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.
Thursday, October 6, 2016
More Room Still
More free space for comments. If you can't find your comment on one of the longer threads, go to the bottom of the page and select "Load More." You may need to do this more than once. Sorry about that.
Just in case this message got lost in the midst of all the many others on the previous thread:
Leigh Too, I'm getting tired of your long string of one and two liners. You're taking up space here unnecessarily. Wait a while and save up what you want to say and put it into one longer post, OK? And don't just keep repeating variations on the same thing over and over, or else I'll just delete your posts. I don't mind seeing IDI arguments, but what you are doing is closer to trolling and it needs to stop.
I'm also concerned about personal comments coming from ANY source. I will track them down and I will terminate them with extreme prejudice.
Thank you Doc for your post here. Since I found your blog, I've learned so much about the case and have enjoyed brainstorming and sharing with everyone. I think we all share a common goal in trying to find out what happened to JBR and one never knows. We might stumble upon something one day here that cracks the case. EG
Even though I’m once again leaning towards Doc’s theory of what happened to JonBenet, I still can’t help but worry… what if we’re wrong?
Has anyone else here been following the resolution of the case of Jacob Wetterling’s abduction and murder here in Minnesota in 1989 by sexual predator Danny Heinrich? From the New York Daily News… “An elementary school music teacher who has lived under a cloud of suspicion since 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped from central Minnesota in 1989 can breathe easier now that another man has confessed to the boy's abduction and killing.” (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/person-interest-wetterling-case-relieved-article-1.2786041). What this poor man went through over the years is unbelievable.
A recently-released critically-acclaimed webcast entitled “In The Dark” (http://www.apmreports.org/in-the-dark) sheds some light on the ineptitude of local law enforcement in solving the case, along with their insistence that Dan Rassier was “their man.” Episode 5 deals specifically with his years-long nightmare of being wrongly accused. And, if you read the article and listen to the podcast, it wasn’t just law enforcement who made Dan’s life hell. Media and armchair detectives took the bait and ran with it. Long-time friends and neighbors turned their back on him, as well.
Even if you believe John Ramsey, based on the evidence, is clearly culpable in the death of JonBenet, I think you will find the “In The Dark” podcast extremely interesting and thought-provoking. It’s available on iTunes. Thank you!
I too had second thoughts. Until I read John's testimony, in both his 1997 and 1998 police interviews, regarding his basement window breakin the previous summer. There are far too many signs that this story is a complete fabrication, which can lead to only one conclusion: he broke that window on the night of the crime to stage an intruder break-in. That clinched it for me. Whether you believe Patsy did it or Burke did it, or John did it, there is no question in my mind that John was involved, and I would therefore have no qualms whatsoever about him being indicted and forced, at the very least, to answer for his actions and his deceit.
It was your section devoted to the basement window that clinched it for me also. Every time I have the slightest doubt regarding John's guilt, I always come back to that one detail. It is inescapable.
Agree with Doc 100% and that has been my exact thought for a long time. I feel sure that because of that window it undoubtably shows that JR was, at the least, involved in the cover up and should be put on the stand. At this point why not, LE hasnt gotten anywhere nor will there ever be an arrest. I believe PR, if still alive, should be put up as well as BR. We all really want it to happen but would anything come of it ? No, it surely would not, not with the lawyers JR has. His story would be stuck with and JR's lawyers are more than competent enough to know that this is nothing more than word of mouth and nothing can be proven before they even walk into court, unfortunately.
Minnesota Linda, I was thinking along the same lines after watching "Sully". Experts can get it wrong. Unprecedented events still occur. It is possible that an intruder committed this crime.
The BDI theory has gained a lot of traction; however, and I am not disagreeing that BR might have hit JBR over the head knocking her unconscious but not killing her, why would JR or PR or both not call 911 for medical help with JBR still alive (checking for a pulse or watching for rise and fall of chest does not take medical expertise) and instead decide to stage a crime to protect BR and KILL their own daughter to do so?
In order for the BDI theory to work, BR had to hit JBR over the head and proceed to sexually assault and kill her. JBR being dead when JR or PR first get to her is the only way they would stage a crime to cover up a murder. If JBR is still alive when JR or PR first get to her after BR assaults her, they call 911 for medical help not to report a kidnapping!
You would think that's what MOST parents would do. But in their case, they had a lot to lose as far as status and position in the community. Perhaps they didn't want their son labeled a murderer for the rest of his life, perhaps they thought she was dead, as they may have found her hours later. Who knows. We don't even know what came first. As I said in a previous post, I had read that the skull fracture was so severe, had it come first she would have bled from her nose and mouth. So, if the garrote came first, then it's a whole other ball game and JR just might have been molesting her. Not sure BR would have known, at 10 years of age, the sexual bondage type thing that the garrote clearly signifies, IMHO. Although, maybe he did, I don't know how far fetched that is but who knows what went on in that house. They did have older siblings in and out. How much does anyone know about the older son. JAR? He was said to have been seen that night near the house, but then he had an alibi that he was with his mother. Was that rock solid? A mother would lie for her son, so am sure they had to have had other witnesses. EG
They lost everything anyway. I really can't see Patsy letting her beloved daughter suffer and die if Burke had hit her. No way. It is so obvious that she loved JBR so, so much.
