1999-02-18: “Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, JonBenet and the City of Boulder”
Written by Lawrence Schiller, February 18, 1999

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"Meanwhile, in Boulder, Detectives Steve Thomas and Ron Gosage interviewed the Ramseys' neighbors Joe Barnhill, seventy-seven, and his wife, Betty, who lived across the street. The Barnhills had a key to the Ramseys' home, since they were taking care of JonBenet's dog, Jacques, a Bichon Frise. The detectives learned that the Barnhills had a boarder, Glenn Meyer, who lived in their basement."

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(SNIP)

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"Barnhill confirmed to police that at about 9:00 P.M. on December 24, John Ramsey had come to their house to pick up JonBenet's bicycle, a Christmas gift. The Barnhills said they were home the night JonBenet was killed. The police asked Joe for a handwriting sample, but his palsy made it impossible for him to give one. A week later he signed a waiver and his doctor confirmed Barnhill's illness to the police.

The detectives then interviewed the boarder, Glenn Meyer. He said that he had been at home on Christmas night and had watched television in the den with the Barnhills until 9:00 P.M. He then went downstairs to his basement room and spent the rest of the evening nursing a stomach flu. Meyer was also at the Ramseys' Christmas party, but he said he hadn't been introduced to Patsy or JonBenet.

"Do you mind taking a lie detector test?" Detective Thomas asked him. Meyer didn't, and on January 1, at 5:30 P.M., a polygraph test was administered. Most of the questions were about the Ramseys, and the examiner told him he had answered the questions truthfully. A

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few weeks later, Detective Thomas asked Meyer for several handwriting samples and took his fingerprints."

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(SNIP)

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"A week later, on January 30, the police asked the Barnhills' boarder, Glenn Meyer, for another handwriting sample, the first one having shown some similarities to the writing in the ransom note."

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(SNIP)

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"Since early in the cae, the Ramseys’ investigators, headed by Ellis Armistead, had been looking into possible suspects who knew the

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Ramseys or could have had access to their home. They were now focusing on people they believed the police had overlooked or had passed over too quickly. On March 13, Armistead met with case supervisor Detective Sgt. Tom Wickman and Detectives Trujillo and Thomas to discuss several possible suspects the Ramsey team had come u with. The list included a known sex offender, an Access Graphics employee, and Glenn Meyer, who lived in Joe Barnhills basement across the street from the Ramseys. The detectives listened without acknowledging whether these people had been investigated.

Two days later, On March 15, Armistead gave the police a dossier on Meyer, which showed that he had debts amounting to $70,000. Several weeks later, Thomas questioned Meyer at police headquarters about whether he had a prior record of assault, about his debts, and about his whereabouts on December 25 and 26. Meyer identified handwriting samples he’d given to the police and agreed to give another blood sample. Returning to the Barnhills’ house, he probably wondered how the police had discovered he was in debt and why the polygraph he’d taken hadn’t cleared him."