BOULDER, Colo. — Two separate murders in Boulder from the 1990s are being connected by a defense attorney, who claims both investigations were flawed, using an infamous case as evidence in his own client's current proceedings.
JonBenét Ramsey was only 6 years old when she was found in the basement of her family's home in Boulder in 1996. The young beauty pageant contestant had been bludgeoned and strangled.
To date, nobody has been convicted of the crime, but theories have circulated for decades.
The Boulder Police Department (BPD) has been criticized for botching the initial handling of the investigation.
In 1994, two years before Ramsey was murdered, Marty Grisham answered a knock on the door at his Boulder home. He was shot four times in the head and chest and died instantly.
Almost 20 years later, in 2012, Michael Clark was arrested in connection with the murder. Later that year, a jury found Clark guilty of first-degree murder after prosecutors argued he shot Grisham.
Clark's conviction was vacated in April after the Boulder County District Attorney's Office reviewed "new evidence" conducted by an independent lab that produced different DNA results than what was introduced during his trial in 2012.
It was the first Colorado conviction to be vacated following an investigation into former Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) forensic scientist Yvonne "Missy" Woods, who is accused of mishandling DNA evidence. Woods testified in Clark's trial, and her testimony helped prosecutors place Clark at the scene of the crime.
Other evidence presented during the 2012 trial included Clark being given a key to watch a cat at the apartment roughly a month before the murder; stealing a book of checks from Grisham while at the home and cashing them using forged signatures; and ballistics evidence showing that Clark had the same kind of ammunition used to kill Grisham, despite a murder weapon never being recovered.
The Boulder District Attorney's Office said in September it plans to retry Clark's case.
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Man likely to be retried after murder conviction was vacated after CBI scandal
Clark's defense attorney, Adam Frank, has filed a number of subpoenas. Denver7 obtained those documents, one of which is related to records from the Ramsey case.
In the filing, Clark's defense team is requesting "all records created during the first 48 hours of the investigation into the death of JonBenét Ramsey that relate to, describe, or would reflect upon any Boulder Police Department Officer’s choices, actions, and/or decisions concerning whether or not to secure the Ramseys’ house, whether or not to search the Ramseys’ house, how comprehensive a search of the Ramseys’ house should be conducted, and what considerations played into the officers’ decisions concerning the securing and searching of the Ramseys’ house."
In addition, the subpoena would like any records that "analyze, discuss, relate to, or critique" the way Boulder PD handled the first two days of its investigation into Ramsey's death.
The 20th Judicial District Attorney's Office is asking that this subpoena, in addition to others related to CBI, be rejected.
In Frank's response to the motion by the DA's office, he claims "many of the detectives" who worked on the Ramsey investigation also worked on the Grisham case.
The defense attorney continues to assert that "in the first days of the Ramsey investigation, the Boulder Police Department committed colossal mistakes, failing to conduct searches and collect evidence that made the case impossible to close." Frank claims the "same sort of colossal mistakes" were made in Grisham's investigation.
The difference between the two investigations, according to Clark's attorney, was the report from Woods, which "falsely claimed that Mr. Clark’s DNA was present at the scene of Mr. Grisham’s murder."
Clark's team argues BPD was "woefully incompetent" in the 1990s, and claims "the exact same types of incompetence that led the Boulder Police Department to fail to solve the murder of JonBenét Ramsey also caused the Boulder Police Department to fail to solve the murder of Marty Grisham, such that prosecuting him now is unjust."
The alleged similar mistakes between the two cases include the way BPD initially treated the families of the victims and the failure to secure and search the scenes.
A review hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Tuesday, and the subpoenas are expected to be discussed. Denver7's Colette Bordelon will be in the courtroom and will share the latest information on her social media and during Denver7's newscasts.
