Newcomers to this blog are advised to begin with the first two posts, Just the Facts, Ma'am and Case Solved, which explain in very general terms why I believe I've solved this case. Some important questions are answered in the following post, Misunderstandings, Misconceptions, Misdirections. After that feel free to browse whatever topics might interest you (see blog archive).
NB: If anyone has trouble posting a comment, email it to doktorgosh (at) live.com, and I'll post it for you.
Notice to readers of my Kindle book:I recently noticed that, on certain devices (though not all), the Table of Contents begins with Chapter One and omits the Introduction and Preface. Since the Introduction is especially important, I urge everyone to make sure to begin reading at the very beginning of the book, not the first chapter in the Table of Contents. Thank you.
Doc: I'm reading your book through a second time. I have a question regarding your surmised call John makes to himself from a pay phone posing as one of the kidnappers. As you said, the phone's answering machine in the vacant Ramsey home would pick up after a set number of rings, but no message would be left. While it is true that the "kidnappers call" would be "registered in the phone company's records", I would think John, being the intelligent man he is, would be expecting the police to want evidence that "sufficient" communications between he and the kidnappers had taken place. Typically, after a caller hears, 'Please leave your message at the sound of the tone,' they have sixty seconds or less to record a message, after which, the call autmatically ends. Of course "John Ramsey the kidnapper" could disguise his voice, leave a short message, and hang up before the "John Ramsey at home" has a chance to respond, but I would think the "real John Ramsey" would find that a bit risky given his plan already includes having the kidnappers confiscate the ransom note. Yet without that "fake message", John might instead be concerned about the length of call the phone company recorded--a length contingent upon the answering features of the answering machine. Would sixty seconds be long enough to communicate "sufficient" instructions from a kidnapper who composed a two and a half page ransome note seen by at least a few friends of the Ramsey's? What other credible ways could Ramsey tell the police he had received detailed instructions from the kidnappers to exchange money for his daughter? Am I wrong somewhere about how long calls made to answering machines and recorded by the phone company, can stretch out? In other words, would or could the call continue until "John the kidnapper" hangs up at HIS end?
Of course, as dispicable as it sounds, if there were an outside partner in crime, a friend with whom John "shared" JonBenet, my worries would disappear. I almost feel like an idiot having to ask it, but has that possibility already been "ruled out"?
Good question. I believe a call ends only after both parties hang up. If not, then John could have left some sort of nonsense "message" that could later be erased. Since the note put him in control, he could have claimed the call was very short, instructing him to check his mail slot or under a door. Where another note with detailed instructions could be found.
All sorts of possibilities once John is home alone.
It is possible that John was never going to stage a ransom drop phone call or note.
He didn't necessarily need to get Patsy out of the house in order to dispose of the body. All he needed to do was go to the bank to withdraw the money in preparation for the call, leaving Patsy at home for a phone call that would never come.
If John disappeared for over an hour with a house full of people and a police officer to complete his staging, then I'm sure he had a plan to get the body out with Patsy at home. The disposal site he had mapped out could have been temporary or he may have wanted to put her in a dumpster?
Yes, John would have had many options on the 26th if Patsy hadn't called 911. Assuming he couldn't get Patsy out of the house, he certainly could have moved the body from the basement to his car while she was distracted. As for the phone call from the "kidnappers," he could have claimed that they decided to leave another note instead of calling him, dropping it through the mail slot in his front door. But I don't think he'd have dared to dump the body until dark. He would probably have wrapped it in a garbage bag, or two, before placing it in the trunk.
It seems that the 'evidence" of BDI comes from a) snippets of Burke's police interviews as televised on the CBS infotainment, b) the suppositions of the same CBS infotainers / Kolar, and c) Burke's demeanor on his (equally infotainment) Dr Phil interview. The latter, BTW, apparently points to Burke being autistic/Aspergers/spectrum disorder.
I think my opinion on the CBS infotravesty is obvious - to me the "evidence" is that a 9 year old boy could have smashed in JBRs skull with force; Burke showed adult patterns of talking/casual disregard towards and miming of JBRs death; was not able to identify the pineapple when asked; and had an undefined occurrence of scatological issue.
Given the bulk of the police-interview evidence took - what maybe 3 minutes of screen time?.... How can we know what else was discussed / displayed for the rest of the quite sizeable interview time?
As Doc has pointed out several times before - you can look at the morass of individual data points and lose your perspective. In the case of Burke's behaviour in the police interviews, it seems that your data is extremely restricted...so pinning the crime on Burke is unsupported supposition based on very little logic or data.
Sisu, Kolar's book was written irrc in 2012 and was a detective that worked the case for 4 years, irrc. There have been BDI's since the late '90's as well as all the tabloid publications with the first decade of the murder. However, from Burke's own mouth his statements are different than what the family and the family's attorneys have claimed for almost 20 years.
DocG, I have read your blog several times over the last two or three years and in general I have a great deal of time for your line of argument. This, however, cannot be left unchallenged.
In “The Gospel according to St Paula”, you wrote:
“…not very different, I would think, from what a lawyer would present. (Note to my British readers: "from," NOT "than," an important distinction that seems to have been lost in your fog bound islands.) :-)”
Note, please, the observations on usage recorded in the Third Edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English:
“Different from, different than, and different to: are there any distinctions between these three constructions, and is one more correct than the others? In practice, different from is both the most common structure, both in British and US English, and the most accepted.
Different than is used chiefly in North America, although its use is increasing in British English. It has the advantage that it can be followed by a clause, and so is sometimes more concise than different from: compare things are definitely different than they were one year ago with things are definitely different from the way they were one year ago.
Different to is common in Britain, but is disliked by traditionalists. The argument against it is based on the relation of different to differ, which is used with from; but this is a flawed argument which is contradicted by other pairs of words such as accord (with) and according (to).”
“CHIEFLY IN NORTH AMERICA,” Doc!
An embarrassingly misplaced slight that cannot be papered over with a smiling face made of punctuation. Maybe BDI after all.
LOL! I was wondering when my little remark about British grammatical usage would trigger an indignant response.
For me there is a huge difference in grammar between "usage" and what could be called "the rules of standard English." It is now fashionable to accept certain constructions simply because they are in common use, even if their grammatical correctness is questionable. For me, the ultimate standard is not correctness per se, but logic. And as I hear it, "different than" is not logical while "different from" is. That could just be my own personal prejudice, based on what I learned as a kid, but I'm always bothered when someone writes (or says) "different than."
My impression has always been that the "than" form is more common among English writers than Americans, but that's based on my readings in various newspapers, journals, books, etc. The Oxford people may be basing their statistics on general, or colloquial usage and in that case I'd agree that many Americans do tend to use "than" rather than "from." I could certainly be wrong on this matter.
I must say I've formed the opinion that professional British writers tend generally to be more careless about the fine points of grammar than their American counterparts. For example, whenever I read something by a British author I get the impression that the word "to" has become a kind of all-purpose preposition, and especially whenever I see a phrase such as "different to" I cringe.
I see an important distinction between common usage and correct usage, and for me the correct usage is to be preferred, primarily because it is logical, whereas the common usage is not. If this sounds rather arbitrary or even snobbish, I wonder how you'd react if commonly used words or phrases such as "ya'll," or "yins" or "ain't" or "they be" were to appear on a regular basis in the writings of reporters, scientists, scholars or even bloggers.
Just for fun, I'm posting a random post from Inq. put through a dialectizer..."Okay, okay less calm down, as enny fool kin plainly see. We is all on hyar on account o' we still care about this hyar case, it's interestin', thar is missin' pieces of th' puzzle fo' all of us an' we like discussin' thin's thet he'p us make sense of it all, ah reckon. Thar were thin's about th' CBS special thet were thunk provokin', but lef' out. An' thar were thin's thet Kolar lef' outta his book. Shet mah mouth! In fack Kolar says on a Reddit site of quesshun an' answer thet he had a scenario writ but his atto'ney advised him t'leave it out, which he did, cuss it all t' tarnation. No one hyar reckons ennyone is an idiot, hopefully."
"It seems that the 'evidence" of BDI comes from a) snippets of Burke's police interviews as televised on the CBS infotainment, b) the suppositions of the same CBS infotainers / Kolar, and c) Burke's demeanor on his (equally infotainment) Dr Phil interview. The latter, BTW, apparently points to Burke being autistic/Aspergers/spectrum disorder"
No, Burke is the most credible suspect because there is evidence that "likely" puts him with JB that night. Further evidence point to Burke prodding her with the train track (only credible option put forward) and the fact that it is extremely hard to imagine Patsy not being involved. She wrote that note for sure and it doesnt mean anything that the body was still in the house when she made that 911 call. There is simply too many things pointing at Patsy being involved (which I'm not going to post again). So if both parents are involved it means Burke is a good bet. And then throw in his weird demeanor as a child and that pineapple interview, and the fact he went down into that basement more than anyone. Oh and he is the only one in that house to have struck JB before which was not an accident according to an eye witness.
I dont believe there was any prior sexual abuse...red herring in my opinion. But in case there was, it was most likely Burke and JB experimenting...they even shared a room. There is not a single trace of evidence that puts John as the one who instigated this murder. Not one.
Of course John played his part after but everything points to Burke given the facts, evidence and lack of evidence.
Zed, sorry.....but what a load of crap. We don't know that a train track was used to prod her, let alone that it was Burke who did so. We most certainly do not know that "Patsy wrote the note for sure" (which is an incredibly dishonest statement) and it means EVERYTHING that JB's body was still in the house when she made the call, because it completely negated the contents of the RN! You don't believe there was any prior sexual abuse, yet claim "if there was" it had to have been by Burke.....which is it, then? As far as there not being a single trace of evidence that points to John, well, you're only seeing what you want to see, thus it is a waste of time arguing with you.
I dont give a crap what a stranger thinks about my credibility lol. But I think this case is simply a lot of speculation and fantasy all built off nothing. You need to put all of that out of focus and look at the facts and the facts lead to Burke being the most likely suspect. Not that I give two hoots what CBS had to say, but I'm glad experts with more experience and skills than everyone on this blog put together also came to that likely conclusion.
If you're so certain we're all a bunch of idiots, it begs the question as to why you are choosing to participate in a discussion where you have so much disdain for the other members of this group? In a blog like this one, where we all share a common denominator - the hope of putting the pieces together of a twenty year old crime - credibility IS important, whether you give two hoots or not. You are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts.
Regarding the CBS Special, everybody is acting like they investigated for 4 hours and showed us what they found. Listening to the podcast with Jim Clemente, they discussed how over 100 hours of investigation went into this and they had to only show the 4 hours that aired. They were privy to ALL the interrogation tapes, interviews, evidence, etc. Just because the White's weren't shown, they talked to them for hours about what they observed. Recreating the house was key because they could see the layout and match the testimony from all the living Ramsey's testimony to see what did or didn't make sense. So after having leading experts in their field pour over ALLLLLL of this, they all came to the conclusion that BDI. If you want to question it that is fine, but to act like the whole think was crap is pure laziness and ignorance. Regarding the theory of the RN being intended for the money drop of the 27th, not the 26th.....this is a stretch for me. It begs the question...WHY GO TO ALL THIS EFFORT, ONLY TO LEAVE IT UP TO PURE CHANCE THAT MORNING AND ALLOW PR TO MAKE THE 911 CALL? I'm sorry, I have never seen a decent explanation to this. Some say he wasn't in the room when it happened, even though both JR and PR said he was on the ground reading the note while she called. Regarding the date of pickup, why not just write "we will call you on the 27th?" The way it's written doesn't immediately suggest that and leaves way too much room for interpretation. Plus it says that an earlier pickup of their daughter can be arranged, so it nullifies the 27th completely. This blog has gone in circles and since everybody is entitled to their own opinion.....well, except those who believe an IDI because that's craziness :-) Some people hang onto a massive conspiracy for JFK because they just can't accept that Lee Harvey Oswald a complete nobody was responsible for the death of our President. I think that might be why some struggle with BDI so much. John molesting her and covering up his crimes is much jucier than her awkward brother snapping in a moment of anger and hitting her over the head.
If John wrote the note, which I believe he did, it was because he wanted to delay calling the police until the next day. That Patsy foiled his plan leaves only two broad possibilities as to why.
1) Patsy picked up the phone before John had an opportunity to stop her. He said he heard Patsy scream and ran down the stairs. By the time he arrived Patsy could have already started talking to the 911 operator.
2) John underestimated Patsy's emotional response to the combined stimuli of finding her daughter gone and finding a ransome note indicating that she had been kidnapped.
The second possibility presents a lot of problems and new possibilities. As John was "catching up" on the contents of the letter, Patsy was somewhere between two extremes: a) she was patiently and rationally waiting for him to process the entire contents of the letter to observe his reaction and hear his recommendation(s) and b) she was already yelling htsyerically "we've GOT to call the police" before John even had the letter in his hands.
When the police arrived, John and Patsy may have had different stories as to who said what to whom before the call was placed, but neither of them voluntered that Patsy called 911 "immediately" without waiting for John to get down the stairs.
John would have little reason to rebuke Patsy after making the call even though his mind would have been in full gear as to what to do next, now that his plan had been foiled. Exasperated? Yes. Outwardly angry? No. To a businessman of John's stature, water under the bridge is just that---water under the bridge. An angry John would have had to appologize to Patsy and concede she had done the right thing, while at the same time, offer her a convincing reason why she avoid telling the authorities she had decided unilaterally to call 911. How could he have done that? There was no reason yet for Patsy to believe that she and John needed to present a united front on any paticulars leading up to that call. There was no reason for either of them to lie and John had to have known that. He would also have known that much more crucial "gaslightly" of Patsy would be necessary in the days ahead.
A dispute, therefore had to have occured BEFORE the call was placed that John had time to resolve so that he and Patsy presented, if not a "united" front, one that was at least not suspiciously inconsistent. If Patsy later betrayed an agreement not to call the police--say while he was in the shower, or searching the house, John THEN would then have Patsy's own erratic behavior as leverage to begin gaslighting her.
" Look Patsy, you called the police...what's done is done. But you've got to calm down, not just for the sake of our daughter, but because there's gonna be a load of questions. To get the authorities entirely focused on the kidnappers ASAP, we've got to present a united front and remain calm." Let's fly with your reasoning that it's best to call the police right away rather than wait. You called the police while I went to check on Burke..."
OK, first of all: according to Patsy, as interviewed on A&E, she told John she was going to call the police and he said "OK," and then ran to check on Burke while she "ran downstairs" to make the call. I doubt if it was that simple, since John would not have agreed so readily. But in fact we have no way of knowing what went on between them at that time. If she ran downstairs, however, then it sounds like she was running from John -- because there was a phone on every floor. This version differs dramatically from the one in their book. If they were in it together they'd have gotten their stories straight.
"if John wanted to delay calling the police until the next day, he would not have left a note at all."
Excuse me? And why would he assume he could get away with that? "My daughter went missing on Thursday, but we decided not to report it until Friday"???
"the risk that the White's would have called 911,"
I'd assume that, if Patsy had been alarmed enough to refrain from calling the police out of fear her daughter would be beheaded, she'd have explained her fears to the Whites and they would have understood. She was the mother, so it would have been her decision to make, not theirs.
"the risk that a body that is decomposing smells, the risk that a cadaver dog could trace a decomposing body from the basement to the garage to the trunk of John Ramsey's car."
Well obviously John ran some risks, yes. But what choice would he have had? He needed to hide the body from Patsy and he needed to delay calling the police.
However. Once the body is out of the house, there is no longer any reason to assume it would ever have been stored in that basement room. So it's possible cadaver dogs would never have been taken there. I think John was hoping the authorities would simply accept it as a homicide associated with a kidnapping and that would be that. If all went smoothly according to his plan, then, as he saw it at least, there would have been no reason to bring cadaver dogs into his home.
Whether it would have played out that way, we may never know. There were certainly risks associated with that plan and that would have been one of them.
Inqui - it's been awhile since I've read statements by Patsy, but there sure seemed to be quite the fuzzy memory about so many things. Not sure if it could be blamed on psychotropic drugs or deflection. She couldn't remember the last time JonBenet had a bath, thought the pineapple bowl had to be part of the crime scene,didn't recognize "that" maglite, that teddy bear...and yes, the over-sized panties. Police irrc removed 15 pair of the small size, no other big bloomies were found in the house. I think it was more than a year later the family produced the rest of the package said to be purchased for the niece.
In her August 2000 police interview Patsy stated she bought the size 12 panties from Bloomingdale's in November of 1996 as a gift for her niece, Jenny. CC
Yes, I see here she was lying about who she purchased those panties for not that she purchased them. I got that wrong. And I see you addressed it in a different blog. We still have to wonder why she was acting so confused over the issue. Trying to distance herself from the "redressing." Okay, I have a question here. Doc, maybe you can answer it. Steve Thomas thinks Patsy killed JB over a bedwetting issue. Yet her bladder did give out outside the wine cellar room during or after death. Is there anything on record where Patsy is asked if JB wet the bed that night? Is there anywhere where Patsy says she woke JB up after John carried her to her bed, to go to the bathroom?
I see no evidence she lied about anything. She says she purchased them for an older girl, as a gift. But never managed to actually send them to her. She was clearly confused by all the importance given to those panties, and all the time spent on what must have appeared to her as a trivial issue. I do think Patsy was asked about bed wetting and what she said was that, yes, JonBenet was wetting the bed. As far as the night of the murder is concerned, however, she made it clear that JonBenet was fast asleep when she put her to bed and that was the last she saw of her alive. And it seems clear from her testimony that she was wearing normal sized panties when put to bed.
Just read the whole 2000 interview. Patsy just wouldn't acknowledge that she put those oversized panties on her. Wouldn't that have been simpler? And I do see in that interview where she removed JB's black jeans before bed and put on the white longjohns. But then when questioned if she noticed the oversized panties were on she did not, nor did she change the panties she was wearing. So my question is still, was Patsy questioned about whether JB was taken to the bathroom after being changed into the longjohns, or was there any bedwetting that night. Obviously Patsy doesn't want anything to do with putting those oversized panties on her.
"Patsy just wouldn't acknowledge that she put those oversized panties on her. Wouldn't that have been simpler?"
Yes, if she had been the one to put them on her. But we have no reason to assume she was. What possible reason would she have had to lie about that?
What makes you think it "obvious" that Patsy denied putting those panties on her? I'm sorry Inq, but the logic behind some of your claims totally escapes me.
1) Patsy tried to say that Jenny was a little girl with a panty size not too dissimilar to JB's (Jenny is age 11-12, JB age 6) 2) Patsy said she "commonly" bought size 8-10 size panties for JB making the size 12-14 seem less unusual 3) and she tried to say that size 12-14 panties were only a "little bit big." I've raised a boy and a girl. I would know not to put a size 12 panty on a age 6 little girl. She knows who put those panties on JB and she knows when and why. Either it was because she wet the bed around the time she was killed and those panties were used, or she put them on her after the crime. You think John put them on her, right? Certainly we can agree an intruder didn't put them on her as there was no intruder. so that leaves John or Patsy.
Patsy said the oversized panties were not on her when she changed her out of her jeans and into the longjohns. But she was found with them on. If you think John put them on her that is as much of a theory as mine is that she put them on her.
I actually think it's possible that when JB got up she may have put them on herself. That is why I asked if there was any evidence of bed wetting that night as Steve Thomas says there was. I'm asking.
Yes, Patsy did try to explain away the discrepancy. That's not the same as lying. It's clear that she just didn't see the point of all these questions about oversized panties.
As with the other "lies" she is alleged to have made, we have to ask what motive she would have had to lie -- and for the life of me I can't see any.
