READ MORE: Owner Saves Dogs From Apartment Fire In Breckenridge Montgomery remembered the intense national and international coverage of the story, and the jockeying for position and resources among all the news outlets. And they went immediately into coverage of that and I don’t think they covered anything else for several weeks,” said John Montgomery, the assignment manager at the time. “We were probably one of the few stations who had a bureau up in Boulder, a news bureau. That presented some real challenges,” Smith said. “You were working in a community that didn’t, by and large, didn’t want to talk about this, got tired of talking about it, got tired of thinking about it, got tired of seeing it on the television and you were supposed to talk to people and find out more about what was going on. People light candles at the murder site of JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder in December 1997. Smith recalled the negative feelings toward the press and even his news truck being hit with eggs. While the nation wanted more details in the case, the citizens of Boulder were ready to move on. “Everyone wanted some resolution and we still don’t have it, and that’s an appetite that has yet to be met, and may not be,” Smith said. He said creatively the story was very limiting, but the desire for information in the case was insatiable. “The day after day, after day, after day, after day of sitting and standing and kicking rocks outside the courthouse, waiting for something to happen, waiting for someone to drive by that looked like they may have something to do with the Ramsey case,” Smith remembered. Together they spent days at the courthouse waiting for lawyers and witnesses to enter or leave the grand jury proceedings. “You had tabloid journalism in play, doing checkbook journalism, competing with mainstream journalists, and every local journalist trying to break the next story,” Chohan said.Ĭhohan worked with then-photographer Logan Smith. A gag order from the court kept most of the key players in the case from speaking to the media. (Photo by Axel Koester/Sygma via Getty Images)Ĭhohan covered the story when the focus was on the month-long grand jury proceeding. “Having been on it for several years really honed my investigative skills, my ability to draw out some key witnesses, to develop sources, to really work a case in a meaningful way,” Chohan remembered. This was the first story he was assigned to. And you had what seemed like a very important process going on at the time, this grand jury investigation, but it was all done in secret,” Chohan replied.Ĭhohan started at CBS4 in 1998. “It was really difficult, because you had national and local media … intense pressure to break new stories on that case. “What was it like, the pressure on a reporter to come up with something to talk about every night?” CBS4’s Jim Benemann asked Chohan. The investigation went on for months, ultimately leading to a grand jury proceeding.
Media descended on Boulder and didn’t leave. “This case took on a life of its own,” said CBS4’s Shaun Boyd. Their 6-year-old daughter was found dead on Christmas night 1996.
Patsy holds up a reward sign for information leading to the arrest of their daughter’s murderer.
John and Patsy Ramsey, the parents of JonBenet Ramsey, meet reporters after four months of silence in Boulder on May 1, 1997.
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