Ramseys Want Additional Conditions

Squabbling has arisen over the lie detector tests that John and Patsy Ramsey say they're willing to take.

Police in Boulder, Colorado, claim that once they took the Ramseys up on the offer, which police agreed to earlier in a statement about the conditions, their lawyer made more demands.

But the Ramseys' attorney says that's not true. He says police unreasonably insisted that the FBI do the tests.

Atlanta lawyer L. Lin Wood asked Police Chief Mark Beckner in a letter that was released to the media Tuesday night whether the Ramseys "will be officially and publicly cleared from the umbrella of suspicion" if they pass a polygraph test.

Wood also questioned whether FBI agents would qualify as independent examiners, as suggested by Beckner, if the FBI has been involved in the investigation.

The new developments arise with the publication of two new books on JonBenet's murder, one by the parents and one by the first detective to investigate the crime.

The Ramseys raised the issue of a polygraph test during interviews with ABC and CNN in March about their recently published book, The Death of Innocence. The two said Boulder police didn't ask them to take a polygraph test about their daughter's death but they were volunteering to take one to help prove their innocence.

Beckner had said he was interested in the offer, but District Attorney Alex Hunter said last month that he would advise Beckner not to accept because of problems with the test's reliability. Medication or other conditions can taint the results, Hunter said.

But Beckner said Tuesday that his office, prosecutors from Hunter's office and the FBI met this week and agreed to accept the Ramseys' offer.

The results of polygraph tests are not allowed as evidence in court but are used by police as an investigative tool. CBS News Legal Consultant Andrew Cohen said even if the Ramseys pass the test, authorities wouldn't hesitate to prosecute them if the evidence warranted it.

"The public perception about their role in all of this could be more favorable" if the polygraph results support their account, Cohen said. "That could influence potential jurors down the road.

"But just passing this test isn't going to stop prosecutors from prosecuting them in the future. It doesn't create Teflon around them," he added.

No suspects have been named in the death of 6-year-old beauty queen, who was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her parents' home on Dec. 26, 1996.

A Boulder County grand jury investigating the case adjourned last fall with no indictments issued. Authorities, however, have said the parents remain under an "umbrella of suspicion."

Meanwhile the Ramseys have lashed out at a former police detective who investigated their daughter's slaying, saying his theory that the mother killed the girl in a fit of rage is "a disgrace."

John and Patsy Ramsey called former investigator Steve Thomas "a inexperienced moron" in a Denver Post interview published Tuesday. It was the Ramseys' first public response to Thomas' new book, JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation.

Thomas is the first person officially connected to the case to write about it in detail, and the first to name a suspect.

Correspondent Rick Sallinger of CBS Station KCNC in Denver reports that by page 14 Thomas writes, "Probable cause existed to arrest Patsy Ramsey in connection with her daughter."

The author writes, "But due to the totally inept justice system in Boulder, no one was ever put in handcuffs."

According to published summaries of the book, Thomas theorizes that Patsy Ramsey accidentally killed JonBenet because of bed-wetting, and then wrote a ransom note to make the death look like a botched kidnapping.

Thomas writes, "Police mistakes piled up at an alarming rate, the crime scene was disintegrating, and no one had taken firm control."

He says a police dog was on standby, but never used.

Thomas claims John Ramsey knew his wife was involved when he read the ransom note but immediately began covering for her.

"It's so insane it would be laughable if it weren't so tragic," John Ramsey said during an interview at his suburban Atlanta home.

He said he would not have covered up for his wife.

"Your love for your child is unconditional. Your love for your spouse is conditional; you murder my child, I don't love you anymore," he said.

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