Looks to me like the only person with a motive to change JonBenet's panties would have been John. And the only reason would have been if he was afraid that something incriminating might be found on the original pair. The only thing I can think of is: semen. Well, obviously Patsy wouldn't have been concerned about semen if she were the one who killed her. So once again we have to ask: what reason would she have had to change her daughter's panties and what reason would she have had to lie about it? And we must also recognize that Patsy would have known enough not to change her into a pair far too large, while John probably wasn't even aware of the difference.
She was not lying about for whom the panties were purchased, the confusion is all yours. You have a bad habit of creating "facts" out of whole cloth in an attempt to bolster your arguments. CC
Reading some old blogs CC you have a bad habit of angrily attacking everyone you take issue with. I'm going about this by trying to find out things. You however are angry over nothing. I've cited everything I can in the past, including information you have passed on.
" .....John....went directly to the basement, opened the door, screamed and only then, as White suspiciously noticed, turned on the lights. Later it was reported that John had said the body had been 'right out in the open'. If it had been in the open, White would no doubt have seen it. More likely it had been hidden in a dark corner."
I am having trouble understanding the order of the various house searches conducted by the police, Fleet White alone, John Ramsey alone, and John and Fleet together. In one TV documentary, we are told the first policeman to search the house found the door to the room containing JonBenet locked. You do not mention that in your book.
I have also read conflicting reports as to what Fleet White did after he opened the (locked?) door. Your account suggests he advanced into the room far enough, and had enough light, to see nothing out in the open. So, when John later entered the room and screamed immediately with FW right on his tail, wouldn't Fleet have exeperienced almost panic-like suspicions as to how her body went from "hidden in a dark corner" to "right out in the open"? Did Fleet pass on these suspicions to the police? Another account I read reported that when Fleet opened the door, he barely stepped inside and didn't even turn on the lights.
What are the facts, as you understand them? Could you provide a list in time sequential order, of all the various searches made by all the various parties, and the salient findings each party reported? If possible could you include time gaps that may have provided John opportunities to be in the basement alone to stage and unstage the crime? You don't need to get into window business; my curiosity for the moment has only to do with the room the body was found in (e.g. did it, in fact, HAVE any "dark corners" to hide things in?) the finding of the body itself, and what's on record in so far what Fleet did or did not see or report.
As I understand it, it would seem as though the first one down in the basement was most likely John, either immediately after the police were called or shortly after they arrived. That would be when he noticed the window open and then closed it (telling no one about what he'd found.)
Next was probably the policeman, who tried to open the door but couldn't locate the latch at the top that was keeping it closed. So he just gave up.
Next would most likely be Fleet, who apparently knew where the latch was and, according to his testimony, opened the door. But he couldn't locate the light switch so never turned on the light. It's important to realize that at this time in the morning, his eyes would have been dark-adapted, making it possible for him to see into the room at least part of the way, even without a light on. He says he saw nothing unusual.
Finally, around 1PM, John opened that same door and, according to Fleet, who was apparently right behind him, immediately screamed out. Only after screaming did he turn on the light. NB: at 1 PM John's eyes would not have been dark-adapted -- making it less likely for him to see JonBenet's body in the dark than it would have been for Fleet, who looked inside that room before sunrise.
In any case, Fleet did report his suspicions regarding John's being able to see his daughter's body in the same dark room where Fleet saw nothing.
My thinking is that either: 1. the body was not originally in that room, but possibly in the trunk of the car, and moved there later, when John went AWOL on Arndt. or 2. the body had been hidden under a blanket in a far corner of the room where Fleet would not have been able to see it. And then quickly moved by John to the front of the room, where he claimed he saw it that afternoon.
Doc, I agree with your theories for the most part, but I must question your belief in 'dark-adapted' eyes.This 'adaption', to the best of my knowledge, is lost once your eyes are exposed to light. That is why soldiers cover one or both eyes at night when a flare pops overhead. If I remember correctly it takes 10 minutes to 're-adapt' to the dark. I assume the Ramsey house was not left in pitch dark that morning.
The adaptation is not immediately lost. And the lights in the Ramsey home would not have been nearly as bright as sunlight. In my experience one's eyes can be dark adapted for some time unless exposed to really bright light.
Fair enough. I think it could be argued that any light coming from a source outside the dark cellar would have provided enough illumination to 'highlight' a white blanket on the floor. However, at the time Fleet went in they were not looking for a body but an entrance/escape for intruder for which the cellar had neither.
Fair enough. I would think it could be argued that light from outside the open cellar door would have been enough to 'highlight' a white blanket on the floor. I believe JBR was not in the cellar when Flint first looked, or if she was, she definitely was not in the 'middle' of the floor under the blanket. Love the post and the debating, less liking the recent arguing.
I just wanted to say that the motive of two "normal" parents covering up the murder of their beloved daughter by their son by an elaborate kidnapping where they likely could go to jail is highly unlikely. They also would have deep resentment towards that son. That doesn't seem to be the case here as Patsy said she didn't know what she would do without her son. She wouldn't say that if he killed JB, either or purpose or accident. The motive of a father sexually abusing his daughter is much more likely. Additionally, JB who frequently had accidents in the bed, wore pull ups, so it doesn't seem that "having an accident" would be a concern. I have son, he's not potty trained yet, he wears pull ups, it's no big deal. And if he does soil the bed, I love him so dearly, that I do not care. I simply clean it up. If I had a housekeeper, I would just instruct her to clean it up. No reason to freak out so I don't buy that patsy did it. JR did.
I disagree on that Patsy comment regarding what she said about Burke. To me, that was a pure moment of her letting her guard down and letting out some fear/anxiety about people finding out what Burke had done.
Burke wasn't a murderer, he wasn't a bad kid, he may have had a demeanour a bit different to kids that age but thats it. He struck out in anger or in jest without realising it could be fatal (which kids do....who else in that else would have struck her in the head? Certainly not the parents in my opinion). He was probably crying and very upset when he woke his parents up and I'm sure Patsy was absolutely mortified and upset and angry to the extreme. But they had to make a decision and it was an accident and she loved Burke more than anything (even if people say she loved JB more which is bollocks).
So Patsy saying what she said about Burke was quite the opposite to what you stated, of course that is my opinion.
I realize we're going in circles here, but I just want to be clear. You say "they had to make a decision". And instead of calling the police immediately, they decided to write a phony ransome note, undermine its credibility by making sure all the doors in the house were locked and the windows shut, hide a dead body in the cellar, and THEN call the police for them to later discover that JonBent had not been beheaded but sexually abused, hit over the head, and strangled.
I'll say this for your theory. Burke would be a lot better off today if John and Patsy had just called the police right away. He could have gone through therapy learning to "accept" what he had done instead of having to "live with it" silently for the rest of his life.
If, as you say, Patsy loved "loved Burke more than anything", why should she have any "fear/anxiety about people finding out what (he) had done"? Sounds to me like someone who loved herself more than anything.
Zed, if Burke wasn't "a bad kid", I'm presuming you believe his part in this crime was solely the blow to the head, am I correct? Which means, in order to accept your theory, we must believe that after he struck his sister, his parents were faced with a choice....."Do we call 911 and save our daughter? Or do we strangle her instead, making sure she is dead so that she can't tell on her brother"? Which, of course means they were ultimately the ones who tied the garrote around her neck, making them guilty of the murder of their daughter?
The body very well may have been somewhere else that morning. LE should well have checked the cars and trunks as well as dogs should have been there at 6am. Knowing BPD as we do I doubt they ever brought in dogs and never checked the cars and trunks. Doc, do we know for fact that JBR was never in that suitcase ? Judging from the far away pic, it looks like a pretty decent sized suitcase and my bet is if she was not in that suitcase at some time, that was his plan at some point.
I've always thought that suitcase was intended for JonBenet too. I've read that it was discovered filled with other contents, but it's never been reported, so far as I know, to have been searched for trace evidence of JN's body having been in there, nor was it kept for future DNA analysis. Maybe Doc can shed more light on this.
There is chapter in Woodward's book devoted to Patsy's life/illness which I found very insightful (and very heartbreaking). Patsy's cancer (and surgeries) and what she went through during that time was horrific -- returning from her treatments (sometimes alone on the plane) only to be hospitalized in Boulder almost as soon as she returned. She was a terminal patient that had survived from experimental treatments with very low odds for a cure. The children were not able to get close to her while she was staying in the guest room due to her immune system being compromised. There is no doubt that her illness traumatically affected everyone in her family. My point is that Patsy most likely felt the cancer could/ would return at any time and that her time left on this earth was uncertain. I believe because of her state of mind, she would have done anything to protect her family and preserve what time she had left with them.
I decided to go back to past blogs and see what people wrote before. I was struck by some very good arguments from Hercule, no longer on here, dated May-August 2015. He goes toe to toe with everyone, in particular Doc, with some beautiful analysis and writing of his own. He is of the PDI theory and I have to agree, is very persuasive. So for those of you that are interested, go back and read it.
One of Hercule's points is that if John had written that note he would have put it where HE could find it - not Patsy - if his intention was to not have LE called. The critical points he makes are exhibited in the May - August 2015 blogs.
Hercule's arguments seem based almost exclusively on his own personal interpretations of how people are expected to behave and, his dubious claim that he is some sort of expert on psychology. Perhaps if Hercule had left a phony ransom note for his wife to find he'd have done it differently. If it had been me, I'd have done it the way John did it, because it might look more suspicious if I were to find it. On balance, I don't see any reason to assume one way of doing it is any more meaningful than the other when it comes to assigning guilt.
Hercule's "critical points" are almost always based on his own personal assumptions and speculations, which are sometimes way out there. His comments led to some interesting discussion but on the whole I found it difficult to take him seriously, as did many others.
Not only could I not take Hercules' theory about bedwetting and psychomommy seriously, he insulted others as being less educated than himself.
John could have, if he wanted to be the discoverer of the note, gone downstairs before Patsy and been the one to call out to her. This idea that he wouldn't have put it at the bottom of those stairs is just plain stupid logic. Whoever came downstairs first would find the note, even if it was left on the kitchen counter. Where is a spot that only John would find it? Name that spot -- his toilet seat? Like Doc said, putting it somewhere very specific to John would indeed be very suspicious. -LE
Regarding calling 911 vs. staging. This seems to be the biggest debate on here other than who people think did it. We have no clue what went on in that house. There are reports of BR spreading his fecal matter in JBR’s room and in her stuff. If prior molestation was taking place, it could have been from Burke. I don’t know if it was confirmed, but Burke is said to have aspergers, so for people saying Burke would be SO much better off had they just called 911, I don’t know how you can say this. The police have charged him with anything. Most in law enforcement over the years never considered him a suspect and he has lived as normal a life as you could under the circumstances. Had they called 911, he FOREVER would be the kid who killed his sister regardless of it being an accident.
In the Casey Anthony trial, Casey not only killed Caylee, but she also accused her Dad of sexually abusing her (no evidence of this.) Even after all that, her Mom got on the witness stand and said that she was the one researching chloroform on the family computer in an attempt to save her daughter. Not a single person on here truly knows that they would have done if they had been given the same circumstance. It’s very easy to say “oh, call 911 for sure” but how can you truly say that? Yes, the staging was absolutely horrific, but an affluent family might have thought that Burke would forever be a pariah and they would forever be the parents of 2 kids, one who was murdered by the other.
"I don’t know if it was confirmed, but Burke is said to have aspergers, so for people saying Burke would be SO much better off had they just called 911, I don’t know how you can say this. The police (could) have charged him with anything. Most in law enforcement over the years never considered him a suspect and he has lived as normal a life as you could under the circumstances."
1) The "as normal a life" as is possible "under the circumstances" are YOUR preferred circumstances, so that is hardly an argument at all.
2) If Burke had aspergers, that just would have made it easier for the Ramsey's to opt for calling the police.
You can't accuse someone purely on the basis of speculations regarding what they might possibly have done. There is no evidence linking Burke to this crime nor is there any reason to assume a 9 year old would be sexually abusing his six year old sister. In the vast majority of such cases, such abuse is committed by an adult male, not a skinny kid fixated on video games.
"You can't accuse someone purely on the basis of speculations"
ummmmmmmmm you created a Blog based on pure speculations. There isn't definitive evidence of prior molestation, but IF there was, my point is that it could have been Burke just as much as John or Patsy. Just because history says it was the father doesn't make it true in this case.
Doc's case is based on a lot more than "pure speculation", and as far as any definitive evidence of prior molestation goes, it makes not one iota of difference in regards to John's guilt as far as I'm concerned, as the evidence that I have seen here supports the conclusion that John Ramsey murdered his daughter, whatever his motive. If you feel that your own speculations - and they are nothing more than suppositions and "what ifs", you have given us no "definitive evidence" whatsoever - are more compelling in naming the actual killer than Doc's are, why not start your own blog? This blog that we are currently commenting on is the ONLY one that has made complete sense of the ransom note, John's lies in regards to the basement window, along with a few of his other, very telling "omissions" and untruths, but if you can offer more, why not go ahead and do so? I say this with all sincerity, as I am always looking for new forums to discuss the case.
Hey J, good morning. Have you gone back and read Hercule's blogs? I've been a BDI (suspected it before) since Kolar's book but I disagree with his premise that the head blow happened in the kitchen. IF it had happened in the kitchen, by Burke, then how would he have gotten JB downstairs for the strangulation. Kolar does not believe Burke did the strangulation. And that brings me back to having it unbelievable that either parent would cover in such a brutal way. And of course as you may know I have suggested Burke did all of it and that it all occurred in the basement (and not over pineapple :)). However I was very swayed by Steve Thomas in the beginning. And so if you read Hercule's points - Hercule, where are you? - he makes a very plausible case for PDI, and did all of it. And so I think we owe it to ourselves to give him a listen once again. And Hercule, if you are out there I would be interested in how you refute Burke did it theorists.
I havent gone back and I actually haben't read Kolar's book either. I generally don't read a lot of books unless it has Harry Potter in the title :-)
Regarding where she was hit, I think there are a few possibilities. Either he chased her around the house and she was running to his train room where he struck her OR it happened in the kitchen and one of the parents carried her downstairs. I have said this in other post's, but I know I have witnessed nieces and nephews or kids at school hit a sibling with a toy, branch or other object. The difference is that he used a Maglite Flashlight and that sudden act of violence killed her.
J, so you then believe that a parent carried her downstairs and when she didn't come to strangled her and did a staging that included a sexual assault, then wrote a note. by the way if you would like to talk Casey Anthony I'd love to, but on a different venue other than here.
I'm open to what that venue would be. I have some opinions on that case too, but based on something I read earlier this year that convinced me the jury got it right. Not involving George though. By the way you know Spitz testified for the defense in that case, right?
hey....regarding the Casey Anthony case, I honestly am 100% certain she did it. I think she chloroformed Caylee like she had done on other nights to go out and party. Unfortunately, Caylee died this time and then everything else that followed was a cover up. Her parents had no involvement whatsoever in the death.
and if I may add we are getting a spate of BDI's because of the CBS special. In May of 2015 we did not have too many BDI's. Kolar is a "dry read." He is most probably a good investigator, but not such an interesting writer.
No, not me. I was most intrigued with what Burke was going to say to Dr. Phil. But was sorely disappointed - it was pure Dr. Phil drama. So before that aired I went to see what was "new" on this case and found this site. I'd also been hoping for years Burke would be questioned again so I continued to check for updates and found none.
The only way I can believe BDI is if BR commits all elements of the crime sans the cover up. If he only hit JBR over the head in a fit of anger and did not strangle JBR and sexually assault her, then we would have had a 911 call for medical assistance not to report a kidnapping. I personally cannot believe a parent or parents would cover up an assault (blow to the head) with a murder.
Well then, we agree on one thing! And going by the fact that Burke has lived twenty years without incident, I think it's safe to say he is not a homicidal maniac who sexually abused, then garroted his sister after delivering a fatal blow......right? Do you sincerely think someone that deranged at nine years old would go on to live a perfectly normal life (forget about his social awkwardness - not important) without further incident? Come on now.....at some point, logic must prevail.
PR: And I uh, I ran back upstairs and pushed open the door to her room and she wasn’t in her bed. In episode 4 of Real Crime Profile (Podcast) they discuss in more detail the statement above made by PR. In recreating the house they were able to see the layout of the house and most importantly JBR’s room. When pushing her door open, they said you would only be able to see the bed, but not much around it. You couldn’t see the closets, the bathroom or the side of the bed. So, what is extremely troubling by Patsy’s statement above is, what mother would see this note and not run into the room tearing it apart looking for her? You wouldn’t look for an open window? She burst the door open, looks quickly and then screams for John Ramsey that she was kidnapped. Neither John or Patsy Ramsey is running around the house looking for a sign of a kidnapper? I know the JDI crowd will justify this, but to me, this is extremely troubling behavior by a mother who supposedly thought her daughter was gone.
I think the very easy answer to my above comments are that Patsy didn’t need to tear the house apart looking for JBR because she already knew where she was.
She didn't necessarily need to tear the house apart because she thought the note was genuine, she knew her daughter was supposed to be in bed, and when she was not found in bed she freaked out, thinking that bad guys had her child. I would have first gone to get my husband...then looked. My main focus would be "how did they get in? What door is open? Are they outside now, watching me?"
She NEVER tore the house apart. She calls 911 and then invites friends to come over. Anybody who is a parent knows they would take a bullet for their child.....IF PR wasn't involved she didn't seem too concerned with finding out any details. Doesn't even tell the friends who came over about the Ransom Note.
She didn't give details on the phone, but obviously told the Fernies and Whites when they arrived - that's what sent Fleet on his 6 AM search of the basement. CC
CC that just isn't true according to Fleet White. He said he didn't even find out about the RN from the Ramseys. He heard about it later in the morning
Fleet and Priscilla's daughter had gone missing once and they ended up finding her hiding somewhere. SO, Fleet got there and asked the Ramsey's if they called out her name looking for her and the Ramseys's said no. Thats when Fleet started saying her name and went looking for her. They were never told about the Ransom note from the Ramseys. Listen to it....episode 4 of Real Crime Profile, around 14 minute mark.
"When pushing her door open, they said you would only be able to see the bed, but not much around it."
OMG! And these people call themselves law enforcement professionals? Just because Patsy says she pushed the door open, they assume that's all she did? They expect her to give a full account of what she looked for and what she saw? Talk about making assumptions!
The confirmation bias is so obvious as to be embarrassing. They are looking for anything and everything they can find that could make Patsy look like she's being deceptive. For shame!
"They expect her to give a full account of what she looked for and what she saw? Talk about making assumptions!"
YES, every DETAIL does matter! Are you serious with these responses? You have picked apart every single bit of what John has said and done, so YES I BELIEVE EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF WHAT PATSY DID THAT MORNING IS IMPORTANT! Did she see a window open? Was any other items missing from her room that she noticed?
CC, ummmm no. She wasn't conforming the second she called the police and then friends to come over. If she believed the note then she would have believed she was being watched, not bugged.
Given the obvious confirmation bias of these "investigators" I would want to know exactly what it is Fleet White said before jumping to conclusions about what it might mean. He had certainly been told that JonBenet had been kidnapped. Otherwise why all the fuss? And if Patsy had been up half the night writing her ransom note, why on earth wouldn't she be waving it around that morning for everyone to see?
If Fleet doesn't recall being informed about the ransom note till later, so what? He had to know about the kidnapping. The note was probably in the hands of a policeman at that point anyhow. What on earth would Patsy have had to gain by not informing Fleet about that note?
Trying VERY hard not to get sarcastic folks -- but you try me, you try me.
People in Chicago know that Jay Cutler is the worst QB. Yet, there is a group of Jay Cutler apologists that despite all of the obvious evidence of him being bad staring you in the face, they have an excuse for everything. Receivers fault, bad o line, bad coaching, bad weather, bad running backs,etc. What's funny about these apologists is that no matter what proof to the contrary of their belief the stand strong through more excuses, belittling or name calling. hmmmmmm reminds me of somebody and I just can't put my finger on it
The lady said she pushed the door open. Did she say that's all she did? No, of course not. Why would anyone assume that's all she did?
