Exclusive
'SADISTIC'
A CONVICTED pedophile who has claimed dozens of times to be JonBenét Ramsey's killer is a serial "creeper" who could slink into homes unnoticed and had an odd penchant for stealing art supplies, an ex-classmate says.
Michael Vail, 60, told The U.S. Sun there's no doubt in his mind that his former school friend, Gary Oliva, was in someway involved in the murder of JonBenét.
14
14
14
The tragic beauty queen was just six years old when she was found dead in the basement of her family's sprawling Boulder, Colorado, home on December 26, 1996.
She had been reported missing hours mere earlier after her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, awoke to find the girl missing from her bed and a bizarre three-page ransom note at the foot of a staircase.
It was John who would discover JonBenét's body. She was found swaddled in a white blanket inside a seldom-used room the family referred to as the wine cellar.
JonBenét had been strangled with a garrote fashioned from white rope and a broken paintbrush handle taken from a box of Patsy's art supplies.
Her wrists were tied, black duct tape covered her mouth, and she had suffered a fracture to the back of her skull.
JonBenét's cause of death was ruled asphyxiation and blunt force trauma to the head. There were also signs of sexual assault.
While her killer has never been found, for the last almost 27 years, Michael Vail says he's been unwavering in his belief that Oliva was either responsible for or somehow involved in JonBenét's death.
Hours before news of JonBenét's murder would make headlines across the country, Vail said he received a call from a distraught and frantic Oliva, who cried through the receiver of a payphone in Boulder: "I hurt a little girl!"
Most read in The Sun
This story is part of an ongoing series investigating Gary Oliva's potential ties to the murder of JonBenét Ramsey.
Oliva - who is currently serving a 10-year sentence for child pornography possession - has also confessed to killing the girl in dozens of jailhouse letters penned to Vail across a period of several years - though he has never been charged in connection to the case.
And though Oliva was not found to be a match to the unknown male DNA found at the crime scene, Vail says he believes there's abundant circumstantial evidence tying him to the crime.
In addition to staying at a property a mere 13 houses away from the Ramsey home at the time of the murder, Vail says it's the garrote found wound around the young girl's neck that gives him additional cause for suspicion.
"When we were at school, Gary used to creep into homes, buildings, and classrooms and steal art supplies [...] paintbrushes, glue, paint, things like that," said Vail.
"He was getting his mail 13 houses away from the Ramseys, and I think he broke into that home more than once.
"What was down in the basement room, where JonBenét was found? That's where Patsy kept all her art supplies.
"I never looked at that garrote until after 2016, and when I saw it all the hairs on my arm stood up straight away and goosebumps were all over my neck.
"I said to myself, 'Holy crap - that's a paintbrush and there's a knot on the f**king string.'
"When I look at some of Gary's art collages he did at high school, he was fascinated with knots - complicated knots.
"It blew my mind when I saw the knots and when I saw the garrote my heart just sank," he added.
"What an awful thing to do to a person, a sadistic and cruel thing."
FRIGHTENING PAST
Vail and Oliva attended high school together in Irvine, California.
He said he never considered Oliva - who was often referred to by the nickname "Scary Gary" - to be one of his friends, though he did latch onto Vail's friendship group, which was mostly comprised of artists, musicians, and creatives.
"Well, I hate to use the word friends because when you're in a small school, maybe 75-100 kids, you pretty much know everybody and you get into your little cliques, right?
"But Gary is what I would call an orbiter. He would orbit around our group and people would call him Scary Gary because he was so unpredictable. He was a very disturbed kid.
"Sometimes he'd have a spasm and start burning his arm with something, or just go running screaming down the street.
"He also used to joke about necrophilia and stuff [...] he would commit all these petty crimes like breaking and entering and he'd always steal weird things like art supplies.
"He just had a very messed up, dysfunctional childhood. One of the worst you can imagine [...] but I had a fantastic childhood, so I think that's why he gravitated towards me because he was seeking out some sense of normalcy."
14
14
14
14
Unbeknown to Vail at the time, in the years preceding JonBenét's murder, Oliva had committed a string of crimes, one of which - like the death of JonBenét - involved strangulation.
In May 1991, Oliva was arrested after attempting to strangle his mother with a telephone cord in Pass, Oregon.
At the time of the incident, Oliva was serving three-years probation for molesting a seven-year-old girl in 1990.
According to police records obtained by The U.S. Sun, during the course of the attack, Oliva threatened his mom, warning: "I should have killed you a long time ago."
