A tabloid decided to publish autopsy and crime scene photos of JonBenet Ramsey after being assured by an outside expert that it wouldn't harm the investigation, the editor said Saturday.
The Boulder County coroner has demanded an investigation into how the six photos about the slain 6-year-old were obtained by the Globe.The photographs, to appear on the front page of the edition hitting newsstands Monday, show the garrote used to strangle the young beauty queen as well as a rope mark on one wrist.
Tony Frost, editor of the Globe, which is based in Boca Raton, Fla., said the 1.3-million circulation weekly showed the photos to a top Pennsylvania coroner, who assured him that publishing the photos wouldn't harm the mur-der case.
It has been widely reported that JonBenet was strangled with a garrote and that her wrists were bound, and pictures of that are the essence of the case, Frost told The Associated Press.
"The photo does not actually show the body," he said. "I think we handled it very professionally and very sensitively.
"I am the father of three children. I have a daughter only two years older than this little girl. So we're not tabloid journalists who have three heads and no heart."
However, Boulder County Coroner John Meyer has said the unauthorized release of the photos could jeopardize prosecution of JonBenet's killer or killers and is a violation of the standards and procedures of his office.
Once the pictures become public, facts known only by the killer and police might become public "and anybody can pick up on them," Meyer said.
The Ramsey family called Globe editors "jackals, not journalists" and urged other media to not publish or televise the photos. The family, in a statement, said their attorneys will "pursue all available avenues of legal recourse."
Spokesmen for two supermarket chains in the Denver area, Safeway and King Soopers, said they will not sell the new issue of the Globe.
The girl's body was found Dec. 26 after her mother called 911 to report she had found a ransom note on a stairway and that her daughter was missing. Her father found the body in a basement room about eight hours later.
Since then, official silence has given birth to rumors and anxiety among people worried about their own children.
Radio station phone lines have been jammed with people who want to talk about the crime, said talk show host Peter Boyles of KHOW in Denver.
"We're like the electric barroom," he said. "The more police don't talk, the more we will."
Among the reports police refuse to confirm are that JonBenet was sexually assaulted and her skull was fractured, that she was killed in her bedroom, and that her father, John Ramsey, was threatened in the ransom note because of his business associations.
John Ramsey, 53, is founder and president of Access Graphics, a billion-dollar computer company.