."  "Santa is always in your heart."  Before he left, JonBenet gave him a little vial of glitter so he would never  be without stardust for his beard.  When Bill went to the hospital for heart surgery in the summer of 1996, he  took along the little vial of glitter as a good-luck charm.

JonBenet's mother, Patsy Ramsey, who was Miss West Virginia in the  1977 Miss America Beauty Pageant, clearly had ambitions for JonBenet  to follow in her footsteps and, if possible, bring home the Miss America crown.  But there was little evidence of the beauty queen in JonBenet's manner  during the 1996 party.  She sat on the floor at Santa's feet, absorbing everything but saying little.  She seemed a quiet, even pensive, little girl, utterly unspoiled and without  affectations.  When Santa suggested she sing "Rock Around the Christmas Tree," the song that won her the title Little Miss Christmas in a beauty pageant,  JonBenet declined with a polite smile.  For the party, Patsy Ramsey was dressed in black pants and a  black-and-white striped top.

Recent ordeal

Her face showed the ravages  of her recent battle with ovarian cancer. She seemed tense and a little  impatient.  She dived into one of the gift bags to find a book from which Santa was to read. In the book she had written a little poem for each guest.  As I recall, the poem for JonBenet commended her for being placed in an  advanced math class at school.  Santa read the poems and handed out the presents. He received a gift  himself - a scarf in the plaid of the Ramsey clan.  Later, while sitting on the floor, JonBenet gave him another vial of  stardust, just like the one she had given him the Christmas before.  After the gifts were distributed and Santa led the children in a chorus of  "Jingle Bells," he posed for photographs with the children and the adults. Santa concluded the visit by singing the song he has adopted as his  anthem, an old Shaker hymn, "Simple Gifts." JonBenet walked with us to the front door. Santa said in his teasing way,  "Now, JonBenet, when you get to the Miss America contest, you'll have a  chair for ol' Santa, won't you?" She didn't say anything. Just smiled her sweet smile.  Then Santa bent down and had a few private words with the little girl. He  was testing her memory of the three secrets he had told her the year  before.  "When is Christmas, JonBenet?"  "Christmas is every day, Santa," she replied.  "And where are the angels?" "Oh, Santa, angels are everywhere."  "And where is Santa when you can't see him?"  "Always in my heart." Another question Then, on impulse, he was moved  to ask, "And where is JonBenet when Santa can't see her?" She looked  perplexed. "Well, you must know. She is always in my heart."  Those were Bill's last words to JonBenet.

By Janet McReynolds
The Denver Post March 26, 1997
the second part of a three-part exclusive series

Abduction, play recalled after JonBenet murder  Janet McReynolds

When my husband Bill and I left the Ramsey home last Dec. 23, we had  no foreboding of the ways in which our lives would become intertwined  with JonBenet Ramsey, the little girl who so graciously saw us to the door.  Just as Bill had for the previous two years, he went to the Ramsey home  to play Santa at a Christmas party. On this occasion I went along as Mrs. Claus. Three days later the body of JonBenet was found by her father and a  friend in the basement of the home. She had been strangled, sexually  assaulted, her skull fractured.  Because we had attended the Christmas party, the Boulder police interviewed Bill in early January, before we left for a trip to Spain.  When we returned the first week in February, he was asked to give a longer interview. The police took handwriting, fingerprints, hair and blood  samples.  Bill, still spending sleepless nights grieving over the dead child, willingly  gave police all they asked for. We felt we had nothing to hide.  Then a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News uncovered what he  considered "strange" coincidences between our family history and the  JonBenet murder.

 The first coincidence: Our daughter, along with her best friend, was  abducted in 1974, when she was 9 years old.  The two girls were lured into a car and driven into the countryside, where  our daughter witnessed the molestation of her friend.  Our daughter probably saved her own life and her friend's by stubbornly resisting the perpetrator's attempts to force her out of the car so he could  be alone with the other girl.  Finally the man had a change of heart. He wept and said, "The devil  made me do it." He drove the girls back to the edge of town and released  them.

The crime took place on Dec. 26, the same date as JonBenet's murder 22  years later.

The second coincidence: I once wrote a play, "Hey, Rube," about the  torture and murder of a young girl.  Boulder police asked me to come in for interrogation. They took samples  of my handwriting, hair and fingerprints. I handed over a copy of my play.  At first glance the play, written in 1976 and last produced in 1978 in New  York City, seems to have little similarity to the murder of 6-year-old  JonBenet Ramsey.  "Hey, Rube" was suggested by the murder of a teenage girl in  Indianapolis in 1965. The setting is the trial of the woman accused of the murder.  Through court testimony and flashbacks, the play examines the victim's  last months, asking the basic question: Why did she have to die?  My character, Anna, and her crippled sister were left by their parents,  carnival people, to board with the woman who was eventually found guilty  of Anna's murder. Anna in some unfathomable way seems to have cooperated in her own  death. There is a strong suggestion of prior incest with her father, which  had left her irreparably damaged and unable to defend herself against the  killers.  In the Indianapolis case, the victim was tortured over a period of months,  and a whole neighborhood was implicated. Five people were convicted.  In my play, the accused murderer says, "She taunted me into killing her.  She wanted to die."  That of course is a subjective judgment. Did the girl "want" to die, or did  she unwillingly become a scapegoat for her killers?  Did she, in the primitive language of the tribe, "deserve to die"?  By the same primitive thinking, has little JonBenet become a scapegoat?  In the televised videos of JonBenet performing in kiddie beauty pageants  and in the lurid photographs of her on the front pages of tabloids, she has  become a paradigm of sexuality. Forbidden sexuality.  By prancing around on stage, looking gorgeous in a Ziegfeld Follies  costume or swaying her tiny body to "I Want to Be a Cowboy's  Sweetheart" - in those provocative poses - did JonBenet cross the line?  There is a degree of voyeurism in the way the TV talk shows use the  videos of JonBenet in her beauty pageant routines. It allows them to  titillate their audiences while at the same time expressing moral  disapproval.  A mean spiritedness underlies the rampant speculation surrounding the Ramsey case. One can sense an undercurrent of primal rage, a readiness  to point a finger of blame - and even ridicule - at the dead child.  Why?  Did she, like the character in my play, deserve to die? Of course not.

One final coincidence: In carnival parlance, the title of my play, "Hey,  Rube," is a call for help.

By Janet McReynolds
The Denver Post March 27, 1997
the final part of a three-part exclusive series

Media frenzy overwhelms a grieving 'Santa Claus'

My husband and I didn't find out about the death of JonBenet Ramsey  until Dec. 27.  We were sitting in our doctor's waiting room. Bill casually picked up a  copy of the Boulder Daily Camera and saw a picture of the Ramsey home  on the front page.  Then he read the headline, "Missing Girl Found Dead."  It was one of those moments of awful discovery.  The murder had occurred on Christmas night. The child's body was found  in a windowless basement room on Dec. 26, eight hours after her mother  Patsy Ramsey found a purported kidnap letter.  Because we had played Santa and Mrs. Claus at the Ramsey home three  days before the murder, the media began calling almost immediately.  The police also called. Bill went to the station and gave a brief statement on Jan. 7, two days before we left for Spain.  The tabloids tracked us down on the Costa del Sol.  The talk shows also called. The pitch was always the same: "We're  appalled by the beauty-pageant aspect of the JonBenet case. We want to  do a show on the 'real' JonBenet."  

We were seduced.  Bill flew to New York at the end of January to appear on the Geraldo  Rivera show. In addition to "the Ramsey Santa," Geraldo had brought in  the little girl who had succeeded JonBenet as Little Miss Colorado.  Another guest was a "forensic expert" prepared - without any real  evidence - to lay the crime on a family member.  Bill felt that he had been ambushed.  He flew back to Spain for a final week of vacation. The tabloid calls continued, including a particularly disturbing offer of $ 5,000 for Bill's list  of suspects.  What list?