He also stated: "When the sheriff arrives, they will find you dead."
"Oliva removed a butcher knife from the drawer and had it in his possession," reads the report. "Oliva also pulled a telephone cord loose from a telephone and wrapped it around his mother's neck and began tightening it."
Oliva fled the scene before police arrived but was later apprehended and jailed for 17 months.
Still, Oliva continued to write Vail.
And then sometime around midnight on Dec. 26, 1996, Vail had been watching some late-night TV talk shows when suddenly his phone rang.
'I HURT A LITTLE GIRL'
On the other end of the line was the familiar yet distressed-sounding voice of Oliva, who, through sharp and panicked exhales of breath, gasped out the words: "I...hurt...a...little...girl!"
"Holy s**t," responded Vail. "What do you mean? Where are you," he pried.
When we were at school, Gary used to creep into homes, buildings and classrooms and steal art supplies [...] paintbrushes, glue, paint, things like that.
Michael Vail
While struggling to catch his breath, Oliva apparently informed Vail he was calling from a payphone in Boulder, where he had been living on a ranch.
Vail tried to push him for more information, asking for his phone number, the address of the ranch, or the name of someone he was staying with.
But Oliva hung up the phone, leaving Vail alone with his thoughts as he attempted to make sense of the conversation he'd just shared.
"It was a very disturbing phone call," Vail reflected.
"I couldn't make sense of it [...] I don't know how the hell I got any sleep that night.
"But then I got up in the morning, around 7am, stepped out onto my front porch to pick up the L.A. Times [...] and there it was right on the page, 'Girl, 6, found slain in Boulder, Colorado.'"
As Vail read about the early details of the case that morning a chill ran up the back of his spine.
He immediately informed his wife of the disturbing call he'd received from Oliva the night before and then dialed the number for the Boulder Police Department's tip line that was printed at the foot of the article.
"I called that number as fast as I could and reported it right away," he said.
"I told them, 'Hey. This guy called me and told me he'd hurt a little girl in Boulder' and then told them everything I know.
"And then I sat back and waited, thinking I'll soon be reading in the newspaper that Gary had been arrested.
"But day after day went by and I was like, 'Why hasn't Gary been arrested yet?'"
MISSED OPPORTUNITY?
After reporting Oliva's call to Boulder PD (BPD) Vail waited patiently for an update from investigators.
However, three months would pass and, still, the phone didn't ring.
Taking matters into his own hands, Vail once again called BPD to report Oliva's call for a second time.
"I said, 'Hey, I need to talk to you guys because I'm wondering why haven't you arrested Gary yet?' And they just put me through to a recorded line and I left a message but, again, nothing happened.
"I was just baffled. How can this guy call me and tell me he's hurt a little girl before it's even in the newspaper and the police don't do anything?
"I always just assumed the police knew what the f**k they were doing.
"But there's no understanding not following up on that lead. I was convinced Gary did it because never in my life have I heard a grown man sobbing like that - ever.
"I wasn't there, obviously, but I have my theories as to what happened."
14
14
14
At the time of Vail's second call to BPD, Patsy and John Ramsey had already been designated the key persons of interest in the case by investigators.
Vail wouldn't hear from authorities until 2002 when the District Attorney took a fresh look over the case.
In a previous interview with The U.S. Sun, John Ramsey said BPD's "incompetent" investigators were so fixated on him and Patsy being responsible for JonBenét's death that they overlooked glaring leads and potentially vital pieces of evidence in the immediate aftermath of her death.
DNA evidence eventually exonerated John and Patsy of any wrongdoing in 2008.
OLIVA NAMED KEY SUSPECT
The couple long maintained an intruder had broken into their home and killed the beauty queen in a kidnapping gone wrong.
The theory was championed by veteran Colorado detective Lou Smit, who came out of retirement to investigate the case for the District Attorney's office in early 1997.
Smit, after a week of working on the case, came to the conclusion that the Ramseys were innocent and an unknown assailant had broken into the home, likely while they were out celebrating on Christmas Day.
In the years that followed, Smit compiled a huge database of evidence, potential suspects, and other information, seeking to identify the apparent intruder.
Named high on Smit's list was Oliva, who was living at an address near the Ramsey home at the time of the murder and also attended a candlelight vigil after her death.
Evidencing his belief, Smit pointed to Oliva's arrest on December 12, 2000, on the University of Colorado campus on charges of criminal trespass, drug possession, and possession of a weapon by a prior criminal offender.
