Investigators Won't Clear Ramseys

Wednesday, August 30th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

ATLANTA (AP) â€” John and Patsy Ramsey pleaded with investigators to clear them publicly of suspicion in the slaying of their daughter, but the prosecutor said Wednesday that's not his role.

``The time has come for the police to come forward and publicly acknowledge that there's nothing left to do,'' Ramsey attorney L. Lin Wood said Tuesday. ``The evidence is not there.''

Special prosecutor Michael Kane told ABC's ``Good Morning America'' on Wednesday that it's not his job to say the Ramseys are innocent in the killing of daughter JonBenet.

``Our purpose is not to clear anybody. Our purpose is to find out who killed the little girl,'' said Kane, who participated in the questioning. ``Whether it's them or if it's an intruder, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered.

``By implication, if you charge somebody and you convict somebody, you've cleared everybody else in the universe,'' he said.

The Ramseys emerged Tuesday from two days of police questioning and said they cooperated fully and supplied leads to the possible killer of the 6-year-old beauty queen, who was found beaten and strangled in 1996 in the basement of her family's Boulder, Colo., home. The Ramseys now live in Atlanta.

However, Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner, who led the seven-member team that questioned husband and wife separately for a total of more than 10 hours, said the interrogations were ``less than we had hoped for.''

The Ramseys did not say what leads they gave investigators.

Mrs. Ramsey, addressing the investigators at a news conference, said: ``Whatever obstacles are in your way that make you think I killed my child, I want to help you get over that.''

Wood said the Ramseys had answered all the investigators' questions except some that covered forensic evidence because they did not have the results of forensic tests performed by police.

Beckner issued a statement saying the investigators did not cover all the ground they hoped to because of the conditions of the questioning. The sessions were held at Wood's office, and the lawyer had threatened to end the questioning if it became ``overzealous.''

``We need some time to digest and debrief the interviews and the information we obtained, and we're not in a position to draw any conclusions at this time,'' the police chief said.

The Boulder team questioned Mrs. Ramsey for seven hours Monday and a half-hour Tuesday morning, then questioned her husband separately for 2 1/2 hours. It was the first time the Ramseys had been questioned since June 1998.

Police first questioned the couple separately in April 1997 after months of negotiations.

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On the Net:

Ramseys' site: http://www.ramseyfamily.com

Boulder police: http://www.ci.boulder.co.us/police