Still, we weren't prepared for the feeding frenzy that awaited us when we  returned home early in February. Before we could unpack, television  crews were finding their way to our mountain cabin.  Bill, still working his way through the grieving process, took some comfort  in showing off the little vial of "stardust" JonBenet had given him and  telling his Santa stories.  Bill had taught journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder for 24 years before his retirement in 1992. The young, bright, lively TV  producers seemed in a way an extension of his college classes. After  teaching news reporting for so many years, he was bemused to find  himself on the other side of the fence.

Then we began hearing from friends all across America. They had seen  us on TV - not in entire interviews, but as "sound bites." We were being "chewed up" on TV.  On the day the news broke that "Santa" had been interrogated by the police, Bill was having lunch with a friend at a Boulder restaurant. When they left, TV crews were stacked six-deep on the street.  That evening Santa made both the NBC and the ABC evening news. The  television tabloids had a feast.

In a separate development, a Rocky Mountain News reporter unearthed  my play, "Hey, Rube," last produced in New York City in 1978.  He had never read the play but concluded from reviews that it bore "a  striking resemblance" to the Ramsey murder case.  Now the police wanted to talk to me also.  They had me give a handwriting sample. While I was printing the list of  words they gave me to copy, one of the detectives plucked exactly 25 hairs from my scalp.  They also wanted a copy of my play, which I reluctantly surrendered. It  must have made strange reading for the detective assigned to check it for  clues.  Media calls kept pouring in. But we had decided to stop talking to the  media.

Our last media appearance was on "Larry King Live." Our portion of the  show was aired live from an apartment in Boulder.  When we left the apartment, we got the full celebrity treatment - bright lights, mikes shoved into our faces, ducking through the opened door of  the show's hired limo, like real media stars.  The next day a friend called from Las Vegas to tell me, "They are killing  Santa on the Internet."  We don't own a working computer. We aren't even sure we know what a  Web site is - we are hopelessly out of touch.

Lost in cyberspace

Our friend explained to us that Santa has become an "item" in chat rooms.  Anyone with a half-baked speculation, a speck of venom or an idle  fantasy can get on the Internet and send a message, almost  instantaneously, around the world. Santa has gone global.

 Santa, the baby-killer

We are saddened by this development, but not really surprised. In  folklore, there has always been a "good" and a "bad" Santa. There have always been people who hate Santa Claus. My mother told  me that when she was growing up in East Texas, my grandfather - who  had a decidedly sadistic streak - would set the children a-crying on  Christmas Eve by telling them he was going up on the roof to set a trap  for Santa and do away with him. The little kids would beg him not to harm Santa. Fortunately, he never could. Maybe his tools were too crude.  We had to wait for the Internet.  Santa used to pose a question to JonBenet and other children: "Now if  you don't get what you ask for," he would say, "it might be that the gift fell off the sleigh into the arms of a child who has nothing. You wouldn't mind  that, would you?"  It is sad that the voice of a Santa who taught children that "in the giving is  the getting" and who sang "Simple Gifts" as the core of his message has  been silenced by negative, mean-spirited publicity.

Santa thinks back to the three secrets he shared with JonBenet and other  children:  Santa now knows that Christmas is not every day.  Does he still believe that angels are everywhere? Perhaps.  Even when JonBenet is not there, though, she remains always in Santa's  heart.

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Bill McReynolds appeared on television four times in 1997, first with Katie Couric on the Today Show in January, then on the Geraldo Rivera Show in February, with Wolf Blitzer on Larry King Live in March and then a second time with Geraldo in ?

NBC's Today Show January 31, 1997

MATT LAUER, co-host:

And we're back on a Friday morning, the 31st day of January, 1997. And we decided to come out and say hello to some people who've gathered outside our studio, instead of being shut-ins that we have been for the past hour and a half. We're outside with people now. I'm Matt Lauer, along with Katie Couric and Al Roker. We have some people we want to talk to.

KATIE COURIC, co-host: Actually, we do. Mr. Bill McReynolds. Mr. McReynolds, hi, good morning.

Mr. BILL McREYNOLDS: Hi, Katie.

COURIC: Nice to see you. I know Al spoke with you...

Mr. McREYNOLDS: Can I have a little hug?

COURIC: Oh, well, thank you very much. I know that Al spoke with you earlier, but we discovered some information about you that we weren't aware of earlier in the program, and that is that you're from Boulder, Colorado...

Mr. McREYNOLDS: Right.

COURIC: ...and that you are Santa Claus, as--as you mentioned...

Mr. McREYNOLDS: Right.

COURIC: ...and that for the last three years you were the Santa at the Ramseys' home...

Mr. McREYNOLDS: Right.

COURIC: ...in Boulder, Colorado. So you got to know JonBenet Ramsey. Tell us a little bit about the family.

Mr. McREYNOLDS: Well, what upsets me about this whole thing is that the family is not being celebrated enough, and were very, very generous. For example, Patsy gave me this for this last Christmas, and how many people do you think give Santa Claus presents?

COURIC: This--this whole incident seems to be shrouded in a lot of mystery and people are wondering about the family itself, even the Ramseys have been called into question in terms of their possible involvement. When you've heard all the speculation, what do you think?

Mr. McREYNOLDS: Well, it grieves me enormously, because I adore the family. They adopted me as a member of the family, actually, which--which they did at the memorial service, they--they recognized us. It's a very, very hard thing for me.

COURIC: And what about little JonBenet...

Mr. McREYNOLDS: Wonderful.

COURIC: ...I know you have a cute story about--you used to put glitter in your beard.

Mr. McREYNOLDS: Well, yes. I tell the story about going out as Santa Claus and--for a--for a rehearsal, and the--we run into stars, and I put stardust on my beard, and so I put glitter on it, and so JonBenet especially like that, so she gave me a little vial of stardust, or glitter, and I took it with me to the hospital this year because I had a major operation, near-death experience and all of that. And then after I got well, I came to the party this year, it's one of my favorite parties, she gave me another one. So I gave one of the vials to the family for their celebration. We don't celebrate children enough, Katie.

COURIC: And tragically you were there two days before she was murdered.

Mr. McREYNOLDS: Two days before, right. Yeah, it was very, very difficult. Kind of like a thunderbolt or a lightning bolt, or whatever it is.

COURIC: Well, Mr. McReynolds, thanks very much for talking with us.

Mr. McREYNOLDS: You're so welcome.

COURIC: And since you know the family, it must be very difficult for you, so we appreciate it.

Mr. McREYNOLDS: Right. You're welcome. And I'm going to be on the Geraldo show, if I should say that.

COURIC: OK. Well, that's all right, you can mention that. Thanks for talking with us.

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Geraldo Rivera - Thursday, February 27, 1997

GERALDO RIVERA: Hi, everybody, and welcome back to The Alps Boulder Canyon Inn in Boulder, Colorado. This city is a sublime place to live and raise children but it is also a place that witnessed a monstrous crime committed against an innocent and beautiful child. Yesterday right here we debated the facts and circumstances surrounding the JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation. It was an emotional and passionate encounter. Take a look....

RIVERA: Today's focus is somewhat different. Today we will be hearing from the people who live in the Boulder area about how this terrible crime has affected their lives. You'll hear also from Ramsey family friends, get their feelings about the progress of the investigation, but first meet an old friend of ours--it seems as if he's an old friend of ours--Bill McReynolds, known to the Ramsey family as Santa. He entertained the Ramseys for several of their holidays, got to know JonBenet quite well. McReynolds, as you all know undoubtedly by now, was recently questioned by the police. His wife Janet also joins us.