They would not of known how serious the injury was so why kill her?
I didn't know the blanket had PR's and BR's DNA on it. That is odd, as you mentioned, it had just been freshly laundered. Hmmm makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Another very strange comment made by PR upon receiving the "look alike" doll she ordered for JBR was that it looked like JBR in a coffin. WHAT mother would even think something like that, much less actually SAY it??!! As Inq mentioned, they were both on anti depressant drugs. Who knows how much of a part that played in this. It's been known that those drugs can alter a person's thought process, brain chemistry, etc.
Getting back to the LK interview with Steve Thomas. It's blatantly obvious that JR did not want PR questioned directly and interrupted and answered for her several times. Something isn't right there.
Of course it's going to cost Burke (who probably makes a low ball salary) and his father (who is no doubt doing the suing in Burke's behalf) a pile of money supposedly John doesn't have now. Coming up against a major network television station and their team of lawyers isn't going to be cheap. And in the end CBS will maintain their right to put forth any theory they want. Lin Wood is a defamation and libel attorney. He will say that Burke was defamed. John likes to use the media to get his point of view out there (notice he's not suing Dr. Phil) but it works both ways. The media believes they are acting in the interest of the viewers and got their point of view out there regardless of whether John goes along with it or not. But it will probably end up with a settlement. No "facts" will come out.
"defamation and libel" is redundant. Lin Wood is a defamation attorney who often takes cases on a contingent fee basis. The only out of pocket costs to John would be costs: filing fee, reporters at deposition and the like.
Together they have pressed seven prior defamation suits against various media outlets, for multi millions. All have settled because the defendant's insurance carrier forced a settlement, which is precisely what will happen with CBS.
Wrong again - it's what trial lawyers live for. And while we're on the subject, it's cord, not chord; Beckner, not Bechner; and Burke was slandered, not libeled. CC
I actually hope Burke wins against Spitz. Spitz is a fraud and targeted the wrong Ramsey without even knowing all the facts.Am tired of placed where posters are talking abot Burke' s smile and poop. They are all ignoring the evidence. Websleuths turned into a joke as well.
MD glad to see the new hat. There are cities in the U.S. that allow groups, like sleuthing groups, as long as they are sponsored and certified to work with police on cold cases. They are all of them background cleared, some are even former law enforcement, P.I.'s, school teachers, the gamut. They are allowed the case files and go over each piece of evidence, every paper generated, and consider everything. As I said before, we are at a disadvantage here. It's a blog. It's a fun blog, most of us here want clarity, we want to separate what we heard in 1996 and what is fact. But if we want to really help solve a cold case we should join one of those groups that are given all of the information and work closely with whatever investigator is in charge. They do a great service too. There are thousands of cases gone cold. When a department loses it's resources to continue on tracking down leads, etc., the case just stays open in some cases, but goes cold.
I just knew that them completely ignoring the sexual abuse will backfire! Now Burke is using this evidence on his behalf. Dunno whether to laugh ir cry. John must be so happy that no one has the guts to tell it like it is. He should have been the prime suspect the moment they discovered Jb' s genital injuries.
Unfortunately this new treatment by Lifetime Movie that is coming out in November may possibly show PR as the killer, as they have assigned an actor to play Steve Thomas. What I will say for Steve Thomas is at least he was earnest, and tried to show that a family member could have done it, not an intruder. But he too overlooked anything that could have pointed to John. In the 1997 interview with JR he did push very hard to get him to take an FBI polygraph. His questions were good. He didn't lead or coach answers. He does deserve a place in the history of this crime mystery.
I am sure CBS had all of their disclosures posted which will protect them from any lawsuits that come forth.
Inq - How interesting about the groups in some cities able to have access to evidence and be a part of solving a crime. Am going to look into that here in my city.
That's awesome EG. I should look into my nearest big city department. I think you can go to a city website under "volunteer" which is one way. We had an officer that solved a cold case here, I know he doesn't have a task team of any sort, I was thinking of putting one together but I didn't follow through. IT would be a very rewarding enterprise.
