Judge dismisses suit, says parents not involved in JonBenet's murder
April 5, 2003 http://www.cnn.com
DENVER, Colorado (AP) -- A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against the parents of JonBenet Ramsey and criticized police and the FBI for what she said was a media campaign aimed at making the family look guilty.
Authorities never charged the parents in the death of the 6-year-old, whose body was found in the family's Boulder home December 26, 1996. However, police refused to clear the couple of suspicion and ruled out the possibility that an intruder was responsible.
U.S. District Court Judge Julie Carnes of Atlanta said in the ruling this week there was no evidence showing the parents killed Jonbenet and considerable evidence showing that an intruder killed the child.
Boulder District Attorney Mary Keenan took the case away from Boulder police earlier this year.
"I think this decision, coupled with Mary Keenan's decision, should allow the Ramseys to win in the court of public opinion also," attorney L. Lin Wood, who represents the Ramseys, said Saturday. "She recognizes in her order that the FBI and the Boulder police used the media to convince people the Ramseys were guilty."
Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner declined to comment.
Carnes' ruling was in a lawsuit brought by Chris Wolf, a former Boulder journalist whom the Ramseys described as a suspect in a book they wrote about the murder. Wolf had argued in the lawsuit that Patsy Ramsey killed her daughter and tried to cover it up.
The judge said that the Ramseys had defamed Wolf, but to win his case, Wolf would have had to put the Ramseys on trial for murder.
"In short, plaintiff's success in this litigation requires him to prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that defendants killed their child," the judge wrote. She said she dismissed the suit "because there is virtually no evidence to support plaintiff's theory that they murdered their child." Top