I wonder, Janet, if there wasn't a moment after Santa was called by the cops to give hair, blood and handwriting analysis, that you wondered, in your heart, My God, could Bill have been the man who did this monstrous crime?'

Ms. JANET McREYNOLDS (Husband Played Santa For JonBenet For Three Years): Never. Never for a moment. I knew it could not have been Bill.

RIVERA: How did you react then when he was summoned by the authorities to, you know, give up his hair, his blood, his...

Ms. McREYNOLDS: He had been in the house on December the 23rd, as I had also. It seemed to me to be a logical procedure to exclude him.

RIVERA: Why did you folks go to Spain after the homicide?

Ms. McREYNOLDS: That pla--that trip was planned as far back as June.

RIVERA: Did you have to console him twice--number one, for the loss of this lovely child he came to know so well, and, number two, for the fact that he was in some small way snared by this process?

Ms. McREYNOLDS: I don't think he was snared. I think that--we eventually--I think we consoled each other, because we were both shattered, devastated, and I don't feel that there was any--any entrapment at all in--in the way the police treated him.

RIVERA: Can you tell us how you were shattered by this terrible deed?

Ms. McREYNOLDS: I think that JonBenet was a--a very special child to both of us. She was incredibly beautiful, not only in her physical appearance, but she seemed to have an inner light that we both responded to. He as Santa Claus, and I only saw her the one time, on December the 23rd, but I was instantly struck with this beautiful inner light that I felt was in her.

RIVERA: Will you be forever haunted by what happened?

Ms. McREYNOLDS: Oh--oh, no doubt. No doubt. We'll carry this with us all our lives.

RIVERA: Bill, you brought the magic dust there.

Mr. BILL McREYNOLDS (Played Santa For JonBenet For The Past Three Years): Yeah.

RIVERA: Tell us the story.

Mr. McREYNOLDS: OK. Well, I always put stardust in my beard and I shake it on the children's hair like this or on their hands, and I tell them they should hold onto it very tightly because if they don't, it'll go back to the star, and it's a very special present for them. And so when they open up their hands after going through the mall or whatever, then, of course, the stardust is usually gone. And so I told this to JonBenet, as amongst other children, and--then I would do this for her. She'd sit on my lap, and--and then at Christmastime in 1995, she gave me a little vial of glitter--stardust she called it--this was a very wealthy family, I suppose it cost maybe about $ 2. And she s--wanted Santa never to be without stardust just because we always talked about Christmas being every day.

And so this last year she gave me another vial after I had been in the hospital with this operation that was very complex, and so at the memorial service in Boulder, I gave a--a jar of this--the first one--to Patsy so that she would have it in the family treasure forever, and I kept this one for myself.

Now it's sitting on my mantel up in the beloved Rockies, you know, quite a bit higher than here in Boulder, and I surround it with plaster Santa Clauses, next to a manger, and I pretend that it is stardust from the star of Bethlehem.

RIVERA: You know, Bill, all I can say is I have a two-year-old daughter and I have a four-year-old daughter, I would be proud if you would play Santa for my girls.

Mr. McREYNOLDS: Well, I'd like to.

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CNN Larry King Live March 4 1997

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to "LARRY KING LIVE.” Tonight we examine the latest developments in the JonBenet Ramsey case in Boulder, Colorado.

The Ramsey family spokesman says JonBenet's mother Patsy Ramsey gave police a third handwriting sample last Friday, and police have re-interviewed Bill McReynolds, the man who played Santa Clause at the Ramsey's Christmas party two nights before the murder.

Bill McReynolds and his wife Janet, join us now from Boulder, Colorado, and later we'll be joined by two journalists covering the case and Adams County District Attorney Bob Grant.

First of all to the McReynolds, both of you thank you so much for joining us tonight on "LARRY KING LIVE."

Mr. McReynolds, first of all, you and your wife have both been questioned by the police in connection with the murder of JonBenet. Tell us why the police questioned you and Janet McReyolds.

BILL MCREYNOLDS: Well, I'd like to say that the Boulder police have been very kind and considerate of us. I know there's been some criticism but -- I'm sure that they have reinterviewed us or interviewed us simply because they want to be as thorough as possible and I have no criticism of the police.

I would like to say also, that I am sure that they are interviewing us because they want to exonerate us. They want to eliminate us along with 120 other people or fewer, that have been interviewed. We just happen to be the only ones that have said that we have been interviewed. And I don't think we are serious suspects, I think that the Boulder police have said as much today.

BLITZER: Tell us, Mr. McReynolds, what your relationship with the Ramsey family was and how far back does it go?

BILL MCREYNOLDS: It goes back three years. I have been the Santa Claus at their home for three years -- from 1994, 1995 and 1996 -- and they have always been very festive parties. And that means that was three years that I've been their Santa Claus and that was half of JonBenet's life.

BLITZER: And you got to know JonBenet during those three years when you came over to their house to play Santa Claus for which you were paid a fee, right?

BILL MCREYNOLDS: Oh yes, yeah, I do private parties and that is a private party.

BLITZER: And tell us about JonBenet a little bit and then I want to get to your wife and ask her some questions as well.

BILL MCREYNOLDS: Okay, I'd be glad to. I love to talk about JonBenet. She was an extremely unusual child, all children are special to Santa. She just happened to be extra special to me for specific reasons.

One is that she was a very thoughtful, a very caring little girl, and she actually gave Santa a present. You can imagine how rare that is. For example, I have a little stardust that she gave me because she didn't want me to ever be without stardust. It's glitter obviously but we can be fanciful. And so when I had a massive operation, a near-death experience this summer, I took this little vial of stardust with me to the hospital for good luck and I guess since I'm sitting here today, it provided some of that.

And, she did this for me another year too, in 1995 and 1996, she did that. And so at the memorial service in Boulder, I gave Patsy Ramsey, one of the vials for their family heirlooms and I kept one for myself.

Now, you know, this was a very wealthy family and this little vial of stardust, which I think is priceless, probably cost about $2.00 maybe, the most.

BLITZER: So, obviously, she was a very special little kid in your opinion.

Mrs. McReynolds, let's get to you. You joined your husband at that last Christmas party two nights before JonBenet Ramsey was murdered, you joined your husband at that party. Tell us what you were doing there.

MRS. JANET MCREYNOLDS: Well, the reason that I went, I had been Mrs. Claus on occasion, and on this particular occasion Santa was still rather wobbly from his surgery and hadn't fully recovered. And I went along to help him carry in the presents, basically. He was not allowed to lift that much and he needed assistance in passing out the presents and I went along to be his porter and then to be Mrs. Claus, and assist him with handing out the presents, reading the scroll and all the other things that Santa does at parties.

BLITZER: And you got to know JonBenet a little bit -- let me just finish with Mrs. McReynolds, Mr. McReynolds, just for a second. You got to know JonBenet a little bit that night as well? That was the first time you met her right?

JANET: That was the first time I had ever seen her, I had never seen her before.

Of course, anyone who sees her for the first time would have been struck by her beauty. She was incredibly beautiful and she was very quiet that night. She was sitting with a circle of her friends on the floor in front of Santa's chair and watching everything but not really saying very much. She seemed to be a very pensive child, and very sensitive.

BLITZER: And like your husband, the police questioned you as well in connection with her murder.

JANET: For some strange reason, they seemed to feel that there were parallels in our lives that they had discovered that our daughter had been kidnapped in 1974.

They discovered that I had written a play called "Hey Rube," which was produced -- first produced -- in 1976. And when these parallels were called to their attention they questioned me, and I think it was mainly because they did not want to be caught by surprise by anything that the media might print, and they wanted to have the facts from my mouth basically.

