Wolf v. Ramsey

• Decision Date: 31 March 2003
• Docket Number: No. CIV.A.1:00-CV-1187-J.,CIV.A.1:00-CV-1187-J.
• Citation: 253 F.Supp.2d 1323
• Parties: Robert Christian WOLF, Plaintiff, v. John Bennet RAMSEY and Patricia Paugh Ramsey, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia

253 F.Supp.2d 1323

Robert Christian WOLF, Plaintiff, v. John Bennet RAMSEY and Patricia Paugh Ramsey, Defendants.

No. CIV.A.1:00-CV-1187-J.

United States District Court, N.D. Georgia, Atlanta Division.

March 31, 2003.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Sean R. Smith, Thomas Maclver Clyde, Dow Lohnes & Albertson, Atlanta, Daniel M. Petrocelli, phv, Charles P. Diamond, phv, O'Melveny & Myers, Los Angeles, CA, Richard Neal Sheinis, Hall Booth Smith & Slover, Atlanta, Andrew R. Macdonald, phv, Boulder County Attorney Office, Boulder, CO, David Lewis Balser, McKenna Long & Aldridge, Joe Dally Whitley, Alston & Bird, Atlanta, GA, for Steve Thomas, Alexander Hunter, Fleet White, Jr., City and County of Boulder, a subdivision of the State of Colorado, Robert E. Cook, movants.

Darnay Hoffman, phv, Law Offices of Darnay Hoffman, New York City, Evan M. Altaian, Office of Evan M. Altaian, Atlanta, GA, for Robert Christian Wolf, plaintiff.

James Clifton Rawls, Eric Schroeder, S. Derek Bauer, Powell Goldstein Frazer & Murphy, L. Lin Wood, Jr., Office of L. Lin Wood, Atlanta, GA, for John Bennett Ramsey, Patricia Paugh Ramsey, defendants.

ORDER

CARNES, District Judge.

This case is presently before the Court on defendants' motion for summary judgment [67]; defendants' motion in limine to exclude the testimony of Cina Wong and Gideon Epstein [68]; and defendants' motion for oral argument [79].¹ The Court has reviewed the record and the arguments of the parties and, for the reasons set out below, concludes that defendants' motion for summary judgment [67] should be GRANTED; defendants' motion to exclude the testimony of Cina Wong and Gideon Epstein [68] should be GRANTED as to Ms. Wong and GRANTED in part and DENIED in part as to Mr. Epstein; and defendants' motion for oral argument [79] should be DENIED.

BACKGROUND

This diversity case is one of the many civil suits that arose in the wake of the widely-publicized and unsolved murder of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder, Colorado, on December 26, 1996. Plaintiff Robert Christian Wolf is a Boulder, Colorado, resident who was named by defendent JonBenet's parents, on national television and in their book about their daughter's murder, The Death of Innocence: The Untold Story of JonBenet's Murder and How Its Exploitation Compromised the Pursuit of Truth (hereinafter referred to as the "Book"), as a potential suspect in JonBenet's death. Plaintiff claims that, to the extent defendants expressed an opinion that he might have killed their daughter, defendants knew such a statement to be untrue because defendant Patsy Ramsey killed her daughter and John Ramsey assisted her in covering up the crime.

The Court draws the undisputed facts from "Defendants' Statement of Undisputed Material Facts" ("SMF") [67] and "Plaintiffs Response to Defendants' Statement of Material Facts" ("PSMF"), in which plaintiff does not dispute the overwhelming majority of defendants' factual allegations. When plaintiff has disputed a specific fact and pointed to evidence in the record that supports its version of events, the Court has viewed all evidence and factual inferences in the light most favorable to plaintiff, as required on a defendant's motion for summary judgment. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986); McCabe v. Sharrett, 12 F.3d 1558, 1560 (11th Cir. 1994); Reynolds v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 989 F.2d 465, 469 (11th Cir.1993). In addition, the Court has reviewed plaintiffs separate statements of disputed material facts [88] ("PSDMF"), which consist, for the most part, of a restatement of theories espoused by former Boulder Police Detective Steven Thomas², (PSDMF ¶¶44-75) and of a lengthy recounting of statements previously made by defendants, accompanied by editorial comments suggesting such statements to be untruthful, but without an explanation or evidence for such an assessment. (PSDMF ¶¶03-117, 120-249, 250-261.)³ When the Court could discern a material factual dispute from this pleading, the Court has drawn all inferences in a light most favorable to plaintiff. Accordingly, the following facts are either not disputed or are viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff.

I. The Timeline of the Crime and the Crime Scene

Sometime on the night of December 25 or the early morning of December 26, 1996, JonBenet Ramsey was murdered. (SMF ¶2.) JonBenet's body was found in the basement of defendant's home. (SMF ¶ 5; PSMF ¶ 5.) Defendants have never been charged, arrested, or indicted for any offense in connection with the murder of JonBenet, and they deny any involvement in her death, although they have been under an "umbrella of suspicion" from almost the beginning of the murder investigation. (SMF ¶¶6-7; PSMF ¶¶ 6-7.)