I just listened to the 4th episode of "Real Crime Profile" on this case and felt the urge to post again. I beg any of you to listen to it as these are EXPERTS who have looked at thousands of child murder, kidnapping cases and looked at all the evidence on this case. For the record, I am convinced without a doubt that BR struck the initial blow that killed his sister. His fingerprints being on both the pineapple bowl and the Iced Tea glass was the start of it for me. Then seeing how awkward he got when asked a simple question about what the bowl of pineapple was led me to believe he knew that they knew something and that's why he got awkward. Couple that with him doing his 1st interview EVER to the public and it just so happens to be a week before a series comes out naming HIM as the suspect. That's not a coincidence. I am now convinced that PR was involved with JR on the cover up. 911 call felt scripted, RN looks like she could have written it and a lot of just odd behavior. But, I was having a hard time explaining why that 911 call would get made with the body in the house. It just really didn't have en explanation for me until now. After BR hits her over the head and she was lifeless, it must have been absolute panic in the Ramsey house. In order to get the body out of the house they would have had to drive her body somewhere.......that's a major problem. Any neighbor could have seen them leave after midnight. Any person could have seen them driving and if you are going to report a kidnapping the following morning, you absolutely cannot have a single person come forward saying that they saw a Ramsey or a Ramsey car leave the house in the wee hours of the evening. Doc to fit his theory believes that JR wrote the RN to convince PR. This is where I completely disagree The RN was written by both Ramseys as a way to fool the police and keep the police searching OUTSIDE and away from their house. Naturally the cops would HAVE to treat this like a kidnapping, so JBR's body being hidden in a suitcase downstairs would easily go undetected because there was no need to search the house for a body. This is what explains the oddest behavior by the Ramseys. Minutes after the 911 call is made, Patsy Ramsey calls friends to come over to a house where a kidnapping took place. Then PR and JR send their only living child to a friends house! None of this makes any sense on any level unless the friends were just there to create more chaos at the scene. BR being sent to the friends house is to get Burke (the murderer) away from the scene. The Ramseys weren't seasoned murderers, so there is no need to overthink this. Somewhere along the way, JR might have realized that they weren't buying the staging job they did and that's when he had to go downstairs to set the body up so it could be found by him!
I agree with J on many points and my theory has always been very similar to his outside of the blow to the head until recently. After studying Doc's roots on the handwriting analyst, I conclude that JR wrote the RN. I do see a possible problem with prior exemplars as they may have been identified as the wrong creator of the exemplars, thus muddying the waters. Probably more misdirection by the Ramseys and there superteam of lawyers. I personally find it impossible for PR to not be able to identify writing in scrapbooks of her own family and in her own house. This and many, many obvious indicators have proven to me, without a doubt, that at some point PR was aboard with the cover-up. With both being aboard with the cover-up, my mind will not personally not accept that PR or anyone would cover for their pedo molesting pyscho killer husband. people want to claim that family memever cover for other family members who molest. I concur, yes they do. What they do not cover for is a brutal child killer, nor would PR in this case. Which leads us to only 1 conclusion by default.
Thanks for the tip about that podcast, I had not yet heard of it.
Thank you as well for your very well written and immediately plausible BDI scenario.
1. “Minutes after the 911 call is made, Patsy Ramsey calls friends to come over to a house where a kidnapping took place.” Agreed that PR inviting a group of people over to her own possibly unsafe residence may seem strange to crime sleuth bloggers, LE, and even perhaps her own friends. However, can you not believe that Patsy was convinced in the moment that the kidnapping actually occurred and wanted comfort from her friends in the immediate area (which would have presumably surmounted her fear over the kidnappers / perpetrators returning to the residence)?
2. “BR being sent to the friends house is to get Burke (the murderer) away from the scene.” Again, it is perhaps to us crime sleuths that this move may seem unnatural, but how is it illogical to the Ramsey’s IDI point of view ?
3. “The RN was written by both Ramseys as a way to fool the police and keep the police searching OUTSIDE and away from their house. Naturally the cops would HAVE to treat this like a kidnapping, so JBR's body being hidden in a suitcase downstairs would easily go undetected because there was no need to search the house for a body.”
Yes it’s construable that the Ramsey’s would know that LE would have to initially react to the purported evidence as it was known at the time (RN and 911 call). However, I don’t judge them as unsophisticated enough to calculate that their daughter’s body, found in any configuration within the residence, would go “easily undetected”. They would absolutely have known that eventually a detectable smell would set in, and that once contracted, LE does not just “go away” after any reported major crime. Agreeing in part with Doc here, once the call to LE was made, there was no realistic chance of the Ramsey’s in any pact, to remove the body from the house.
My problem with BDI - I just cannot believe that John and Patsy could have staged that ultra-disgusting paraphilia laced crime scene. There's nothing in either adult's history, to suggest they would have known how to pull that off entire staging (and I’m not referring to knot tying here), and neither adult had a motive. They would have just phoned LE and stated, “we have an accident” instead of “we have a kidnapping”.
Thank you for the compliment and likewise on your post.
Patsy calling the friends to come over to the house is so important for me on 2 levels. 1. It's extremely odd to me that just minutes after making this dramatic call to 911, you call your friends to come over. That seems an awful lot like something people do for a funeral 2. The note specifically says to not alert ANYBODY including the authorities. SO, I can understand not obeying that and calling the police, but how in the world do you explain calling friends? If she believes the note and is not in on the staging, then calling the police and friends surely means her daughter is dead. The small foreign faction was very clear on what they needed and she disobeyed it immediately!
I respect your opinion, but the Ramseys knew it was safe to not only call the police but friends, because they knew there was no kidnapper on the loose.
