I’m not a parent, but I do not think if I felt the police were inappropriately looking at me as a supect in the murder of my child I would throw caution to the wind and allow myself to be railroaded into a conviction. This kind of stuff happens all the time. Completely innocent people can be made to look stupid, incompetent, and guilty when on the receiving end of a skilled interrogator.
It is mostly a moot point, however. Because the Ramseys sat down with the police THREE TIMES in the days following JonBenet’s murder.
JonBenet was murdered sometime in the early morning hours of December 25, 1996.
On December 26th the Ramseys met with the police and were interviewed by the police.
On December 27th the Ramseys again met with the police and were interviewed by the police. On the 27th they gave various things to law enforcement, handwriting samples, DNA evidence, blood, hair, fingerprints and etc.
On December 29th the Ramseys had a memorial service for her at a local church. On December 30th they flew to Atlanta with JonBenet’s body to have her buried. They returned to Boulder again after New Years to assist the police with their investigation. I understand that their daughter had been murdered, however, a death in the family is a death in the family. You want to give a loved one a proper funeral and burial. That takes time, effort, planning and etc to get all the details worked out. I don’t think anyone can fault them for not being extremely involved in the case from December 28th-January 2nd or so. After all, the Ramseys had already given two interviews to police and additional personal evidence, the police had access to the Ramsey home (where the Ramseys were no longer living as it had become a highly publicized crime scene.)
Somewhere in between their first interviews and their return to Boulder, the Ramseys hired criminal lawyers. This is not surprising. At this stage, the police had already made it clear who the primary suspects were, and the media had already started to crucify them.
The police began to demand more interviews, however, at this point the Ramseys realized the police no longer had any interest in looking for the real killers, and were fixated on convicted them. Under those conditions, I would not cooperate with the police anymore than legally required. It’d be a terrible situation, knowing that your daughters killer was going to evade justice because the police were no longer going to accept that anyone other than you were responsible. And cooperating with the police would only serve to make it more likely you get strung up.
After time, the Ramseys did eventually agree to additional interviews, supervised legally, to attempt to get the police off of them and on to the real culprits, it never worked.