On the night of December 25, 1996, the Ramsey family attended a Christmas party at the home of their friends Fleet and Priscilla White. (SMF ¶2; PSMF ¶ 12.) Nothing out-of-the-ordinary occurred at the party and the Ramsey family appeared happy. (¶13; PSMF ¶13.) On the drive home from the party, JonBenet and her brother Burke fell asleep in the car. Defendants put the children to bed when they returned home and then went to bed soon there after. (SMF ¶ 13 PSMF ¶ 13.) The family planned to rise early the following morning because they were to fly to Charlevoix, Michigan for a family vacation. (SMF ¶13; PSMF ¶13.)

JonBenet and Burke's bedrooms were located on the second floor of the Ramsey home. There was also an empty guest bedroom on the second floor, located atop the garage. Defendants' bedroom was located on the third floor of the Ramsey home in a converted attic space. The home also contained a basement. (SMF ¶ 14; PSMF ¶14.) There were two stairwells leading from the second floor to the ground floor level. The back stairwell led into the kitchen, where there was a butler door that led into the basement.

Defendants claim they were not awakened during the night. A neighbor who lived across the street from defendants' home, however, reported that she heard a scream during the early morning of December 26, 1996. Experiments have demonstrated that the vent from the basement may have amplified the scream so that it could have been heard outside of the house, but not three stories up, in defendants' bedroom. (SMF ¶48; PSMF ¶148.) The following morning, defendants assert they woke around 5:30 a.m. and proceeded to get ready for their trip. While Mr. Ramsey took a shower, Mrs. Ramsey put back on the same outfit she had on the night before and reapplied her makeup. (SMF ¶ 15.) Mrs. Ramsey then went down the backstairs towards the second floor, then the spiral stairs to the ground floor, where, on a step near the bottom of the stairs, she discovered a handwritten note on three sheets of paper that indicated JonBenet had been kidnapped (the "Ransom Note"). (SMF ¶ 16.)

Plaintiff, however, contends that Mrs. Ramsey did not go to sleep the night of December 25, but instead killed her daughter and spent the rest of the night covering her crime, as evidenced by the fact she was wearing the same outfit the following morning. (PSMF ¶15.) He further posits that Mrs. Ramsey authored the Ransom Note in an attempt to stage a crime scene to make it appear as if an intruder had entered their home. (PSMF ¶16; PSDMF ¶¶38-39.) Plaintiff theorizes that, at some point in the night, Jon-Benet awoke after wetting her bed⁴ and upon learning of the bed-wetting, Mrs. Ramsey grew so angry that an "explosive encounter in the child's bathroom" occurred, during which tirade, Mrs. Ramsey "slammed" JonBenet's head against "a hard surface, such as the edge of the tub, inflicting a mortal head wound." (PSDMF ¶¶45, 47.) Plaintiff has provided no evidence for this particular theory.⁵

Plaintiff further contends, based again solely on Mr. Thomas's speculation, that "Mrs. Ramsey thought JonBenet was dead, but in fact she was unconscious with her heart still beating." (PSDMF ¶47.) Mr. Thomas then surmises that "[i]t was that critical moment in which she had to either call for help or find an alternative explanation for her daughter's death." (PSDMF ¶ 48.) Plaintiff then speculates that Mrs. Ramsey chose the latter route and spent the remainder of the night staging an elaborate coverup of the incident.⁶

Specifically, plaintiff theorizes that, with Mr. Ramsey and Burke still asleep, Mrs. Ramsey moved the body of JonBenet to the basement, returned upstairs to draft the Ransom Note, then returned to the basement where she "could have seen— perhaps by detecting a faint heartbeat or a sound or slight movement—that although completely unconscious, JonBenet was not dead." (PSDMF ¶¶ 49-50.) In Mr. Thomas's scenario then, rather than being grateful that her child was alive, Mrs. Ramsey nevertheless decided to finish the job off by fashioning a garrote from one of her paintbrushes, looping the cord around the girl's neck, and then choking JonBenet to death. (PSDMF ¶¶ 51-52.) Plaintiff notes that the fact JonBenet was "choked from behind" is consistent with the murder being committed by someone who knew JonBenet and did not want to look at her face as he or she killed her.

After murdering her child and staging the crime, plaintiff opines that, to cover her tracks, Mrs. Ramsey must have taken the items she used in the staging out of the house, "perhaps dropping them into a nearby storm sewer or among Christmas debris and wrappings in a neighbor's trash can." (¶¶ 53-54.) Indeed, the sources for the duct tape and cord used in the crime were never located, nor sourced,⁷ to defendants' home. Plaintiff claims that Mrs. Ramsey next placed the Ransom Note in a place "where she would be sure to `find' it." (PSDMF ¶53.)

Mrs. Ramsey disputes the above recitation of facts. She claims that, upon waking, she put back on the same clothes she had on the night before and applied her makeup. She then states she went downstairs to prepare for their departure on...