I agree that calling friends over is odd. It's certainly not something I would do. But it's just as odd if we assume Patsy's call was part of a plan on the part of Patsy and John to stage a coverup. As I see it, therefore, it is indeed odd, but in no way is it suspicious. We can speculate forever as to why Patsy did what she did. However, if she were staging an intruder scenario it's hard to see why she'd have called in friends either. Prior to the call they'd have been in a position to contaminate the crime scene any way they liked. They wouldn't have needed friends to do that.
See Doc, this is where I struggle with the JDI scenario. In order for it to be true, then PR cannot be involved right? Her pattern of behavior suggests she was very much aware and involved. IF she believes the RN, then I don't know how friends can be called. If she truly believed the note, the friends aren't called. I just can't believe that.
Are you at all considering that the initial calls to friends may have been to ask "has anyone seen JonBenet? Get in your car and see if any of you see anything on the way." Fan out in all directions. Keep an eye out.
Also, anyone consider that John could have written the note and tried to make it look like Patsy's?
Not impossible. I used to be able to forge both my mother's and my father's signature.
If perpetrator wrote ransom note as a deflection, Why wouldn't a perpetrator deflect by disguising handwriting including people known to them. As a matter of fact, it seems more likely if a perp was using every angle to deflect crime away from themselves/deception, that they would disguise or try to imitate someone else's writing other than their own regardless of relation. Disregard for life by murdering a little girl in a brutal manner, is not a perp who would have moral qualms about how their deflection may falsely implicate other people.
But J, you can't explain the prior signs of sexual abuse. Forsensics could not say it was chronic, but that it was previous to the sexual assault that night. When would Burke have been able to do this. And why wouldn't she tell on him. She wouldn't tell on her father. Also all of that staging. It was too extreme to be thought of as a coverup for a crushed skull delivered by their son. I think Burke's distress over looking at a picture of the bowl of pineapple has more to do with him knowing that the story he was to stick to was that JB did not come downstairs that night, and no one saw her eat pineapple. If anything Burke would have had an adverse reaction to a picture of the flashlight (if he was the one who struck her). But then again I don't know if a picture of the flashlight was shown to him. All I know is he said the flashlight was handled by both him and his father. And that brought no adverse reaction from him. Burke's door was kept partially open, the hall light was on, he probably heard something. But if he struck that blow he would not be able to block that out and go on television.
A) We don’t know for certain that there was prior sexual abuse. It isn’t agreed upon by experts B) IF she was being molested, it could have been BR. JR wasn’t home all the time and BR and JBR would sleep in the same room at times C) Why is it so hard for people to believe he could have struck her? My brother hit me over the head with a toy wrestler we had when we were kids. Obviously Im alive because he didn’t do it with a Maglite flashlight that was heavy.
It isn't hard for people to believe Burke may have struck his sister. What is difficult to believe is that, instead of calling an ambulance (or even staging another accident to cover for their son, such as a fall down the stairs), two otherwise loving parents decide to garrote their daughter to death, penetrate her vagina, then write a phony ransom note.
Well, none of it makes any sense right? Somebody did it and we know it wasn't an intruder. Most people wouldn't chloroform their child to go party, but that's what Casey Anthony did. The fact is that all the stuff you wrote above about the scene did happen! The assumption was that they would have known that BR wasn't 10 so he couldn't have faced charges, but that's an assumption and there is also a very good chance they weren't aware of that. Either way, BR would have grown up as the kid who possibly molested, but killed his beauty queen sister. He would have been a pariah for life. Would most of us call 911? YES, absolutely.....but it didn't happen here.
Also, the autopsy at first didn't reveal that she had a head blow. The blow didn't break the skin, so that's obviously why there was no blood. JR is his book said it would have taken a grown man with strength to deliver the blow and that's just a flat out lie. SO, after BR hit her he probably couldn't know that she was dead because there wasn't any blood. But she was most certainly brain dead from the blow.
If it wasn't readily apparent that JB was dead, why would the parents begin staging a cover up? Why wouldn't they have simply called an ambulance, assuming she may well just have a severe concussion?
she was brain dead, therefore would have been lifeless. Plus BR may not have told them immediately. The head blow and the strangulation are separate acts. BR hits her over the head...panics because she isn't moving. Then at some point tells parents Would most people call 911? YES of course....most people wouldn't hit their sister over the head with a flashlight
You said your brother hit you over the head with a toy when you were younger. Do you think it is conceivable your parents would have staged a kidnapping/sexual attack had the blow to your head been fatal?
Why would parents create such a phony crime scene, rather than just stage another accident if protecting their son was the goal? This way they would have drawn a lot less attention to themselves.....staging a kidnapping as part of a cover up ensures there is going to be an investigation. A fall down the stairs probably would have been accepted, case closed.