BLITZER: Right, and your daughter, 22 years to the day, on December 26, 1974, was involved in an incident in which one of her friends was kidnapped and molested, is that correct?

JANET MCREYNOLDS: That is true. We were really rather startled when we discovered that our daughter's kidnapping had happened on the anniversary of JonBenet's death because we weren't aware of it until it was called to our attention.

We had, of course, rather buried the incident in our own minds and certainly would not have been observing the anniversary. And we had simply forgotten the date. We didn't know it until they called our attention to it.

BLITZER: Mrs. McReynolds, we're going to have to take a quick break but, did anyone ever -- was anyone ever arrested in connection with that incident 22 years to the day from the murder of JonBenet Ramsey?

JANET: No, it's still an open case.

BLITZER: And there are so many other eerie parallels between what you've gone through and this particular case. We're going to get to them, but we have to take a quick break. And we'll return with Bill and Janet McReynolds in a moment.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to "LARRY KING LIVE."

We're discussing the latest developments in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case with Bill McReynolds, the man who played Santa Claus at the Ramsey's house two nights before the murder, and his wife Janet.

They join us from Boulder, Colorado.

Mr. McReynolds, I want to get to some of these eerie parallels that your wife raised between your -- some of the experiences in your family's life -- and what happened to the Ramseys.

Just to let our audience know, you are a retired university professor. Is that correct?

W. MCREYNOLDS: That's right. I've been a practitioner and I've never been on this side of the aisle.

BLITZER: You taught journalism at the University of Colorado. Is that right?

W. MCREYNOLDS: Right, one of the places.

BLITZER: All right.

W. MCREYNOLDS: I taught at the University of Texas, too.

BLITZER: And I'm sure a lot of people are asking: What's with the beard? You played Santa Claus every year, but you -- you've grown the -- this is the real thing. This is not a fake beard, right?

W. MCREYNOLDS: That's right, Wolf -- as real as it can be.

BLITZER: What made you decide that you wanted to really grow a real Santa Claus-like beard? You're speaking to someone who has a beard as well, but a little bit more trimmed.

W. MCREYNOLDS: Well, I will tell you that -- I won't tell you about what happened to me as a child because that's not relevant. But I was in a play at the University -- excuse me, at our church, which is the Unity of Boulder -- and I was in "Les Miserables." And I was just a tavern-owner, sort of, and I decided that I would, you know, grow a beard for my characterization. And it turned out that the play was held over at our church, and then I -- everybody started calling me Santa Claus.

They do it all the time. They do it in summer as well. My belief is that Christmas is every day. I have a lot of little stories to tell, which I won't bore you with tonight. But that's the reason that I'm Santa Claus.

One of my favorite experiences was in Portugal, when the children were in uniform and going down the street, and as they were passing by they started singing "Jingle Bells." This was in February.

Wolf, I'd like to ask you, though, if you don't mind ...

BLITZER: Please.

W. MCREYNOLDS: ... if you would ask my wife her perspective on the meaning of all of this. She has a very unusual interpretation that I think should be heard.

BLITZER: All right, I'd be happy to ask. I don't mind at all. I want to also ask her some other questions about these eerie parallels that have developed.

But Mrs. McReynolds, tell us your perspective on all of this, before we get to some of these very strange and eerie parallels.

J. MCREYNOLDS: I was really startled when the "Rocky Mountain News" came out with this story, saying that there were strange coincidences between my play "Hey, Rube" and the real-life murder of JonBenet.

BLITZER: This was ...

J. MCREYNOLDS: And then I began to thinking about it, and I realized that there was a very strange coincidence...

BLITZER: Tell, Mrs. --

J. MCREYNOLDS: ... in that the character...

BLITZER: I'm sorry to interrupt you.

J. MCREYNOLDS: I'm sorry.

BLITZER: Mrs. McReynolds, tell us about your play. You wrote it when?

J. MCREYNOLDS: I wrote it in 1976.

BLITZER: I see, you wrote it in 1976.

J. MCREYNOLDS: It was produced in Los Angeles and New York and in Denver.

BLITZER: And you...

J. MCREYNOLDS: and reproductions.

BLITZER: You wrote it two years after your own daughter witnessed this molestation of a friend. Is that correct?

J. MCREYNOLDS: That's true.

BLITZER: And --

J. MCREYNOLDS: That's true. Yes.

BLITZER: And the basic thrust of your play was what?

J. MCREYNOLDS: The basic thrust and the parallel that I am now seeing with the JonBenet case is that the victim, in my play, was a scapegoat for the sins of the community. My play was loosely based on, or suggested by, a real-life murder, which occurred in Indianapolis in 1965, which another coincidence happens to be the year of my daughter's birth.

The victim, in the real life murder and in my play, is systematically tortured and eventually murdered over a period of months. And a large number of people were involved, basically, an entire neighborhood. I think there were five people, eventually, indicted and brought to trial.

BLITZER: And this victim in the play was murdered where?

J. MCREYNOLDS: Indianapolis.

BLITZER: I know, but in a house -- in a basement. Is that correct?

J. MCREYNOLDS: No. No. She was -- she died in a hospital as a result of multiple injuries which were inflicted on her over a period of months.

BLITZER: But where had she ...

J. MCREYNOLDS: She did not die in the basement.

BLITZER: ... but where had she been tortured and where had she been molested?

J. MCREYNOLDS: Well, she was tortured in the house, where she was living.

BLITZER: In the basement of the house?

J. MCREYNOLDS: I think in various rooms -- not necessarily the basement. I don't know exactly how many rooms were used as torture chambers.

BLITZER: Well, you're talking about the real story. I'm talking about what happened --

J. MCREYNOLDS: The real case and my play.

BLITZER: I'm talking about -- your play was based on that.

We have to take another quick break, Mrs. McReynolds, and we're going to get -- continue all of that and discuss a little bit more with your husband as well, and take some viewer phone calls.

But stay with us. We'll be back on "LARRY KING LIVE" in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: We're back with Bill and Janet McReynolds from Boulder, Colorado.

And Mrs. McReynolds, we were discussing some of these parallels between your book -- book you published in 1976 -- and the real-life tragedy that involved the Ramsey family and the death of JonBenet Ramsey.

Mrs. McReynolds, why do you think, when the police discovered some of these parallels which were obviously extraordinary -- and an example of an extraordinary coincidence, perhaps -- why do you think the police decided to question you and what kind of questions did they ask you?

J. MCREYNOLDS: Well, as I said before, I think that the main reason they wanted to ask me questions themselves was that they had probably heard a rumor that the story was going to be printed in the media and they did not want to be surprised by anything that might be disclosed by the media. And, of course, I'm not at liberty to say what they asked me. I would not do that at all.

BLITZER: Let me ask you this final question before you go back to your husband.

We'll take some viewer phone calls. Your play -- if someone wanted to go out and buy it right now, the book or the manuscript -- how do they get a copy of that?

J. MCREYNOLDS: Well, I will tell you, it is copyrighted, but it's never been printed. If you can find me a publisher, I'll see that you get an advanced copy.

BLITZER: So, it's not available, really, at book stores or any place right now.

J. MCREYNOLDS: It is not available whatsoever. It's my property and I will not release it to anyone unless, of course, there is a publisher who wants to pick it up.

BLITZER: But you did give a copy of the play to the police?

J. MCREYNOLDS: They requested it, yes.

BLITZER: And you did give it to them?

J. MCREYNOLDS: Yes, of course.

BLITZER: Okay.

Mr. McReynolds, I want to take a phone call in a second, but very briefly, you got to know JonBenet Ramsey a little bit. Give us a thumb nail sketch of what she was like in your mind.

