The Denver Post Online: Today's News (2024)

By Patricia Callahan and Renate Robey
Denver Post Staff Writers

Dec. 21 - More than six months ago, Boulder investigators asked Arapahoe County Coroner Michael Dobersen if red marks on JonBene t Ramsey's body could have been caused by a stun gun, Dobersen said Saturday.

He told them it was possible, but the only way to know would be to exhume the 6-year-old's body and test the tissue around the marks, Dobersen said.

He said he told the investigators first to find out if stun guns sold in the area could have produced marks the size of those on the child's body. Dobersen said he never heard from Boulder investigators again.

The owner of three metro area security stores said Saturday that Boulder authorities came to his store in the Westminster Mall twice to test stun guns. They also asked about marks stun guns could cause, said Frank Brown, owner of the Mace Security Center shops.

Boulder police have asked members of the Ramsey family if they own stun guns, according to Ramsey attorney Hal Haddon. The Ramseys' former neighbors in Boulder have confirmed that police also have asked them recently about stun guns.

JonBene t, a 6-year-old who had won many child beauty pageants, was found dead in the basem*nt of the family's Boulder home last Dec. 26. She had been strangled and her skull was fractured. Dobersen, a doctor, said Saturday that police contacted him and asked him to view photos of two pairs of red marks on JonBene t's body because he is considered an expert on injuries caused by stun guns. The devices emit a high-voltage electric shock that immobilizes a person for up to 30 minutes but does no permanent damage.

"They were small red marks almost like scratches, about one-eighth of an inch," said Dobersen. "It could be a stun-gun injury, but it could also be a scratch or an abrasion. It was hard to tell without looking at them under a microscope."

Dobersen is considered an expert because he cracked the 1993 Black Widow murder case in Steamboat Springs using evidence of a stungun injury. In that case, Jill Coit and her boyfriend, Michael Backus, were convicted of killing Coit's ninth husband, Gerald Boggs. Police found a stun gun in Coit's car.

Dobersen had to exhume Boggs' body after it had been buried for eight months to test the tissue for evidence of electric shock from a stun gun.

In the photos of JonBene t, one pair of the marks were on the girl's back, Dobersen said. He did not remember where the other set of marks were.

To test the injury, Dobersen needed a tissue sample, and JonBene t's body already had been buried. Before considering exhuming the body, Dobersen told police to look for stun guns with prongs spaced the same distance apart as the marks on JonBene t's body.

"I thought before we take such a drastic step (to exhume the body), see if these injuries can correspond to certain stun guns," Dobersen said. "If there wasn't a stun gun around that corresponded to the paired injuries, there wasn't any sense in exhuming the body." Boulder police did look at stun guns sold near Boulder. Brown said plainclothes Boulder police first came to store in the Westminster Mall between six and eight months ago.

"They asked if they leave small marks, and whether or not they would burn the skin," Brown said.

He told the Boulder officers that stun guns can leave bruises or paired marks. Brown didn't think their visit was unusual. Police from various departments frequently ask him about stun guns.

He didn't hear from Boulder police again for several months. Then, two or three months ago, different Boulder officers returned to ask the same questions and tested stun guns again.

The police have not returned since then, he said.

Leslie Aaholm, spokeswoman for Boulder police, declined to comment on Saturday. Tom Faure, chief medical investigator with the Boulder County coroner's office, also refused to comment.

Over the summer, police asked the Ramseys if they had ever owned a stun gun. They have not, said Ramsey attorney Haddon.

Nobody has ever asked the Ramsey family for permission to exhume JonBene t's body, Haddon said Saturday. He added that investigators would not need to do that if they had performed a thorough autopsy.

"The notion of doing that (exhumation) is just monstrous," he said.

The effects of a stun gun could be dramatic with a child since a child's nervous system is more sensitive than an adult's, according to the owner of three security shops in the metro area.

"It could have a quicker impact and a more dramatic impact on a child," said Frank Brown, owner of three Mace Security Center stores.

A stun gun interrupts signals to the neuromuscular system with an electric pulse and immobilizes the victim temporarily, Brown said. It makes it impossible for that person to move for anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes, depending on the sensitivity of the person. He said other factors also affect the time the person is immobilized, including how long they are in contact with the stun gun and the strength of the device.

Stun guns can leave small burn marks on the skin, a Denver police spokesman said Saturday.

"They actually burn the body," said Sgt. Dennis Cribari.

The guns usually have two prongs on them that deliver the jolt of electricity and leave marks that look like "a little round dot or burn," said Cribari.

The guns can cause bruising from the muscles contracting, Brown said.

Brown said you don't need a permit to carry a stun gun, but you must be 18 years old to buy one.

There are several different kinds of stun guns, ranging in price from $25 to $300, according to various shops. There is a more dangerous, but much less common, form of the stun gun that actually uses small darts attached to wires to deliver the jolt. Those are supposed to be sold only to police agencies, said one gun dealer.

Normal stun guns must be used at close range and contact must be made, while the other version of the stun gun can be used from as far as 10 to 15 feet away.

One gun-shop manager in Lakewood said that his shop stopped selling stun guns several years ago because they had faded in popularity. The manager, who did not give his name, said Coloradans may have lost interest because the guns don't work that well through heavy winter clothing.

However, gun merchants around metro area offered conflicting information about the devices.

At a gun store in Arvada, a store manager said that stun guns "hurt like the very dickens if you get hit with one," and said they would work through winter clothing.