Jurors wanted child abuse charges against Ramseys

FILE – In this May 24, 2000 file photo, Patsy Ramsey and her husband, John, parents of JonBenet Ramsey, look on during a nws conference in Atlanta regarding their lie-detector examinations for the murder of their daughter. A Colorado judge on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013 ordered the release of the 1999 grand jury indictment in the killing of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, possibly shedding light on why prosecutors decided against charging her parents in her death. Patsy Ramsey died in 2006. (AP Photo/Ric Feld, File)

FILE – In this May 24, 2000 file photo, Patsy Ramsey and her husband, John, parents of JonBenet Ramsey, look on during a nws conference in Atlanta regarding their lie-detector examinations for the murder of their daughter. A Colorado judge on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013 ordered the release of the 1999 grand jury indictment in the killing of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, possibly shedding light on why prosecutors decided against charging her parents in her death. Patsy Ramsey died in 2006. (AP Photo/Ric Feld, File)

Buy AP Photo Reprints

DENVER (AP) — Grand jurors who reviewed evidence in the death of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey indicted both of her parents for child abuse resulting in death and being an accessory to a crime, including first-degree murder, according to documents released Friday.

The Daily Camera reported earlier this year that the grand jury had issued an indictment, but the documents for the first time revealed the charges against the Ramseys. The grand jury accused both John and Patsy Ramsey of helping someone who committed murder, but the document did not identify the alleged killer. The documents alleged both parents intended to delay or prevent the arrest of the alleged killer.

The district attorney at the time, Alex Hunter, who presented the evidence to the grand jury, declined to pursue charges saying: “I and my prosecutorial team believe we do not have sufficient evidence to warrant the filing of charges against anyone who has been investigated at this time.”

Only pages that had been signed by the grand jury foreman and were considered official action of the jury were released. The numbering of the charges implies that there were other charges the jurors considered but rejected.

Hunter did not return a phone message left Thursday by The Associated Press in anticipation of the documents’ release.

The grand jury met three years after the beauty queen’s body was found bludgeoned and strangled in their home in Boulder on Dec. 26, 1996. The indictments alleged the crimes occurred between Dec. 25 and Dec. 26.

The Ramseys maintained their innocence, offering a $ 100,000 reward for the killer and mounting a newspaper campaign seeking evidence.

Former prosecutor and law professor Karen Steinhauser said grand juries sometimes hear evidence that won’t be admitted during trial that can form the basis of indictments. But she added that prosecutors must have a good faith belief that they could prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt before pursuing charges.

“I’m not sure that the release of this indictment is going to change the fact that there has not been able to be a prosecution and probably won’t be able to be a prosecution,” she said.

Lurid details of the crime and striking videos of the child in adult makeup and costumes performing in pageants propelled the case into one of the highest profile mysteries in the United States in the mid-1990s. It also raised questions about putting children on display in beauty contests long before the popularity of reality shows such as “Toddlers & Tiaras” and “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” which features moms and their child beauty pageant contestants.

Patsy Ramsey died of cancer in 2006, the same year a globe-hopping school teacher was arrested in Thailand after falsely claiming to have killed JonBenet. Former District Attorney Mary Lacy cleared the Ramseys in 2008 based on new DNA testing that suggested the killer was a stranger, not a family member.

Lacy did not return a phone call.

Over the years, some experts have suggested that investigators botched the case so thoroughly that it might never be solved.

Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner said the case remains open but it’s not an active investigation. He predicted the indictment’s release wouldn’t change anything.

“Given the publicity that’s been out there, many people have formed their opinions one way or another,” he said.

Earlier this week, John Ramsey asked officials to release the entire grand jury record if the unprosecuted indictment was made public. However, the judge said transcripts of grand jury proceedings and evidence presented to it are not considered “official action” under the law governing criminal court records. He also said releasing such information could hurt other grand juries, whose work is secret.

