Many parents direct their kids toward activities that they themselves enjoyed growing up. There's nothing inherently sinister about it. So when Patsy Ramsey had a beautiful little daughter, she put her in pageants, which she'd participated in as a girl. While it seems very unlikely at this point that the pageants had anything to do with JonBenet's death, at the time it lead to a lot of suspicion. Lawrence Schiller recounts these rumors, as well as quite a lot of actual facts, in Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, his book on the still-unsolved murder of the little beauty queen. Sourced from what seems to have been exhaustive research and interviews with as many of the players as possible, it recounts how the case developed (and developed issues) right from the moment the cops were called to report a kidnapping until the case was finally submitted to the grand jury.

What actually happened as a result of that grand jury (an indictment was issued against John and Patsy Ramsey, but the prosecutor refused to sign it) isn't covered, and that is of course the most interesting part. Who did it? Someone did. The book steadfastly refuses to answer the question, though. Schiller clearly is trying to stay neutral as much as possible, presenting the police department's firm belief that the parents were getting away with murder with just as much credibility as the prosecutor's office investigator's belief that it was an intruder. The answer is, of course, that we will almost certainly never know. JonBenet is dead. Patsy Ramsey, too, has passed away in the years since. John is still around, but unless he or whoever else might be responsible issues a deathbed confession, this case will remain forever open.

Schiller spends a lot of time on context to really develop a comprehensive picture of what was happening at the time in the world in which the Ramseys lived. The City of Boulder, its tightly controlled development and the resulting high price of real estate creating a little enclave, the rareness with which the police department had to investigate serious crimes, the charging philosophy of the District Attorney...all are relevant to what happened, or didn't happen. It's obvious that there were serious complications even from the start, with friends at the Ramseys having arrived at their home even before the police, with John apparently shutting the open basement window, with his discovery of his daughter's body and race with her upstairs. All of that destroyed valuable evidence, evidence that could have solved the crime maybe. Was clumsiness and shock at the root of the Ramseys' behavior? Or criminality?

We're presented with evidence both ways. At some points, reading this book, I was sure they'd done it, but at others sure they wouldn't have. I kept having to remind myself that I know full well, as a former attorney, that the parents absolutely did the smart thing by getting lawyers hired so soon and refusing to cooperate with the police. If I have one piece of free legal advice I ever give, it's that you should never ever talk to the police without counsel present. I would have done the same thing in their place. But it's so hard to reconcile this understanding with the gut assumption that refusing to talk to cops about the death of your daughter "isn't what an innocent person would do". It's easy to say they should have cooperated, but until you've been in their place and figured out that you're likely the number one suspect in a murder, it's hard to say what you would have done differently with their resources. To get back to the book, it's well-researched and well-developed. I could have done with less about the tabloid reporter, who Schiller clearly found interesting but I did not. It doesn't have much of a narrative flow, it's more a work of reporting than of story-telling, but it's organized and clear. I would definitely recommend it to those curious about the crime! ( )

The JonBenet Ramsey murder case is truly perplexing. Not only is evidence as to perpetrator and motive extremely scarce, but the specific circumstances of its occurrence (including the leaving of a bizarre, rambling "ransom note", when the girl's body lay in the basement) make no sense whatsoever. Unfortunately, the case remains an unsolved mystery with too many discrepancies, conflicting stories, and unresolved issues.

In "Perfect Murder, Perfect Town", Lawrence Schiller offers an exhaustive account of the case's investigation, with a particular focus on the incompetence of the Boulder police force and the DA's office (which had little experience with homicide investigations) and the conflicts between them. At 600+ pages, the book is excessively long with an enormous cast of minor characters, yet it reveals little that is new. What's more, the author purposefully ends the book before the grand jury has made its judgment -- meaning that any reader will know more than the author himself about the upshot of the case.

Nevertheless a 60 page segment towards the end of the book (that outlines the grand jury evidence), helps make the case more clear. For this reader at least, it makes it seem likely that the murder (and cover-up) had to be done by members of the Ramsey family. Few other possibilities explain why a protracted ransom note was written and left *after* the girl's death, given that her body lay hidden in the basement; not to mention the elaborate "staging" of the crime scene. Little else explains why the father, John Ramsey, was seeking to fly his family out of Boulder within 35 minutes of discovering the ransom note -- when a real victim of a kidnapping would be frantic to find his daughter and torn over meeting the demands of the ransom note. Nor is it easy to explain why the demanded money -- the peculiar figure of $118,000 -- happened to be the exact amount Ramsey was receiving as a employee bonus. Then there is the question of how a supposed intruder could make his way silently through this enormous maze of a house without turning on lights, and while carrying the child, managed to find a hidden wine cellar in the recesses of the basement -- there to murder her, before proceeding upstairs to write a long ransom note. And finally, there's the fact that the family dog was absent -- it had been sent to another house to spend the night. Coincidence?

Given the weight of evidence, the author's epilogue is very odd. He opines that neither John nor Patsy Ramsey ever asked the other whether they had caused the death of the little girl. Such a notion is utterly impossible to believe. That question is the first that any parent would want answered, unless of course they were both present at the scene. One can understand the author's reluctance to jump on the bandwagon of Ramsey accusers, but he obscures matters by inventing a scenario that is far less plausible that any of the alternatives.

Given its length, exhaustive detail, and lack of closure, I came away from this book unsatisfied, and regretting that I spent so much time with it. I suspect that most other readers will do so as well. ( )

This was a very detailed account of the murder of JonBenet Ramsey and the investigation following. In addition to the details of the murder, there was extensive detail of the conflicts among the police detectives and management on the handling of the case. The district attorney and his staff also played a big role and had many conflicts with the police on how to handle the case. I liked this book but with all the detail it might only appeal to those who are very interested in the entire investigation. ( )

As interested as I am in the true crime genre, and as fascinated as I was by the unsolved (and perhaps unsolvable) nature of this case... I just couldn't finish the book. It's exhaustive in its objectiveness, which may have been the problem--several hundred pages in (it's a very thick book with very small print), I finally gave up after I realized I'd invested all this time in a book that didn't--couldn't--have an ending. ( )