Ramsey Ad Seeks Suspicious Man

JonBenet Ramsey’s parents, hinting at what their private investigators may have turned up, have bought a newspaper ad asking if anyone saw a man approaching children around the time their daughter was slain.

The ad, due to run in Sunday’s Daily Camera, seeks “information concerning an adult male approaching young children in Boulder in late 1996,” family spokeswoman Rachelle Zimmer said Friday.

Police spokeswoman Leslie Aaholm said she was unaware of any reports of men approaching children in late December, but said “if something comes of this, we will follow it.”

The district attorney’s office refused to comment.

The 6-year-old beauty queen was found strangled in the basement of her home on Dec. 26, about eight hours after her mother discovered a ransom note demanding $118,000.

District Attorney Alex Hunter identified the Ramseys as the focus of the investigation last month, and just weeks later the Ramseys broke their silence, talking to police and a select group of reporters.

The Ramseys hired their own attorneys, experts and investigators shortly after the slaying, but this is the first time they have referred publicly to a man approaching children.

Gregg McCrary, a former FBI criminal profiler who now works with the Threat Assessment Group of Newport Beach, Calif., dismissed the family’s latest move as “an attempt to sway public opinion and get the focus off them.”