W. MCREYNOLDS: Well, what she was like in my mind, Wolf, was not what is appearing on TV -- excessively, I must say. All the prancing around of a beauty queen -- I'm not criticizing that -- but what she was to me was sort of a pensive child, who believed in Santa thoroughly and completely. And we had some wonderful conversations.

I would ask her, for example, what she wanted for Christmas and she told me in 1995 that what she wanted was what Santa wanted. And I said, "what is that, JonBenet?" And she would say, "of course, love, joy and peace."

She was not into material things as far as I know. In fact, Wolf, I thought she was a little bit older than she was. And when I first heard about the murder and saw it was a 6-year-old girl, I thought quickly, that "oh, I've got three more years with her at least," and then, I realized that, that was not true. That it was over. And I think that her spirit, in a way, has been diminished because it's not going to be able to continue in the way that it should be.

And let me tell you something, Wolf, I've heard that when she gets on the school bus, she would tell the bus driver, "good morning," and then pretty soon, everybody in the bus was saying "good morning" to the bus driver.

Now, that to me, is not only a child's beauty but also an adult's, and if we could remember from her -- that if there's anything positive we should get out of this, is the great love and charm and civility that this little girl had. That's what she was like.

And one other thing, is that I would ask her, you know, if she wanted anything to let me know. And I would say, "you know, JonBenet, that sometimes the present will fall out of the sleigh and fall into the arms of a child that doesn't have anything, and you wouldn't mind that, would you?"

Other children do but she said, "No, I wouldn't mind that at all." She was, what I would say, she learned the greatest lesson that we can learn in life, which is that, in the getting is in the giving and not the reverse.

In fact, I think I'm probably not a very good Santa Claus because I go against the grain.

BLITZER: OK, Mr...

W. MCREYNOLDS: And the little girl burst out of the house, leading the pack at the last party. She wanted to surprise Santa. She said, "ho, ho, ho" and they caught us transferring our presents -- the presents that were provided by the Ramsey family -- from that trash bag into my bag, so we carried them both in. It was a lovely experience and I will never forget that child.

BLITZER: OK, Mr. McReynolds...

W. MCREYNOLDS: She saved my soul.

BLITZER: Mr. McReynolds, I think you've touched a nerve with a lot of people who've seen her picture and got to know her, obviously, only through the news media. We have to take another quick break. We have so much more to ask you and Mrs. McReynolds. We have some callers who have questions.

Stay with us on "LARRY KING LIVE."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: One programming note: Larry King will be back, tomorrow, with the Senate majority leader Trent Lott. Friday night, I'll be back with the new White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles.

But we're now talking with Bill and Janet McReynolds from Boulder, Colorado. And we have a caller calling from Greensboro, North Carolina. Go ahead, caller.

CALLER: Hello, there. Mr. McReynolds, what is your relationship with the Ramseys now and will this television interview have a negative effect on that relationship?

W. MCREYNOLDS: Well, my relationship with the Ramseys is limited. It's peripheral. I have not intruded on their grief. I know it's great. What I have done is to send them a copy of the Christmas story that I felt compelled to write in 1995, and I gave it to them at that time and I've re-done a tape of the -- of the Christmas story -- which is unpublished. And I have re-dedicated it to include JonBenet and I said that if they want to contact me, I would be most happy to talk with them, but that's the only contact I have had. I'm respecting their grief and I would like everybody else to do that too, if possible.

BLITZER: Have they contact you, Mr...

W. MCREYNOLDS: Including the media.

BLITZER: Mr. McReynolds, have they contacted you since that?

W. MCREYNOLDS: No, they have not and I don't expect them to necessarily.

BLITZER: Well, let's ask the same question to Mrs. McReynolds. What is your relationship with the Ramsey -- with the Ramsey family? What are your impressions of them?

J. MCREYNOLDS: I have -- saw only the one time -- the Christmas party on December 23. I had never seen any member of the family before and it was a typical Christmas party. They were playing host -- host and hostess and my contact was very limited.

BLITZER: OK.

J. MCREYNOLDS: The only other time I have ever seen them was at the memorial service to which we were invited -- the memorial service that was held in Boulder. I saw them on that occasion and was absolutely appalled by their grief and -- but, my experience is extremely limited.

BLITZER: All right, let's take a caller from Fishgill, New York. Go ahead, caller.

CALLER: Hi, does Mr. Ramsey know why the Ramseys -- does Mr. McReynolds know why the Ramseys refuse to be interviewed by police?

W. MCREYNOLDS: Well, no. I think they have the right to do whatever they want to do with -- that's legal. And I have no objection to them doing what they're doing.

BLITZER: A lot of people, though, think that's a little bit strange, given the fact that the police are investigating; the D.A.'s investigating. And that they're, so far, they refused -- what they would call this formal interview that the police and the district attorneys in Boulder have been seeking.

W. MCREYNOLDS: That's all right -- what other people think. I don't care. I don't feel that -- that they're necessarily evading. They have cooperated as far as I know with the police. I don't know whether it's formal or not, but I will not criticize the Ramseys for what they're doing. I think they have every right to do what they're doing.

BLITZER: We -- we, of course, asked the Ramseys through their spokesman -- their public relations adviser here in Washington -- Pat Courtan (ph) to appear on our show. We asked Pat Courtan to appear on our show tonight. We asked their lawyers to appear, but for the time being, they -- they're declining all these invitations.

Obviously, they're not anxious to go on television to discuss this at this time, but maybe they will at another time. And we have to take another quick break --

to both of the McReynolds, we're going to coming right back with both of you in a minute, but stay with us on "LARRY KING LIVE."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to "LARRY KING LIVE."

I'm Wolf Blitzer, sitting in for Larry King.

We're speaking with Bill and Janet McReynolds, who join us from Boulder, Colorado.

Mr. McReynolds, you were interviewed three times on three separate occasions by the police. And your wife was interviewed once, I take it, last Tuesday. But in those three interviews, how long did they go on for? Just give us a flavor, a little bit, of what that is like. Take us behind the scenes, if you can, and share with us the process to be interviewed by the police in connection with this case?

W. MCREYNOLDS: Well, I don't know whether I have any particular answer to that, Wolf. I have told them from the very beginning I would be as cooperative as possible, no matter what happens. And I've done that. They will tell you that.

I'd like to say, though, Wolf, if I can have an opportunity, that we are talking to you tonight for the last time that we're going to be talking to the media. We want them to back away from us, stop hounding us in our mountain cabin, leave us alone, and when maybe there's an arrest or charges are filed or something like that, we might be willing to continue our talking. But we want the media to leave us alone.

I've been a newspaper person. I've been a professor all my life. I think I understand how the media operates. And I would like to say that I admire and appreciate a lot of what they are doing. But we absolutely do not want anybody else to contact us. This, I think, is an exclusive with you, and that's going to be the last time we're going to talk.

BLITZER: Well, we...

J. MCREYNOLDS: Also, Wolf, I want to say something that is sort of another parallel. The media has been hounding us, and I feel deep in my heart that the media, particularly the tabloids, and the talk shows who are exploiting those beauty pageant videos, are murdering this little -- this sweet little girl again and again and again. Every time I see one of those videos of her prancing across the stage in her adorable costume, I cringe.

And I feel that the message that I am getting -- the under- current of all of this -- is that the media is saying to this collective community -- to our global village -- in some way she deserved to die.

That, at least, is a message that I am getting: She deserved to die because she was too beautiful. She deserved to die because she was from an affluent family.

She deserved to die because she lived an up scale community. She deserved to die because her family taught her gestures which might be interpreted as sexually suggestive. She deserved to die because she was in beauty pageants.

There's even an implication on some of the talk shows she deserved to die because sometimes she wore lipstick. And to me, that is a crucification of an innocent victim, and I would really, really like to see it stopped.

