Let’s not forget that Michael Tracey is the man who gave us John Mark Karr and a dozen other phony suspects.

Tracey claims he looked for evidence that JonBenet was a victim of sexual abuse but found none. Isn’t that interesting? Maybe he just didn’t look hard enough. A whole slew of forensic pathologists and pediatricians, including, but not limited to, Drs. John McCann, David Jones, Ronald Wright and James Monteleone. Holly Smith is an investigator into child abuse cases. She’s on their side, as well. As for JonBenet’s pediatrician, he admits he never performed an internal exam to make sure.

Tracy claims Patsy had no predisposition to violence. As the FBI told the cops, “that’s a statistical argument, not evidence.” It might mean something if this were premeditated murder, as Tracey seems to suggest. It most likely wasn’t: it was an accidental killing with massive staging, an idea confirmed by said FBI.

Tracey claims the DA and Hall Haddon never met. But the DA’s office, Bill Wise included, were part owners of a Boulder shopping mall.

Tracey trashes Mitch Morrisey, a prosecutor with a history of winning cases. How many has Tracey won? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Lastly, Tracey takes the approach of his American counterpart, Michael Moore by finding the craziest, hate-filled random statements he can find, then tarring everyone with the same brush. Well, as Edward G Robinson said, “that don’t go with me.”

If Prof. Tracey wishes to debate me on this, he’s welcome to name the time and place. I just hope he’s wearing his cast-iron protective cup.

When I first agreed to join the project, I met Dan Glick (then of Newsweek), with whom I would be working, in the kitchen at the Ramseys’ home. I toured the house, including the so-called ‘wine cellar’ where JonBenet’s body was found. It was so interesting later, as I was reviewing the media coverage, to hear a reporter from American Journal stand in front of the house there on 15th Street and refer to “this maze of a house…with its secret room.” It was a large house, yes, but no “maze,” and the “secret room” was easily located with one right turn at the foot of the basement stairs. It struck me as I watched this guy that he had never been in the house, yet he was speaking as if he had. It was thus ludicrous to discover that the reporters interviewing the Ramseys’ housekeeper (Linda-somebody; I can’t remember her last name) were buying her statements that she “never knew of” this hideaway. If not, then she’d simply never opened doors in the basement, as it was no hidden room.

That’s just an anecdote, but it’s indicative of the kind of reactions I had over and over to what the concerted research revealed. Tracey has been vilified and pilloried on a multitude of fronts, but he for a long while was a mostly lone voice in a hostile wilderness on this case. I think, despite the cognitive disconnect, that you will find reading his work to be intellectually very engaging, if not deeply troublesome. It makes the open-minded reader really ponder how we “know” what we know.

Incidentally, though I never met the Ramseys, JonBenet attended my kids’ elementary school and had attended the same preschool where we also knew a number of people, including the preschool director, who knew the family. None of them — well, none that I met, anyway — believed for a second that Patsy Ramsey could have had any role whatsoever in the death of her daughter. I, too, am totally turned off by the whole child pageant-thing, but these other parents confirmed that it was a sort of Southern-belle hobby that in Patsy’s mind was cute and innocuous (this is not a perspective I hold, but I don’t come out the pageant culture myself). The stories I heard of the Ramseys through personal connections were so very different from the picture of them painted in the vulture-like media accounts.

However, that is NOT the point of the story. And I originally thought John had to be involved, too – for one thing, in cases like this it’s often the father, and two, I “knew” a lot of things that turned out to be the horrific fictions. I’ve said before that the Ramsey case is perhaps the worst example of journalistic malpractice in American history, and if I’m wrong, I’m not wrong by much.

So keep reading, and instead of battling the facts – and let me emphasize the word FACTS – think more about how badly you were lied to and ask yourself what else you’ve been lied to about.

When I think about this case, the run-up to Iraq, the Cassie Bernall lie, and the Elian Gonzales circus, it’s just about impossible for me to trust anything I get from the media anymore.

I can’t say I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this series – the topic is too hard to read and cognitive dissonance isn’t exactly fun – but I’ll keep reading. Thank you for writing it.