Geraldo Rivera Live - Thursday, July 5, 2001

3. "Rivera Live Transcript 07/06/01"
Posted by LizzieB on 20:29:45 7/05/2001

Rivera Live
CNBC
07/05/01

Segment relating to the ruling today in the LHP lawsuit. Note: This is not an official transcript. Anyone is free to copy this, but please give credit.

Guest: Cynthia Alksne, prosecutor

Linda Hoffman-Pugh (video clip, being interviewed in front of the courthouse): I don't know, I just want whoever did that to her to come forward and let the rest of us go on with our lives and have an ending to it, you know.

Geraldo: That's Linda Hoffman-Pugh, the former housekeeper for John and Patsy Ramsey, and she has just been freed to tell all she knows, or thinks she knows, about the Ramseys' alleged involvement or non-involvement in the brutal death of their beautiful six-year-old JonBenet. (Video of John and Patsy during their book tour is shown.) A federal judge ruled today that a Colorado state law - rule, rather, a state court rule - prohibiting grand jury witnesses to speak publicly about their testimony is unconstitutional.

The decision came in response to a legal action by Ms. Hoffman-Pugh, who was a grand jury witness and wants to write a book about this still unsolved murder. Ms. Hoffman-Pugh spoke outside the courthouse in Denver today, making her strongest statement yet about the possibility that Patsy Ramsey is guilty of murdering her daughter.

Linda Hoffman-Pugh: I think that maybe Patsy had multiple personalities. I saw that in her one day, and I think that she may have gotten upset with JonBenet for some reason, and she may have hit her, and not meant to hurt her. I don't think she meant to hurt JonBenet, you know, I think it was an accident and then it just continued from there.

Geraldo: Cynthia Alksne, aside from fueling. . . or rekindling, I should say, dwindling public interest in this tantalizing unsolved murder mystery that still haunts us this many years later, do you think there is any substance to the former housekeeper's statements?

Cynthia Alksne: I'm sure there is substance, but I don't think the case is prosecutable until either one of parents testifies against the other. I mean, I think it's sad, but I think we have to hope that at some point one of them goes completely, you know, has a mental breakdown and admits that they need to talk about what happened to their daughter. And until that time, we got nothing.

Geraldo: Got nothing. Got nothing. Linda Hoffman-Pugh, the housekeeper, did testify before the grand jury, as I mentioned. Presumably they heard her theory about the multiple personalities. Presumably they heard . . . Some of her most damning points, as I understand it, before the grand jury were that there were details in and around the body, things that were done to the body . . .

Cynthia Alksne: The blanket . . .

Geraldo: . . .and afterwards, involving the blanket and things of that nature, that only the parents would know the significance of, yet the grand jury chose not to indict, so can we assume from that that there's not enough there?

Cynthia Alksne: No, I don't think so. I think all we can assume is that the case was bungled so badly that the prosecutors made the decision not to prosecute and lose it, but to wait and hope for something better. Remember, if there are outstanding questions about DNA under fingernails, or fingerprints, or things like that that are going to make a case, you're going to lose it. Why would you indict it? Because once you indict it and once the jury's sworn, that's it. That's your only chance. So it's better to wait at this point, with the case so bungled, and hope for some break, than to lose it forever.

Geraldo: Okay.

End of JBR segment