Decade Of Mystery: John Ramsey Speaks

JonBenet's Father Breaks His Silence Since His Wife's Passing, The Karr Arrest

(CBS) 
Tracey called Daxis to break the news, even before the press or anyone knew Patsy Ramsey had died. Asked why, Tracey says he was asked to do that by the investigators to "give a kind of credibility."

"This is - this is so horrible! You don't understand how horrible this is! You just don't understand that I can't connect with that mom ever. I can never hear her say that she forgives me," Daxis told Tracey.

Asked if Patsy died thinking that authorities got JonBenet's killer, Jon Ramsey says, "Probably. Probably."

By July, authorities had traced the calls to southeast Asia, but Daxis was using a disposable cell phone. They were unable to pinpoint his exact location but just as it seemed like the investigation is going nowhere, Tracey got Daxis to make a full confession.

"She of course was asleep from the time that she was, that I took her from her bed and took her into the basement," he told Tracey. "Her first reaction was, 'Where am I?' And I said, 'You're in your basement.'"

His account of the crime is too graphic to describe but Daxis told Tracey he regrets leaving the body where it was found. "She wasn’t in that little room to be disgraced. I would never disgrace her or dishonor her. She was there temporarily. And what really hurts me is that she stayed there. And that’s where her father found her, and it’s just a horrible thing," Daxis said.

By this time, the Boulder district attorney had recruited law enforcement agencies in three countries. They devised a secret plan for the mystery man to reveal himself. The bait was a photograph: the last one taken of JonBenet Ramsey.

Daxis had no idea he was about to fall into a trap.

By mid-July, Daxis’ communication with Michael Tracey took a chilling new turn. He told Tracey, "Certain little girls are just so beautiful.”

He was no longer just talking about JonBenet but was telling Tracey about his sexual interest in another girl, a five-year-old.

And he told Tracey something else: that he was a teacher and that the little girl attended his school. There was now tremendous pressure to track him down, quickly.

Authorities knew he was in southeast Asia and recruited British intelligence, who were able to narrow down his location to a single, highly congested neighborhood of Bangkok, Thailand.

"We reached out to the Royal Thai authorities to assist us in tracking that cell phone,” explains federal agent Ann Hurst.

“We couldn’t get the exact location because the phone wasn’t turned on all the time,” adds fellow agent Gary Phillips.

Hurst and Phillips work for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Thailand. They spoke about their role in the investigation for the first time during their interview with 48 Hours.

Authorities didn’t know what Daxis looked like but they knew he had a weakness: he e-mailed Michael Tracey in April, begging for that last picture of JonBenet, taken on the day she died.

Investigators suggested Tracey send the photo; Daxis supplied an address in Bangkok, a UPS mail drop location.

The plan was to put the photo into this oversized package, a package large enough so it would stand out and couldn’t be stuffed into a pocket or backpack.

The picture was sent and the mail drop was put under 24 hour surveillance.

“We were actually able to video the person known as Daxis picking up that package,” says agent Hurst.

They had him! Daxis was photographed making his pick-up. He was a Caucasian man of slight build in a red shirt.

He was unrecognizable to John Ramsey. "The fact that they had located him was a huge accomplishment. I mean, it was James Bond kinda stuff that they found this guy," he says.