After much wrangling over the conditions of their interviews with police, JonBenet Ramsey's parents finally gave investigators what they had demanded all along: separate meetings.
The interviews, which were held one at a time, began at 8 a.m. and were completed around 5 p.m., Police Chief Tom Koby and District Attorney Alex Hunter said.Police set terms of the interviews, including conditions that Patricia Ramsey be interviewed first, that the sessions be taped and last indefinitely with reasonable breaks, and that the couple could be accompanied by their lawyers.
The prosecutor refused to say whether there would be any further meetings. "I can't speak to that," he said.
JonBenet, 6, was found strangled Dec. 26 in the basement of her family's Tudor mansion, about eight hours after her mother found a ransom note demanding $118,000. An autopsy said she may have been sexually abused.
John Ramsey, who found his daughter's body, was ruled out as author of the ransom note, and Hunter recently acknowledged that the couple were the focus of the investigation.
The Ramseys talked briefly with police the day JonBenet's body was found but refused to give formal interviews and did not face any legal obligation to do so.
In January, police rejected the Ramseys' demands that they be interviewed together and that their lawyers choose which officers would interview them.
Separate interviews initially were scheduled for April 23, but police canceled those the day before when the FBI's Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit advised that the terms were not acceptable.