Patsy Ramsey’s sister removed piles of belongings from the family home two days after little JonBenet was murdered, a detective who worked on the case charges in a new book.
Pam Paugh staged “a one-woman raid on the crime scene that I could only compare to burning the damned place down,” former Boulder, Colo., Detective Steve Thomas said.
“And she did it with the help of the cops!” Thomas wrote in his book, “JonBenet, Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation.”
The book details police sloppiness and infighting between prosecutors and cops that Thomas claims badly damaged the investigation of the murder of the 6-year-old beauty queen.
Thomas described how on Dec. 28, 1996, cops escorted Paugh to the Ramsey home to collect some clothing that JonBenet’s parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, and her brother, Burke, could wear to her funeral.
He said Paugh spent several hours removing material in suitcases, boxes and bags.
Thomas, who resigned from the Boulder force in 1998, said that when a patrol officer questioned a crime-scene detective about the large amount of belongings Paugh was taking, the officer was told, “You don’t worry about it.”
Paugh and the rest of the Ramsey family have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the case.
Thomas also described how the respected forensic specialist Henry Lee was surprised at how many things had been moved inside the home and how many people had access to it before official photos had been taken.
Lee, the Connecticut Police Crime Laboratory director who became well-known in the O.J. Simpson trial, said the Ramsey home had been compromised.
“Rice already cooked,” Lee said, according to Thomas. “Crime scene gone.”
Thomas also cited Boulder coroner John Meyer as saying the autopsy indicated chronic irritation of JonBenet’s vagina.
A Boulder detective, Jane Harmer, later showed detectives photos of JonBenet that she said experts believed showed evidence of “chronic sexual abuse,” Thomas said.