An attorney representing John Ramsey, L. Lin Wood, has said he’s confident that no evidence in the grand jury case implicated the Ramsey family and the public should be able to see that for themselves.

_____

Associated Press writers Steven K. Paulson and Dan Elliott contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

U.S. Headlines

Jurors wanted child abuse charges against Ramseys

Jurors at Vicky Pryce retrial urged to "wipe the slate clean"

“In this trial the slate, as it were, is wiped clean, and you judge the case afresh based only on the evidence which unfolds before you during the course of the trial.

“The other jury’s disagreement is entirely irrelevant in this case.”

Prosecutor Andrew Edis told them: “It would be foolish for anyone to pretend that you are all entirely ignorant about the circumstances of this case. There is no such pretence.

“What his Lord has directed you and what we also urge you to do is to pay no heed at all to anything that you know about it up until now.

“It starts now, and what matters is what happens from now on.”

He court heard that Huhne’s BMW was clocked speeding at 11.23pm on March 12, 2003 as he returned from Stansted airport to London.

He said Huhne nominated his then-wife to take the points so he could avoid losing his licence and the pair had “cheated the system”.

Mr Edis said Pryce, of Crescent Grove, Clapham, south London, claimed a defence of marital coercion, requiring that her husband was present at the time and applied such pressure that she had no real choice.

He said: “She is not married to a lorry driver with five kids who would go hungry if he lost his job or anything of that kind.

“She was not threatened with violence or indeed threatened at all.”

He went on: “In 2002/3 Ms Pryce was a woman who had spent her life making important choices both in her own case and even for other people too because she was a very influential person who had had a glittering career as an economist in banking.”

She became chief economic adviser to the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) in 2002, earning a six-figure sum – the first woman to be appointed to the post, he said.

“Women such as her have proudly led the struggle for equality with men over decades.

“They have won an equal right to choose what they do and here she is saying that she was unable to choose whether to commit a crime or not because a man, whether her husband or not, was telling her what she had to do.”

Mr Edis said Huhne left Pryce during half-time of a football match in June 2010, confessing to an affair before he was outed by a newspaper, then drafted a press statement and went to the gym.

He said it undoubtedly left her distressed: “But being the person that she is, a strong-minded, strong-willed person, it also caused her great anger and in the end led her to want to get revenge.

“And that is why actually we are all here, that’s why she is here, because she wanted to get revenge.”

He said it was after the Liberal Democrat party conference in September 2010, when press coverage of her attendance “tipped her over the edge”, that Pryce tried to reveal the story.

She contacted freelance journalist Andrew Alderson in November 2010, discussing a story – later found to be untrue – about a constituency aide taking points.

But the story was not published, despite efforts, and Pryce gave the story to Sunday Times political editor Isabel Oakeshott, Mr Edis said, whom she had met at the Lib Dem conference in September 2010.

Pryce confessed during a lunch on March 1 and email exchanges afterwards discussed how they could publish the story, with Ms Oakeshott suggesting the economist could inflict “maximum and perhaps fatal damage” on Huhne.

Pryce told the journalist: “I have no doubt as I definitely want to nail him, more than ever actually.”

Mr Edis told the jury: “She took the minor risk that Isabel Oakeshott had warned her about.

“She lit the blue touchpaper and she did that because she wanted to nail Mr Huhne.”

The court heard they also recorded conversations with Huhne in a bid to get “incontrovertible evidence”.

Mr Edis said: “There is no doubt that the end of her marriage was distressing, very upsetting, perhaps even heartbreaking.”

But he said she had “hatched quite a sophisticated plot to destroy his career whilst at the same time in quite a sophisticated way trying to save hers”.

He told the court that the points-swapping came about so busy Pryce would not be put to any inconvenience, and so Huhne could carry on with his career, and nobody would have found out if the economist’s “desire of vengeance had not overcome her better judgment”.

Crime News – UK Crime News

Jurors at Vicky Pryce retrial urged to "wipe the slate clean"