C'mon Ms D! You know my point of that was to prove that these things do happen. Kids do have moments of rage. The staging happened. SO, somebody in that house did it. It comes down to whether you believe BR in a moment of anger accidentally struck his sister. PR hit her in a moment of anger after she wet her bed. OR JR the mad pedophile fed her pineapple before he decided to play a sex game that resulted in him knocking her out, then garroting her. Then writing the RN by himself. Then staging everything else. I am not arguing that calling 911 wouldn't have made sense, but we have no idea what was going on. BR could have been molesting her, could have been doing all sorts of stuff, so they might have thought covering it up was the best way to save Burke.
I agree with your theory and think that's how it all happened. What is hard for any of us to believe is that parents would do this type of staging to protect their child. And we are right when we say MOST parents, would not.
However there ARE parents who have done HORRIBLE things to their own children. It's difficult for normal people to understand or accept this type behavior from parents BUT it DOES exist. Unfortunately.
"Would most of us call 911? YES, absolutely.....but it didn't happen here." And right there is evidence enough of why this "Burke accidentally killed his sister" scenario never happened.
Eh, Burke's fingerprints are on the pineapple bowl, the glass and the flashlight. You are entitled to your own opinion, but I feel extremely confident that Burke hit her over the head. Do you honestly believe PR believed the RN was real and then called friends over to eat bagels?
J, I just went to the Real Crime Profile website and have been listening to the podcast. It is from the investigators that were on the CBS special. I agree, it is carefully through out, and it does seem a plausible scenario that JB came downstairs that night while Burke was eating his pineapple. I also didn't know she brought down her pillow - that was found on the kitchen counter along with the flashlight. I also didn't know there were TWO practice notes in the waste basket that weren't retrieved by the police right away. I only knew about the one practice "Mr and Mrs. Ramsey" note in the pad. Wonder how far the ransom note writer got in the two in the wastebasket - anyone know? In any event J, I can concede that the pineapple was further along in the digestive process because the blow to the head (delivered right after she ingested the pineapple according to CBS) didn't kill her, so I'm not a forensic scientist but if you are still breathing probably your stomach is still digesting. So J, I'm on the fence again - Burke could have delivered that head blow - and the parents did the rest. But J, read the autopsy report again. There was EROSION on the walls of her vagina, there was damage to her hymen - which did not happen that night. Erosion implies "over time." I think your theory is Burke could have been molesting her over time but the theorists on CBS denied ANY prior molestation. THey also discounted the sexual attack on her that night. Don't you find that a little specious?
Thanks for the reply. BR's fingerprints being on the bowl and the iced tea tell me that was in fact his pineapple bowl. She had pineapple in her system, so I conclude she got the piece of pineapple from his bowl. I don't know that for sure that he hit her over the head over pineapple. It could have been over her wanting his toy, but regardless I am convinced it was Burke. It makes no sense that BR ate pineapple, played, then went to bed. Fast forward 20 minutes and down walks JR with JBR. He feeds her pineapple and then randomly hits her over the head.
i have said before that there were two murders. And they are not consistent with one person being the killer. I cannot wrap my head around JR hitting her over the head to keep her from telling others about the sexual abuse. He said he carried JB up to bed from the car and that Patsy was right behind him. Patsy put her in her long johns for bed, either JB was asleep or she woke up for that. John says he goes to bed and falls asleep around 10:30-10:45 after reading a bit. He even names the book he was reading from. I think JB did get up out of bed on her own, come downstairs and find Burke eating a bowl of pineapple or playing with his toy, pineapple on the counter. She could have grabbed a piece, then "bothered" Burke in some way. Maybe she grabbed his toy, maybe she wanted to play with him and he was very focused on putting together this toy. Maybe she disturbed his construction of the toy. That's what angered him enough to chase her with the flashlight (which he had brought to go downstairs and continue staying up late and putting together his toy.) The rest.....we've gone over. Two killings, two killers, one victim. Burke could have at some previous time hurt JB sexually. But I do'nt believe he did that night. But then it's still all a mystery isn't it?
"The staging happened. SO, somebody in that house did it. It comes down to whether you believe BR in a moment of anger accidentally struck his sister. PR hit her in a moment of anger after she wet her bed. OR JR the mad pedophile fed her pineapple before he decided to play a sex game that resulted in him knocking her out, then garroting her. Then writing the RN by himself. Then staging everything else. " The third scenario is really the only logical conclusion one can draw (as nothing about this case is logical anyway, because John's plan didn't go as he'd hoped, thus his staging was left incomplete). Doc points out why this is really the only logical scenario.....whether or not John was a "mad pedophile" or not is speculative, but the rest of the evidence pointing to him is overwhelming, and once one realizes this, most of the perplexing issues surrounding the case that seem to make no sense at all then make perfect sense (the seemingly random, but specific instructions addressed to John alone in ransom note - such as size of attache case, that he should be "well rested" etc.; the broken window; the changing of the panties; Patsy making the 911 call when she did etc.)