BLITZER: Is that, though, one of those eerie parallels with your own book, and with the actual true-life story? The fact that the community, as you said it yourself in your book, the community was out to get the victim in your play?

J. MCREYNOLDS: I feel that she has been made a scapegoat. Exactly, that she is being punished for the sins of the global village, that people are heaping on her the sins that perhaps they themselves feel. And she's being made a scapegoat.

She is being murdered again and again every time they put some of those videos on the talk shows. They talk endlessly about the priority or the impriority of having these beauty pageants.

To me, that is ...

W. MCREYNOLDS: Obscene.

J. MCREYNOLDS: ... yes, it is obscene -- the way that they're exploiting this innocent victim.

BLITZER: I want to discuss this a little bit more -- the media -- with both you and your husband.

But, Mrs. McReynolds, did either one of you think it was necessary to hire a defense attorney before you were questioned by the police?

J. MCREYNOLDS: No, we do not have an offense attorney. We can't afford an attorney, and we see no reason to have one. We have nothing to hide...

BLITZER: All right.

J. MCREYNOLDS: ... or nothing to -- we have, if we are -- we're defenseless, let us say. We are defenseless.

BLITZER: So both of you just went into those interviews with the police, without any advice from a legal...

J. MCREYNOLDS: Of course, we had nothing to hide. We had no reason to not cooperate.

BLITZER: All right, at least ...

W. MCREYNOLDS: The police have been very --

BLITZER: Yeah, go ahead, Mr. McReynolds.

W. MCREYNOLDS: Excuse me.

BLITZER: Go ahead, please.

J. MCREYNOLDS: Well, can I say something?

BLITZER: Please. I said go ahead.

W. MCREYNOLDS: OK, well.

BLITZER: Mr. McReynolds --

W. MCREYNOLDS: I'd like to say that we really have nothing to keep from the police. I think the police have been very, very considerate of us. And I think they're compassionate people. They have families of their own. They're not robots that are mean and hateful and all of that -- that sometimes they're depicted as being. They're compassionate people, and we'd like to support them.

I think my problem is mostly with the media. They should back off a little bit and let the police get on with their work. I think the greatest sin that could be committed in this particular thing is for whoever did this terrible deed to be escape, and this become an unsolved mystery.

That's the one thing that I fear is that this will not be solved.

BLITZER: OK, Tallahassee -- we have a caller from Tallahassee -- go ahead.

CALLER: Yes, first of all, JonBenet did not deserve to die. I can't say the same thing about her killer. But I would like to know how the McReynolds compare the beautiful public image of JonBenet as an outgoing, assertive beauty contestant to the pensive, introverted child they saw just two days before she was murdered. And do they have any idea what the reason might be for the apparent change in her behavior?

J. MCREYNOLDS: I think that when she was on stage, she was playing a role, and she was doing things that she had been taught. She had dance classes. She had singing lessons. She, I think, loved to dress up, as most little girls do in those gorgeous costumes. When she was on stage, she was a little actress. And I think you can see that in the videos. When she was in her home, in her private life, she was this sweet, sensitive, rather quiet child.

BLITZER: We have another call.

W. MCREYNOLDS: (OFF-MIKE)

BLITZER: Go ahead, Mr. McReynolds -- finish up your thought.

W. MCREYNOLDS: Well, I'd also like to agree with what Janet said. I don't believe that when I say she was pensive that that was a change of what she was on the stage. She was a very sweet, smiling child. But as I said, she believed in me so completely as Santa that we had a different kind of relationship than we might have had otherwise. But I agree with my wife completely.

What you're seeing on the video, to me, is not JonBenet. I see right through that into some other kind of a precocious child, a loving child, a wonderful child. And we're going to be all to the worse for her not being here with us anymore.

She told me once that she wanted to be a model or an ice skating star. What's wrong with that? I mean, we honor that. We really need to look more at ourselves, rather than criticizing this little girl or the Ramseys or the police or anybody else.

Let's start seeking the angel in ourselves. Every time we abuse a child in any way, every child is special, we are abusing ourselves -- and the child in ourselves. And that is the theme of my unpublished Christmas story.

BLITZER: Well, maybe you'll publish it and we'll all have a chance to read it.

We have ...

W. MCREYNOLDS: I have no idea.

BLITZER: It may be ...

W. MCREYNOLDS: I'm sorry?

BLITZER: I said maybe you'll publish it, and we'll all have a chance ...

W. MCREYNOLDS: Oh, I don't care.

BLITZER: ... to read that.

W. MCREYNOLDS: It would be nice.

BLITZER: We have another caller from Philadelphia -- but before we take that call, one of the loose ends I just want to tie up: When you were interviewed by the police, did they also ask you for hair samples or blood samples or anything like that?

W. MCREYNOLDS: Oh, sure, that's standard.

BLITZER: What kind of samples did they ask you to provide them with?

W. MCREYNOLDS: Well, they ask for hair, fingerprints, printing of words. And did I say blood?

J. MCREYNOLDS: Uh-huh.

W. MCREYNOLDS: Yeah, blood.

BLITZER: And your handwriting samples as well?

W. MCREYNOLDS: Sure.

BLITZER: OK. I --

W. MCREYNOLDS: And don't ask me what they were. I don't know what the words are.

BLITZER: All right.

W. MCREYNOLDS: I deliberately wrote them very quickly.

BLITZER: I think we are all out of time for this segment, and I apologize to our caller from Philadelphia, but maybe you can stay with us on our next segment, because we're going to try to tie up some of these loose ends and get to an update from some people who've been covering this story on a day-to-day basis.

But let me thank both of the McReynolds for spending some time with us on "LARRY KING LIVE." I know this must have been difficult for both of you, but we want to thank you for answering all of our questions very candidly and frankly. And we hope that this case will be solved, of course, like, just as much as you do.

W. MCREYNOLDS: Thank you, Wolf. We enjoyed being with you.

BLITZER: Thank you very much.

Reply 0 0

samarkandy Administrator 802 posts

samarkandy

Of course, according to genius detective Steve Thomas, Bill McReynolds has been eliminated as a suspect. As he wrote in his book, JonBenet; Inside the Ramsey Investigation. P 128

“Analysis proved that Santa Bill didn’t write the ransom note, and he was too frail to have made a midnight run from Rollinsville, done a spiderman entry of the Ramsey home, awakened his victim, fed her pineapple, and then killed her, all the while being fearless of being discovered and without leaving a shred of evidence.

“Additional information he shared with us at the interview, which we were able to confirm, further eliminated him. We investigated the hell out of this old man. He didn't do it.

Interestingly though, Steve doesn’t say Bill McReynolds was eliminated by DNA, which if he was, I would expect him to have said that. Besides, given that there is DNA evidence of at least 4 male intruders,

Also, the reasons Steve gives for eliminating Santa Bill are extremely weak, so even though he was frail, given that there is DNA evidence of at least four male intruders, it did not necessarily have to be he who made a midnight run - he could, and probably was, driven there by one of the others; he did not have to make a Spiderman entry since there is good evidence that the point of entry was the butler kitchen door. And why could he not have fed her pineapple in the kitchen if he had a good reason for being there? See my theory about how Santa Bill got into the house:

https://jonbenetramseymurder.discussion.community/post/charles-kuralt-and-how-santa-bill-lied-to-patsy-in-order-to-get-her-to-10975925?pid=1317556744

Reply 0 0

samarkandy Administrator 802 posts

samarkandy

John and Patsy talking to Mary Lacy and Dan Shuler about Bill McReynolds June 25, 1998
Copied from Forums for Justice where it was first posted by Cherokee in 2010

Keenan/Ramsey Interview re Santa Bill (excerpt) - June 25, 1998

1 __________________________________________________
2 IN THE MATTER OF:

3 4

5 INTERVIEW WITH JOHN & PATSY RAMSEY
6
7 __________________________________________________ 8
9
10 TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW
11
12

13 ADDENDUM TO VOLUME 4 OF PATSY RAMSEY
14 PAGES 626 - 666

18 JUNE 25TH, 1998 19

25
0627

1 FOR JOHN & PATSY RAMSEY'S INTERVIEW,
2 THE FOLLOWING ARE PRESENT

4 MARY KEENAN
5 DAN SHULER

24
25 MARY KEENAN: I just have a list of 0628

1 questions.

