PECOS ENTERPRISE

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OPINION

Jan. 20, 1997

IN MARI'S
CORNER
By Mari Maldonado

Beauty queen murder evokes many

emotions

Baby beauty pageants, the media's role into murder cases, how far
should a tabloid go, the amount of police attention given to
investigative procedures involving a wealthy family, etc., etc.

Last week an interesting phenomenon occured. I actually sat through
most of a talk show about all these controversies.

Portions of the series were dedicated to interviewing people off the
street on the notion of why they were so interested in this story, while
parents of other slain children sat on the "Leeza" stage with the
argument that their children's cases were not given nearly the attention
that the little Ramsey girl's case is being given.

One Afro-American female, whose son has been missing without a trace
for two years, compared the Ramsey case with O.J. Simpson's in the fact
that both the former football star and the Ramsey family are wealthy.

For some reason or another I, too, have become ensnared by all the
stories and, for what's it worth, made my own deductions about the case,
in its entirety.

In spite of the Boulder police's attempt to keep the facts of the case
as concealed as humanly possible, upon hearing most of the accounts
about JonBonet's murder, including a former FBI profiler's input, one
can only conclude that someone close to her sexually molested and killed
her.

It's a sad, sad story, especially for the parents, but I think despite
their sympathy, a lot of people hold the parents responsible.

One: Although baby beauty pageants popularly continue, most people feel
that they're not a healthy childhood experience. The parents, of course,
are blamed for their child's exposure to them. And probably a lot of
them feel that her participation in these such pageants may have
something to do with why she was targeted and murdered.

Two: The family's wealth and suspicious behavior - mother and father
hiring separate lawyers - leaves a lot of people thinking that wealthy
people can and will get away with murder.

Take O.J. for instance. I'm not saying he's guilty, but if he's not,
who is?

Then there's the attention given to them by the authorities, police,
FBI or whoever else, who some have been documented as stating 30 of
their officers were working on the case - far more than the regular
citizen would be provided with under the same circumstances. This only
creates more indigination, with the blame directed towards the family.

Hardly constructive, these are merely my conclusions.

It would take a case as profound as this one to make me watch a whole
talk show, but nonetheless, I do hope it is solved and the child be left
to rest, peacefully.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Mari Maldonado is an Enterprise reporter whose column
appears each Monday.

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