Ms D I have been on this blog for 5 years, so I know we have never spoke before but I am well aware of Doc's theory on this case. I respectfully disagree with him and you. I at one point was fully convinced Doc was correct, but I have looked at details that have come forward and adjusted my theory accordingly. All the things you said point to John, simply point to the staging of the crime which in the BDI scenario, still could have happened. Also, in order for JDI to be correct, then in no way, shape or form can PR be involved and I believe she was at some point. You still never answered my question. IF PR believed the RN and believed a small foreign faction took their daughter...THEN how in the world do you explain calling friends over, just minutes after the 911 call? The only logical conclusion is that they wanted to create chaos and confusion.
The police sent victim advocates over the house because somehow Mrs. Ramsey, the doting mother as many of you claim, never even considers telling the police not to come to her house when the note clearly states her daughter will die if she does so repititively. That in and of itself is NOT the sign of PR worried about her childs life. She disobeys every warning in the note without ever so much as a care in the world about disobeying every single threat in the note. Even after LE and the whole neighborhood shows up PR still never mentions or seems to have a care in the world that SHE most likely just got her daughter killed. We can get into that whole well thats not what I would do but its logical here because ....It is NOT logical and makes no sense at all unless she already knows her daughter is dead.
As I stated above, Patsy called 911 before reading through the "ransom note". She never made it as far as the dire consequences should she contact the authorities - she flew into a panic as soon as she read that her daughter had been abducted, and called the police immediately. Had John have stated how important it was that no one call the authorities within the first couple of lines, his plan probably would have gone off without a hitch.
She did read the whole note. How and why would any mother NOT read a ransom note when her daughter is kidnapped ? If she somehow did NOT read thr whole ransom note than that makes PR a liar. She sure knew who signed the note when the 911 operator asked her. She claims JR was a ways away on the floor reading it when she was on the phone with 911 so either she is a liar, meaning she already knew what the note said or she already read the whole note but it is either 1 or the other.
J, as far as I know, NO prints were retrieved from the flashlight, which is why John tried to push the theory it belonged to the intruder? As far as the bowl and glass is concerned, Burke would have touched them many times in the days prior. It was mentioned somewhere (maybe here on this blog? I can't quite remember) that the bowl of pineapple/tea may have been set up in the late afternoon and not upon returning from the White's party. It may have been already sitting there when JB entered the kitchen shortly before she was murdered. At any rate, his prints on the bowl are in no way evidence that Burke must have been up with JB that night eating pineapple.
How do you get that BR probably touched the bowl and the glass many times in the days before ???? If this is like any other household than the housekeeper or PR washes the dishes every time someone eats out of them, thus erasing any last fingerprints that were on them. Unless we are going to come up with some illogical, random, off the wall theory that a dirty bowl and glass were used for the pineapple or PR unloaded the dishwasher and handed the dishes to BR to put away. Then in turn someone with gloves or a phantom got the bowl and was eating pineapple with it. Logically whoever touched the bowl last would leave prints on it. Period.
Had the pineapple been from earlier that day, then whoever ate the pineapple earlier would surely have accounted for it to LE. Clearly, whoever was up that night has very good reason to deny the pineapple and thus they have. If it was from 3 pm then whoever served the pineapple, and/or whoever was eating would have stated that to LE.
It is certainly conceivable that Burke's fingerprints could be on the bowl even if he did not touch it that night. He could have taken the bowl out of the cupboard that morning, or even in the days before, to retrieve something behind it, before putting the bowl back. Or he could have used the bowl at breakfast time, rinsed it under running water, then put it into the dish rack to dry off where it stayed until it was used later that night. Neither of these scenarios are remotely illogical, Keiser. Certainly not as illogical as the theory that JB stole a piece of pineapple from Burke's bowl, resulting in a fatal blow to the head, and a subsequent cover up by the parents involving a garrote and sexual abuse.
I did not say it is not possible , what I said is it is highly unlikely. In a normal household people eat off dishes then they wash them. Period. Well it could have been this or could have been that to fit a theory does not make it logical. An intruder could have hid in the house for a week just to learn everything about the Ramseys, then while the Ramseys were sleeping after the murder could have secretly had a cleaning crew come in to clean all the evidence and that is why there is none. Does that sound logical to you ? Of course not but its possible right ? Logic states this, someone had to take the bowl and put it on the table and put pineapple in it. The person who did that left fingerprints on those items. So unless a fingerprintless person or a phantom did it then it is logical to say Burke (whose prints were on all 3 items on the table) made that pineapple and was eating it.
J, I've been reading up on the digestive process. However I still can't find what happens with the digestive process when one is rendered unconscious. But the pineapple "fibrous matter consistent with pineapple" was found in the duodenum, just as the CBS investigator said, or in otherwords the small intestine. It had not made it to the large intestine for elimination. I just don't know how long a process from mouth to esophagus to small intestine it takes to get there. But it did stop there. IF she was hit on the head immediately after "stealing a piece of pineapple" from the bowl would the pineapple have made it to the small intestine? Perhaps one could envision a scenario where he chased her with the flashlight. As she's running the pineapple could have made it to her small intestine before being hit over the head. I just don't know how fast digestion takes place. And I also don't know if it continues after the heart is still beating but the person is unconscious. WE know she was alive for 45 mintues to 2 hours after the blow to the head. Strangulation ended her life. And the pineapple stayed in the small intestine, never making it to the large intestine/colon for elimination. Also in the original timeline recorded by police taken from the parents John says he went to bed around 10-10:45. But where the question is asked: Burke ???? there are question marks and Patsy: ???? They didn't know when they went to bed? Or they just didn't answer.