Fleet said he wasn't told about the ransom note right away. So you assume he knew nothing about any kidnapping? Then why was he there? Are you saying knowledge about the note was withheld from him deliberately? Any notion as to why? Or what makes that suspicious?
My God, these people claim to be experts yet they demonstrate a total incapacity to assess the meaning of what they've learned.
you can read my response below....but the note was signed S.B.T.C so IF Patsy believed the note to be true, you don't find it even the slightest bit odd that she wouldn't be asking their friends if they had ever heard of S.B.T.C?
IF Patsy believed the note, she didn't seem too concerned with calling the police, but my question is, WHY call friends to come over when the note says to not tell anybody? Furthermore, WHY wouldn't you explain to your friends about the Ransom Note and tell them to be on the lookout? Lastly, WHY aren't the Ramseys asking the White's, coworkers and other friends if they noticed ANYBODY suspicious?
I can't imagine that Patsy didn't tell her friends that JonBenet had been kidnapped. If Fleet can't recall seeing the note, then maybe he wasn't shown the note. But he was certainly informed of the kidnapping. Otherwise why would they be there?
"IF Patsy believed the note, she didn't seem too concerned with calling the police, but my question is, WHY call friends to come over when the note says to not tell anybody? "
You know that this question has been answered no less than two dozen times at this point, J.
Stop asking bullshit questions and read Doc's blog in it's entirety, or just accept you don't know enough of what he's talking about to comment honestly.
The RN clearly alludes to details specific to the Ramseys in reference to Johns bonus ($118,000). So, YES, it would have been extremely important for the Ramseys to discuss the note with friends once they were at the house to see if they had any idea of who could be behind it. To see if they noticed anything.
Doc makes a fair point, J: the cops would have bagged and tagged the RN the moment they walked through the door; it would not have been passed around among the friends, which is not to say they were not told about it. Your podcast scoop may be a mere matter of semantics. CC
CC.......according to the White's, the Ramsey's NEVER discussed it with them. Forget showing them the note....they NEVER told them about it. Regardless of who you think did it, this is just unexplainable behavior.
If true, I'll concede that it's weird. Mr. Fergie stated he looked through the back door on arrival and saw the RN on the floor, or on the step. Are you suggesting he didn't share that info with his wife and the Whites? The entire group sat there for hours for an undefined crisis of some sort? CC
Please listen to the podcast. Im not saying that to be rude, but it will help to hear it from them rather than me. If the Ramsey's just told them there was a kidnapping, but didn't say a thing about the RN, then it's very curious. If Patsy truly believed the note, then I would think she would be asking about S.B.T.C and what they thought it might mean. Ask their friends who were with them the night before if they noticed anything strange or suspected anybody. According to Fleet they were never told about the RN from the Ramseys.
I don't understand how one could tell them there had been a kidnapping without it logically following that there was a ransom note, but have it your way. CC
I think it's fair to point out that you're accusing "the Ramseys", but confining your criticism to Patsy, when presumably, if your podcast is correct, John exhibited equally odd behavior. CC
I thought Mr. Fergie stated that he had actually read part of the RN through the window. So there is no way that he, if no one else, did not relay this to everyone else at the house. Surely they all knew what was going on.
It would make sense not to show the ransom note to the very people you planned on implicating in the murder. John Ramsey threw both Fleet White and Barbara Fernie under the bus. For example, didn't John Ramsey mention during one of his interviews that the only person he heard use the term "use that good common southern sense" was Barbara? Is it possible that John, the expert at deflection, had this in mind and would want his "targets" to know as little as possible regarding content? Suzs
The Whites know that Patsy and John were in on it. Unlike us, they were there that morning and were very close to the Ramseys. I'm sure they know Burke was responsible as well.
I seriously can't believe people think Patsy was completely in the dark when making that 911 call. Still blows my mind.
Also found this comment from Doc a bit odd:
"You can't accuse someone purely on the basis of speculations regarding what they might possibly have done. There is no evidence linking Burke to this crime nor is there any reason to assume a 9 year old would be sexually abusing his six year old sister. In the vast majority of such cases, such abuse is committed by an adult male, not a skinny kid fixated on video games."
Seriously? You have not only accused John on exactly the same premise, but you've gone and wrote a book and created a blog on it. I have read every blog and comment on this site and I'm still waiting for the teeniest bit of evidence that points to John "instigsting" the crime. But I won't see anything because there is done. I for one think the whole sexual abuse thing is a complete red herring, but on the chance I am wrong Burke was a much more likely candidate than John. Burke shared a room with her for crying out loud and siblings experimenting is extremely common. And that just gives more reasons for the parents covering for Burke (if it was true) because I assumed they found out about it.
There is no direct evidence that locks in anyone but if you look at all the circumstantial evidence I would be seriously AMAZED BEYOND BELIEF if Patsy was not involved...its just unthinkable. And based on the evidence there is, Burke is by far and away the most likely culprit who started this thing (accident). He may have even put on the garrote he made weeks in advance as a joke...maybe, maybe not. But that gives even more fuel to why the parents would cover for him. Over and out.
Then you take a crack at my two questions, Zed: if they were in it together, why wasn't the window staging complete? And why weren't their subsequent stories about it in synch? CC
If the staging were not completed then why would JR clean up the glass ? It probably would have taken less time to complete the staging than it would to clean up the glass.
Agree with both of you...the window was odd. The major thing that sticks out is this
-If the window was previosuly broken by JR months earlier, than there is nothing to talk about because Patsy would have been aware of it. But IF, the window was broken on the 25th and JR used the broken window story to cover for himself, there is absolutely NO scenario that PR wouldn't have known about it. So, if she had zero involvement in this whole thing, the window story told by JR would have been a HUGE red flag for her.
I have to agree with you on that J. The only thing that is possible is if she was covering for JR or if he did manipulate or gaslight her into it. Either of the latter produce a big fat red flag to PR imo.
None of which provide any logical answer for what originally happened with that window. What would make sense is if it were broken during whatever happened that night during JBR's assault and then cleaned up. Later on JR realizes that it may be believable to use this window to say an intruder could have come through and PR goes along with this story or she is on it. There is no evidence of this but it does make complete sense in this light.
Zed, the premise on which I've based this blog and my book is made clear in the first two posts. It is NOT based on assumptions and speculation. That's your dept. not mine.
Zed, you would be "AMAZED BEYOND BELIEF if Patsy was not involved...its just unthinkable."
Sure, that is enough to convince me she was involved. Because you can't envision a more likely scenario. And you say Doc's theory is based "on assumptions and speculations". Well, even if that were true, at least he hasn't based them off of gut feelings as you have.
"And based on the evidence there is, Burke is by far and away the most likely culprit who started this thing (accident). He may have even put on the garrote he made weeks in advance as a joke...maybe, maybe not. But that gives even more fuel to why the parents would cover for him. Over and out."
Give me one - just one scrap of evidence - other than your *feeling* that Burke may have made this garrote "weeks in advance", when there is not ONE IOTA of evidence he made it at all? Then, perhaps you may answer the question I have asked you no less than four times over the past few weeks: if it is that Burke only delivered the fatal blow, and had no part in the garroting (you oscillate between the two theories) why JB's parents, on finding their unconscious child, would decide to strangle their only daughter and mutilate her vagina in order to protect their only son, rather than simply stage an accident? The staged "accident" wouldn't have required a ransom note written in handwriting that could be traced back to them, nor would they have to worry about tying complicated garrotes or the FBI becoming involved.
Ms D, your questions are fair, but none of us were there....actually you might be surprised, but unless you or Doc are Burke Ramsey, you weren't in the Ramsey house that night. SO, what are we left with? Our FEELING regarding the evidence that we have
I have seen soooooo many versions of the JDI theory that I would love to see a definitive answer (not from Doc) on what they think happened
-Was it Premeditated? -Was this a sex game gone wrong? -Was it an accident OR a cover up of prior sex acts?
The Head blow and strangulation are two separate acts right? But why? If it's PREMEDITATED to shut her up, why do we have a head blow at all? Why would John risk a potential bloody crime scene? See, I don't believe this was premeditated in any way, shape or form. I have said this over and over, but if John is the sole killer then why is he showering that morning and leaving his life as a free man in the hands of a would be hysterical Patsy Ramsey? Yes, Im sure you will all claim he showered to remove evidence, but that is also a load of garbage. If he was the sole killer, then he would have needed to completely control the scene and dictate what took place. He wouldn’t be taking a shower with Patsy awake and running around the house.
I have answered your questions in regards to premeditation. There is no evidence to suggest it was premeditated. It may have been, but that is pure speculation - short of a confession, no one can ever know. I tend to think it wasn't. This is why John was limited in his options regarding the subsequent cover up, and why some of the staging is a little "sloppy". The head blow was struck in order to kill her, I'm sure. Her skull was cracked from left to right, this wasn't an accident, it wasn't delivered to keep her quiet, it was intended to be a fatal blow. The garroting was a last minute, desperate act in order to end her life after it was revealed the blow hadn't killed her, hence why there was at least 40 mins between head blow and strangulation - I believe John struck her, thought she was dead, wrote the ransom note, went to stage the crime scene, noticed she was still breathing, thus "finished her off" with whatever was nearby - paint brush, cord etc. I don't think the garrote was part of a sex game, though some here do. Perhaps John wasn't taking a shower when Patsy called 911.....that is his version of events, and we can both agree that he lies. Perhaps he was down in the basement doing some last minute staging that needed to be done. I really don't know how to answer that question, as it is a bit of a sore point with me. But, the instructions in that ransom note alone point to John having written it to buy himself some time, along with an alibi, should he be caught in the area of where JB's body was found. The note, as far as I'm concerned, stands as testament to John's guilt, and Patsy's call to 911 stands as testament to her innocence. I just cannot see any way around that.
Thanks for your response...I know the blogger of this site believes it was premeditated which is crazy to me, but didn't know where you stood.
Regarding Patsy, I feel you either believe the note all the way or you don't. She sure didn't seem like a person intent on finding out who S.B.T.C was. The note was signed with those 4 letters.....from testimony of certain people with Patsy that day, it was never mentioned! This is to me what speaks to her guilt, which then means IF John did it, she was ok with staying married to a guy who bludgeoned her daughter to death
Wow, J. You have no problem with making wild assumptions. At least we know what you think.
First of all I know of NO testimony from those on the scene attesting to Patsy or John never mentioning S.B.T.C. Second, how would not mentioning it make them suspicious? And how do you then reach the conclusion that Patsy would have known if John did it? How would she have known?
And for the record, "the blogger of this site" has discussed premeditation as a possibility but has never claimed that's what happened. At this point, as I see it, we can't be sure whether it was premeditated or spontaneous, but it certainly could have been premeditated, yes.
For the record you have gone as far as saying the note was written days before. Also, it is extremely convenient to say it may or may not have been premeditated. Your motive has been all along that John was trying to shut her up from telling anybody about him molesting her. Now you are backing away from that? There isn't a thing about Patsy's actions that morning that to me speak to a woman whose daughter was just kidnapped by a small foreign faction. She disobeyed the RN immediately! Literally within minutes of reading the note that she supposedly took to be authentic, she calls the police (wasn't supposed to per the note) and calls friends to come over (wasn't supposed to per the note.) So just so I'm clear where you stand. JDI, BUT it may or may not have been premeditated. It may or may not have to cover up his molestation against her. BR may have been eating pineapple and possibly seen something which for sure helps you explain why Burke was acting so suspicious on the interrogation tapes. Actually John could have wrote the note days earlier, but he also maybe didn't. He also could have accidentally killed JBR, but he also could have planned this crime. I just want to make sure I'm keeping up to date with all of the changes you have made to keep up with any possible evidence that has altered the case.
I never claimed the note was written days before. I do see that as a possibility, yes. This is not a game of Clue, where it's necessary to recreate precisely what happened. In the real world that's not always possible.
What I DO claim is that it's possible to deduce that John murdered his daughter and wrote the note, based on certain facts and logical inferences drawn from those facts (see the first three posts on this blog). Most of the rest is, very frankly, speculation.
As for Patsy, how is disobeying the instructions in the note cause for suspicion? If she's the one who wrote it then we'd expect her to go along with the instructions she herself wrote rather than disobey them. While one may certainly question her judgment in that respect, poor judgement is not evidence of guilt. If the plan was to call 911 the next morning, then why include all those dire warnings regarding what would happen if that call were made?
This is the problem Doc…….Either Patsy believed that the note was REAL or she didn’t believe the note because she was in on the staging.
IF we are going to say that she believed the note which 100% needs to be the case for JDI, then how do you explain this:
• Disobeys the note immediately by calling police than friends • 10am time comes and goes with zero reaction from either Ramsey • Fleet White said the Ramsey’s never mentioned the RN • The note says they could arrange an earlier pickup and neither JR or PR seemed concerned with that • Note claims to be a GROUP (small foreign faction) to be exact, yet all we hear from PR and JR is that there is a “KILLER on the loose” meaning 1 • Neither JR or PR is compliant with the police • According to her she burst open the bedroom door and only looked to see if she was in bed. You have discounted this saying the details don’t matter, but considering her daughter was just kidnapped, she sure didn’t seem to tear the house apart looking for either JBR or any clues. • IF the John window story was a lie, then she certainly would know whether or not a window was broken in her basement, yet she never called out the lie.
"Disobeys the note immediately by calling police than friends"
Why would she fly in the face of all the dire warnings in that note if she had been involved in writing it?
"10am time comes and goes with zero reaction from either Ramsey"
Just because Arndt didn't notice anything doesn't mean there was no reaction. And how is the lack of a reaction suspicious? If Patsy is such a great actress, I'd assume she'd have made a huge fuss at that point.
"Fleet White said the Ramsey’s never mentioned the RN"
Once again, how is that grounds for suspicion? What purpose would have been served by not mentioning the RN to Fleet? Surely he'd been informed of the "kidnapping."
"Note claims to be a GROUP (small foreign faction) to be exact, yet all we hear from PR and JR is that there is a “KILLER on the loose” meaning 1"
Again, why does that strike you as suspicious?
"Neither JR or PR is compliant with the police"
When the time came for the Ramseys to be questioned by the police, Patsy was a heavily medicated basket case. The decision to stonewall the police came from John.
"According to her she burst open the bedroom door and only looked to see if she was in bed. You have discounted this saying the details don’t matter,"
The details may matter, but she never provided any details because she wasn't asked to. We have no way of knowing whether or not she entered the room and searched it.
"but considering her daughter was just kidnapped, she sure didn’t seem to tear the house apart looking for either JBR or any clues."
Neither did the police. They made a cursory examination looking for a possible entry point. It never occurred to anyone that she had not actually been kidnapped.
Wouldn't say it's the best I got, but I might as well be talking to my wall. Nothing anybody does is suspicious but John. Burke won't answer what pineapple in a bowl is and you have said that he probably saw John do something and the pineapple brought back the memory of it. Regarding Patsy, there is no way possible you will admit that anything she does is suspicious because Patsy being involved means you wasted a whole lot of time writing a blog and a book.
Either she believed the note to be REAL or not. IF she believed the note then she would have HAD to believe the culprit was a small foreign faction called S.B.T.C. This isn't really complicated. It wasn't A killer on the loose, it was a GROUP! You can't have it both ways....forget the police....IF she called 911 believing the note to be real, her actions don't speak to that.
Regarding the body being in the house when she calls 911...I will admit it for sure is odd. What I believe is that the murder of JBR happened after 9pm and they were scheduled to leave for Michigan the next morning. If they just randomly canceled their Michigan trip without an explanation and then the next day they tell family that JBR went missing, that would look odd. So, I believe the body was hidden in the suitcase or someplace else in the basement. When the Ramsey's realized the note was being believed, that's when JR had to remove the body from its hiding place and be the one to find it. We can do this all day Doc if you want. I have read your theory with the ever changing details and barring a John Ramsey confession, I will never be swayed that Burke didn't do it, because I believe he did. I believed your theory for a long time, but as I have read and seen more on this case, my opinion has changed.
Lets face it, there is beyond odd behavior by both PR and JR. Barbara Fernie reported something was wrong with PR because PR was not grieving yet Barbara herself was. I have been restudying the basement window and I can not make sense of it. If JR broke the window that night, in an attempt to stage then why would he clean up the glass ? He surely did not have time to clean it up after 911 was called or when someone mentioned that there were no footprints in the snow. That would have been much too late and not enough time to do so. Surely I think JR was trying to stage, however, there seems to be no scenario that makes sense of the window.
Keiser, do a search on "Basement window" to learn why John would have wanted to clean up the glass. I'm tired of repeating myself. My analysis of that window scene is imo a vital key to this case.
That window plagues me too, KS. I think it's the only weak link in Doc's theory - I can never get completely comfortable with it. I've tentatively accepted his explanation because the prior abuse convinces me that JDI, but . . . that window. CC
I agree. I just can not find ANY scenario that makes sense. The only 1 that comes close would be if JR snuck down to unstage after 911 was called and cleaned it up. I dont think he had time to to do that, so that would mean, most likely it was broken to stage and cleaned up and unstages before 911 was called, which makes no sense at all. Could it have been broken somehow while this crime was beong committed ?
What was the police response time that morning, does anyone recall? Based on my (very dated) knowledge of Boulder geography, I think 10 minutes at that early hour, if French hustled. Might be enough if Doc is right and John ground up the glass and flushed it. CC
And right away I start to equivocate, because if he had ten minutes to un-stage, he had ten minutes to do a better job staging, which seems the more logical choice. CC
Exactly my thoughts CC. Why not finish staging ? I am not sure that he had enough time to clean up, ground up and flush it. Im not even sure that he could clean it that fast but I guess it is possible. I believe JR answered the door when police first got there ?
7 mins. The 911 call was placed at 5:52 am and the police arrived at 5:59 am. Minus a minute for the call because I personally know that JR was right there during the 911 call. So you are talking maybe 5 mins.
Even if that were the case then what reason would he have to unstage at that point ? He needs a break in and intruder even more than he did before because this will be his last chance to do so. He is not going to have the rest of the day to do any staging or produce an intruder. It makes no sense.
Hypothetically, perp may unstage window if there were other way(s) to deflect attention away from oneself to point to intruder, like individual(s) who had key(s) to house (then no reason to direct LE suspicion to unknown intruder, when suspect(s) could be individuals with house keys). Friends were called around same time as LE maybe this was for further misdirection/contamination (unstaging unknown intruder to staging known person with keys?). I know Patsy called friends, but who made decision to call and what friends were called to home morning LE arrived?
He could have cleaned it up that night/morning before the 911 call for a variety of reasons. He may have stood on the glass, touched it, left some evidence on it. Maybe he planned to clean it up all along.
His story from then on was that the window had previously been broken.
Oh dear. Everyone is going off on tangents. John had good reason to unstage his previous staging as I've explained over and over again. And yes he would have had time to clean up the glass while Patsy was calling 911 or maybe a few minutes afterward. It's just a small hole, described as "baseball size." Not that much glass to clean up. And he didn't get it all anyhow.
CC – I don’t think John and Patsy were in collaboration to kill their daughter. I think an unfortunate accident occurred that night (most likely involving Burke) and they decided to invent the intruder/kidnapping theory.
I think everyone is overthinking the whole window thing to be honest. Just my opinion.
Maybe John actually did break that window in the past. I mean it seemed like a crazy story, so crazy that maybe it was true. We know it was definitely possible for him to have done that…both Lou S and CBS team proved that. I know friends who have removed tiles off the roof because they forgot their keys and tried to get in that way…maybe it only seemed like a crazy story because people are so convinced he must be telling a fib.
