March 4, 1999

Ever wonder how the supermarket tabloids really get their stories?

How 'Globe' exploited the murder of a child

By KATHLEEN KERNICKY Staff Writer

Call it the story of the tabloid tattler. 

How a zealous cub reporter from South Florida goes
"undercover" for a tabloid newspaper to investigate the
murder of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey,
the juiciest tabloid story to come along since, well, the
murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.

Reporter stops at nothing (well, almost nothing) to
scoop the competition.  In the process, young reporter 
gets tangled in a web of intrigue and deceit worthy
of his hero, James Bond.  Eventually, he becomes a
double agent and begins documenting dirt on the
tabloid while continuing to work there. Now he threatens 
to expose "the corruption" that he says pervades the 
topsy-turvy tabloid world. 

That's the story swirling around Jeff Shapiro, a former 
reporter for The Globe tabloid who grew up in Boca Raton.

Shapiro is well-known by now to Ramsey watchers.
Author Lawrence Schiller, hawking his new book,
Perfect Murder, Perfect Town (HarperCollins, $26) on
national television, called Shapiro the Forrest Gump of
the Ramsey case. Everywhere you turned, there he
was. Newsweek featured a story on Shapiro in October.
"I prefer to think of myself more James Bond than
Forrest," quips the 25-year-old Shapiro, who was
editing a Boca community newspaper before getting
hired at the Boca-based Globe.

It was Shapiro's penchant for I Spy tactics and
"working undercover" that has sometimes put him on
the hot seat in the Ramsey case ("He preys on people,"
a friend of Patsy Ramsey told Newsweek). At the same
time, he scooped the media's big guns on several
Ramsey stories.

"Anytime you're a relentless reporter who will do
anything you can to get a story, people will say you're
preying on people," Shapiro says from Boulder, Colo.,
where JonBenet was murdered.

Infiltrating a church

"I had a passion for the story that the others didn't.
Most of the reporters had a career. They had a family.
They had a life. This was my life. I was absolutely
consumed by this mystery. I wanted to know what
happened in that house that night. 

"I still want to know." 

How badly did he want to know? 

Shapiro, who is Jewish, "infiltrated" the Ramseys'
church by telling their pastor he wanted to convert to
Christianity. (He says half the press corps was in
church on Sundays, and not to pray.) 

He once spent the night in a tree outside the
Ramsey house where he used binoculars to spy on the
police (he says one of the cops tipped him off). 
Using stolen crime scene photos that were published
by The Globe, he broke a story that identified the type
of nylon cord used to strangle JonBenet on Christmas
night, 1996. He tracked down a Boulder store "50 feet
from where John Ramsey parked his car" that sold the
exact type of cord. 

"I have no problem being sneaky," Shapiro readily concedes.

"You're there to be a reporter and get the truth. I
was sneaky, The Globe) was unethical … At some
point, I drew the line. I said enough is enough."

Globe Managing Editor Candace Trunzo tells a different 
version. She says Shapiro is a "self-promoter" who "interjected
himself into the Ramsey case" and got "caught up in
the fervor of what is probably one of the great criminal
cases of the last decade."

"I was naive," Shapiro now says of his relationship
with The Globe, although he was savvy enough to
begin secretly tape-recording his phone conversations
with his editors last year. He says he did so, in part, to
protect himself.

In October, he played one of the tapes for the FBI,
alleging that it shows how The Globe had tried to
"leverage" a Boulder detective by uncovering dirt about
his long-deceased mother.

The FBI office in Denver confirms meeting with
Shapiro on two or three occasions, but won't discuss it
further. Trunzo says the tabloid has not heard any
tapes, nor has the FBI contacted it. The Globe did not
run a story about the detective's mother.

"The Globe does not violate any laws," she says.
Whatever the case, the paper did not renew
Shapiro's contract last month. Shapiro says he was
fired because of what he had documented. Trunzo
questions his motives and credibility in attacking the
tabloid.

'No qualms'

"He was a most willing participant in the stories that
The Globe wrote right up until a couple of weeks ago,"
she says. "He had no qualms about taking his salary      
and said absolutely nothing about problems with this      
story or that story. Part of his problem was when he      
saw he was not becoming the star that he wanted to be.
      
He had a hard time being part of a team.      
"He's zealous, maybe overzealous. If he had learned      
and listened, he might have matured into a good      
reporter. He has the right stuff. He did have some      
talent. But it was difficult to channel him. Jeff tried to      
impose himself into the investigation and become a part      
of this whole Ramsey fiasco. As a journalist, you're not      
supposed to be a part of things. You're an observer."
      