I'd love to know what Mr. Kolar would say about Paula Woodward's allegation that JonBenet must have eaten fruit cocktail rather than pineapple. According to her this is part of the official record. If she's right then the bowl of pineapple has no bearing on the case at all.
There were fingerprints on the flashlight ? I thought that there were no fingerprints found on the flashlight ? I have never heard this anywhere, sources please ?
John states they arrived home around 9:15-9:30 p.m. He carries a sleeping JB and lays her out on her bed, Patsy is somewhere behind him he says and assumes she is getting JB redressed out of her dress pants into the longjohns or jammies. He then stays up a bit with Burke helping him put together a toy, which he says is something like a transformer toy where the buildings and slides, etc. fold up and become something else. He then walks Burke back up to bed and puts him to bed, he even states that Burke often wears mismatched pajamas (when asked what Burke was wearing to bed). He then gets ready for bed, takes his melatonin (says he took two but he said he took one someplace else in some other interview but I don't think it's relevant). He says Patsy was already in bed at that time. Around 10. He reads for a while, then falls asleep around 10:30 or 10:45. None of us know when we really "fall" asleep, but many of us are clock watchers and might notice when we turn out a light, put down a book, and assume we fall asleep shortly after that. I submit that Burke got back OUT of bed and got himself a bowl of pineapple and wanted to either watch a movie or continue playing with is toy. John said in the past both kids would try to stay up late and squeeze in a movie or do something else. All kids do that. Then JB may have gone to Burke's room, seen he was not in his room and carried her pillow downstairs around midnight. Or shortly before. Then the rest is as described by J and myself. J, I do buy this scenario.
Because I cannot imagine a scenario where John wishes to keep JB from telling on him the, what, day after Christmas at the family get together in Charlevoix, by clubbing her over the head with a flashlight, then overkilling her with the garrot and sexual assault. Or that he was fearful of being exposed for molestation and decides that night, after midnight to kill her.
But you CAN imagine a scenario where Burke's parents decide to cover for him by penetrating their daughter's vagina, strangling her with a garrote, hiding her in the most obscure corner of the house, hand-writing a 2 1/2 page "ransom note" and then calling the police on themselves the next morning?
It was me about the fingerprints on the flashlight. I thought I heard that on the podcast and maybe I misheard it. I will have to listen to it again, but at work right now.
I just think now that Burke got back OUT of bed after John put him to bed. Then JB came downstairs when he was not in his room. They were the only two up that late. And yes, I think J or P but probably J did the staging with the garrot, continuing perhaps later with the window and suitcase under it to show that the "intruder" had to step on it to get back out of the window, and the note - debateable. You're still hooked J! So am I! Thanks for being on here.
Thanks Inquisitive! I love true crime and of all the cases I have been interested in (OJ, Adnan Syed, Amanda Knox) this one has always been my favorite to follow. Just such a fascinating mystery. In listening to the podcast and hearing the way Jim Clemente goes thru a case and dissects every aspect of it, he helped me come to the BDI conclusion. I will never understand why the Ramsey's did what they did, but they must have just felt as an affluent family (maybe the most affluent) in Colorado, they couldn't have one of their kids murdered by the other and therefore they had to stage the scene they did. I don't want to try and make much more sense of it then that, because it's hard to justify. That being said, I absolutely believe BR in a moment of anger snapped and with no intention of killing her, ended up killing her because he hit her with a very heavy object that quickly became a weapon.
I also think that someone, logically Burke, poked her with a toy or the train tracks to see if she would move or get up from that head blow. That accounts for the "two dried rust colored to slightly purple abrasions." I think Burke waited a while before telling a parent he had accidentally (or intentionally) hit her and she wasn't moving.
The more I think about it Burke could have chased her upstairs with the flashlight and the blow may have happened there. When she saw he was serious, had a heavy object in his hand and was raising it over his head she may have run for the upstairs and her parents room, and didn't make it. Because do any of you remember it was reported that there were green artificial pieces of garland from the spiral staircase in her hair? It was surmised that someone carried her (the intruder at the time) downstairs and thus her hair caught some of the garland (of course after he stun gunned her which no one here believes) But isn't it just as possible that Burke chased her upstairs, felled the blow there, and when he told one or both parents, probably John, HE carried her downstairs thus getting the garland in her hair. She also had small scratch marks ("2 small scratch-lie abrasions which are dried and rust colored") on her left lower leg, "almost in the middle approximately 4 inches above the level of the heel" (autopsy report) which to me suggests dragging or pulling the body across a floor.