Or maybe he broke it on the 25th/26th and cleaned up the glass because after breaking it he realised it looked fake. He then pushed a suitcase under the window and made up a lie. None of us know exactly what was going on in John and Patsy’s mind in regards to the staging and John wasn’t an expert on staging murdering intruders (just like none of us are). I just think there are more important things to focus on in this particular case other than the window. And I think Patsy was limited to only writing the RN that night.
Zed, I, for a long time thought PR wrote the RN as well. The problem with that, as I found out, is that the exemplars used in some of the experts comparison analysis' look nothing like any of Patsy's full known handwriting samples at all. The question to me is where are these exemplars coming from and whose are they because some of those look exactly like the RN but nothing like hers. PR did not write the RN, JR did imo. Go back and study it for a short time and you will see it sure looks like he did. I would think that JR going on his own, right after the murder and trying to get himself eliminated as the author of the RN should have been a big red flag to LE. If Doc's theory is even close to correct then JR's plan and the RN were brilliant in a manipulative and evil way. In essence, it was nothing more than his plan blueprinted out to aid his dumping of the body.
With regard to the broken window I remain convinced John made up that story out of desperation. It was an obvious string of lies, but LE bought it because they couldn't imagine any reason for John to lie about it.
CC is right, however, that Patsy's willingness to support that story is THE weak link in my logical chain. We've been over this before, many times and I don't have the energy to get into it again, so don't expect any more than the following from me on this topic.
1. If Patsy and John were in it together and Patsy was lying, then she would not have included Linda in her story.
2. If John's alibi is for real, then, once again, there is no reason for Patsy to include Linda in her story.
3. Linda denied any knowledge of any broken glass and her husband reported washing all the windows in the house around Thanksgiving. If a window had been broken he would certainly have noticed it.
4. Thus, as difficult as it might be to accept gaslighting as the basis for Patsy's story, I can't think of any alternative. It's not all that unusual for husbands to implant false memories in their wives' minds. It's also important to recall that, according to Patsy herself, she rarely went into the basement, so it's very likely she would not have noticed if that window had been broken or intact.
5. The only alternative I can see is that Linda and her husband were the guilty parties and deliberately lied about that window to implicate the Ramseys -- making them both innocent. If that's the way you want to go, fine. That's another path we've already been down but if someone wants to raise that issue again, feel free to go for it.
I've been reading many blogs from 2015 and I can see the holes in Hercule's theory. In fact you could probably drive a truck through them. No offense Hercule but I think Doc debunked ya dude. Doc, this may be a trivial thing, but it does seem more likely that John would have put the oversized panties on JB, reaching for something to use quickly in that house without the lights on. If Patsy had redressed her she would have used panties that fit. I also don't know if the panties "for Jenny" were gift wrapped or not. But in any event he may have just reached for something that was handy, not the size she actually wore. It's also possible that the flashlight was starting to go dim (if he was using it during the night to avoid turning on lights), and if he changed the batteries he would have wiped them down then, in addition to the wand. Wrapping her in the blanket - taken from a drier - may have just been something else he grabbed that was handy (if it was taken from the drier in the basement)to cover her, not even noticing in particular that the nightgown was stuck to it. The blanket always seemed to me a feminine touch, but perhaps it was just used to cover her up, without thinking it was her "favorite" or that it would be viewed as a loving touch. In fact he would not want the family implicated at all. And Keiser, you are right, even if the note was disguised by Patsy using her left hand the "a's" look way more like John's a's in the limited sample we have of his handwriting. And nothing like Patsy's. Even though there are several different styles of a's. One more thing, I happened on a NBC Dateline story last night in which our famous Dr. Spitz again testified for the defense. And as it turns out he was wrong again.
Geez Inquisitive you were praising Hercule this morning saying he could be right. Talk about swinging from one to the other. I don't agree with Hercule but from here on in will ALWAYS believe Patsy was in on it.
Doc, you are off topic. We are not discussing gaslighting of PR or if Linda knew. We are discussing the broken window, it is more of the when and why of where the broken glass went, as I for one, can make no rationalization as to why JR would clean up his staging before the 911 call and when he cleaned it up. Clearly JR did not have time to clean it up after the 911 call was made. So as we have said it makes no sense.
I don't see the problem, Keiser. Obviously he would not have cleaned up the glass before the 911 call, because the broken window was an important part of the staging he was planning to complete later that day.
But once Patsy picked up that phone to call 911, he would have realized that his partial staging wouldn't be good enough to fool anyone, and that the police would assume the window had been broken on the previous night, by someone on the inside. There are other possibilities, but that one seems most likely to me.
So he would immediately have scooted down to the basement and cleaned up as much of the glass as he could quickly locate before the police arrived. He could simply have put the pieces in a paper bag and then placed the bag in an inconspicuous corner of the basement. The break wasn't that large, so there wouldn't have been all that much glass to clean up. He would then have rushed upstairs, just in time to greet the arriving police. No time to unlock a door, so he'd have had no choice but to admit to the police that all the doors were locked, as he'd had no way of knowing whether or not they'd already checked.
Later, when he went AWOL on Arndt, he could have come back down there, pulverized the glass by repeatedly stomping on the bag with his foot, and then flushed the tiny remnants down the toilet.
Once again this is all speculative, obviously. We have no way of knowing what he actually did or what would have been on his mind. But we do have very good reason to assume that he himself had broken that window the night before to stage an intruder break-in, and as we know, only a few pieces of glass were found on the floor the following morning. So someone must have cleaned up that glass, and the scenario I've provided tells us how it could have been done.
probably from the National Enquirer under "Case Solved". I can't link up to your link without re typing it so I'll have to do another search. I did read where Lin Wood would not allow Patsy to submit a left handed example. In regard to the window falsehoods Patsy told, weren't they being told things from the DA's office either from their lawyers or other leaks so that anything that didn't make sense they could come up with some plausible reasonable explanation? If neither one of them are giving a police interview for was it four months? after the death they had ample time to fabricate missing pieces.
Just google search Patsy Ramsey handwriting comparison and go to google images and scroll down. There will be a comparison with 6 As and there are a few other compelling comparisons. When you are done there search Fausto Brugnatelli and look at JR's comparisons.
Keiser, Ive read all entries and comments on this blog and have reviewed heaps of handwriting of John and Patsys. To me, I see it a much closer match to Patsys. Plus the text contains certain words and phrases Patsy would use. It also contains some John would use too and I have no doubt that one wrote and the other assisted. Even if John wrote it, Patsy was right beside him the entire time. But as I said I think Patsy wrote it. Most handwriting experts agree.
I have seen it all before Zed. That exact document and 1 of Cina Wong's comparisons are what had me convinced of PR's guilt for over 10 years. That is a comparison built by Darnay Hoffman out of a scrapbook found at the Ramsey's house. I will say that whoever wrote those words in the scrapbooks wrote the note. During the depo, neither JR nor PR would admit to even knowing whose writing it was in that scrapbook. Which I find laughable and proves to me that PR, at the least knows whose writing it is and is covering. I would call that an outright blatant lie. However after viewing all of PR's writing examples (not comparisons) it looks nothing like her writing. So my next guess is that it is JR's and she has to be covering. If you have not seen the depos yet, you are missing out on what I found the most fascinating thing I have watched about this case. Here is a short compacted video with some of the important pieces in it. https://youtu.be/yl5Ll3sLFs8
I'm actually agreeing with you. Whilst I'm confident (in my own mind) that Patsy wrote the RN, to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if it was John. It does not have any bearing on the BDI scenario that I so strongly believe it. I also agree that Patsy was either fibbing or covering for Johm regarding the scrapbook...just one of many tidbits which all add up to show that Patsy knew what was going on. I'm sure I've seen that video before but I'll watch again. I dont think anything will sway me away from Patsy writing that note though...stubborn? Maybe. Confident? Yes.
This video and the full depositions are 1 of the most interesting things I have ever seen. They are a must see, JR and PR's full depos are on youtube. Lin Wood barely lets PR speak. When you have about 6 hrs free time, I would put them as the number 1 thing to see involving this case.
Zed, if the page of comparisons you've linked to is evidence of anything, it's evidence of Cina Wong's incompetence, and has little to do with Patsy's writing style.
While the two "d"s at the top might look similar at first glance, if you look closely you'll see that the one on the left was formed using two strokes, while the one on the right was formed using three. The method of forming a letter is far more important than the way it looks, but Wong either didn't notice the difference or didn't care.
The following "S" is from the photo caption "Rainbow Fish Players." So are two other exemplars from this same page of comparisons, the "o" and the "b". Now if you look carefully at the caption as a whole it looks very different from all the other examples provided by Darnay Hoffman to his "experts." And it shouldn't require an expert to see that "Rainbow Fish Players" was written in a different hand from the other captions. Looks rather juvenile I'd say, and was possibly written by Burke or maybe one of his pals.
A competent document professional would have caught that, but NONE of Darnay's "experts" did.
The third example on the list is from a badge containing the caption "I'm Marilyn Monroe." It was written in large block letters in a manner totally different from the manner in which the ransom note was written. The similarity is therefore completely fortuitous and means little.
As for the exclamation point and the "g," they look totally generic to me -- something very similar could be found in the writing of literally millions of people.
So no, this is NOT evidence pointing to Patsy, nor is it reasonable to assume that the person or persons who penned these letters wrote the ransom note. All it tells us is that Cina Wong was, and probably still is, a totally incompetent amateur, blithely cherry picking for whatever she could find to "prove" what Darnay wanted her to "prove."
Zed, all of PR's true handwriting (premurder) can be seen here, including her London Letter and the RN exemplar. You will see here that her writing looks nothing like the RN. I, after over 10 years of thinking PR wrote it, am not convinced JR did. My question is this, if me and other people can easily see that JR's handwriting so obviously looks the RN author's then how can a whole team of "expert" not find even the slightest bit of similarity ???? http://blabbieville.tripod.com/
Doesnt most people have different styles though? Sometimes I have the neatest handwriting in the world, sometimes its a faster scribble and completely unrecognizable compared to the first. Sometimes I even write entirely in capital letters.
Patsy is very much the most probable person of writing on those photos in the scrapbook. And the guilt on her face when she looked at them told her she knew the letters matched the RN style.
I completely agree with you Zed, without a doubt I think she knew. I could tell that she was game playing suggesting that one B was smaller than the other B etc etc. That however does not make it her handwriting. It does not look anything like any prior writing of hers. We know she did not change it just for the scrapbook because it was old writing and her known samples are pre murder as well. The only reasonable conclusion is she was covering for someone.
Zed, I was with Hercule up to a point. When he veered into the "fantastic" was when I started to doubt just about everything he said. He said Patsy changed out of her dress clothes when she finally went to bed, then back in as she suspected some of her fibers might be found on JB. He also thought JB may have made the iced tea drink herself, adding sugar and a teabag even though there are no prints of JB on the glass. So when someone veers into the "supernatural" so to speak that's when I leave them. And it does cause me to discount everything they have said previously. For me it has to make SENSE. That's why I'm here, to read something that makes sense in a case that was not handled properly from the beginning, allowing the family to derail the investigation, the political in-fighting in the BPD, and the attorneys to run the show. So I'm hungry for the truth. I don't completely buy Kolar's book - that Burke struck the blow, then a parent did the strangulation. Kolar believes the blow was struck in the kitchen area by Burke. If that is so then a parent would have had to have carried her down to the basement and done the rest. Burke couldn't have drug her down there (although there were some abrasions on the shoulder and leg) but unlikely Burke could have that kind of strength. Then I have to wonder which parent would have wanted to cover for a head wound in such a brutal way. So I surmised Burke did all of it, down in the basement. Kolar does not think that. Then all of the other things that were done was getting rid of evidence, etc. - by parents. However she was not strangled for 45 min. to 2 hours after the head injury. What would Burke be doing all that time? Going back to his toy? Eating some pineapple? Someone would have noticed he's up a little late. It seems more plausible to me that one person did all of it. Not two. Burke. Or Patsy. Or John. IT was either an intentional murder and coverup (John) a flash of anger and terrible play (Burke) or an accident then coverup (Patsy).
Keiser, another reason for Patsy's "confusion" over the handwriting, might not be as coverup for John but because she knew she was being targeted. It's not difficult to see in the deposition videos that she knew Darnay was going after her. So she's basically covering for herself, pretending she doesn't recognize any of it as being her handwriting, etc., etc.
Yup, and I would do that in a depo too, if I thought someone was coming after me. Lawyers coach you: if you don't know, say you don't know. If you're not really sure, don't make statements that will be construed as being sure, or as being fact.
Here's what bothers me Anonymous. During the Wolf case in which depositions were videotaped Lin Wood refused to allow handwriting charts comparing PR's handwriting to the handwriting on the ransom note to be shown during the deposition of Gideon. Nor would Lin Wood allow exemplars from Patsy wearing gloves, or using her left hand (as the FBI believed the ransom note author was ambidextrous). If she didn't write the note, than why not?
That's an easy question to answer, and I'm not even a lawyer like CC is. As any lawyer knows, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff. Patsy and John were being sued; they had a lot to lose financially. Lin Wood's job is to make sure no one can build a case against them for libel. He is not required to defend Patsy as not being the author that note. The plaintiff wanted to make the case that the author of the note was the murderer, Patsy was the author, therefore Patsy knew Chris Wolf did not kill JBR and thus had libeled him. A deposition is a form of discovery, allowing each side to collect facts that might support their case. Why would Lin Wood help the plaintiff build such a case against his client?
2) I therefore realize that my "theory" on the question I have for others a) is HUGELY speculative and b) could be used against me as an example of "confirmation bias"
My interest, since I am newer to the case than many others, is, what ARE the theories out there regarding what S.B.T.C. means? I have read none anywhere.
Without giving it much thought, I noticed that the letters BC and ST are contiguously placed in the alphabet. As John wrote that letter, what voices might he have been after having just killed his daughter, particulary at the very end when he had to "sign it"? (Or did he "psychologically" feel the need to sign it, as it has been suggested that the killer felt a "psychological" closeness to and "need" to have JB carefully wrapped in a clean blanket while clutching something that was "close" to her in life? She even had, not just new panties put on her, but BRAND NEW panties put on her.)
At six years old, was JB still reciting the alphabet? Did she have her own peculiar emphases (voice punctutions if you will, since my vocabulary is lacking) on some letters and not others. Did these "perculiarities" resonate in Johns mind as he was thinking of how to stage authorship of the letter?
Because this POSSIBLE theory IS so incredibly speculative, I wouldn't have even included it but for that fact that it is potentially testable--a questioning of JB's teacher at that time.
I'm not being serious, I just think that we can come up with all kinds of different possibilities. Only the person who wrote the note knows what it stands for, if anything.
I just finished reading this book. Dr. Wecht dissects the Autopsy Report and provides his detailed expert analysis in layman's terms. He believes (and explains why) JB was additionally molested within 48-72 hours of her death. He states the molestation was likely a "controlled" digital penetration (not like an aggressive rapist). He also says she was shaken (bruises to her brain right behind her temples on both sides), and suggests this may be a result of the perp trying to awaken her after the autoerotic asphyxiation accidently pinched the vagus nerve in her neck which caused her lungs and heart to shut down. He said that due to LACK of injuries that are common in a strangulation (i.e., damage to hyoid, thyroid, trachea, tongue, etc.), in his opinion the intent was NOT to strangle JB to death.
Regarding the head fracture, he said it could be the flashlight, a golf club or something similar (smooth surface without sharp edges). He said due to lack of "organization" of the blood cells in the areas of the blow (scalp hemorrhage), and the small amount of blood under the skull, the heart was not pumping blood or she was near death (agonal)when stuck. He believes the blow to the head was to cover up the molestation.
He does not state who exactly he thinks killed JBR, but doesn't believe it was an intruder (for all the same reasons as have been discussed in this blog). He mentions both Patsy and John as the possible culprits.
Have you seen the autopsy photos of JonBenet's neck?! The cord was wound so tightly, it cut deeply into her skin. There is no way this was an accidental, autoerotic, act that went awry. This strangulation was deliberate, with the intent of ending her life.
Yes, I have viewed all of the (published) photos....just sharing what that forensic pathologist's opinion is. I'm not a doctor so I can't say that I agree or disagree with his analysis. VSO
I don't know of anyone who cleans their nail clippers. The matter found under jbs nails was ruled as by contaminated nail clippers. Is it possible that the matter did match one of the Ramsey's ? But .... they had already been ruled out ? I find this suspicious.
I don't know of anyone who cleans their nail clippers. The matter found under jbs nails was ruled as by contaminated nail clippers. Is it possible that the matter did match one of the Ramsey's ? But .... they had already been ruled out ? I find this suspicious.
The nail clippers being spoken about are the ones used by forensic technicians at the lab. They were not cleaned after the prior forensic exam this contaminating JBRs.
I read that the same clippers were used to clip all her nails. You are supposed to use different clippers for each nail so as to not cross contaminate. They used the same one for all her nails.
Doc: I'm reading your book through a second time. I have a question regarding your surmised call John makes to himself from a pay phone posing as one of the kidnappers. As you said, the phone's answering machine in the vacant Ramsey home would pick up after a set number of rings, but no message would be left. While it is true that the "kidnappers call" would be "registered in the phone company's records", I would think John, being the intelligent man he is, would be expecting the police to want evidence that "sufficient" communications between he and the kidnappers had taken place. Typically, after a caller hears, 'Please leave your message at the sound of the tone,' they have sixty seconds or less to record a message, after which, the call autmatically ends. Of course "John Ramsey the kidnapper" could disguise his voice, leave a short message, and hang up before the "John Ramsey at home" has a chance to respond, but I would think the "real John Ramsey" would find that a bit risky given his plan already includes having the kidnappers confiscate the ransom note. Yet without that "fake message", John might instead be concerned about the length of call the phone company recorded--a length contingent upon the answering features of the answering machine. Would sixty seconds be long enough to communicate "sufficient" instructions from a kidnapper who composed a two and a half page ransome note seen by at least a few friends of the Ramsey's? What other credible ways could Ramsey tell the police he had received detailed instructions from the kidnappers to exchange money for his daughter? Am I wrong somewhere about how long calls made to answering machines and recorded by the phone company, can stretch out? In other words, would or could the call continue until "John the kidnapper" hangs up at HIS end?
ReplyDeleteOf course, as dispicable as it sounds, if there were an outside partner in crime, a friend with whom John "shared" JonBenet, my worries would disappear. I almost feel like an idiot having to ask it, but has that possibility already been "ruled out"?
Mike G
Good question. I believe a call ends only after both parties hang up. If not, then John could have left some sort of nonsense "message" that could later be erased. Since the note put him in control, he could have claimed the call was very short, instructing him to check his mail slot or under a door. Where another note with detailed instructions could be found.
DeleteAll sorts of possibilities once John is home alone.
Of course...another note. I should have thought of that.
DeleteThx Doc.
Mike G.
It is possible that John was never going to stage a ransom drop phone call or note.
DeleteHe didn't necessarily need to get Patsy out of the house in order to dispose of the body. All he needed to do was go to the bank to withdraw the money in preparation for the call, leaving Patsy at home for a phone call that would never come.
If John disappeared for over an hour with a house full of people and a police officer to complete his staging, then I'm sure he had a plan to get the body out with Patsy at home. The disposal site he had mapped out could have been temporary or he may have wanted to put her in a dumpster?
Yes, John would have had many options on the 26th if Patsy hadn't called 911. Assuming he couldn't get Patsy out of the house, he certainly could have moved the body from the basement to his car while she was distracted. As for the phone call from the "kidnappers," he could have claimed that they decided to leave another note instead of calling him, dropping it through the mail slot in his front door. But I don't think he'd have dared to dump the body until dark. He would probably have wrapped it in a garbage bag, or two, before placing it in the trunk.
DeleteHere is a thought for the BDI camp.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the 'evidence" of BDI comes from a) snippets of Burke's police interviews as televised on the CBS infotainment, b) the suppositions of the same CBS infotainers / Kolar, and c) Burke's demeanor on his (equally infotainment) Dr Phil interview. The latter, BTW, apparently points to Burke being autistic/Aspergers/spectrum disorder.
