Judge will consider request to release part of
Ramsey file

JFleet White Jr. and his wife, Priscilla, ask for file they say
involves them

By Pam Regensberg, Camera Staff Writer
September 13, 2002

A Boulder district judge said Thursday that she will consider a request to release a file
related to the nearly 6-year-old murder investigation of JonBenet Ramsey.

District Judge Lael Montgomery told Fleet White Jr. and his wife, Priscilla, former
friends of John and Patsy Ramsey, that she will issue a written ruling on their request.
She did not say when that would be.

Earlier this year, the Whites filed court documents seeking the release of criminal
justice records involving a California woman who told Boulder police she thought
JonBenet was killed as part of a child sex abuse ring.

The Boulder couple claimed that the California woman falsely accused them of being
involved in that ring.

The woman's theory about JonBenet's death appeared in a Daily Camera article in
February 2000, resulting in a criminal libel investigation in which no one at the
newspaper was charged.

"This has been swept under the big rug, and this is our attempt to pull it out and see
what it is," Fleet White, acting as his own attorney, told the judge on Thursday.

White said he wants to revisit what he called the "ethical and potentially illegal
conduct" by those involved in the publication of that article.

Police Chief Mark Beckner, saying the disclosure of that file could compromise the
murder investigation, has repeatedly refused the Whites' request to access the
40-page file.

"This is just a small piece of our ongoing investigation," Beckner testified at the
hearing.

District Attorney Mary Keenan has released some information concerning the case to
the Whites.

Fleet White was with John Ramsey on Dec. 26, 1996, when Ramsey found his
daughter's beaten and strangled body in the basement of the Ramseys' 15th Street
home. The girl was asphyxiated with a garrote and had been hit on the head with a
blunt object. No arrests have been made in connection with the homicide.

Contact Pam Regensberg at (303) 473-1329 or regensbergp@thedailycamera.com.