Reading the Oracle

Well, as we now know, the Oracle has spoken. And, as with a great many Oracular Utterances, this one is definitely cryptic. Brief, but hardly to the point.

Patsy and John Ramsey, each indicted separately, "did ... permit a child to be unreasonably placed in a situation which posed a threat of injury to the child's life or health which resulted in the death of JonBenet Ramsey." And, in a second indictment both parents, also indicted separately, "did ... render assistance to a person, with intent to hinder, delay and prevent the discovery, detention, apprehension, prosecution, conviction and punishment of such person for the commission of a crime, knowing the person being assisted has committed and was suspected of the crime of murder in the first degree and child abuse resulting in death."

How disappointing! From what we'd been lead to believe the official indictments were going to be accompanied by several pages of explanation -- but the judge decided to release only those pages signed by the jury foreman, a total of four indictments, two directed at John, two directed at Patsy, both sets identical. We can still hope that the remaining pages will eventually be released -- or maybe leaked, as were so many other documents we've seen over the years. But for now all we've been permitted to see are the very brief and also very puzzling indictments themselves.

Nevertheless, what we do have does tell us something, though naturally there will be varying interpretations of what that something is. Here's my take:

First of all, I think we can all agree that the GJ was not taken in by the intruder theory so eagerly promoted by Lou Smit. If they'd accepted the intruder theory there would have been no indictments at all. It's equally clear that they didn't buy into Steve Thomas's theory that Patsy killed JonBenet by accident. An accident is not the same as "murder in the first degree."

As for the rest, what we see is particularly confusing and also frustrating, because the indictments appear to imply the existence of some third party who actually committed the crime, aided and abetted by the Ramseys. And, as one might expect, the general consensus on the forums seems to be that Burke Ramsey is that party -- the idea being that since he was too young to be indicted the GJ had no choice but to indict the parents for aiding and also covering for him, but were constrained from actually naming him, as he was a minor.

I seriously doubt that. First of all, the authorities made clear from the start that Burke was not a suspect, so it's unlikely the prosecution would have offered any evidence suggesting his involvement, and without any such evidence it's hard to see how they could have found probable cause of his guilt. Second, the indictments contain references to first degree murder, and also to child abuse. Burke, as a minor, could not have been accused of first degree murder, since that requires intent, which a 9 year old would presumably be incapable of. Also "child abuse" is a term typically directed at adults, not children.

Even more significant: if the GJ saw probable cause that the Ramseys had been working together to cover for Burke, they would certainly both have been accused of conspiracy -- but that's not what was in the indictments. Each parent was indicted separately, with no hint that they had been working together in a coverup. The absence of any accusation of conspiracy also suggests that the GJ was not assuming the presence of some other third party in the house, some "friend" or associate who committed the murder, aided and abetted by the Ramseys. Again, if that was what they thought happened, the Ramseys would have been accused of conspiracy.

So how to interpret the actual wording of the indictments, which seem to imply the existence of some murderer that John OR Patsy, but not John AND Patsy, aided and abetted? Interesting little mystery here, no?

As I see it, the GJ was struggling with the difficulty of deciding which of the two Ramsey adults actually committed the crime, and which was the one who "rendered assistance" to that person. So it looks to me like the indictments represent a kind of compromise. Since it must have seemed clear to them that either John or Patsy was the killer, and it also seemed likely that the other one aided and abetted that killer, it may well have seemed safe to indict both of the lesser charge. Perhaps they were hoping the truth as to who actually murdered JonBenet would come out in the trial, as both parties would have been under great pressure, and one might have agreed to testify against the other.

Clearly, Alex Hunter would have been a fool to attempt a prosecution under such circumstances, because you can't come to a jury with two suspects, either of which might have committed murder, and you can't prosecute someone for aiding and abetting unless you can prove who that person actually aided and abetted.

Imo no one aided and abetted the actual murderer. It's clear, to me at least, that John acted alone. But since John had been "ruled out" as writer of the note, the jury had no choice but to assume Patsy wrote it, which implied that either she was covering for John or that she did it and he was covering for her. But as there was no proof either way, there was never any truly prosecutable case.