At the time of his arrest, Oliva was found with a stun gun in his possession, in addition to a photograph of JonBenét and a poem he'd written about her, titled "Ode to JonBenét."
The discovery of the stun gun was a particularly interesting development for Smit, who had long theorized one had been used on JonBenét to subdue her in the moments before her death.
Smit told CBS' 48 Hours in 2002 that Oliva may have been a part of a group of several men that broke into the Ramsey home.
John Ramsey told The U.S. Sun he believes his family was being watched for several weeks or even months before JonBenét's murder, suggesting also that the culprit - or culprits - had been in or broken into the home previously.
Reiterating his belief that Olvia was a "creeper" who was staying near the Ramsey home, Vail says Oliva may have crossed paths with JonBenét at some stage and developed a fascination with her.
"Gary's proximity to the Ramseys is one of the things that most alarms me. Where he was getting his mail, 13 houses away, was accessible via an alleyway that also ran behind the Ramsey home.
"I can't imagine he hadn't seen JonBenét [...] And since I know Gary used to creep into homes and buildings and steal art supplies, I think he could've been inside that house numerous times.
"He was a creeper and expert at sneaking in and doing things without anyone ever knowing he was there."
CHILLING 'CONFESSIONS'
After his arrest in 2000, Boulder PD took Oliva's DNA which was not found to be a match for the traces of unknown male DNA found on JonBenét's clothes and under her fingernails.
However, very little DNA exists in the case. Over the years, BPD has been accused of failing to properly secure the crime scene after JonBenét was found dead, which destroyed or contaminated potentially crucial DNA evidence in the process.
Oliva has never been charged in connection with JonBenét's murder.
However, he was arrested in 2016 for child pornography possession and sentenced to 10 years behind bars.
Police accused Oliva in an affidavit of uploading images of prepubescent girls - one believed to be between the age of 4 and 7 - to his Gmail account.
In total, he uploaded 10 files that included 22 different sexually explicit images of children to the account using a public WiFi connection from various IP addresses across Boulder.
Oliva was also found to have hundreds of photos of JonBenét on his cellphone when it was seized by cops, according to the affidavit.
Vail - determined to get to the bottom of the odd phone call from 20 years prior - reached out to Oliva at Limon Correctional Facility, in Colorado, a short while later to elicit a confession from him.
14
14
14
In the years since Vail says Oliva has confessed to carrying out JonBenét's murder "countless" times throughout the hundreds of letters he's sent him.
In one of the letters, which Vail shared with The U.S. Sun, Oliva wrote: "I never loved anyone like I did JonBenét and yet I let her slip and her head bashed in half and I watched her die. It was an accident. Please believe me. She was not like the other kids."
In other, he claimed: "JonBenét completely changed me and removed all evil from me. Just one look at her beautiful face, her glowing beautiful skin, and her divine God-body, I realized I was wrong to kill other kids. Yet by accident, she died and it was my fault."
In other letters penned by Oliva, the sexual predator claims to have a "disorder" for killing children.
"Please don't hate me. I'm sorry I turned scumb [sic] but even when you first met me I told you how I wanted to kill children.
"When I met JonBenét she took away that horrible craving to kill kids that you know me for.
"She changed me into a new person. But it's okay. I've killed so many children I've lost track."
DEAD END
Vail forwarded Oliva's apparent confessions to BPD in 2019. The letters were first published by DailyMailTV.
In a statement at the time, a spokesperson for the department said: "The Boulder Police Department is aware of Mr. Oliva and has investigated his potential involvement in this case, including several previous confessions."
The department went on to state that they "routinely receive information" on the Ramsey investigation and that information "is reviewed along with other tips and theories."
The department refused to comment further, citing an active and ongoing investigation.
The lack of progress in the case after almost 27 years weighs heavy on Vail, who says he's convinced that Oliva was in some way involved in the killing of JonBenét.
"I wouldn't be talking about this right now if I hadn't got that phone call," he said.
"That damn phone call convinces me that Gary's involved. I got a phone call six hours before it was in the newspaper from someone in Boulder 13 houses away, telling me they'd hurt a little girl.
"I didn't want to be involved with this s**t but Gary pulled me in.
"It's been a really stressful part of my life and it's really affected me.
"The emotional burden of this all has been like carrying a backpack of rocks. I feel like the moment I received the phone call I was robbed of my innocence.
"And Gary needs to stay in jail [...] society would not be safe with him out. Period.
Read More on The Sun
"He's a menace to society."
Oliva is due to be released in 2025.
14
Topics