http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/majorcases/ramsey/1999/10/15/atlanta1015_01.html

A Visit to the Ramseys' Secluded New Home

Stone Walls, Remote-Controlled Gates and Silence

Oct. 15, 1999

By Randy Wyles

ATLANTA (APBnews.com) -- It's quiet along Paces Ferry Road in the upscale Vinings neighborhood of Atlanta.

Behind stone walls and remote-controlled gates lie the stately homes of Atlanta's well heeled, old money and nouveau riche. Among them, John and Patsy Ramsey's $700,000 estate has

 little activity around it, save for a construction contractor.

The sun occasionally peaks through an otherwise overcast day. It reflects off a few portable microwave towers rising above TV news vans parked on the side of the road. But there is no "media circus" here, at least by standards found near the courthouse in Boulder, Colo. Here, a few journalists, mostly television reporters, wait for their scheduled live shots during their respective newscasts.

The tree-lined road makes for a nice backdrop and proves to viewers that the reporters really are on location, though much of the information they have comes by way of an editor's cellular phone call back at the station. There is just very little to report from the Ramsey home. No one in the neighborhood is talking.

The people here simply don't sit out on an inviting front porch or walk to the mailbox and gossip with neighbors. They keep to themselves, coming and going in luxury imports, isolated from the world. The Ramseys moved here in July 1997 for that same isolation. Their home is not far from St. James Episcopal Cemetery in Marietta, where they buried their 6-year-old daughter, JonBenet Ramsey, on New Year's Eve 1996.

She had been killed sometime between Christmas night and the day after Christmas in the Ramseys' Boulder home. But that was then, this is now.

Now, the Ramseys live in seclusion in Vinings with their son, Burke, a sixth-grade student at the Lovett School. The private school is across the street from their home.

It's all a very different world for them since 1996.

During JonBenet's short life in the early 1990s, the child beauty queen was often the center of attention in pageants and personal appearances. Stealing the spotlight and seeking camera time was a routine part of her life. The same was true of her mother, Patsy, who was a glittering beauty queen two decades ago, reigning as Miss West Virginia in 1977. These days the Ramseys avoid the cameras, the lights and the attention. They stay close to family members, who are

scattered around Atlanta.

But those family members aren't talking. JonBenet's grandfather even called the police when reporters showed up at his door.

Meanwhile, back at the Ramsey home, the construction contractor tosses a few things into the bed of his pickup truck. His out-of-place blue Dodge truck lumbers up the pristine drive past a well-manicured lawn and eventually leaves the confines of this domestic compound. He nonchalantly chats as he closes the main gate.

"The house is gutted," he says with a slight smirk, knowing he is privy to something.

"They're not here."

John and Patsy Ramsey have apparently been staying with friends and family during the renovation of their home. As investigators have said from the beginning, the Ramseys

 continue living their lives in the midst of a tragedy, almost separated from the tragedy. In this case, they've had their Georgia home renovated by a local contractor while a grand jury in Colorado considered the evidence against them.

What is the nature of the renovations? We may never know because, much the same as everyone else connected to this story, the contractor isn't talking either.

Randy Wyles is an APBnews.com correspondent in Atlanta.