The Mom Squad

"When you chat and e-mail back and forth," explains Martha Knapp, an active community member (code name: mapek) who is one of the primary organizers of the Boulder gathering, "you talk about your lives." In doing so, she says, people develop real relationships, with interests that go far beyond the JonBenet case.

Originally from Michigan, Knapp, a writer specializing in business communication, moved to Kansas a few years ago to help her aging mother. She found the Internet gave her a social outlet. "We've become such a mobile society," she says. "Most people don't live in the place where they grew up."

Knapp herself contributes to Cybersleuths, a page somewhat like Mrs. Brady's URLs, but with a wider range of information on true-crime stories, including JonBenet's murder.

The JonBenet forums and chats give her the "chance to have those over-the-back-fence chats," Knapp adds, calling the online JonBenet community "almost like a sisterhood."

Experts say it's not surprising that people within this virtual community feel so strongly about each other and about their group. "People are people," says Stacy Horn, author of Cyberville, an examination of the Echo online community she started at New York University. "That doesn't change when they get online." Electronic communities, she adds, are "an exact reflection of what communities are, of what families are."

But where there's family, there's dysfunction. The original posters on the Boulder News Forum left because Internet pranksters ran virtually rampant. According to Teri McCord (code name: tinky), a Kansas City mother of three who's dabbled in writing crime novels and is planning a trip to Boulder this month with her husband and kids in tow (they want to make their way up to Estes Park, a favorite vacation spot), the Boulder News Forum "became so obscene at times I just got out. People would post these vulgar, nasty things and tie it up."

McCord and others migrated to IRC--Internet relay chat, another form of online chatting--but that, too, had problems. "There are all kinds of punk kids who like to trash people. It was a real ordeal," says Knapp. Eventually the group moved to the Forum at a Web page hosted by Joshua-7, which also housed Mrs. Brady's URLs. Earlier this year, Joshua-7 was reborn as JusticeWatch.

Today, there are four primary Web pages for online discussion regarding JonBenet. JusticeWatch, Boulder News Forum (it's cleaned up its act, say McCord and others), peterboyles.com (the home page of the KHOW radio talk-show host) and WebbSleuths (see "Must-See Sites," right).

Within these discussions, however, two distinct factions have sprung up. There are those who think the Ramsey parents murdered their child and those who think the Ramseys are innocent. Or, in forum/chat lingo, it's the Pro-Rams vs. the Anti-Rams. Some claim that there's a third faction, the Fence Sitters, but they're mostly lumped in with the Anti-Rams. And if either side suspects you're loyal to the wrong faction, look out: These ladies' flames are hot enough to singe your eyebrows.

Take, for instance, the most notorious Pro-Ram, Jameson, who for fear of reprisal does not want his/her true identity or even gender disclosed (most posters refer to him as "he"). Communicating only via America Online's Instant Message function, Jameson, who lives in North Carolina, explains: "Since I support the Ramseys I have been targeted by many. They've threatened to burn my house down, to hurt me and my family." Jameson also complains of prank phone calls and other harassment. Though Jameson says he's no agent of the Ramseys, he claims he's been in contact with friends and family of the couple. "Please don't push here," he pleads, when asked for specifics.

In true conspiracy theory fashion, some chatters on peterboyles.com have hypothesized that Jameson and John Ramsey are one and the same. "That's a stupid theory," Jameson responds. "Peter Boyles told me to f*ck myself in his chat area," claims Jameson, who says he believes the Ramseys are fully innocent. "[He] said I had been ragging on him for months."

Boyles admits he made the comment. He says that during one of his weekly online chats, Jameson, whom he calls "this weird stalker person," showed up. By that time, he had heard enough from this particular Rammer, as he likes to call the Pro-Rams, and let Jameson, who he is convinced is a woman, have it. "I would get just unbelievable amounts of e-mail from her."

After being banned from JusticeWatch's forum--"because I have a strong Ramsey voice," Jameson says--he went on to start WebbSleuths, a much more Ramsey-friendly forum. "The JusticeWatch forum is clearly intended to promote the 'lynching' of the Ramseys," Jameson says. These days he spends up to eighteen hours each day working on the Ramsey case and maintaining the WebbSleuths site. "It is truly a volunteer position," Jameson notes.

And Jameson's volunteerism reaches truly creepy proportions. On August 6, JonBenet's birthday, he and another Pro-Ram, Anderson, went to the girl's gravesite in Atlanta and hung angels to commemorate her birth. "It wasn't eerie at all," Jameson says. "The cemetery is very peaceful and nice."