2 DAN SHULER: Because you were writing
3 those down. What's the purpose of this whole
4 thing? Okay, the purpose is we want to talk to
5 you to gain additional information about Bill
6 McReynolds, which has kind of peaked our interest
7 a bit. And we want to do everything we can to
8 solve this case for you.
9 So what we'd like to do is, Mary Keenan has a
10 lot of questions that she has after viewing the
11 interviews about Bill and I know you have some
12 concerns yourself about Bill, and we'd like to
13 bring this out in the open so we don't forget
14 what we're doing and what we're focusing on. So
15 we don't forget any minute item. All right.
16 You want to just talk a little bit about Bill to
17 start?

18 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, we met him on the
19 mall around three years before December '96. He
20 was walking around in a Santa suit passing out
21 candy. We stopped and talked.

22 PATSY RAMSEY: We were in a (INAUDIBLE)
23 deli, he came in.

24 JOHN RAMSEY: Is that -- okay.

25 PATSY RAMSEY: We were having
0629
1 breakfast.
2 And we talked. I believe he was employed by the
3 downtown Boulder Chamber of Commerce or something

4 to be on the mall and greeting people and
5 whatever.

6 JOHN RAMSEY: And, I don't know that it
7 was the same year, I don't know that it was, that
8 we invited him to our house.

9 PATSY RAMSEY: Yeah, I think so; '94,
10 for a Christmas party.

11 JOHN RAMSEY: Okay. And the whole

12 procedure was, he would come in and the kids would

13 all be there. And we'd (INAUDIBLE) and Patsy had a

14 list of gifts that he's pass out. He usually had a

15 little saying or something kind saying, something

16 silly: oh, you've been really good, did this, or

17 you've been bad, you did this. I guess we had

18 gifts for the adults sometimes.

19 So he would sit and give out these gifts, and the

20 kids would sit around and he'd read them a story.

21 PATSY RAMSEY: He also came to adult

22 parties. We had tons of pictures sitting Santa's

23 knee, playing that whole role.

24 DAN SHULER: Would that be at the same
25 time or at different times?

0630
1 PATSY RAMSEY: Well, some Christmases
2 we had three or four different parties and one
3 might be primarily adults, and he would come just
4 to be part of kind of like a little feature at the
5 party, and all the ladies would sit on his knee
6 and get their picture taken and whatnot.
7 And then typically closer to Christmas, like
8 Christmas Eve, like in the year of '96 , we'd have
9 just a few close friends who had children. And we
10 had Santa come and we'd do the naughty and nice
11 list, and the gifts and all that.

12 JOHN RAMSEY: But JonBenet, of course,
13 was fascinated with him because he was Santa Claus

14 and I remember one year she led him around the
15 house and showed him a bunch of things, I don't
16 know what. But she just took him by the hand and
17 led him around.
18 '95, I guess we called him and invited him back
19 for the regular party. '96 we weren't going to
20 have a party. He called us, I guess you probably
21 heard that, and said that Charles Kuralt was doing
22 a special on him and he wanted to bring him to our

23 party because it was one of his favorites. And
24 will we have it.

25 PATSY RAMSEY: I mean, I really hadn't
0631
1 planned on it, but you know, he'd do it for free,
2 and I said, "I suppose I could. So we decided on
3 the 23rd. He suggested we have it earlier because
4 he had another engagement that evening.

5 JOHN RAMSEY: And Mrs. Claus came with

6 him on that visit. That's the only time she's been

7 to our house.

8 PATSY RAMSEY: Yes.

9 JOHN RAMSEY: I remembered thinking
10 that
11 she was really kind of --

12 PATSY RAMSEY: Drippy.

13 JOHN RAMSEY: -- a drip. She really
14 wasn't with it. She was just there, almost acting
15 kind of irritated to be there. Didn't smile much
16 at all.

17 PATSY RAMSEY: I thought she was there
18 because he was he --

19 JOHN RAMSEY: He came in and said he
20 was frail and his wife was there to help him.

21 DAN SHULER: Was he frail?

22 JOHN RAMSEY: Not if he was in New York
23 a week later and off to Europe a few weeks later.

24 PATSY RAMSEY: No.

25 JOHN RAMSEY: I mean, I don't think.
0632
1 The hypothesis in my mind was, it was all a big
2 act.

3 DAN SHULER: What year was it that
4 JonBenet took him around the house and showed him
5 the house?

6 PATSY RAMSEY: Well, it was the
7 preceding year of this; so it would have been
8 probably '95.

9 JOHN RAMSEY: Did she take him around

10 at all that, maybe, in '96? Could you remember?
11 PATSY RAMSEY: No, because he wasn't
12 there very long. He just came to the living room
13 there and sat in that chair.

14 JOHN RAMSEY: Where was Mrs. Claus?

15 PATSY RAMSEY: She was behind him,
16 there.

17 MARY KEENAN: What was the story with
18 Charles Kuralt and did that materialize?

19 PATSY RAMSEY: They never came to our house.

20 However, there was an article in the Camera about

21 -- cause I thought, when he called about that, I
22 thought: that's a little strange. I mean, why did
23 they pick him of all the Santas in the world or
24 whatever. And then, lo and behold, it was in the

25 paper that --

0633
1 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, he might have told
2 the paper the same thing.

3 PATSY RAMSEY: I don't know. We can go
4 back and look at that timeframe for the paper
5 article.

6 JOHN RAMSEY: In December '96

7 MARY KEENAN: Do you remember what you
8 paid him and how you paid him?

9 PATSY RAMSEY: Check. Usually $20, $25,
10 $20 to $50.

11 MARY KEENAN: What did you know about
12 his surgery?

13 PATSY RAMSEY: Just this letter that
14 said
15 he had open-heart surgery. And then I got this
16 when we got home for the lake that year. And
17 subsequently, a few, I don't know some days later,
18 I stuck my head into the little bakery, you know,
19 down there at Basemar Shopping Center, where is
20 son is a baker. And I said, "How's your dad? How
21 was his surgery?" And he said they'd almost lost
22 him a couple of times. That it was pretty tense.

23 MARY KEENAN: And had it been by
24 Christmas or had it been several months, three or
25 four months?

0634
1 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, it says right here,
2 "I'm going into, next Tuesday, St. Joseph
3 Hospital," and it's August 23rd. So way August.

4 DAN SHULER: So, if I'm understanding
5 right, the first time he was in your home was
6 the Christmas season of '94?

7 PATSY RAMSEY: Um hmm.

8 DAN SHULER: He returned in '95, then
9 again in '96. Now, was he in your home any other
10 times from '94 through '96?

11 PATSY RAMSEY: Well, '94, two days
12 after Christmas -- I remember this because it was
13 after this was the year we had the big Christmas
14 tour of our house. Okay. And he showed up at the
15 door a couple days after Christmas with a small
16 gingerbread house which the bakery, his son, had
17 made. And he knew how much we loved Christmas, and

18 he wanted to give this to us.

19 So I invited him in. I said, "How am going to
20 explain that you're here to the kids." And he
21 told the children that he was Santa's brother who

22 lived in Netherlands and took care of the reindeer

23 throughout the year.