I think my opinion on the CBS infotravesty is obvious - to me the "evidence" is that a 9 year old boy could have smashed in JBRs skull with force; Burke showed adult patterns of talking/casual disregard towards and miming of JBRs death; was not able to identify the pineapple when asked; and had an undefined occurrence of scatological issue.
Given the bulk of the police-interview evidence took - what maybe 3 minutes of screen time?.... How can we know what else was discussed / displayed for the rest of the quite sizeable interview time?
As Doc has pointed out several times before - you can look at the morass of individual data points and lose your perspective. In the case of Burke's behaviour in the police interviews, it seems that your data is extremely restricted...so pinning the crime on Burke is unsupported supposition based on very little logic or data.
-Sisu
Sisu, Kolar's book was written irrc in 2012 and was a detective that worked the case for 4 years, irrc. There have been BDI's since the late '90's as well as all the tabloid publications with the first decade of the murder. However, from Burke's own mouth his statements are different than what the family and the family's attorneys have claimed for almost 20 years.
DeleteDocG, I have read your blog several times over the last two or three years and in general I have a great deal of time for your line of argument. This, however, cannot be left unchallenged.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Gospel according to St Paula”, you wrote:
“…not very different, I would think, from what a lawyer would present. (Note to my British readers: "from," NOT "than," an important distinction that seems to have been lost in your fog bound islands.) :-)”
Note, please, the observations on usage recorded in the Third Edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English:
“Different from, different than, and different to: are there any distinctions between these three constructions, and is one more correct than the others? In practice, different from is both the most common structure, both in British and US English, and the most accepted.
Different than is used chiefly in North America, although its use is increasing in British English. It has the advantage that it can be followed by a clause, and so is sometimes more concise than different from: compare things are definitely different than they were one year ago with things are definitely different from the way they were one year ago.
Different to is common in Britain, but is disliked by traditionalists. The argument against it is based on the relation of different to differ, which is used with from; but this is a flawed argument which is contradicted by other pairs of words such as accord (with) and according (to).”
“CHIEFLY IN NORTH AMERICA,” Doc!
An embarrassingly misplaced slight that cannot be papered over with a smiling face made of punctuation. Maybe BDI after all.
-RI
LOL! I was wondering when my little remark about British grammatical usage would trigger an indignant response.
DeleteFor me there is a huge difference in grammar between "usage" and what could be called "the rules of standard English." It is now fashionable to accept certain constructions simply because they are in common use, even if their grammatical correctness is questionable. For me, the ultimate standard is not correctness per se, but logic. And as I hear it, "different than" is not logical while "different from" is. That could just be my own personal prejudice, based on what I learned as a kid, but I'm always bothered when someone writes (or says) "different than."
My impression has always been that the "than" form is more common among English writers than Americans, but that's based on my readings in various newspapers, journals, books, etc. The Oxford people may be basing their statistics on general, or colloquial usage and in that case I'd agree that many Americans do tend to use "than" rather than "from." I could certainly be wrong on this matter.
I must say I've formed the opinion that professional British writers tend generally to be more careless about the fine points of grammar than their American counterparts. For example, whenever I read something by a British author I get the impression that the word "to" has become a kind of all-purpose preposition, and especially whenever I see a phrase such as "different to" I cringe.
I see an important distinction between common usage and correct usage, and for me the correct usage is to be preferred, primarily because it is logical, whereas the common usage is not. If this sounds rather arbitrary or even snobbish, I wonder how you'd react if commonly used words or phrases such as "ya'll," or "yins" or "ain't" or "they be" were to appear on a regular basis in the writings of reporters, scientists, scholars or even bloggers.
Just for fun, I'm posting a random post from Inq. put through a dialectizer..."Okay, okay less calm down, as enny fool kin plainly see. We is all on hyar on account o' we still care about this hyar case, it's interestin', thar is missin' pieces of th' puzzle fo' all of us an' we like discussin' thin's thet he'p us make sense of it all, ah reckon. Thar were thin's about th' CBS special thet were thunk provokin', but lef' out. An' thar were thin's thet Kolar lef' outta his book. Shet mah mouth! In fack Kolar says on a Reddit site of quesshun an' answer thet he had a scenario writ but his atto'ney advised him t'leave it out, which he did, cuss it all t' tarnation. No one hyar reckons ennyone is an idiot, hopefully."
DeleteSisu said:
ReplyDelete"It seems that the 'evidence" of BDI comes from a) snippets of Burke's police interviews as televised on the CBS infotainment, b) the suppositions of the same CBS infotainers / Kolar, and c) Burke's demeanor on his (equally infotainment) Dr Phil interview. The latter, BTW, apparently points to Burke being autistic/Aspergers/spectrum disorder"
No, Burke is the most credible suspect because there is evidence that "likely" puts him with JB that night. Further evidence point to Burke prodding her with the train track (only credible option put forward) and the fact that it is extremely hard to imagine Patsy not being involved. She wrote that note for sure and it doesnt mean anything that the body was still in the house when she made that 911 call. There is simply too many things pointing at Patsy being involved (which I'm not going to post again). So if both parents are involved it means Burke is a good bet. And then throw in his weird demeanor as a child and that pineapple interview, and the fact he went down into that basement more than anyone. Oh and he is the only one in that house to have struck JB before which was not an accident according to an eye witness.
I dont believe there was any prior sexual abuse...red herring in my opinion. But in case there was, it was most likely Burke and JB experimenting...they even shared a room. There is not a single trace of evidence that puts John as the one who instigated this murder. Not one.
Of course John played his part after but everything points to Burke given the facts, evidence and lack of evidence.
Zed, sorry.....but what a load of crap.
DeleteWe don't know that a train track was used to prod her, let alone that it was Burke who did so.
We most certainly do not know that "Patsy wrote the note for sure" (which is an incredibly dishonest statement) and it means EVERYTHING that JB's body was still in the house when she made the call, because it completely negated the contents of the RN!
You don't believe there was any prior sexual abuse, yet claim "if there was" it had to have been by Burke.....which is it, then?
As far as there not being a single trace of evidence that points to John, well, you're only seeing what you want to see, thus it is a waste of time arguing with you.
Pfffttt ive heard it all before, no point in wasting my time replying. Ill believe Patsy didnt write that note when I see pigs fly.
DeleteBDI.
You can *believe* whatever you like, but stating an opinion as *fact* is dishonest and lessens your credibility.
DeleteI dont give a crap what a stranger thinks about my credibility lol. But I think this case is simply a lot of speculation and fantasy all built off nothing. You need to put all of that out of focus and look at the facts and the facts lead to Burke being the most likely suspect. Not that I give two hoots what CBS had to say, but I'm glad experts with more experience and skills than everyone on this blog put together also came to that likely conclusion.
ReplyDeleteIf you're so certain we're all a bunch of idiots, it begs the question as to why you are choosing to participate in a discussion where you have so much disdain for the other members of this group? In a blog like this one, where we all share a common denominator - the hope of putting the pieces together of a twenty year old crime - credibility IS important, whether you give two hoots or not.
DeleteYou are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts.
This is in reference to Sisu's post above
ReplyDeleteRegarding the CBS Special, everybody is acting like they investigated for 4 hours and showed us what they found. Listening to the podcast with Jim Clemente, they discussed how over 100 hours of investigation went into this and they had to only show the 4 hours that aired. They were privy to ALL the interrogation tapes, interviews, evidence, etc. Just because the White's weren't shown, they talked to them for hours about what they observed. Recreating the house was key because they could see the layout and match the testimony from all the living Ramsey's testimony to see what did or didn't make sense.
So after having leading experts in their field pour over ALLLLLL of this, they all came to the conclusion that BDI. If you want to question it that is fine, but to act like the whole think was crap is pure laziness and ignorance.
Regarding the theory of the RN being intended for the money drop of the 27th, not the 26th.....this is a stretch for me. It begs the question...WHY GO TO ALL THIS EFFORT, ONLY TO LEAVE IT UP TO PURE CHANCE THAT MORNING AND ALLOW PR TO MAKE THE 911 CALL? I'm sorry, I have never seen a decent explanation to this. Some say he wasn't in the room when it happened, even though both JR and PR said he was on the ground reading the note while she called. Regarding the date of pickup, why not just write "we will call you on the 27th?" The way it's written doesn't immediately suggest that and leaves way too much room for interpretation. Plus it says that an earlier pickup of their daughter can be arranged, so it nullifies the 27th completely.
This blog has gone in circles and since everybody is entitled to their own opinion.....well, except those who believe an IDI because that's craziness :-)
Some people hang onto a massive conspiracy for JFK because they just can't accept that Lee Harvey Oswald a complete nobody was responsible for the death of our President. I think that might be why some struggle with BDI so much. John molesting her and covering up his crimes is much jucier than her awkward brother snapping in a moment of anger and hitting her over the head.
-J
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIf John wrote the note, which I believe he did, it was because he wanted to delay calling the police until the next day. That Patsy foiled his plan leaves only two broad possibilities as to why.
Delete1) Patsy picked up the phone before John had an opportunity to stop her. He said he heard Patsy scream and ran down the stairs. By the time he arrived Patsy could have already started talking to the 911 operator.
2) John underestimated Patsy's emotional response to the combined stimuli of finding her daughter gone and finding a ransome note indicating that she had been kidnapped.
The second possibility presents a lot of problems and new possibilities. As John was "catching up" on the contents of the letter, Patsy was somewhere between two extremes: a) she was patiently and rationally waiting for him to process the entire contents of the letter to observe his reaction and hear his recommendation(s) and b) she was already yelling htsyerically "we've GOT to call the police" before John even had the letter in his hands.
When the police arrived, John and Patsy may have had different stories as to who said what to whom before the call was placed, but neither of them voluntered that Patsy called 911 "immediately" without waiting for John to get down the stairs.
John would have little reason to rebuke Patsy after making the call even though his mind would have been in full gear as to what to do next, now that his plan had been foiled. Exasperated? Yes. Outwardly angry? No. To a businessman of John's stature, water under the bridge is just that---water under the bridge. An angry John would have had to appologize to Patsy and concede she had done the right thing, while at the same time, offer her a convincing reason why she avoid telling the authorities she had decided unilaterally to call 911. How could he have done that? There was no reason yet for Patsy to believe that she and John needed to present a united front on any paticulars leading up to that call. There was no reason for either of them to lie and John had to have known that. He would also have known that much more crucial "gaslightly" of Patsy would be necessary in the days ahead.
A dispute, therefore had to have occured BEFORE the call was placed that John had time to resolve so that he and Patsy presented, if not a "united" front, one that was at least not suspiciously inconsistent. If Patsy later betrayed an agreement not to call the police--say while he was in the shower, or searching the house, John THEN would then have Patsy's own erratic behavior as leverage to begin gaslighting
her.
" Look Patsy, you called the police...what's done is done. But you've got to calm down, not just for the sake of our daughter, but because there's gonna be a load of questions. To get the authorities entirely focused on the kidnappers ASAP, we've got to present a united front and remain calm."
Let's fly with your reasoning that it's best to call the police right away rather than wait. You called the police while I went to check on Burke..."
Mike G.
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DeleteOK, first of all: according to Patsy, as interviewed on A&E, she told John she was going to call the police and he said "OK," and then ran to check on Burke while she "ran downstairs" to make the call. I doubt if it was that simple, since John would not have agreed so readily. But in fact we have no way of knowing what went on between them at that time. If she ran downstairs, however, then it sounds like she was running from John -- because there was a phone on every floor. This version differs dramatically from the one in their book. If they were in it together they'd have gotten their stories straight.
Delete"if John wanted to delay calling the police until the next day, he would not have left a note at all."
Excuse me? And why would he assume he could get away with that? "My daughter went missing on Thursday, but we decided not to report it until Friday"???
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Delete"if John wanted to delay calling the police until the next day, he would not have left a note at all."
DeleteMy question back to you would be, without the note, how would John justify to Patsy waiting a full day to call the police?
Mike G
He wouldn't. Which is one of many reasons why he needed that note.
Delete"the risk that the White's would have called 911,"
DeleteI'd assume that, if Patsy had been alarmed enough to refrain from calling the police out of fear her daughter would be beheaded, she'd have explained her fears to the Whites and they would have understood. She was the mother, so it would have been her decision to make, not theirs.
"the risk that a body that is decomposing smells, the risk that a cadaver dog could trace a decomposing body from the basement to the garage to the trunk of John Ramsey's car."
Well obviously John ran some risks, yes. But what choice would he have had? He needed to hide the body from Patsy and he needed to delay calling the police.
However. Once the body is out of the house, there is no longer any reason to assume it would ever have been stored in that basement room. So it's possible cadaver dogs would never have been taken there. I think John was hoping the authorities would simply accept it as a homicide associated with a kidnapping and that would be that. If all went smoothly according to his plan, then, as he saw it at least, there would have been no reason to bring cadaver dogs into his home.
Whether it would have played out that way, we may never know. There were certainly risks associated with that plan and that would have been one of them.
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ReplyDeleteInqui - it's been awhile since I've read statements by Patsy, but there sure seemed to be quite the fuzzy memory about so many things. Not sure if it could be blamed on psychotropic drugs or deflection. She couldn't remember the last time JonBenet had a bath, thought the pineapple bowl had to be part of the crime scene,didn't recognize "that" maglite, that teddy bear...and yes, the over-sized panties. Police irrc removed 15 pair of the small size, no other big bloomies were found in the house. I think it was more than a year later the family produced the rest of the package said to be purchased for the niece.
DeleteMore misinformation from you.
ReplyDeleteIn her August 2000 police interview Patsy stated she bought the size 12 panties from Bloomingdale's in November of 1996 as a gift for her niece, Jenny.
CC
But that is not what she said when she was questioned prior to that. More misinformation from you.
DeleteReference? What document are you referring to?
DeleteYes, I see here she was lying about who she purchased those panties for not that she purchased them. I got that wrong. And I see you addressed it in a different blog. We still have to wonder why she was acting so confused over the issue. Trying to distance herself from the "redressing." Okay, I have a question here. Doc, maybe you can answer it. Steve Thomas thinks Patsy killed JB over a bedwetting issue. Yet her bladder did give out outside the wine cellar room during or after death. Is there anything on record where Patsy is asked if JB wet the bed that night? Is there anywhere where Patsy says she woke JB up after John carried her to her bed, to go to the bathroom?
ReplyDeleteI see no evidence she lied about anything. She says she purchased them for an older girl, as a gift. But never managed to actually send them to her. She was clearly confused by all the importance given to those panties, and all the time spent on what must have appeared to her as a trivial issue. I do think Patsy was asked about bed wetting and what she said was that, yes, JonBenet was wetting the bed. As far as the night of the murder is concerned, however, she made it clear that JonBenet was fast asleep when she put her to bed and that was the last she saw of her alive. And it seems clear from her testimony that she was wearing normal sized panties when put to bed.
DeleteSo where exactly do you see her as lying?
Just read the whole 2000 interview. Patsy just wouldn't acknowledge that she put those oversized panties on her. Wouldn't that have been simpler? And I do see in that interview where she removed JB's black jeans before bed and put on the white longjohns. But then when questioned if she noticed the oversized panties were on she did not, nor did she change the panties she was wearing. So my question is still, was Patsy questioned about whether JB was taken to the bathroom after being changed into the longjohns, or was there any bedwetting that night. Obviously Patsy doesn't want anything to do with putting those oversized panties on her.
ReplyDelete"Patsy just wouldn't acknowledge that she put those oversized panties on her. Wouldn't that have been simpler?"
DeleteYes, if she had been the one to put them on her. But we have no reason to assume she was. What possible reason would she have had to lie about that?
What makes you think it "obvious" that Patsy denied putting those panties on her? I'm sorry Inq, but the logic behind some of your claims totally escapes me.
1) Patsy tried to say that Jenny was a little girl with a panty size not too dissimilar to JB's (Jenny is age 11-12, JB age 6)
Delete2) Patsy said she "commonly" bought size 8-10 size panties for JB making the size 12-14 seem less unusual
3) and she tried to say that size 12-14 panties were only a "little bit big."
I've raised a boy and a girl. I would know not to put a size 12 panty on a age 6 little girl.
She knows who put those panties on JB and she knows when and why. Either it was because she wet the bed around the time she was killed and those panties were used, or she put them on her after the crime. You think John put them on her, right? Certainly we can agree an intruder didn't put them on her as there was no intruder. so that leaves John or Patsy.
Patsy said the oversized panties were not on her when she changed her out of her jeans and into the longjohns. But she was found with them on. If you think John put them on her that is as much of a theory as mine is that she put them on her.
DeleteI actually think it's possible that when JB got up she may have put them on herself. That is why I asked if there was any evidence of bed wetting that night as Steve Thomas says there was. I'm asking.
DeleteYes, Patsy did try to explain away the discrepancy. That's not the same as lying. It's clear that she just didn't see the point of all these questions about oversized panties.
DeleteAs with the other "lies" she is alleged to have made, we have to ask what motive she would have had to lie -- and for the life of me I can't see any.
Looks to me like the only person with a motive to change JonBenet's panties would have been John. And the only reason would have been if he was afraid that something incriminating might be found on the original pair. The only thing I can think of is: semen. Well, obviously Patsy wouldn't have been concerned about semen if she were the one who killed her. So once again we have to ask: what reason would she have had to change her daughter's panties and what reason would she have had to lie about it? And we must also recognize that Patsy would have known enough not to change her into a pair far too large, while John probably wasn't even aware of the difference.
She was not lying about for whom the panties were purchased, the confusion is all yours. You have a bad habit of creating "facts" out of whole cloth in an attempt to bolster your arguments.
ReplyDeleteCC
Reading some old blogs CC you have a bad habit of angrily attacking everyone you take issue with. I'm going about this by trying to find out things. You however are angry over nothing. I've cited everything I can in the past, including information you have passed on.
ReplyDeleteI dislike poor scholarship, particularly when combined with verbal incontinence, but I'm certainly not angry.
ReplyDeleteCC
Doc:
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 3 you write:
" .....John....went directly to the basement, opened the door, screamed and only then, as White suspiciously noticed, turned on the lights. Later it was reported that John had said the body had been 'right out in the open'. If it had been in the open, White would no doubt have seen it. More likely it had been hidden in a dark corner."
I am having trouble understanding the order of the various house searches conducted by the police, Fleet White alone, John Ramsey alone, and John and Fleet together. In one TV documentary, we are told the first policeman to search the house found the door to the room containing JonBenet locked. You do not mention that in your book.
I have also read conflicting reports as to what Fleet White did after he opened the (locked?) door. Your account suggests he advanced into the room far enough, and had enough light, to see nothing out in the open. So, when John later entered the room and screamed immediately with FW right on his tail, wouldn't Fleet have exeperienced almost panic-like suspicions as to how her body went from "hidden in a dark corner" to "right out in the open"? Did Fleet pass on these suspicions to the police? Another account I read reported that when Fleet opened the door, he barely stepped inside and didn't even turn on the lights.
What are the facts, as you understand them? Could you provide a list in time sequential order, of all the various searches made by all the various parties, and the salient findings each party reported? If possible could you include time gaps that may have provided John opportunities to be in the basement alone to stage and unstage the crime? You don't need to get into window business; my curiosity for the moment has only to do with the room the body was found in (e.g. did it, in fact, HAVE any "dark corners" to hide things in?) the finding of the body itself, and what's on record in so far what Fleet did or did not see or report.
My thanks in advance.
Mike G
As I understand it, it would seem as though the first one down in the basement was most likely John, either immediately after the police were called or shortly after they arrived. That would be when he noticed the window open and then closed it (telling no one about what he'd found.)
DeleteNext was probably the policeman, who tried to open the door but couldn't locate the latch at the top that was keeping it closed. So he just gave up.
