http://www.rockymountainnews.com Santa' Bill McReynolds dies at
72
Retired professor 'heartbroken' after
JonBenet ordeal
By Charlie Brennan And Owen S. Good, Rocky
Mountain News
September 6, 2002
"Santa Claus" is dead.
William "Bill" McReynolds, a retired University of Colorado
journalism professor who gained unwanted notoriety as the man
who played St. Nick for the family of JonBenet Ramsey, died early
this week at his home in Mashpee, Mass.
McReynolds was discovered Monday by his wife, Janet. She said a
medical examiner determined that a heart attack caused his
death. He was 72.
A native of Donna, Texas, McReynolds received a journalism
degree in 1953 from the University of Texas and, after serving in
the Army from 1953 to 1956, taught at his alma mater for five
years and earned a master's degree in journalism there in 1962.
He then moved on to the University of Minnesota, where he
earned a doctorate in American Studies.
McReynolds joined the University of Colorado journalism
department in 1968, where he taught reporting and mass
communications history until retiring in 1992.
"I remember him as a great colleague, a very polite and very
fun-loving kind of individual. The students really enjoyed him,"
said Steve Jones, assistant dean of CU's School of Journalism and
Mass Communication.
Jones said McReynolds told him when he retired that he was
finished with teaching - but a year later, McReynolds called one
day "out of the blue" to see if he could come back to teach a few
classes on a part-time basis. Jones gladly welcomed McReynolds
back.
In the few years before heart surgery in August 1996 ended
McReynolds's teaching career for good, Jones said, "He got the
best course evaluations that he'd got in his whole career. In his
retirement, he had this enthusiasm that the students really picked
up on."
Following his 1992 retirement from full-time faculty status at CU,
McReynolds was hired by a downtown Boulder business
association to play the part of a strolling Santa Claus on the Pearl
Street Mall. His full snow-white beard and genuine love of the
holiday made him a perennial holiday favorite with young and old
alike.
It was 1993 when, during a stop at the New York Deli, McReynolds
met Patsy Ramsey, and her two young children, Burke and
JonBenet, who was then just 3 years old.
That meeting sparked a warm friendship that led to McReynolds
playing Santa at private parties for the Ramseys the next three
years. His final stint there came Dec. 23, 1996, two nights before
JonBenet was murdered in her home.
McReynolds and his wife, Janet, both came under some scrutiny as
potential suspects in the still-unsolved murder, not only because
he'd been in the house shortly before JonBenet's slaying, but also
because police discovered two eerie parallels between the
McReynolds' lives and details in the Ramsey case.
For one, it was discovered that a daughter of McReynolds, plus
another young girl, had once been abducted in Longmont by an
unknown assailant.
The second girl was molested. The McReynolds girl, 9 at the time,
was not. Both were released within hours. The date of the
incident was Dec. 26, 1974 - 22 years to the day before
JonBenet's murder was discovered.
Additionally, police learned that Janet McReynolds had written a
play in 1977, Hey Rube, based on the 1965 torture-murder in
Indiana of a teen-aged girl who - like JonBenet - was found dead
in a basement.
In a March 2, 1997, story in the Rocky Mountain News, Bill and
Janet McReynolds denied any responsibility for JonBenet's murder.
"It's probably just a coincidence, a raw coincidence," Bill
McReynolds said of his wife's play and his daughter's abduction. "I
know I had absolutely nothing to do with it."
Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner said Thursday that McReynolds
is no longer the focus of any suspicion in the Ramsey case.
"He has not been on our radar screen for a while," Beckner said.
"There have been a lot of people we've looked at seriously as
possible suspects. But currently, he's not a suspect."
McReynolds had heart surgery in August 1996. He said, and some
Ramsey investigators believed, it left him too weakened to have
committed the murder that occurred four months later.
Former Boulder detective Steve Thomas wrote in his book about
the case, "Analysis proved that Santa Bill didn't write the ransom
note, (which Patsy Ramsey said she found the morning her child
was discovered to be missing), and he was much too frail to have
made a midnight run from (the McReynolds' mountain retreat in)
Rollinsville, done a Spiderman entry of the Ramsey home," and
carried out the crime.
Bill and Janet McReynolds left Colorado in 1998 and settled on
Cape Cod.
"He could never be at peace," Janet McReynolds said. "How could
you be, if you're a murder suspect? It's something he never
recovered from. He was totally broken-hearted. He was totally
innocent."
One of his favorite activities of late, she said, was taking dawn
walks on the beach.
A service for McReynolds is scheduled in Massachusetts today, to
be followed by one in Boulder later this month. His ashes will be
scattered at one of McReynolds' favorite Colorado hiking trails.
In addition to Janet McReynolds, he is survived by three children,
four grandsons, two granddaughters and one
great-granddaughter.
Bill McReynolds never played Santa Claus again after the death of
JonBenet.