24 DAN SHULER: Okay.

25 PATSY RAMSEY: And that Santa said what

0635
1 a good time he had had at our house and all that
2 stuff.

3 DAN SHULER: Did JonBenet see him when
4 he brought the gingerbread house at that time?

5 PATSY RAMSEY: Um hmm. Yeah.

6 DAN SHULER: And what was her reaction
7 to him?

8 PATSY RAMSEY: You know, not like --
9 because he wasn't like Santa Claus at that time.
10 He looked sort of kind of like Santa Claus but.

11 They didn't --

12 DAN SHULER: And did you tell her that

13 story?

14 PATSY RAMSEY: Yeah. He told Burke and
15 JonBenet.

16 DAN SHULER: Did Burke still believe in
17 Santa Claus at that time?

18 PATSY RAMSEY: Yeah.

19 DAN SHULER: And, what about later?

20 PATSY RAMSEY: Well, --

21 DAN SHULER: When did he start --

22 PATSY RAMSEY: We've never really even
23 discussed that. Cause I've always said, when they

24 quit believing, he'd stop coming.

25 DAN SHULER: Oh.

0636
1 PATSY RAMSEY: So it was to their advantage
2 to continue to believe.

3 JOHN RAMSEY: Plus you get gifts from
4 Santa and gifts from mom and dad.

5 PATSY RAMSEY: He did too. As a matter of
6 fact, sometimes I'd say, "Well, what did you get
7 me?"

8 DAN SHULER: Did you ever run into him
9 outside your house during Christmas season:
10 downtown, in the mall, wherever he might be
11 working?

12 PATSY RAMSEY: I saw him at a Christmas

13 parade. He was at a Christmas parade.

14 DAN SHULER: Which year?

15 PATSY RAMSEY: It would have been '95
16 probably. It would have been '95.

17 DAN SHULER: Was JonBenet in the Christmas
18 parade?

19 PATSY RAMSEY: She was in the Christmas
20 parade.

21 DAN SHULER: And what was that contact like?

22 PATSY RAMSEY: I mean I just saw him on the
23 float; he waved or something.

24 DAN SHULER: Did he come over and see you,
25 or did he come over and see JonBenet?

0637
1 PATSY RAMSEY: No.

2 DAN SHULER: Did you notice, what you were
3 to think back on now, as any unusual affection
4 that he had towards her?

5 PATSY RAMSEY: Well, this '96 Christmas when
6 he was there telling the story about, well his
7 rendition of Christmas sort of, and how -- and I
8 remember sort at the conclusion, sort of, and I
9 mean (INAUDIBLE) this little story he spins, you
10 know. But I remember him specifically, and here in

11 a room full of children, say, "JonBenet, where is
12 Santa," and I'm not sure if he said, "Where is
13 Santa," or "Where is Christmas kept all year long,

14 JonBenet?" And she said, "In your heart." And he

15 said, "That's right."
16 And I thought: well, how did she know where it was

17 kept. Yeah. I mean, it was kind of like something

18 he had told her before. I mean, it just kind of
19 hit me at that moment. He was like: JonBenet, and

20 she was like: in your heart.

21 DAN SHULER: (INAUDIBLE) the sprinkle
22 gesture. I think that John had referred to it was
23 kind of like the dust that make the reindeer fly,
24 is how he phrased it?

25 PATSY RAMSEY: Well, Santa has this glitter
0638
1 in his beard. And I think that prompted JonBenet.
2 She knew that he kept glitter in the craft shelf
3 in the basement there. I think she took him
4 downstairs to give him the bottle of this Disney
5 fairy dust to sprinkle.
6 And we had several bottles of it because I think

7 they used it for some promotion at the office one
8 year. Cause you brought a couple bottles home from

9 Frontier or something like that. Cause you and my

10 dad brought a bottle over. We had a couple of
11 them, two or three. And I think she may have given

12 him another one this '96 Christmas.

13 DAN SHULER: Could you describe that bottle?

14 PATSY RAMSEY: It's just like a little genie
15 bottle, like a little --

16 DAN SHULER: Hourglass?

17 PATSY RAMSEY: Well, not even like a an
18 hourglass, but like a vinegar curette or
19 something, sort off.

20 DAN SHULER: Wider at the bottom?

21 PATSY RAMSEY: Wider at the bottom, tapers
22 through the top, cork in the top.

23 DAN SHULER: That's what Burke had described

24 to me when we were talking.

25 PATSY RAMSEY: Yeah.

0639
1 DAN SHULER: Did she give that to him on the
2 23rd?

3 PATSY RAMSEY: I believe she gave him a
4 second bottle then. Because then at the memorial
5 service, Father Rol asked, I think, and I mean I
6 was pretty out of it, but I think he asked if
7 anyone wanted to say anything or had any fond
8 memories, or something, of JonBenet and up walks

9 up Santa Claus, as Bill McReynolds at this point.
10 He's not in red and white. And I can't remember
11 what he said.

12 JOHN RAMSEY: I don't remember either. We
13 have a video of it, but (INAUDIBLE) of giving us

14 back this bottle of fairy dust. We aught to be

15 sure you have that video so you can look at it. I
16 assume that Ellis' office has it?

17 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: As in, Loyal

18 (INAUDIBLE)?
19 JOHN RAMSEY: Loyal (INAUDIBLE).

20 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Jennifer believes,
21 in fact, that it has been turned over. But we'll
22 check and be sure.

23 JOHN RAMSEY: Okay.

24 DAN SHULER: The presents; how would
25 you give the presents to him to pass out to the

0640

1 children?

2 PATSY RAMSEY: I left them in a kind of a
3 garbage bag out by the front door hidden. And then
4 he would come fill his bag with them so he had
5 them as he came in the door.

6 DAN SHULER: And what about the prearranged
7 notes? Would he rehearse through? Did you
8 (INAUDIBLE) to him?

9 PATSY RAMSEY: No, I would just float
10 that to him. I mean It was just written out and
11 he'd just read it.

12 DAN SHULER: You mean like it was just
13 Santa's list?

14 PATSY RAMSEY: Right.

15 DAN SHULER: Would he bring like any small
16 items himself to pass out to the children other
17 than what you provided for him?

18 PATSY RAMSEY: It seems like he may have
19 brought candy canes, or had asked me to have candy

20 canes to give to them. Seems like I remember candy

21 canes.

22 DAN SHULER: If you happen to think of
23 anything like that, let us know, like later on.
24 Cause we have an interest in that. What about to
25 any of her pageants that she had? Would he ever 0641
1 show up to any of those?

2 PATSY RAMSEY: No, I never saw him.

3 DAN SHULER: Would he ever show up to any
4 other functions of hers that you were aware of?

5 PATSY RAMSEY: No. Well, he kind of stood
6 out in a crowd, so he wouldn't have been able to
7 hide. I never saw him.

8 DAN SHULER: Did he ever go to any school
9 Christmas pageant or anything like that? Now was
10 he the Santa Claus of the Boulder theater?

11 PATSY RAMSEY: I'm not sure. Like that
12 Christmas pageant they had there?

13 DAN SHULER: Yes.

14 PATSY RAMSEY: I don't remember. I'm don't
15 know.

16 JOHN RAMSEY: I don't know for sure, but
17 that kind of --

18 PATSY RAMSEY: They probably tape of that, I
19 know.

20 JOHN RAMSEY: But that kind of rings a bell

21 in my mind.

22 PATSY RAMSEY: Could have been.

23 DAN SHULER: when he had the children
24 passing out presents and things like that would he

25 whisper anything into their ear or anything as he

Last edited by Cherokee; September 27, 2010, 2:27 pm at Mon Sep 27 14:27:17 UTC 2010.

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