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

PMPT Page 13

"Very early Thursday morning, Gary Merriman, vice president of human resources at Ramsey's firm, Access Graphics, was already at his desk trying to finish some work in the postholiday lull.

"Hello, it's John," the voice said when Merriman answered his phone.
"Good Morning, Merry Christmas," Gary said to his boss. There was a moment of silence. "What's wrong?" Merriman asked
"My daughter's been kidnapped," Ramsey said
"Oh my God, Which one?"
"JonBenet."

Less than an hour later, Detectives Jim Byfield and Michael Everett were in Merriman's office asking if anyone had ever made threats against the company. Did John Ramsey have enemies? Disgruntle employees? Merriman mentioned Jeff Merrick, an old friend of John Ramsey's who had been laid off, and Sandra Henderson, who owed Access Graphics a large sum of money."

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(SNIP)

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PMPT Page 19

"Earlier, at 1:30 P.M., the phone in Gary Merriman’s office at Access Graphics rang. It was John Ramsey. He seemed close to tears.

"We found her little body. She's been murdered," Ramsey said
Merriman, too, began to cry.

When the police showed up at Merriman's office an hour later, for the second time that day, they grilled him. Who are you? What's your relationship to John Ramsey? Do you know of anybody with connections to a foreign country who might have a grudge against the company? Against Ramsey? Who are the key players at Access Graphics?

Merriman felt he had become a suspect. For the next five weeks, not only would the firm's computers be searched but as many as thirty employees would be questioned."

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(SNIP)

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PMPT Page 127

"Several days later, Thomas and Gosage returned to Access Graphics and interviewed Gary Merriman again. A month later, Merriman would be asked by police to write the figure 118,000 over and over again, although he was never asked if he knew the amount of John Ramsey's bonus for the year. He did. It was within pennies of $118,000. After his seventh handwriting sample, Merriman felt he'd written enough to fill the Library of Congress. "If you need more, come back with handcuffs," Merriman told the detectives. That was when they said they didn't think he'd killed JonBenet but that he might have written the note."