Next would most likely be Fleet, who apparently knew where the latch was and, according to his testimony, opened the door. But he couldn't locate the light switch so never turned on the light. It's important to realize that at this time in the morning, his eyes would have been dark-adapted, making it possible for him to see into the room at least part of the way, even without a light on. He says he saw nothing unusual.
Finally, around 1PM, John opened that same door and, according to Fleet, who was apparently right behind him, immediately screamed out. Only after screaming did he turn on the light. NB: at 1 PM John's eyes would not have been dark-adapted -- making it less likely for him to see JonBenet's body in the dark than it would have been for Fleet, who looked inside that room before sunrise.
In any case, Fleet did report his suspicions regarding John's being able to see his daughter's body in the same dark room where Fleet saw nothing.
My thinking is that either: 1. the body was not originally in that room, but possibly in the trunk of the car, and moved there later, when John went AWOL on Arndt. or 2. the body had been hidden under a blanket in a far corner of the room where Fleet would not have been able to see it. And then quickly moved by John to the front of the room, where he claimed he saw it that afternoon.
Thx Doc.
DeleteDoc, I agree with your theories for the most part, but I must question your belief in 'dark-adapted' eyes.This 'adaption', to the best of my knowledge, is lost once your eyes are exposed to light. That is why soldiers cover one or both eyes at night when a flare pops overhead. If I remember correctly it takes 10 minutes to 're-adapt' to the dark. I assume the Ramsey house was not left in pitch dark that morning.
Delete- GEH
The adaptation is not immediately lost. And the lights in the Ramsey home would not have been nearly as bright as sunlight. In my experience one's eyes can be dark adapted for some time unless exposed to really bright light.
DeleteFair enough. I think it could be argued that any light coming from a source outside the dark cellar would have provided enough illumination to 'highlight' a white blanket on the floor. However, at the time Fleet went in they were not looking for a body but an entrance/escape for intruder for which the cellar had neither.
Delete-GEH
Fair enough. I would think it could be argued that light from outside the open cellar door would have been enough to 'highlight' a white blanket on the floor. I believe JBR was not in the cellar when Flint first looked, or if she was, she definitely was not in the 'middle' of the floor under the blanket. Love the post and the debating, less liking the recent arguing.
Delete-GEH
I just wanted to say that the motive of two "normal" parents covering up the murder of their beloved daughter by their son by an elaborate kidnapping where they likely could go to jail is highly unlikely. They also would have deep resentment towards that son. That doesn't seem to be the case here as Patsy said she didn't know what she would do without her son. She wouldn't say that if he killed JB, either or purpose or accident. The motive of a father sexually abusing his daughter is much more likely. Additionally, JB who frequently had accidents in the bed, wore pull ups, so it doesn't seem that "having an accident" would be a concern. I have son, he's not potty trained yet, he wears pull ups, it's no big deal. And if he does soil the bed, I love him so dearly, that I do not care. I simply clean it up. If I had a housekeeper, I would just instruct her to clean it up. No reason to freak out so I don't buy that patsy did it. JR did.
ReplyDeleteI disagree on that Patsy comment regarding what she said about Burke. To me, that was a pure moment of her letting her guard down and letting out some fear/anxiety about people finding out what Burke had done.
DeleteBurke wasn't a murderer, he wasn't a bad kid, he may have had a demeanour a bit different to kids that age but thats it. He struck out in anger or in jest without realising it could be fatal (which kids do....who else in that else would have struck her in the head? Certainly not the parents in my opinion). He was probably crying and very upset when he woke his parents up and I'm sure Patsy was absolutely mortified and upset and angry to the extreme. But they had to make a decision and it was an accident and she loved Burke more than anything (even if people say she loved JB more which is bollocks).
So Patsy saying what she said about Burke was quite the opposite to what you stated, of course that is my opinion.
I realize we're going in circles here, but I just want to be clear. You say "they had to make a decision". And instead of calling the police immediately, they decided to write a phony ransome note, undermine its credibility by making sure all the doors in the house were locked and the windows shut, hide a dead body in the cellar, and THEN call the police for them to later discover that JonBent had not been beheaded but sexually abused, hit over the head, and strangled.
DeleteI'll say this for your theory. Burke would be a lot better off today if John and Patsy had just called the police right away. He could have gone through therapy learning to "accept" what he had done instead of having to "live with it" silently for the rest of his life.
If, as you say, Patsy loved "loved Burke more than anything", why should she have any "fear/anxiety about people finding out what (he) had done"? Sounds to me like someone who loved herself more than anything.
Zed, if Burke wasn't "a bad kid", I'm presuming you believe his part in this crime was solely the blow to the head, am I correct?
DeleteWhich means, in order to accept your theory, we must believe that after he struck his sister, his parents were faced with a choice....."Do we call 911 and save our daughter? Or do we strangle her instead, making sure she is dead so that she can't tell on her brother"? Which, of course means they were ultimately the ones who tied the garrote around her neck, making them guilty of the murder of their daughter?
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ReplyDeleteThe body very well may have been somewhere else that morning. LE should well have checked the cars and trunks as well as dogs should have been there at 6am. Knowing BPD as we do I doubt they ever brought in dogs and never checked the cars and trunks. Doc, do we know for fact that JBR was never in that suitcase ? Judging from the far away pic, it looks like a pretty decent sized suitcase and my bet is if she was not in that suitcase at some time, that was his plan at some point.
ReplyDeleteI've always thought that suitcase was intended for JonBenet too. I've read that it was discovered filled with other contents, but it's never been reported, so far as I know, to have been searched for trace evidence of JN's body having been in there, nor was it kept for future DNA analysis. Maybe Doc can shed more light on this.
DeleteMike G
There is chapter in Woodward's book devoted to Patsy's life/illness which I found very insightful (and very heartbreaking). Patsy's cancer (and surgeries) and what she went through during that time was horrific -- returning from her treatments (sometimes alone on the plane) only to be hospitalized in Boulder almost as soon as she returned. She was a terminal patient that had survived from experimental treatments with very low odds for a cure. The children were not able to get close to her while she was staying in the guest room due to her immune system being compromised. There is no doubt that her illness traumatically affected everyone in her family. My point is that Patsy most likely felt the cancer could/ would return at any time and that her time left on this earth was uncertain. I believe because of her state of mind, she would have done anything to protect her family and preserve what time she had left with them.
ReplyDeleteI decided to go back to past blogs and see what people wrote before. I was struck by some very good arguments from Hercule, no longer on here, dated May-August 2015. He goes toe to toe with everyone, in particular Doc, with some beautiful analysis and writing of his own. He is of the PDI theory and I have to agree, is very persuasive. So for those of you that are interested, go back and read it.
ReplyDeleteOne of Hercule's points is that if John had written that note he would have put it where HE could find it - not Patsy - if his intention was to not have LE called. The critical points he makes are exhibited in the May - August 2015 blogs.
ReplyDeleteHercule's arguments seem based almost exclusively on his own personal interpretations of how people are expected to behave and, his dubious claim that he is some sort of expert on psychology. Perhaps if Hercule had left a phony ransom note for his wife to find he'd have done it differently. If it had been me, I'd have done it the way John did it, because it might look more suspicious if I were to find it. On balance, I don't see any reason to assume one way of doing it is any more meaningful than the other when it comes to assigning guilt.
DeleteHercule's "critical points" are almost always based on his own personal assumptions and speculations, which are sometimes way out there. His comments led to some interesting discussion but on the whole I found it difficult to take him seriously, as did many others.
According to the blog entries around that time there were quite a few people who were taking him seriously.
DeleteNot only could I not take Hercules' theory about bedwetting and psychomommy seriously, he insulted others as being less educated than himself.
DeleteJohn could have, if he wanted to be the discoverer of the note, gone downstairs before Patsy and been the one to call out to her. This idea that he wouldn't have put it at the bottom of those stairs is just plain stupid logic. Whoever came downstairs first would find the note, even if it was left on the kitchen counter. Where is a spot that only John would find it? Name that spot -- his toilet seat? Like Doc said, putting it somewhere very specific to John would indeed be very suspicious. -LE
Regarding calling 911 vs. staging. This seems to be the biggest debate on here other than who people think did it. We have no clue what went on in that house. There are reports of BR spreading his fecal matter in JBR’s room and in her stuff. If prior molestation was taking place, it could have been from Burke. I don’t know if it was confirmed, but Burke is said to have aspergers, so for people saying Burke would be SO much better off had they just called 911, I don’t know how you can say this. The police have charged him with anything. Most in law enforcement over the years never considered him a suspect and he has lived as normal a life as you could under the circumstances. Had they called 911, he FOREVER would be the kid who killed his sister regardless of it being an accident.
ReplyDeleteIn the Casey Anthony trial, Casey not only killed Caylee, but she also accused her Dad of sexually abusing her (no evidence of this.) Even after all that, her Mom got on the witness stand and said that she was the one researching chloroform on the family computer in an attempt to save her daughter. Not a single person on here truly knows that they would have done if they had been given the same circumstance. It’s very easy to say “oh, call 911 for sure” but how can you truly say that? Yes, the staging was absolutely horrific, but an affluent family might have thought that Burke would forever be a pariah and they would forever be the parents of 2 kids, one who was murdered by the other.
-J
"I don’t know if it was confirmed, but Burke is said to have aspergers, so for people saying Burke would be SO much better off had they just called 911, I don’t know how you can say this. The police (could) have charged him with anything. Most in law enforcement over the years never considered him a suspect and he has lived as normal a life as you could under the circumstances."
Delete1) The "as normal a life" as is possible "under the circumstances" are YOUR preferred circumstances, so that is hardly an argument at all.
2) If Burke had aspergers, that just would have made it easier for the Ramsey's to opt for calling the police.
was supposed to say "the police HAVEN'T charged him with anything"
ReplyDelete-J
You can't accuse someone purely on the basis of speculations regarding what they might possibly have done. There is no evidence linking Burke to this crime nor is there any reason to assume a 9 year old would be sexually abusing his six year old sister. In the vast majority of such cases, such abuse is committed by an adult male, not a skinny kid fixated on video games.
Delete"You can't accuse someone purely on the basis of speculations"
Deleteummmmmmmmm you created a Blog based on pure speculations. There isn't definitive evidence of prior molestation, but IF there was, my point is that it could have been Burke just as much as John or Patsy. Just because history says it was the father doesn't make it true in this case.
-J
Doc's case is based on a lot more than "pure speculation", and as far as any definitive evidence of prior molestation goes, it makes not one iota of difference in regards to John's guilt as far as I'm concerned, as the evidence that I have seen here supports the conclusion that John Ramsey murdered his daughter, whatever his motive.
DeleteIf you feel that your own speculations - and they are nothing more than suppositions and "what ifs", you have given us no "definitive evidence" whatsoever - are more compelling in naming the actual killer than Doc's are, why not start your own blog? This blog that we are currently commenting on is the ONLY one that has made complete sense of the ransom note, John's lies in regards to the basement window, along with a few of his other, very telling "omissions" and untruths, but if you can offer more, why not go ahead and do so? I say this with all sincerity, as I am always looking for new forums to discuss the case.
Hey J, good morning. Have you gone back and read Hercule's blogs? I've been a BDI (suspected it before) since Kolar's book but I disagree with his premise that the head blow happened in the kitchen. IF it had happened in the kitchen, by Burke, then how would he have gotten JB downstairs for the strangulation. Kolar does not believe Burke did the strangulation. And that brings me back to having it unbelievable that either parent would cover in such a brutal way. And of course as you may know I have suggested Burke did all of it and that it all occurred in the basement (and not over pineapple :)). However I was very swayed by Steve Thomas in the beginning. And so if you read Hercule's points - Hercule, where are you? - he makes a very plausible case for PDI, and did all of it. And so I think we owe it to ourselves to give him a listen once again. And Hercule, if you are out there I would be interested in how you refute Burke did it theorists.
ReplyDeleteHey Inquisitive,
DeleteI havent gone back and I actually haben't read Kolar's book either. I generally don't read a lot of books unless it has Harry Potter in the title :-)
Regarding where she was hit, I think there are a few possibilities. Either he chased her around the house and she was running to his train room where he struck her OR it happened in the kitchen and one of the parents carried her downstairs. I have said this in other post's, but I know I have witnessed nieces and nephews or kids at school hit a sibling with a toy, branch or other object. The difference is that he used a Maglite Flashlight and that sudden act of violence killed her.
-J
J, so you then believe that a parent carried her downstairs and when she didn't come to strangled her and did a staging that included a sexual assault, then wrote a note. by the way if you would like to talk Casey Anthony I'd love to, but on a different venue other than here.
DeleteI'm open to what that venue would be. I have some opinions on that case too, but based on something I read earlier this year that convinced me the jury got it right. Not involving George though. By the way you know Spitz testified for the defense in that case, right?
Deletehey....regarding the Casey Anthony case, I honestly am 100% certain she did it. I think she chloroformed Caylee like she had done on other nights to go out and party. Unfortunately, Caylee died this time and then everything else that followed was a cover up. Her parents had no involvement whatsoever in the death.
Delete-J
and if I may add we are getting a spate of BDI's because of the CBS special. In May of 2015 we did not have too many BDI's. Kolar is a "dry read." He is most probably a good investigator, but not such an interesting writer.
ReplyDelete"We" ???
Deletethe blog site
DeleteThat you are new to since CBS special
DeleteNo, not me. I was most intrigued with what Burke was going to say to Dr. Phil. But was sorely disappointed - it was pure Dr. Phil drama. So before that aired I went to see what was "new" on this case and found this site. I'd also been hoping for years Burke would be questioned again so I continued to check for updates and found none.
DeleteThe only way I can believe BDI is if BR commits all elements of the crime sans the cover up. If he only hit JBR over the head in a fit of anger and did not strangle JBR and sexually assault her, then we would have had a 911 call for medical assistance not to report a kidnapping. I personally cannot believe a parent or parents would cover up an assault (blow to the head) with a murder.
ReplyDelete-GEH
I can't believe it either.
DeleteWell then, we agree on one thing!
DeleteAnd going by the fact that Burke has lived twenty years without incident, I think it's safe to say he is not a homicidal maniac who sexually abused, then garroted his sister after delivering a fatal blow......right?
Do you sincerely think someone that deranged at nine years old would go on to live a perfectly normal life (forget about his social awkwardness - not important) without further incident? Come on now.....at some point, logic must prevail.
PR: And I uh, I ran back upstairs and pushed open the door to her room and she wasn’t in her bed.
ReplyDeleteIn episode 4 of Real Crime Profile (Podcast) they discuss in more detail the statement above made by PR. In recreating the house they were able to see the layout of the house and most importantly JBR’s room. When pushing her door open, they said you would only be able to see the bed, but not much around it. You couldn’t see the closets, the bathroom or the side of the bed. So, what is extremely troubling by Patsy’s statement above is, what mother would see this note and not run into the room tearing it apart looking for her? You wouldn’t look for an open window? She burst the door open, looks quickly and then screams for John Ramsey that she was kidnapped. Neither John or Patsy Ramsey is running around the house looking for a sign of a kidnapper? I know the JDI crowd will justify this, but to me, this is extremely troubling behavior by a mother who supposedly thought her daughter was gone.
I think the very easy answer to my above comments are that Patsy didn’t need to tear the house apart looking for JBR because she already knew where she was.
-J
She didn't necessarily need to tear the house apart because she thought the note was genuine, she knew her daughter was supposed to be in bed, and when she was not found in bed she freaked out, thinking that bad guys had her child. I would have first gone to get my husband...then looked. My main focus would be "how did they get in? What door is open? Are they outside now, watching me?"
DeleteShe NEVER tore the house apart. She calls 911 and then invites friends to come over. Anybody who is a parent knows they would take a bullet for their child.....IF PR wasn't involved she didn't seem too concerned with finding out any details. Doesn't even tell the friends who came over about the Ransom Note.
Delete-J
She didn't give details on the phone, but obviously told the Fernies and Whites when they arrived - that's what sent Fleet on his 6 AM search of the basement.
DeleteCC
CC that just isn't true according to Fleet White. He said he didn't even find out about the RN from the Ramseys. He heard about it later in the morning
Delete-J
to reference my above statement, thats what Real Crime Profile said that Fleet White told them off the record. You can hear it in their 4th episode.
Delete-J
Then why did he search the basement at 6 AM?
DeleteCC
Fleet and Priscilla's daughter had gone missing once and they ended up finding her hiding somewhere. SO, Fleet got there and asked the Ramsey's if they called out her name looking for her and the Ramseys's said no. Thats when Fleet started saying her name and went looking for her. They were never told about the Ransom note from the Ramseys.
DeleteListen to it....episode 4 of Real Crime Profile, around 14 minute mark.
-J
"When pushing her door open, they said you would only be able to see the bed, but not much around it."
DeleteOMG! And these people call themselves law enforcement professionals? Just because Patsy says she pushed the door open, they assume that's all she did? They expect her to give a full account of what she looked for and what she saw? Talk about making assumptions!
The confirmation bias is so obvious as to be embarrassing. They are looking for anything and everything they can find that could make Patsy look like she's being deceptive. For shame!
So what you're actually saying then is Patsy WAS conforming, in part, to the "kidnappers" terms in the RN to not "tell a stray dog, she dies"?
DeleteCC
"They expect her to give a full account of what she looked for and what she saw? Talk about making assumptions!"
DeleteYES, every DETAIL does matter! Are you serious with these responses? You have picked apart every single bit of what John has said and done, so YES I BELIEVE EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF WHAT PATSY DID THAT MORNING IS IMPORTANT! Did she see a window open? Was any other items missing from her room that she noticed?
Your bias on this case is seriously ridiculous.
-J
CC, ummmm no. She wasn't conforming the second she called the police and then friends to come over. If she believed the note then she would have believed she was being watched, not bugged.
Delete-J
Given the obvious confirmation bias of these "investigators" I would want to know exactly what it is Fleet White said before jumping to conclusions about what it might mean. He had certainly been told that JonBenet had been kidnapped. Otherwise why all the fuss? And if Patsy had been up half the night writing her ransom note, why on earth wouldn't she be waving it around that morning for everyone to see?
DeleteIf Fleet doesn't recall being informed about the ransom note till later, so what? He had to know about the kidnapping. The note was probably in the hands of a policeman at that point anyhow. What on earth would Patsy have had to gain by not informing Fleet about that note?
Trying VERY hard not to get sarcastic folks -- but you try me, you try me.
People in Chicago know that Jay Cutler is the worst QB. Yet, there is a group of Jay Cutler apologists that despite all of the obvious evidence of him being bad staring you in the face, they have an excuse for everything. Receivers fault, bad o line, bad coaching, bad weather, bad running backs,etc. What's funny about these apologists is that no matter what proof to the contrary of their belief the stand strong through more excuses, belittling or name calling. hmmmmmm reminds me of somebody and I just can't put my finger on it
Delete-J
"YES, every DETAIL does matter!"
DeleteThe lady said she pushed the door open. Did she say that's all she did? No, of course not. Why would anyone assume that's all she did?
Fleet said he wasn't told about the ransom note right away. So you assume he knew nothing about any kidnapping? Then why was he there? Are you saying knowledge about the note was withheld from him deliberately? Any notion as to why? Or what makes that suspicious?
My God, these people claim to be experts yet they demonstrate a total incapacity to assess the meaning of what they've learned.
you can read my response below....but the note was signed S.B.T.C so IF Patsy believed the note to be true, you don't find it even the slightest bit odd that she wouldn't be asking their friends if they had ever heard of S.B.T.C?
Delete-J
The lady said she pushed the door open. Did she say that's all she did? No, of course not. Why would anyone assume that's all she did?
Deletehmmm I dont know, maybe because THATS WHAT SHE SAID. After pushing the door open, she called for John then called 911
-J
Here are the questions that I need answered.
