Just playing catch up here. How often has Perfect Murder, Perfect Town been updated since it's 1999 publication?
Palm print, shoe print:
It seems as early as 2002 those were identified as belonging to Melinda and Burke respectively.
Rocky Mountain News (CO) August 23, 2002 Section: City Desk/Local Edition: Final Page Number: 4A RAMSEY EVIDENCE IS EXPLAINED
Charlie Brennan
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
Copyright 2002 ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
Investigators have answered two vexing questions in the JonBenet Ramsey case that have long helped support the theory that an intruder killed her, according to sources close to the case.
The answers, which have been known to investigators for some time but never publicly revealed, could be seen to weaken the intruder theory.
The two clues are:
* A mysterious Hi-Tec boot print in the mold on the floor of the Ramseys' wine cellar near JonBenet's body has been linked by investigators to Burke, her brother, who was 9 at the time. It is believed to have been left there under circumstances unrelated to JonBenet's murder.
Burke, now 15, has repeatedly been cleared by authorities of any suspicion in the 1996 Christmas night slaying, and that has not changed.
* A palm print on the door leading to that same wine cellar, long unidentified, is that of Melinda Ramsey, JonBenet's adult half-sister. She was in Georgia at the time of the murder.
They were certainly some things that had to be answered, one way or the other, and we feel satisfied that they are both answered,'' said a source close to the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
L. Lin Wood, the attorney representing the Ramseys, who now live in Atlanta, doesn't debate the palm print findings. But he contends the police have not answered the Hi-Tec print mystery.
Burke Ramsey does not and has never owned a pair of quote, unquote, trademarked Hi-Tec sneakers that the Ramseys are aware of,'' Wood said. I would think they know what shoes he has owned.''
Wood said the two most important pieces of forensic evidence in the case are unidentified male DNA found in the girl's underwear and the bizarre 2 1/2-page ransom note, whose author has never been determined.
I represent innocent clients,'' Wood said. There has been a history since December of 1996 of anonymous law enforcement officials in Boulder, Colorado, leaking information to the media, which, in most cases, turns out to be either false or grossly distorted.
So I would put no weight, whatsoever, on anonymous information coming out of the Boulder Police Department. Zero.''
But the source said that connecting the palm print to Melinda Ramsey was something that occurred belatedly, only because the first time her print sample was compared with the questioned print, the person making the comparison didn't properly see the match.
As for the footprint in the wine cellar, the source said, We know Burke had a pair of Hi-Tec shoes.''
JonBenet, a 6-year-old star of child beauty pageants and the youngest of John and Patsy Ramsey's two children, was found murdered in the basement of her family's Boulder home Dec. 26, 1996, about seven hours after her mother reported finding a ransom note demanding $118,000 for her safe return.
Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner refused Thursday to discuss any single piece of evidence in the beating and strangling death of JonBenet.
But he said in the 5 1/2 years since the murder, police have continued to seek solutions toa number of evidentiary items'' that represented questions in need of answers.
We have been able to answer questions about many of the pieces of evidence, and we hope that, over time, as we continue to go over them piece by piece, that we will be able to solve the puzzle,'' Beckner said.
In their book about their daughter's murder, The Death of Innocence, the Ramseys list seven pieces of evidence they consider significant to the case - the palm print and the Hi-Tec print are numbers six and seven. In that book, John Ramsey wrote,Next to JonBenet's body, the killer, I believe, left a clear footprint made by the sole of a Hi-Tec hiking shoe, from the area at the heel where the brand name was stamped.''
Writing about the palm print, John Ramsey concedes it might prove to belong to someone with a benign reason for being in the basement. At the same time,'' he adds,it could be an important clue"...