Why was Mason removed from the case?
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1997-01-08-9701080195-story.html"Earlier Tuesday,
officials said they had removed the lead Boulder police detective from the team investigating the case. And a judge sealed the search warrant for the Ramsey house despite objections by a Boulder newspaper and other news media.
Boulder Police Chief Tom Koby dropped Sgt. Larry Mason from the murder case effective last Sunday, authorities said. Mason and four other detectives traveled last week to Atlanta to question more than 30 of John and Patsy Ramsey's friends, relatives and associates, including former business partners of John Ramsey."
From PMPT "When Mason returned to his hotel room that night, he found a fax from Eller telling him to cancel the interview. Eller gave no explanation. Mason phoned his boss and said he’d already done the interview. He had received the fax after the fact, he said. Eller said he didn’t believe him. Meanwhile, unknown to Mason, CNN, citing an unnamed source, had reported that the Ramseys had agreed to an interview with the Boulder police. When the Boulder detectives returned home and reported to headquarters the next evening, Eller called Mason upstairs to Chief Tom Koby’s office. As soon as
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Mason saw Sgt. Robert Thomas, Jr., of internal affairs, he knew he was in trouble. When Greg Perry, the police union president, walked in a few minutes later, his fears deepened. Eller told Mason to sit down. “I’m fine standing up,” Mason replied. Eller again ordered Mason to sit down. This time he did. Eller accused Mason of leaking to CNN the fact that the Ramseys had agreed to an interview with the Boulder police. This was information Eller said he had personally given to Mason on the phone when Mason was at the Roswell, Georgia, police department the night before. It was, said Eller, information that nobody else knew. Mason denied the charge. He said he had not released any unauthorized information. “You’re lying,” Eller said. “I know for a fact you did.” “I’m not lying,” Mason shot back. “You’re absolutely wrong.” At this point, Koby had to calm him down. And then the chief suspended Mason. A few weeks later, he would be reassigned to patrol. “Don’t sell your house,” Mason said to Eller as he left. On the spot, he had decided he would sue both Eller and the department for false accusations and wrongful suspension. As Mason drove home, he brooded on the Ramsey case. He wanted to interview JonBenét’s brother, Burke. His own children often didn’t remember awakening during the night and being put back to bed. Mason wanted to ask Burke about his dreams that night. Sometimes kids wake up to something and go back to sleep believing they’ve had a dream. That was the kind of question he wanted answered. The next day, Monday, January 6, Bryan Morgan, one of John Ramsey’s attorneys, told Eller that someone from
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“his [Morgan’s] side of the table” had disclosed the information to CNN. Despite this information, and though Eller had information that could have caused him to believe he had wrongly accused Mason—and though news of Mason’s suspension had not yet been released to the media—he did not change course. That afternoon Mason retained Marc Colin, an attorney who specialized in representing police officers. Two days later, Colin discovered that the Roswell police, unknown to Eller or Mason, routinely taped all incoming and outgoing phone calls. That information was relayed to Boulder internal affairs investigator Robert Thomas, who learned from the tapes that Eller had in fact told Mason nothing about the information that CNN aired. Despite this evidence of Mason’s innocence and Eller’s duplicity, it would take a year before Larry Mason was completely exonerated. He had been relieved of his duties so early in the investigation that he hadn’t yet transcribed his taped interviews or completed his report for the period after JonBenét’s murder when he was on the case— December 26, 1996, to January 5, 1997. Not until December 1997 would Chief Koby publicly apologize for Mason’s suspension. It would be another six months before Mason was asked to submit his report. "
So it seems they just didn't work well together.