ReplyDeleteIF Patsy believed the note, she didn't seem too concerned with calling the police, but my question is, WHY call friends to come over when the note says to not tell anybody? Furthermore, WHY wouldn't you explain to your friends about the Ransom Note and tell them to be on the lookout? Lastly, WHY aren't the Ramseys asking the White's, coworkers and other friends if they noticed ANYBODY suspicious?
I look forward to the answers to these questions
-J
And I do NOT look forward to having to answer the same questions over and over and over again.
DeleteI can't imagine that Patsy didn't tell her friends that JonBenet had been kidnapped. If Fleet can't recall seeing the note, then maybe he wasn't shown the note. But he was certainly informed of the kidnapping. Otherwise why would they be there?
Delete"IF Patsy believed the note, she didn't seem too concerned with calling the police, but my question is, WHY call friends to come over when the note says to not tell anybody? "
DeleteYou know that this question has been answered no less than two dozen times at this point, J.
Stop asking bullshit questions and read Doc's blog in it's entirety, or just accept you don't know enough of what he's talking about to comment honestly.
The RN clearly alludes to details specific to the Ramseys in reference to Johns bonus ($118,000). So, YES, it would have been extremely important for the Ramseys to discuss the note with friends once they were at the house to see if they had any idea of who could be behind it. To see if they noticed anything.
ReplyDelete-J
The police were on the scene. That was their job.
Deletehere we go.....let's blame the police. Yes, the parents in kidnappings are for sure supposed to sit back and do nothing. I mean, as a pa
Delete-J
Doc makes a fair point, J: the cops would have bagged and tagged the RN the moment they walked through the door; it would not have been passed around among the friends, which is not to say they were not told about it. Your podcast scoop may be a mere matter of semantics.
ReplyDeleteCC
CC.......according to the White's, the Ramsey's NEVER discussed it with them. Forget showing them the note....they NEVER told them about it. Regardless of who you think did it, this is just unexplainable behavior.
ReplyDelete-J
If true, I'll concede that it's weird. Mr. Fergie stated he looked through the back door on arrival and saw the RN on the floor, or on the step. Are you suggesting he didn't share that info with his wife and the Whites? The entire group sat there for hours for an undefined crisis of some sort?
DeleteCC
CC,
DeletePlease listen to the podcast. Im not saying that to be rude, but it will help to hear it from them rather than me. If the Ramsey's just told them there was a kidnapping, but didn't say a thing about the RN, then it's very curious. If Patsy truly believed the note, then I would think she would be asking about S.B.T.C and what they thought it might mean. Ask their friends who were with them the night before if they noticed anything strange or suspected anybody. According to Fleet they were never told about the RN from the Ramseys.
-J
I don't understand how one could tell them there had been a kidnapping without it logically following that there was a ransom note, but have it your way.
DeleteCC
I think it's fair to point out that you're accusing "the Ramseys", but confining your criticism to Patsy, when presumably, if your podcast is correct, John exhibited equally odd behavior.
ReplyDeleteCC
Sorry if I wasn't more clear. I 100% believe John was involved and my post's above were to try and point out that I also believe Patsy was involved.
Delete-J
I thought Mr. Fergie stated that he had actually read part of the RN through the window. So there is no way that he, if no one else, did not relay this to everyone else at the house. Surely they all knew what was going on.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteIt would make sense not to show the ransom note to the very people you planned on implicating in the murder. John Ramsey threw both Fleet White and Barbara Fernie under the bus. For example, didn't John Ramsey mention during one of his interviews that the only person he heard use the term "use that good common southern sense" was Barbara? Is it possible that John, the expert at deflection, had this in mind and would want his "targets" to know as little as possible regarding content? Suzs
ReplyDeleteThe Whites know that Patsy and John were in on it. Unlike us, they were there that morning and were very close to the Ramseys. I'm sure they know Burke was responsible as well.
ReplyDeleteI seriously can't believe people think Patsy was completely in the dark when making that 911 call. Still blows my mind.
Also found this comment from Doc a bit odd:
"You can't accuse someone purely on the basis of speculations regarding what they might possibly have done. There is no evidence linking Burke to this crime nor is there any reason to assume a 9 year old would be sexually abusing his six year old sister. In the vast majority of such cases, such abuse is committed by an adult male, not a skinny kid fixated on video games."
Seriously? You have not only accused John on exactly the same premise, but you've gone and wrote a book and created a blog on it. I have read every blog and comment on this site and I'm still waiting for the teeniest bit of evidence that points to John "instigsting" the crime. But I won't see anything because there is done. I for one think the whole sexual abuse thing is a complete red herring, but on the chance I am wrong Burke was a much more likely candidate than John. Burke shared a room with her for crying out loud and siblings experimenting is extremely common. And that just gives more reasons for the parents covering for Burke (if it was true) because I assumed they found out about it.
There is no direct evidence that locks in anyone but if you look at all the circumstantial evidence I would be seriously AMAZED BEYOND BELIEF if Patsy was not involved...its just unthinkable. And based on the evidence there is, Burke is by far and away the most likely culprit who started this thing (accident). He may have even put on the garrote he made weeks in advance as a joke...maybe, maybe not. But that gives even more fuel to why the parents would cover for him. Over and out.
You're saying Patsy and John collaborated?
DeleteThen you take a crack at my two questions, Zed: if they were in it together, why wasn't the window staging complete? And why weren't their subsequent stories about it in synch?
CC
If the staging were not completed then why would JR clean up the glass ? It probably would have taken less time to complete the staging than it would to clean up the glass.
DeleteAgree with both of you...the window was odd. The major thing that sticks out is this
Delete-If the window was previosuly broken by JR months earlier, than there is nothing to talk about because Patsy would have been aware of it.
But IF, the window was broken on the 25th and JR used the broken window story to cover for himself, there is absolutely NO scenario that PR wouldn't have known about it. So, if she had zero involvement in this whole thing, the window story told by JR would have been a HUGE red flag for her.
-J
-J
I have to agree with you on that J. The only thing that is possible is if she was covering for JR or if he did manipulate or gaslight her into it. Either of the latter produce a big fat red flag to PR imo.
DeleteNone of which provide any logical answer for what originally happened with that window. What would make sense is if it were broken during whatever happened that night during JBR's assault and then cleaned up. Later on JR realizes that it may be believable to use this window to say an intruder could have come through and PR goes along with this story or she is on it. There is no evidence of this but it does make complete sense in this light.
DeleteZed, the premise on which I've based this blog and my book is made clear in the first two posts. It is NOT based on assumptions and speculation. That's your dept. not mine.
DeleteZed, you would be "AMAZED BEYOND BELIEF if Patsy was not involved...its just unthinkable."
DeleteSure, that is enough to convince me she was involved. Because you can't envision a more likely scenario.
And you say Doc's theory is based "on assumptions and speculations". Well, even if that were true, at least he hasn't based them off of gut feelings as you have.
"And based on the evidence there is, Burke is by far and away the most likely culprit who started this thing (accident). He may have even put on the garrote he made weeks in advance as a joke...maybe, maybe not. But that gives even more fuel to why the parents would cover for him. Over and out."
Give me one - just one scrap of evidence - other than your *feeling* that Burke may have made this garrote "weeks in advance", when there is not ONE IOTA of evidence he made it at all? Then, perhaps you may answer the question I have asked you no less than four times over the past few weeks: if it is that Burke only delivered the fatal blow, and had no part in the garroting (you oscillate between the two theories) why JB's parents, on finding their unconscious child, would decide to strangle their only daughter and mutilate her vagina in order to protect their only son, rather than simply stage an accident? The staged "accident" wouldn't have required a ransom note written in handwriting that could be traced back to them, nor would they have to worry about tying complicated garrotes or the FBI becoming involved.
Ms D, your questions are fair, but none of us were there....actually you might be surprised, but unless you or Doc are Burke Ramsey, you weren't in the Ramsey house that night. SO, what are we left with? Our FEELING regarding the evidence that we have
DeleteI have seen soooooo many versions of the JDI theory that I would love to see a definitive answer (not from Doc) on what they think happened
-Was it Premeditated?
-Was this a sex game gone wrong?
-Was it an accident OR a cover up of prior sex acts?
The Head blow and strangulation are two separate acts right? But why? If it's PREMEDITATED to shut her up, why do we have a head blow at all? Why would John risk a potential bloody crime scene? See, I don't believe this was premeditated in any way, shape or form.
I have said this over and over, but if John is the sole killer then why is he showering that morning and leaving his life as a free man in the hands of a would be hysterical Patsy Ramsey? Yes, Im sure you will all claim he showered to remove evidence, but that is also a load of garbage. If he was the sole killer, then he would have needed to completely control the scene and dictate what took place. He wouldn’t be taking a shower with Patsy awake and running around the house.
-J
I have answered your questions in regards to premeditation. There is no evidence to suggest it was premeditated. It may have been, but that is pure speculation - short of a confession, no one can ever know. I tend to think it wasn't. This is why John was limited in his options regarding the subsequent cover up, and why some of the staging is a little "sloppy".
DeleteThe head blow was struck in order to kill her, I'm sure. Her skull was cracked from left to right, this wasn't an accident, it wasn't delivered to keep her quiet, it was intended to be a fatal blow. The garroting was a last minute, desperate act in order to end her life after it was revealed the blow hadn't killed her, hence why there was at least 40 mins between head blow and strangulation - I believe John struck her, thought she was dead, wrote the ransom note, went to stage the crime scene, noticed she was still breathing, thus "finished her off" with whatever was nearby - paint brush, cord etc. I don't think the garrote was part of a sex game, though some here do.
Perhaps John wasn't taking a shower when Patsy called 911.....that is his version of events, and we can both agree that he lies. Perhaps he was down in the basement doing some last minute staging that needed to be done. I really don't know how to answer that question, as it is a bit of a sore point with me. But, the instructions in that ransom note alone point to John having written it to buy himself some time, along with an alibi, should he be caught in the area of where JB's body was found.
The note, as far as I'm concerned, stands as testament to John's guilt, and Patsy's call to 911 stands as testament to her innocence. I just cannot see any way around that.
Thanks for your response...I know the blogger of this site believes it was premeditated which is crazy to me, but didn't know where you stood.
DeleteRegarding Patsy, I feel you either believe the note all the way or you don't. She sure didn't seem like a person intent on finding out who S.B.T.C was. The note was signed with those 4 letters.....from testimony of certain people with Patsy that day, it was never mentioned! This is to me what speaks to her guilt, which then means IF John did it, she was ok with staying married to a guy who bludgeoned her daughter to death
-J
Wow, J. You have no problem with making wild assumptions. At least we know what you think.
DeleteFirst of all I know of NO testimony from those on the scene attesting to Patsy or John never mentioning S.B.T.C. Second, how would not mentioning it make them suspicious? And how do you then reach the conclusion that Patsy would have known if John did it? How would she have known?
And for the record, "the blogger of this site" has discussed premeditation as a possibility but has never claimed that's what happened. At this point, as I see it, we can't be sure whether it was premeditated or spontaneous, but it certainly could have been premeditated, yes.
For the record you have gone as far as saying the note was written days before. Also, it is extremely convenient to say it may or may not have been premeditated. Your motive has been all along that John was trying to shut her up from telling anybody about him molesting her. Now you are backing away from that?
DeleteThere isn't a thing about Patsy's actions that morning that to me speak to a woman whose daughter was just kidnapped by a small foreign faction. She disobeyed the RN immediately! Literally within minutes of reading the note that she supposedly took to be authentic, she calls the police (wasn't supposed to per the note) and calls friends to come over (wasn't supposed to per the note.)
So just so I'm clear where you stand. JDI, BUT it may or may not have been premeditated. It may or may not have to cover up his molestation against her. BR may have been eating pineapple and possibly seen something which for sure helps you explain why Burke was acting so suspicious on the interrogation tapes. Actually John could have wrote the note days earlier, but he also maybe didn't. He also could have accidentally killed JBR, but he also could have planned this crime. I just want to make sure I'm keeping up to date with all of the changes you have made to keep up with any possible evidence that has altered the case.
-J
I never claimed the note was written days before. I do see that as a possibility, yes. This is not a game of Clue, where it's necessary to recreate precisely what happened. In the real world that's not always possible.
DeleteWhat I DO claim is that it's possible to deduce that John murdered his daughter and wrote the note, based on certain facts and logical inferences drawn from those facts (see the first three posts on this blog). Most of the rest is, very frankly, speculation.
As for Patsy, how is disobeying the instructions in the note cause for suspicion? If she's the one who wrote it then we'd expect her to go along with the instructions she herself wrote rather than disobey them. While one may certainly question her judgment in that respect, poor judgement is not evidence of guilt. If the plan was to call 911 the next morning, then why include all those dire warnings regarding what would happen if that call were made?
If JDI, then Patsy can’t be in the know right?
DeleteThis is the problem Doc…….Either Patsy believed that the note was REAL or she didn’t believe the note because she was in on the staging.
IF we are going to say that she believed the note which 100% needs to be the case for JDI, then how do you explain this:
• Disobeys the note immediately by calling police than friends
• 10am time comes and goes with zero reaction from either Ramsey
• Fleet White said the Ramsey’s never mentioned the RN
• The note says they could arrange an earlier pickup and neither JR or PR seemed concerned with that
• Note claims to be a GROUP (small foreign faction) to be exact, yet all we hear from PR and JR is that there is a “KILLER on the loose” meaning 1
• Neither JR or PR is compliant with the police
• According to her she burst open the bedroom door and only looked to see if she was in bed. You have discounted this saying the details don’t matter, but considering her daughter was just kidnapped, she sure didn’t seem to tear the house apart looking for either JBR or any clues.
• IF the John window story was a lie, then she certainly would know whether or not a window was broken in her basement, yet she never called out the lie.
-J
"Disobeys the note immediately by calling police than friends"
DeleteWhy would she fly in the face of all the dire warnings in that note if she had been involved in writing it?
"10am time comes and goes with zero reaction from either Ramsey"
Just because Arndt didn't notice anything doesn't mean there was no reaction. And how is the lack of a reaction suspicious? If Patsy is such a great actress, I'd assume she'd have made a huge fuss at that point.
"Fleet White said the Ramsey’s never mentioned the RN"
Once again, how is that grounds for suspicion? What purpose would have been served by not mentioning the RN to Fleet? Surely he'd been informed of the "kidnapping."
"Note claims to be a GROUP (small foreign faction) to be exact, yet all we hear from PR and JR is that there is a “KILLER on the loose” meaning 1"
Again, why does that strike you as suspicious?
"Neither JR or PR is compliant with the police"
When the time came for the Ramseys to be questioned by the police, Patsy was a heavily medicated basket case. The decision to stonewall the police came from John.
"According to her she burst open the bedroom door and only looked to see if she was in bed. You have discounted this saying the details don’t matter,"
The details may matter, but she never provided any details because she wasn't asked to. We have no way of knowing whether or not she entered the room and searched it.
"but considering her daughter was just kidnapped, she sure didn’t seem to tear the house apart looking for either JBR or any clues."
Neither did the police. They made a cursory examination looking for a possible entry point. It never occurred to anyone that she had not actually been kidnapped.
Is this the best you've got???
Wouldn't say it's the best I got, but I might as well be talking to my wall. Nothing anybody does is suspicious but John. Burke won't answer what pineapple in a bowl is and you have said that he probably saw John do something and the pineapple brought back the memory of it. Regarding Patsy, there is no way possible you will admit that anything she does is suspicious because Patsy being involved means you wasted a whole lot of time writing a blog and a book.
DeleteEither she believed the note to be REAL or not. IF she believed the note then she would have HAD to believe the culprit was a small foreign faction called S.B.T.C. This isn't really complicated. It wasn't A killer on the loose, it was a GROUP! You can't have it both ways....forget the police....IF she called 911 believing the note to be real, her actions don't speak to that.
Regarding the body being in the house when she calls 911...I will admit it for sure is odd. What I believe is that the murder of JBR happened after 9pm and they were scheduled to leave for Michigan the next morning. If they just randomly canceled their Michigan trip without an explanation and then the next day they tell family that JBR went missing, that would look odd. So, I believe the body was hidden in the suitcase or someplace else in the basement. When the Ramsey's realized the note was being believed, that's when JR had to remove the body from its hiding place and be the one to find it.
We can do this all day Doc if you want. I have read your theory with the ever changing details and barring a John Ramsey confession, I will never be swayed that Burke didn't do it, because I believe he did. I believed your theory for a long time, but as I have read and seen more on this case, my opinion has changed.
-J
*when the RN WASNT being believed
Delete-J
Lets face it, there is beyond odd behavior by both PR and JR. Barbara Fernie reported something was wrong with PR because PR was not grieving yet Barbara herself was. I have been restudying the basement window and I can not make sense of it. If JR broke the window that night, in an attempt to stage then why would he clean up the glass ? He surely did not have time to clean it up after 911 was called or when someone mentioned that there were no footprints in the snow. That would have been much too late and not enough time to do so. Surely I think JR was trying to stage, however, there seems to be no scenario that makes sense of the window.
ReplyDeleteKeiser, do a search on "Basement window" to learn why John would have wanted to clean up the glass. I'm tired of repeating myself. My analysis of that window scene is imo a vital key to this case.
DeleteThat window plagues me too, KS. I think it's the only weak link in Doc's theory - I can never get completely comfortable with it. I've tentatively accepted his explanation because the prior abuse convinces me that JDI, but . . . that window.
ReplyDeleteCC
I agree. I just can not find ANY scenario that makes sense. The only 1 that comes close would be if JR snuck down to unstage after 911 was called and cleaned it up. I dont think he had time to to do that, so that would mean, most likely it was broken to stage and cleaned up and unstages before 911 was called, which makes no sense at all. Could it have been broken somehow while this crime was beong committed ?
DeleteWhat was the police response time that morning, does anyone recall? Based on my (very dated) knowledge of Boulder geography, I think 10 minutes at that early hour, if French hustled. Might be enough if Doc is right and John ground up the glass and flushed it.
DeleteCC
And right away I start to equivocate, because if he had ten minutes to un-stage, he had ten minutes to do a better job staging, which seems the more logical choice.
DeleteCC
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DeleteExactly my thoughts CC. Why not finish staging ? I am not sure that he had enough time to clean up, ground up and flush it. Im not even sure that he could clean it that fast but I guess it is possible. I believe JR answered the door when police first got there ?
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Delete7 mins. The 911 call was placed at 5:52 am and the police arrived at 5:59 am. Minus a minute for the call because I personally know that JR was right there during the 911 call. So you are talking maybe 5 mins.
DeleteEven if that were the case then what reason would he have to unstage at that point ? He needs a break in and intruder even more than he did before because this will be his last chance to do so. He is not going to have the rest of the day to do any staging or produce an intruder. It makes no sense.
DeleteHypothetically, perp may unstage window if there were other way(s) to deflect attention away from oneself to point to intruder, like individual(s) who had key(s) to house (then no reason to direct LE suspicion to unknown intruder, when suspect(s) could be individuals with house keys). Friends were called around same time as LE maybe this was for further misdirection/contamination (unstaging unknown intruder to staging known person with keys?). I know Patsy called friends, but who made decision to call and what friends were called to home morning LE arrived?
DeleteHe could have cleaned it up that night/morning before the 911 call for a variety of reasons. He may have stood on the glass, touched it, left some evidence on it. Maybe he planned to clean it up all along.
DeleteHis story from then on was that the window had previously been broken.
Oh dear. Everyone is going off on tangents. John had good reason to unstage his previous staging as I've explained over and over again. And yes he would have had time to clean up the glass while Patsy was calling 911 or maybe a few minutes afterward. It's just a small hole, described as "baseball size." Not that much glass to clean up. And he didn't get it all anyhow.
