A Death In Paradise

摘要

Who killed JonBenet Ramsey? In the 26 months since the body of the 6-year-old child-pageant contestant was found in the basement of her parents' sprawling Boulder, Colo., home, there have been no arrests. To the police—and to much of the public—the girl's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, are key suspects, but the Ramseys steadfastly maintain their innocence. The celebrated case—with its bizarre three-page ransom note, war between cops and prosecutors and endless tabloid speculation—is the subject of Lawrence Schiller's 621-page book "Perfect Murder—Perfect Town," which is being published this week. Schiller hasn't solved the crime, but his book is a richly detailed exploration of the Ramsey family, the crime and the culture of the city in which JonBenet died. The author, who draws on 571 interviews to reconstruct the Ramsey case, is accustomed to mapping crime's tangled terrain: in the 1970s Schiller won exclusive access to Gary Gilmore and provided Norman Mailer with the basis for "The Executioner's Song."