Open Letter to Stanley Garnett, Boulder County DA

Dear Mr. Garnett,

I can understand your reluctance to pursue the JonBenet Ramsey case after so many years of futility and frustration. You see no point in pursuing the case any further until new evidence emerges and I agree. This case has all the markings of an insoluble conundrum, leading from one dead end to another. So, without anything more to go on than what you already have, it seems pointless to continue. And yet the sexual assault and violent murder of a child remains unsolved and her attacker walks free. The continued failure to close this case must weigh very heavily on you and your colleagues.

Key Questions

The Ramsey case poses some very challenging questions. Any theory that can answer all these questions in a reasonable and consistent manner, based on solid evidence, should be taken seriously. Theories based largely on speculation are much harder to take seriously. Though of course, any theory might possibly be correct -- because anything is possible -- it makes sense to concentrate more on what seems likely than what seems contrived. One must be especially cautious when confronted with theories designed to explain away the evidence rather than actually account for it in a systematic and logical manner. In this regard, and according to one of the most important principles of science, Occam's Razor, the simpler the explanation, i.e., the fewer the elements needed to account for all the evidence, the more likely it is to be true. That does not mean it has to be true, just that a parsimonious explanation should generally be taken more seriously than complicated ones involving more elements and requiring more time and effort to explain.

New Improved Intruder Theory

We've seen all sorts of intruder theories, but none I've ever seen can explain 1. why a ransom note was left yet no one was kidnapped and 2. why the body was hidden in that tiny basement room. However, there is in fact a scenario that could account for these two things, though to my knowledge the only person who ever suggested it was someone on one of the anti-Ramsey forums arguing that this must have been what Patsy and John had in mind when they staged their kidnapping for the police. I'll get to that aspect in a moment, but for now, let's consider it purely as an intruder theory:

Birefringent Material

Just a quick note to clarify an aspect of the case that's often misunderstood. JonBenet's vagina had been penetrated on the night of the crime and the evidence suggested digital, rather than penile, penetration. "Birefringent material" was found in her vagina, which turned out to be consistent with the coating on one of Patsy's paintbrush handles. This led very quickly to yet another piece of Ramsey case folklore: the notion that she'd been penetrated with the tip of a paintbrush handle.

The Windowless Room

I thought I'd just about run out of topics to discuss, but some issues I've neglected have been raised in certain comments, and rather than respond to each individually, I think it best to deal with them here. I'll try to be brief.

JonBenet's body was found in a tiny, windowless basement room, sometimes referred to as the "wine cellar," though to my knowledge the Ramseys never used it for that purpose. It was essentially a storage closet. Much speculation has been devoted to John's discovering the body and whether he might have deliberately contaminated the crime scene with his own fibers, "touch" DNA, etc. Fleet White had been down there earlier, opened that door and seen nothing of interest. But he'd failed to turn the light on. When John opened the door, Fleet noted that he screamed first, before turning the light on, and this was probably the beginning of his very obvious suspicions of John, suspicions that led to a serious break between them and White's prodding the DA to investigate the Ramseys more thoroughly.