Profiler

After you retired, you investigated JonBenet Ramsey, right?

I was brought in by the family.

Can you hypothesize who killed the kid?

I know who didn't do it: the parents. That's the controversial part. If you take a survey in Colorado, seven out of 10 people say they did it. When I go around speaking and people disagree, I ask. "Where are you getting your information? I know where you're getting your information -- in the grocery line from the tabloids."

So the Star was saying, "Any day now the brother will be accused."

The brother?

Yes. He was a kid. He was 9 years of age. Today he's 12.

Is he guilty?

Hell, no. What happened was he went before the grand jury and was removed as a suspect. The Star is now doing a Michael Jackson moonwalk trying to get out of what they wrote because once someone is eliminated as a suspect, it's liability time.

If the parents didn't do it and the brother didn't do it, who did?

They have their own suspicions, but I eliminated them through analysis. If two people are working together after a crime they stay together like glue because they don't trust each other. The Ramseys went to separate places, which reinforces that they probably didn't do it. The hardest part I had with the crime was the way the girl was killed. There was such anger directed at her. The blow to her head was so forceful it could have taken down a 300-pound man. And she was also digitally sexually assaulted. And mixed in with her own blood is DNA evidence. I said way back when, "It's probably not semen." And two years later, they proved it's not semen. It may be saliva. The reason I said, "It's not semen" -- to me it was more of a vengeful kind of crime.

I couldn't understand: How do you go from a Christmas Day party with neighbors and friends and on the way home, "Goodbye, we're going to Charlevoix, Mich., tomorrow." What happened that would cause the parents to just lose it that night and kill a child -- wetting the bed? That didn't jibe.

I only know what I read in the tabloids. Based on what you said, somebody at that party hated the Ramseys and wanted to hurt them before they split for the holiday.

It can't be a stranger. It has to be someone who has some knowledge.

Do you have a suspect?

There are several. I can't discuss it. But there are several who look good.

Has anyone investigated them?

I don't know. When I went out there in the first week of January '97, people thought, "Here's the hired gun." Believe me -- moneywise, I got hardly next to nothing. And the hours I put in all these years ... I stopped taking any money once I saw the Ramseys were not responsible. They were victims. The Boulder Police -- I thought I was somewhere down in the deep, deep, Deep South. Good ol' boys smoking cigars. I said, "If you don't like me -- if you think I'm a turncoat -- go to the FBI. Go to my unit and get them involved. Be proactive." What do you mean "be proactive"? I said, "Look at the Unabomber case. Had we not publicized the manifesto, he'd still be living in Montana." Here you have a so-called "ransom note" -- I'd like a guy like you [meaning Bowman] to look at it. With your background, you'd see: Would parents write a note like that? It has statements in it from current movies. What parent would have the presence of mind to write something like that?

What lines are from movies that were playing Boulder at the time?

"Don't grow a brain, John"

What was that from?

"Speed." And "Ransom" was the other one.

Did people at that party go to those movies?

It was a very small party. The problem with the case is we may know in a week or two what's going to happen. Patsy and John Ramsey want to testify for the grand jury and they haven't been asked. That DNA is the puzzle. The DNA doesn't match them. It doesn't match anyone who was there that morning. Also, there is a bootprint right next to the child's body that doesn't match anyone. There is a palm print on the door leading to the wine cellar. It doesn't match anyone at all.

If the Ramseys are innocent, I guess it behooves one to consider the ironic possibility of O.J. Simpson being innocent as well.

I assisted on that case.

You believe that he did it?

Oh yes. The O.J. Simpson case is easy -- you have classic signs of domestic violence. I had never seen a case with so much forensic evidence.

How did Marcia Clark goof up?

She was outclassed. The DNA came way too early. It's very difficult to understand DNA to begin with. Basically, Marcia Clark knew that they did a survey with African-American jurors: They didn't really like her. They should have taken her off the case. Johnny Cochran was just spinning a web. And she was changing her hairdo. She was just flying around like a little bumblebee as he was spinning the web and she just flew right into it. Then he has Simpson try on the glove over a latex glove and then comes the famous words --

[Bowman and Douglas together:] If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.

But they all have their own TV shows now. They got millions of dollars for their books -- some books the publishing industry lost a lot of money on.

I would like to ask you a question about the Talking Heads. Do you know that group?

No. The Talking Heads? What kind of music?

They were a new wave group in the 1970s and '80s. Their first hit was called "Psycho Killer."

I know that song! Yes. I remember that song.

David Byrne, the singer, is a very intense guy. He decided that a psycho killer would say, "I hate people when they're not polite." And he would also speak in French because he'd imagine himself as very refined.

That's what Byrne thought? He is walking the line.

Does his projection of a psycho killer sound accurate?

Yes. This is the way that Byrne is?

No. That's in the song.

But how is Byrne normally?

He's an artist. And artists are ... different.

Yeah. Going back to Harris. Harris deserves all the credit if you want to call it that. You give him a basic foundation and his mind goes wild. And it's very, very dark. Some of the stuff he comes up with in his creativity ... It sounds like this guy [David Byrne] is the same way. Is he expressing feelings that he may have? Could he find himself in the position when he could whack somebody?

If I were going to be a psycho killer, I would like to be the angel of justice. Are there any psycho killers who just kill the people that really deserve it?

Many think they're the "angel of justice" when they're killing bums or prostitutes. A guy in Long Island called himself the Angel of Death. He was working out in a hospital killing the elderly.

But is there anyone who kills the truly evil, like drug dealers? Or depraved businessmen?

That would be a different take. There haven't been any like that.

Or environmentalist psycho killers who kill loggers and strip miners?

Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, thought he was doing that. But when I started analyzing the case, I said, "Forget his hatred of technology. He don't give a shit. He just wants to kill. He enjoys killing. And wants to dominate. And control." There's the Oklahoma bombing that gets the front page. Two or three days later we have a professor killed on the East Coast. That's Kaczynski saying, "I'm the big guy here. Who's this Oklahoma City bomber?"

What is the difference between killing women in a pit and blowing up a building?

One is much more personal, up close between subject and the victim. Where the bomber is much more passive and asocial. Much more of a loner. The other guy wants to see the tears streaming down the victim's face.

So one last Hannibal Lecter question. Do you think it tastes like chicken?

[Pause.] You mean people? Ha ha ha.

Aren't you curious?

I am curious why are they doing it. Like Jeffrey Dahmer -- he was into totally consuming the victim. It's one thing to dominate the victim, but cannibalism is like becoming a part of the victim. I'll say this about Jeffrey Dahmer: He was doing these insane acts, but he wasn't really insane. That's why it took so long to identify him.

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