DeleteCC – I don’t think John and Patsy were in collaboration to kill their daughter. I think an unfortunate accident occurred that night (most likely involving Burke) and they decided to invent the intruder/kidnapping theory.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone is overthinking the whole window thing to be honest. Just my opinion.
Maybe John actually did break that window in the past. I mean it seemed like a crazy story, so crazy that maybe it was true. We know it was definitely possible for him to have done that…both Lou S and CBS team proved that. I know friends who have removed tiles off the roof because they forgot their keys and tried to get in that way…maybe it only seemed like a crazy story because people are so convinced he must be telling a fib.
Or maybe he broke it on the 25th/26th and cleaned up the glass because after breaking it he realised it looked fake. He then pushed a suitcase under the window and made up a lie. None of us know exactly what was going on in John and Patsy’s mind in regards to the staging and John wasn’t an expert on staging murdering intruders (just like none of us are). I just think there are more important things to focus on in this particular case other than the window. And I think Patsy was limited to only writing the RN that night.
Zed, I, for a long time thought PR wrote the RN as well. The problem with that, as I found out, is that the exemplars used in some of the experts comparison analysis' look nothing like any of Patsy's full known handwriting samples at all. The question to me is where are these exemplars coming from and whose are they because some of those look exactly like the RN but nothing like hers. PR did not write the RN, JR did imo. Go back and study it for a short time and you will see it sure looks like he did. I would think that JR going on his own, right after the murder and trying to get himself eliminated as the author of the RN should have been a big red flag to LE. If Doc's theory is even close to correct then JR's plan and the RN were brilliant in a manipulative and evil way. In essence, it was nothing more than his plan blueprinted out to aid his dumping of the body.
DeleteWith regard to the broken window I remain convinced John made up that story out of desperation. It was an obvious string of lies, but LE bought it because they couldn't imagine any reason for John to lie about it.
ReplyDeleteCC is right, however, that Patsy's willingness to support that story is THE weak link in my logical chain. We've been over this before, many times and I don't have the energy to get into it again, so don't expect any more than the following from me on this topic.
1. If Patsy and John were in it together and Patsy was lying, then she would not have included Linda in her story.
2. If John's alibi is for real, then, once again, there is no reason for Patsy to include Linda in her story.
3. Linda denied any knowledge of any broken glass and her husband reported washing all the windows in the house around Thanksgiving. If a window had been broken he would certainly have noticed it.
4. Thus, as difficult as it might be to accept gaslighting as the basis for Patsy's story, I can't think of any alternative. It's not all that unusual for husbands to implant false memories in their wives' minds. It's also important to recall that, according to Patsy herself, she rarely went into the basement, so it's very likely she would not have noticed if that window had been broken or intact.
5. The only alternative I can see is that Linda and her husband were the guilty parties and deliberately lied about that window to implicate the Ramseys -- making them both innocent. If that's the way you want to go, fine. That's another path we've already been down but if someone wants to raise that issue again, feel free to go for it.
I've been reading many blogs from 2015 and I can see the holes in Hercule's theory. In fact you could probably drive a truck through them. No offense Hercule but I think Doc debunked ya dude. Doc, this may be a trivial thing, but it does seem more likely that John would have put the oversized panties on JB, reaching for something to use quickly in that house without the lights on. If Patsy had redressed her she would have used panties that fit. I also don't know if the panties "for Jenny" were gift wrapped or not. But in any event he may have just reached for something that was handy, not the size she actually wore. It's also possible that the flashlight was starting to go dim (if he was using it during the night to avoid turning on lights), and if he changed the batteries he would have wiped them down then, in addition to the wand. Wrapping her in the blanket - taken from a drier - may have just been something else he grabbed that was handy (if it was taken from the drier in the basement)to cover her, not even noticing in particular that the nightgown was stuck to it. The blanket always seemed to me a feminine touch, but perhaps it was just used to cover her up, without thinking it was her "favorite" or that it would be viewed as a loving touch. In fact he would not want the family implicated at all. And Keiser, you are right, even if the note was disguised by Patsy using her left hand the "a's" look way more like John's a's in the limited sample we have of his handwriting. And nothing like Patsy's. Even though there are several different styles of a's. One more thing, I happened on a NBC Dateline story last night in which our famous Dr. Spitz again testified for the defense. And as it turns out he was wrong again.
ReplyDeleteYes, thank you. And actually many of the "a"s were written originally as cursive, and then altered by adding that little "hat" on top.
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DeleteGeez Inquisitive you were praising Hercule this morning saying he could be right. Talk about swinging from one to the other. I don't agree with Hercule but from here on in will ALWAYS believe Patsy was in on it.
DeleteDoc, you are off topic. We are not discussing gaslighting of PR or if Linda knew. We are discussing the broken window, it is more of the when and why of where the broken glass went, as I for one, can make no rationalization as to why JR would clean up his staging before the 911 call and when he cleaned it up. Clearly JR did not have time to clean it up after the 911 call was made. So as we have said it makes no sense.
ReplyDeleteI don't see the problem, Keiser. Obviously he would not have cleaned up the glass before the 911 call, because the broken window was an important part of the staging he was planning to complete later that day.
DeleteBut once Patsy picked up that phone to call 911, he would have realized that his partial staging wouldn't be good enough to fool anyone, and that the police would assume the window had been broken on the previous night, by someone on the inside. There are other possibilities, but that one seems most likely to me.
So he would immediately have scooted down to the basement and cleaned up as much of the glass as he could quickly locate before the police arrived. He could simply have put the pieces in a paper bag and then placed the bag in an inconspicuous corner of the basement. The break wasn't that large, so there wouldn't have been all that much glass to clean up. He would then have rushed upstairs, just in time to greet the arriving police. No time to unlock a door, so he'd have had no choice but to admit to the police that all the doors were locked, as he'd had no way of knowing whether or not they'd already checked.
Later, when he went AWOL on Arndt, he could have come back down there, pulverized the glass by repeatedly stomping on the bag with his foot, and then flushed the tiny remnants down the toilet.
Once again this is all speculative, obviously. We have no way of knowing what he actually did or what would have been on his mind. But we do have very good reason to assume that he himself had broken that window the night before to stage an intruder break-in, and as we know, only a few pieces of glass were found on the floor the following morning. So someone must have cleaned up that glass, and the scenario I've provided tells us how it could have been done.
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ReplyDeleteprobably from the National Enquirer under "Case Solved". I can't link up to your link without re typing it so I'll have to do another search. I did read where Lin Wood would not allow Patsy to submit a left handed example. In regard to the window falsehoods Patsy told, weren't they being told things from the DA's office either from their lawyers or other leaks so that anything that didn't make sense they could come up with some plausible reasonable explanation? If neither one of them are giving a police interview for was it four months? after the death they had ample time to fabricate missing pieces.
ReplyDeleteJust google search Patsy Ramsey handwriting comparison and go to google images and scroll down. There will be a comparison with 6 As and there are a few other compelling comparisons. When you are done there search Fausto Brugnatelli and look at JR's comparisons.
ReplyDeleteKeiser, Ive read all entries and comments on this blog and have reviewed heaps of handwriting of John and Patsys. To me, I see it a much closer match to Patsys. Plus the text contains certain words and phrases Patsy would use. It also contains some John would use too and I have no doubt that one wrote and the other assisted. Even if John wrote it, Patsy was right beside him the entire time. But as I said I think Patsy wrote it. Most handwriting experts agree.
ReplyDeleteCheck this out:
http://www.acandyrose.com/w3.gif
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ReplyDeleteI have seen it all before Zed. That exact document and 1 of Cina Wong's comparisons are what had me convinced of PR's guilt for over 10 years. That is a comparison built by Darnay Hoffman out of a scrapbook found at the Ramsey's house. I will say that whoever wrote those words in the scrapbooks wrote the note. During the depo, neither JR nor PR would admit to even knowing whose writing it was in that scrapbook. Which I find laughable and proves to me that PR, at the least knows whose writing it is and is covering. I would call that an outright blatant lie. However after viewing all of PR's writing examples (not comparisons) it looks nothing like her writing. So my next guess is that it is JR's and she has to be covering. If you have not seen the depos yet, you are missing out on what I found the most fascinating thing I have watched about this case. Here is a short compacted video with some of the important pieces in it. https://youtu.be/yl5Ll3sLFs8
ReplyDeleteHi Keiser
DeleteI'm actually agreeing with you. Whilst I'm confident (in my own mind) that Patsy wrote the RN, to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if it was John. It does not have any bearing on the BDI scenario that I so strongly believe it. I also agree that Patsy was either fibbing or covering for Johm regarding the scrapbook...just one of many tidbits which all add up to show that Patsy knew what was going on. I'm sure I've seen that video before but I'll watch again. I dont think anything will sway me away from Patsy writing that note though...stubborn? Maybe. Confident? Yes.
This video and the full depositions are 1 of the most interesting things I have ever seen. They are a must see, JR and PR's full depos are on youtube. Lin Wood barely lets PR speak. When you have about 6 hrs free time, I would put them as the number 1 thing to see involving this case.
DeleteZed, if the page of comparisons you've linked to is evidence of anything, it's evidence of Cina Wong's incompetence, and has little to do with Patsy's writing style.
DeleteWhile the two "d"s at the top might look similar at first glance, if you look closely you'll see that the one on the left was formed using two strokes, while the one on the right was formed using three. The method of forming a letter is far more important than the way it looks, but Wong either didn't notice the difference or didn't care.
The following "S" is from the photo caption "Rainbow Fish Players." So are two other exemplars from this same page of comparisons, the "o" and the "b". Now if you look carefully at the caption as a whole it looks very different from all the other examples provided by Darnay Hoffman to his "experts." And it shouldn't require an expert to see that "Rainbow Fish Players" was written in a different hand from the other captions. Looks rather juvenile I'd say, and was possibly written by Burke or maybe one of his pals.
A competent document professional would have caught that, but NONE of Darnay's "experts" did.
The third example on the list is from a badge containing the caption "I'm Marilyn Monroe." It was written in large block letters in a manner totally different from the manner in which the ransom note was written. The similarity is therefore completely fortuitous and means little.
As for the exclamation point and the "g," they look totally generic to me -- something very similar could be found in the writing of literally millions of people.
So no, this is NOT evidence pointing to Patsy, nor is it reasonable to assume that the person or persons who penned these letters wrote the ransom note. All it tells us is that Cina Wong was, and probably still is, a totally incompetent amateur, blithely cherry picking for whatever she could find to "prove" what Darnay wanted her to "prove."
Here's a clearer image of the first two comparisons, which makes it easier to see the very obvious difference between the two letter "d"s:
Deletehttps://www.google.com/search?q=cina+wong+comparisons+Patsy+ramsey&safe=active&rlz=1C1AVST_enUS355&espv=2&biw=823&bih=448&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi89-uOiOfPAhXFcj4KHXHCAJAQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=Xh94OcPAdeyRCM%3A
When reproduced with less clarity they can look almost identical, yes. But as the more detailed reproduction makes clear, this is an illusion.
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ReplyDeleteZed, all of PR's true handwriting (premurder) can be seen here, including her London Letter and the RN exemplar. You will see here that her writing looks nothing like the RN. I, after over 10 years of thinking PR wrote it, am not convinced JR did. My question is this, if me and other people can easily see that JR's handwriting so obviously looks the RN author's then how can a whole team of "expert" not find even the slightest bit of similarity ???? http://blabbieville.tripod.com/
ReplyDeleteDoesnt most people have different styles though? Sometimes I have the neatest handwriting in the world, sometimes its a faster scribble and completely unrecognizable compared to the first. Sometimes I even write entirely in capital letters.
ReplyDeletePatsy is very much the most probable person of writing on those photos in the scrapbook. And the guilt on her face when she looked at them told her she knew the letters matched the RN style.
I completely agree with you Zed, without a doubt I think she knew. I could tell that she was game playing suggesting that one B was smaller than the other B etc etc. That however does not make it her handwriting. It does not look anything like any prior writing of hers. We know she did not change it just for the scrapbook because it was old writing and her known samples are pre murder as well. The only reasonable conclusion is she was covering for someone.
ReplyDeleteZed, I was with Hercule up to a point. When he veered into the "fantastic" was when I started to doubt just about everything he said. He said Patsy changed out of her dress clothes when she finally went to bed, then back in as she suspected some of her fibers might be found on JB. He also thought JB may have made the iced tea drink herself, adding sugar and a teabag even though there are no prints of JB on the glass. So when someone veers into the "supernatural" so to speak that's when I leave them. And it does cause me to discount everything they have said previously. For me it has to make SENSE. That's why I'm here, to read something that makes sense in a case that was not handled properly from the beginning, allowing the family to derail the investigation, the political in-fighting in the BPD, and the attorneys to run the show. So I'm hungry for the truth. I don't completely buy Kolar's book - that Burke struck the blow, then a parent did the strangulation. Kolar believes the blow was struck in the kitchen area by Burke. If that is so then a parent would have had to have carried her down to the basement and done the rest. Burke couldn't have drug her down there (although there were some abrasions on the shoulder and leg) but unlikely Burke could have that kind of strength. Then I have to wonder which parent would have wanted to cover for a head wound in such a brutal way. So I surmised Burke did all of it, down in the basement. Kolar does not think that. Then all of the other things that were done was getting rid of evidence, etc. - by parents. However she was not strangled for 45 min. to 2 hours after the head injury. What would Burke be doing all that time? Going back to his toy? Eating some pineapple? Someone would have noticed he's up a little late. It seems more plausible to me that one person did all of it. Not two. Burke. Or Patsy. Or John. IT was either an intentional murder and coverup (John) a flash of anger and terrible play (Burke) or an accident then coverup (Patsy).
ReplyDeleteKeiser, another reason for Patsy's "confusion" over the handwriting, might not be as coverup for John but because she knew she was being targeted. It's not difficult to see in the deposition videos that she knew Darnay was going after her. So she's basically covering for herself, pretending she doesn't recognize any of it as being her handwriting, etc., etc.
ReplyDeleteYup, and I would do that in a depo too, if I thought someone was coming after me. Lawyers coach you: if you don't know, say you don't know. If you're not really sure, don't make statements that will be construed as being sure, or as being fact.
DeleteHere's what bothers me Anonymous. During the Wolf case in which depositions were videotaped Lin Wood refused to allow handwriting charts comparing PR's handwriting to the handwriting on the ransom note to be shown during the deposition of Gideon. Nor would Lin Wood allow exemplars from Patsy wearing gloves, or using her left hand (as the FBI believed the ransom note author was ambidextrous). If she didn't write the note, than why not?
DeleteThat's an easy question to answer, and I'm not even a lawyer like CC is. As any lawyer knows, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff. Patsy and John were being sued; they had a lot to lose financially. Lin Wood's job is to make sure no one can build a case against them for libel. He is not required to defend Patsy as not being the author that note. The plaintiff wanted to make the case that the author of the note was the murderer, Patsy was the author, therefore Patsy knew Chris Wolf did not kill JBR and thus had libeled him. A deposition is a form of discovery, allowing each side to collect facts that might support their case. Why would Lin Wood help the plaintiff build such a case against his client?
DeleteWant a job clerking next summer?
DeleteCC
Lol, Sure CC. I'll have to get a leave of absence from the high tech job, but it sounds like fun! -LE
DeleteChange of topic. First, a disclaimer.
ReplyDelete1) I am entirely behind Doc on who did the crime.
2) I therefore realize that my "theory" on the question I have for others a) is HUGELY speculative and b) could be used against me as
an example of "confirmation bias"
My interest, since I am newer to the case than many others, is, what ARE the theories out there regarding what S.B.T.C. means? I have read none anywhere.
Without giving it much thought, I noticed that the letters BC and ST are contiguously placed in the alphabet. As John wrote that letter, what voices might he have been after having just killed his daughter, particulary at the very end when he had to "sign it"? (Or did he "psychologically" feel the need to sign it, as it has been suggested that the killer felt a "psychological" closeness to and "need" to have JB carefully wrapped in a clean blanket while clutching something that was "close" to her in life? She even had, not just new panties put on her, but BRAND NEW panties put on her.)
At six years old, was JB still reciting the alphabet? Did she have her own peculiar emphases (voice punctutions if you will, since my vocabulary is lacking) on some letters and not others. Did these
"perculiarities" resonate in Johns mind as he was thinking of how
to stage authorship of the letter?
Because this POSSIBLE theory IS so incredibly speculative, I wouldn't have even included it but for that fact that it is potentially testable--a questioning of JB's teacher at that time.
Mike G
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ReplyDeleteOr "signed by the captain", or " subic bay training centre", thats what i stumbled on here and there
ReplyDeleteSaved Burke Through Christ
ReplyDeleteSaved by the cross, subic bay training centre, santa Barbara tennis club, small business technology company,its endless.
ReplyDelete"Sick Bast*rd Targets Children."
ReplyDeleteI'm not being serious, I just think that we can come up with all kinds of different possibilities. Only the person who wrote the note knows what it stands for, if anything.
Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey? Bosworth, Charles; Wecht, Cyril H.Graymalkin Media. Kindle Edition. (OCT 2016)
ReplyDeleteI just finished reading this book. Dr. Wecht dissects the Autopsy Report and provides his detailed expert analysis in layman's terms. He believes (and explains why) JB was additionally molested within 48-72 hours of her death. He states the molestation was likely a "controlled" digital penetration (not like an aggressive rapist). He also says she was shaken (bruises to her brain right behind her temples on both sides), and suggests this may be a result of the perp trying to awaken her after the autoerotic asphyxiation accidently pinched the vagus nerve in her neck which caused her lungs and heart to shut down. He said that due to LACK of injuries that are common in a strangulation (i.e., damage to hyoid, thyroid, trachea, tongue, etc.), in his opinion the intent was NOT to strangle JB to death.
Regarding the head fracture, he said it could be the flashlight, a golf club or something similar (smooth surface without sharp edges). He said due to lack of "organization" of the blood cells in the areas of the blow (scalp hemorrhage), and the small amount of blood under the skull, the heart was not pumping blood or she was near death (agonal)when stuck. He believes the blow to the head was to cover up the molestation.
He does not state who exactly he thinks killed JBR, but doesn't believe it was an intruder (for all the same reasons as have been discussed in this blog). He mentions both Patsy and John as the possible culprits.
VSO
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DeleteHave you seen the autopsy photos of JonBenet's neck?! The cord was wound so tightly, it cut deeply into her skin. There is no way this was an accidental, autoerotic, act that went awry. This strangulation was deliberate, with the intent of ending her life.
DeleteYes, I have viewed all of the (published) photos....just sharing what that forensic pathologist's opinion is. I'm not a doctor so I can't say that I agree or disagree with his analysis. VSO
DeleteI don't know of anyone who cleans their nail clippers. The matter found under jbs nails was ruled as by contaminated nail clippers. Is it possible that the matter did match one of the Ramsey's ? But .... they had already been ruled out ? I find this suspicious.
ReplyDeleteI don't know of anyone who cleans their nail clippers. The matter found under jbs nails was ruled as by contaminated nail clippers. Is it possible that the matter did match one of the Ramsey's ? But .... they had already been ruled out ? I find this suspicious.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know, the nail clippers used to take samples of JB's nails postmortem were the ones that were contaminated.....
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DeleteHey ! was answering this 1 ! You are stealing my thunder and gettin me knickers all up ina bunch ! ;) lol
DeleteAhhh....sorry about that, Keiser......looks like I got in a minute before you! You gotta be quick around here! ;)
DeleteAhhh....sorry about that, Keiser......looks like I got in a minute before you! You gotta be quick around here! ;)
DeleteThe nail clippers being spoken about are the ones used by forensic technicians at the lab. They were not cleaned after the prior forensic exam this contaminating JBRs.
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ReplyDeleteI read that the same clippers were used to clip all her nails. You are supposed to use different clippers for each nail so as to not cross contaminate. They used the same one for all her nails.
ReplyDelete