So how did a Boca kid who grew up "dreaming of      
being Thomas Jefferson" wind up in this "Ramsey      
fiasco?"

Wanted to be a crusader

Those who knew Shapiro in college aren't the least
surprised. 
      
"Everybody who knows him has always said he was      
either going to be very famous or he was going to get      
into a lot of trouble," says Jeremy #####, a former      
roommate who met Shapiro when they were working at      
Florida Atlantic University's student newspaper.       
"He's always had this sense of wanting to be the      
crusader. And he doesn't take no for an answer. Most      
reporters, if someone says they don't want to talk to      
them, they'll go on to their next subject. Jeff doesn't let      
go. He doesn't have that little trigger that says, 'OK,      
maybe I shouldn't do this.' He gets what he needs. His      
methods are pretty unorthodox, but he gets the      
results."

Shapiro, whose parents still live in South Florida (he      
doesn't want them identified), was born in Houston and      
moved to Boca Raton from California when he was 10.      
He graduated from Boca Raton High School in 1991 and      
later attended FAU, where he edited the student      
newspaper and wrote a column called "Exposure."      
Still, he didn't plan a journalism career. A political      
science major, he studied subjects such as the      
American presidency, which was taught by Michael      
Dukakis. He even envisioned running for Congress.      
He later transferred to Florida State, where he      
graduated in 1995.

In the spring of 1996, he landed an internship at the
White House Office of Media Affairs. (No, he didn't
know Monica Lewinsky. But in another Gump-like
development, he arrived in Washington by coincidence
on the day the Lewinsky scandal broke. Using
internship sources, he filed a story for The Globe.)

Assignment: go undercover

When he was hired by The Globe in early 1997, he
was promptly sent to Boulder. Globe editor Tony Frost
figured nobody would believe the clean-cut Shapiro
was a tabloid reporter. His assignment: To "infiltrate the
Ramseys' inner circle." 

Shapiro later spent a month in the hometown of
JonBenet's father, John Ramsey. In Okemos, Mich.,
Shapiro dug up Ramsey's old high school yearbook
and tracked down at least 25 of his former classmates.
("I felt like I knew this man," he says.) 

When he learned Patsy Ramsey was a follower of
Christian faith healing, he immersed himself in the
subject. 

Shapiro says he began butting heads with his editors
when the paper continued to target John Ramsey as
the suspected killer, even after Shapiro uncovered
information that the police were looking elsewhere.
Shapiro later called and wrote John Ramsey to
"apologize for my involvement in the case." 

(A grand jury is presently hearing evidence in the Ramsey 
case.  Neither John nor Patsy Ramsey has been cleared or 
accused of wrongdoing. ) 

"They simply refused to believe that they were
wrong," he says of Globe editors. "They have incredible
God-like egos."

The 'Globe's' techniques

The Globe, it seems, may have created its own
monster.

"All I've done is use all the investigative techniques
The Globe taught me to use against other people,"
says Shapiro, who says the tabloid paid him $1,000 a
week and gave him a $200 a month car allowance.

"They bought me a telephone tape recording device."
Now Shapiro, who says he has about 100 hours of
tapes stored in a safe-deposit box, hopes to tell his
story on CBS' 48 Hours, (a producer confirms Shapiro
has been interviewed). And he's thinking about writing
his own story, perhaps a book.

Still, he isn't completely happy with his recent 15
minutes of fame. 

He thinks Schiller's book portrays him "as a young
provocateur and troublemaker" who played his sources
against each other. Shapiro says the opposite was
true.

"Good reporters try to distinguish themselves from
the pack," he says. "I was trying to cast a shadow of
doubt on some of the (media) sources and determine if
they had any political motives."

Never broke the law, he says

If some might see Shapiro as the embodiment of
what is wrong with modern-day journalism, he says he
was simply doing his job. 

He says he lied to a clergy member to infiltrate the
Ramsey church as a way of getting to know "if the
Ramseys were really the terrible people the tabloids
were making them out to be." And he adds, "I believed I
would find the killer there. I have always believed this
crime has religious aspects to it."
 
Shapiro says there are lines he never crossed. He
says he never broke the law. And he says he never
paid a source. The Globe's managing editor, however,
says Shapiro was involved in stories where sources
were paid. 

"I love being a reporter," he says. "I still have that
fire. I'm still young. I still want to be in the middle of
certain things, although I don't necessarily want to
interject myself into them as much as I thought I did.
"Part of me wanted to be the hero of this case and to
solve the murder of this little girl. I realize now that
wasn't my role. It was to report the facts."

Kathleen Kernicky can be reached at 954-356-4725
or kkernicky@sun-sentinel.com

Sun-Sentinel Co. and South Florida Interactive, Inc.