A blast from the past, Armistead speaks.

H. Ellis Armistead, hired in first few days by the Ramsey criminal defense team of Haddon, Morgan and Foreman, remained as the primary private investigator for three and-a-half years until he abruptly, and unexpectedly, resigned on June 2, 2000.
He was tight-lipped regarding an explanation and there was speculation that perhaps he was developing suspicions about the Ramseys.

From the Denver Post, June 3, 2000:
JonBenet Ramsey Murder Case: The Denver Post
Armistead, 49, sent out a short statement saying his firm "is no longer associated with the JonBenet Ramsey investigation." "Mr. Armistead has made this decision in light of the events that are taking place in the media," the statement said.
Contacted by phone, Armistead declined to elaborate much. "This is my decision," he said. "Mine alone. It's just what's been going on. It's the media events."
Last week, the Ramseys appeared at a news conference with their civil attorney to announce they had passed a lie-detector test. And Wednesday, they engaged in a verbal slug-fest with former Boulder Police detective Steve Thomas on CNN's "Larry King Live."

Fast forward to 2023, and in an extended interview detailed in a Westword article, Armistead makes a very interesting statement where he admits he’s not sold on the “intruder theory.” A shocking admission from a Ramsey insider.

From the Westword article:
From JonBenét to Tim McVeigh and Columbine, P.I. Ellis Armistead Has Seen It All — and Paid the Price
More than a quarter-century after the crime, no one has been arrested for it, and Armistead retains cabinets full of leads on the homicide. Every year, a handful of women call him to say that their ex-husbands are good for the murder and should be taken into custody. He remains tight-lipped about the girl’s death, but allows that the “intruder theory” — of someone coming into the Ramsey house that night and carrying out the murder in a wine cellar in the basement — doesn’t hold up.
“The first time I was in the Ramseys’ home,” he says, “it took me ten minutes of walking around just to find the wine cellar. You’d have to be very familiar with the layout of the house to know where that is.”

 

Great find. We finally hear more about the person H. Ellis Armistead as a dedicated investigator. The interview appears quite straight forward and free of posturing for any audience. It makes his explanation regarding his motivations leading to a decision to leave the R case all the more credible. During this time - when he witnessed the interactions between the DA’s office, the press and the defense team - one can easily understand how his discomfort grew.

It was PR’s and JR’s book The Death of Innocence which contains an ironic chapter about media. Chapter 22 of their book contains a reference to (media) propaganda described by Thomas Sowell, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. “The Nazi dictator and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, had refined the theory that people will believe any lie, if it is big enough and told often enough, and loud enough. Sowell sees this doctrine increasingly practiced in the American media.”

Taking a cue as elucidated by the Nazi propagandists, the Rs appeared in program after program sharing their truth. As one can currently perceive, it does seem as though their tremendous media output (and threatened lawsuits) around the case paved the way for the imagined Intruder to gain a foothold within the storyline. At least, it appears to me to be so now.

Their chapter 22 jogged my memory of a talk years ago. Diversion warning –

The mention of the Nazis reminded me of an interesting comparison made by well-known broadcaster Peter Boyles. Boyles compared Albert Speer to JR. Speer, if some don’t recall, was always called Hitler’s architect in keeping the war machinery going. Another foot soldier had actually developed the armaments for the war, but it was Speer who appeared to preserve the war systems in robust force. Speer was later tried at the Nuremberg trial and convicted of war crimes. Although he admitted to using slave labor for the arms manufacture, he denied knowing anything about what the Nazis called The Final Solution, the killing of the Jewish race.

Speer’s persona was unassuming, humble; and he admitted his error in working for the Third Reich and utilizing slave labor. Apparently he was believed and received 20 years for his war crimes instead of the death penalty. During his imprisonment and afterwards, when he wrote his autobiography, he always maintained his ignorance about the plan to kill the Jewish people.

Although he admitted he had been at a Nazi summit meeting where Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS and Gestapo, had unveiled plans to exterminate the Jews in what is known as the Posen speech, Speer insisted that he had left before the end of the meeting. He had therefore known nothing about The Final Solution plans. This was a lie, believed for decades.

In spite of his insistence of ignorance, some historians/scholars have maintained that he did know about the plans of extermination. But nothing could actually be proven until 2007. It was then that a letter he had written to the widow of a Belgium resistance leader in 1971 was newly discovered. In the letter he admitted he did learn about The Final Solution proposed by Himmler. He’d long known about the Nazis’ plans.

In terms of comparisons to the R case, it was Boyles opinion that just as Speer had convinced so many for so many years, JR was equally adept in his presentations with the media. The scent of guilty knowledge isn’t detected. It’s only when one digs deeper that a dissonance is perceived.

Returning to this article and Armistead, I can hear the pain from a man whose career triggered the challenges of PTSD. It seems he came face to face with this disconnect between the Rs’ media presentations and the realities of the crime. My grandmother would say he’s had a front row seat to evil.