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

PMPT Pages 419, 420, 421

"My name is Kevin Raburn. I was raised in Boulder County, grew up in Louisville. High school in Lafeyette. That’s when I broke a window, in something like a milk truck. The judge gave me forty-five days in the Boulder County jail. That ruined by school totally. My mom worked to support my sister and me. She was a single parent.

In ‘87 Boulder was laid-back. I lived there when I was nineteen. Worked in Burger King, rode my ten-speed bike. Then I got a job cooking at Bennigans, 26th and Canyon. The rent was always high, especially for people who had to work. Everyone has a job and a half, two jobs, unless they have parents helping with the rent, which I didn’t. Everything I needed I could walk to, even the foothills. The mountains are nice.

Then I started stealing bikes. That’s something they don’t like in Boulder. Bike theft is taken seriously. By 1990 I was sentenced to a halfway house, and I started violating their rules – walking away – and they put me back in jail. In ‘93 I did another bike theft. I like to ride bikes. Another theft, another felony, prison at Arrowhead, another halfway house. In’94 the mandatory parole kicked in, and I got a four-year sentence. While I was working full-time at Rafferty’s cooking, in ‘96, I failed my breathalyzers and they sent me back to prison.

On December 26, the day JonBenet was murdered, I went to Juanita’s near the mall in Boulder, looking for a second job. Got a job. Worked days at Rafferty’s, nights at Juanita’s. That’s when the TV crews would come in and talk about the killing of JonBenet. It was on the TV a lot, but I didn’t think much about it. Lots of police around – Channel 7, Channel 4.

Then one night in February, I stole some AA batteries for my Walkman. I didn’t even know why. I already had some. Next thing, I’m in jail again on a misdemeanor charge. Being jailed for battery theft when I should have been given a ticket. I just freaked out. My bond was $1,500. That night I lost both my jobs. Went to court and got one year of unsupervised probation. Had to pay off the batteries, court costs, do some community service. I was out of a job and penniless. While I was in jail, I found out that these guys, Ainsworth and Smit were asking my mom and sister about me. Didn’t say anything about JonBenet Ramsey. Didn’t say what case they were working on.

Then I passed some bad checks, was given a felony summons, and given a court date. I’d found the checks in a jacket, walked into a bank at Broadway and Canyon, and got some cash.

Then I asked my lawyer why the cops were looking for me. He found out my file was in Hunter’s office with the guys working on the Ramsey case. I was in shock. My lawyer looked at me kind of weird. I’m a convicted felon, you know?

I got tired waiting for my court date, so in July I just got on a bus for Knoxville to see my friend Eric. I’m a football fan, and I like the University football team. It wasn’t hard to get a job, right off Cumberland and Kingston Pike. Right down from the campus.

Then on September 1, I was reading a newspaper and a cop drives by and looks at me strange, and I start walking. He pulled over and said I looked suspicious. I gave him my name, he checks on his car computer and my warrant comes up. They arrest me on a felony warrant for my check forgery and missed court date. The next day they said someone was coming from Boulder to pick me up.

That’s when I realized they weren’t coming all the way to get me on a check charge. On September 11, they came up for me in a sheriff’s plane. Something was wrong. I’d known Gerry Leverentz in Boulder, and he and this guy Lou Smit with him. Smit told me he was working on the Ramsey case. Smit said he was just doing a background check on me. I told them I had a paid attorney and couldn’t talk to them without him. Smit just said find, OK.

On the way back, Smit helped turn the sports pages of the newspaper I was reading, since I was in handcuffs.

When I was booked in Boulder, I got a public defender, Cary Lacklen. He said to me, “You know something or you know somebody.”

“I know nothing,” I told him. “They ain’t got nothing on me. I got my felony and my bike theft.”

On October 20, Harmer and Weinheimer came to see me in jail. Then on the twenty-second Lou Smit and Harmer came back. There was a court reporter and my attorney. Smit wanted to know everything about Christmas night. They knew about Juanita’s, the day I was there, December 26. But they wanted to know about the night before. I told them I was at my mom’s house.

“I’m a thief,” I said. “I’m not a killer.”

Harmer wanted to know if I could have left the house that night. I told them if you open a window, the alarm goes off. If you open the front door, it beeps for a few seconds, so you can turn the alarm off if you know the code. If you don’t know the code, which I didn’t, the alarm goes off.

Smit asked if I’d been convicted of any sexual offenses. I said no. Asked if I’d gone into an adult bookstore in Boulder. I said yeah. After twenty minutes they were done. I just asked them to leave my family alone.

Then they took blood, hair, and handwriting samples. I never heard from them again. Guess they figured out I didn’t do it.

Kevin Raburn"