Some people are really letting their imaginations run away with them. There is no evidence, no facts, nor any logic to support any of this. It sounds "right" to you only because sibling rivalry is a clear and simple motive, whereas the murder of a child by a parent leads us into dark and complicated territory. And I agree. I all else were equal sibling rivalry would fit very nicely. But then we need to provide a motive for innocent parents to cover up in such a bizarre and disgusting manner, and at that point the theory falls apart. The CBS "experts" dwell on the first part but basically ignore the second. Totally irresponsible, imo.
You are joking with saying there is no motive right Doc? Your entire theory is based on an assumption that A) there was a history of molestation and B)That JR was the one who was molesting her and then C) that JR murdered her to cover up his sexual deviance "experts" why in the world is that in quotations? I am not sure anybody would dispute they are EXPERTS.
But your imagination ran away with you Doc by thinking that he was molesting her previously and decided to kill her to cover up his crimes on 12/26/96. Burke was not a normal little boy who just liked to play with his toys. He had swung a golf club earlier - and hit her in the face. Enough to send Patsy to a face surgeon. He says it was an accident - okay. I wasn't there. Maybe it was. He also was shut out by both his father who was at work all of the time or away on business and a mother who doted on her daughter by putting her in pageants, and all of the training that is involved in that. He might have had a form of autism as well, asberger's syndrome. That I can't back up, I read it so long ago. Burke was placed in the care of a psychologist for two years after the incident. He still exhibits unusual facial mannerisms and odd behavior.
There is no reason for parents to ever cover up a murder of their daughter by their son. I think history proves that statement. If you think affluence had any bearing on how they would react, you have an ignorant view of affluence. Affluence does not erase basic decency in times of death and tragedy. Any parent would call 911 immediately upon finding their daughter unconscious, regardless of the cause or their affluence or lack thereof. Even if they did try to cover it up, the garrote and a staged, bungled kidnapping would not be one of their options. Burke did not hit Jonbenet. There are far more compelling facts and inferences that prove that nobody else killed Jonbenet AND masterminded a bizarre cover up via a bungled staged kidnaping, but John.
Jon, if your son ran to you and said I hit my sister and she's not waking up and you ran to her and found her unconscious you would first ask what happened. Then you might decide she isn't going to wake up, you, not being a doctor might even think she's dead. Do you call 911 to try and save her? There would be an investigation. How would you explain it - my son was chasing her and was angry and hit her and killed her. Maybe they didn't want to risk him going to juvenile detention for years. Maybe John didn't want it known in the town in which he and his family were well known or in the business community where he was doing business or ready to take his company global that his son killed his sister. I'm just playing devils advocate here, trying to have others see that it's crazy, it may not fit, but it's POSSIBLE.
"Do you call 911 to try and save her? There would be an investigation. How would you explain it - my son was chasing her and was angry and hit her and killed her. Maybe they didn't want to risk him going to juvenile detention for years. Maybe John didn't want it known in the town in which he and his family were well known or in the business community where he was doing business or ready to take his company global that his son killed his sister"
If that were the case, why not stage an accident, then a call to paramedics once they are certain she cannot be revived? Why stage a phony kidnapping where police have to be called and a huge investigation is inevitable? By choosing the latter, they have MUCH more to lose than if they simply staged an accident and told authorities she fell down the stairs.
You may also see imho. In my humble/honest opinion. Not sure why you would add that. It may add a certain sincerity or friendly nuance to a heated discussion to some people.
Inquisitive. In that scenario, if his only idea is to either A: tell the truth with known outcome and ramifications or B: make up a very risky lie which involved gruesome deviant tasks with very questionable outcomes and ramifications, which would be worse for his reputation? If it were me, I would call 911 regardless of anything else, dead or alive. Unless, of course, I read the entire ransom note. :;
If the BDI theorists on here have it right, the only way the parents covered would be if They found Burke had sexually assaulted jbr as well as knocking her unconscious and they believed she was dead. In this scenario, I believe affluence and position within the community could have driven them to cover, but not without Burke committing some sexual contact that they did not want to come out. Saying that, I'm still on the fence. Wow I've had some reading to catch up on this blog; only been away a week and taken me that long to catch up, nothing like the last couple of years lol.
yah, ha. Ransom note - which came later. No, I agree, not too great having your daughter murdered and the town and your business contacts think you may have had something to do with it - either. I just want people to argue their theories to the end to see if they are plausible. Then see how they are refuted, and if another theory makes more sense. I don't disbelieve or believe any of the theories so far. And apparently the case is stagnant. I wonder after the Lifetime movie next month if we will all be contemplating the "Patsy flew into a rage over bed wetting" theory. That one i let go.
If you are of the IDI camp, how do you explain the ransom note being so lengthy and the time it took to write it, not being prepared with it upon entry into the home, even taking the time to rewrite and 'practice' it, etc.?
Hi. I just read your new book. Very well thought out. Especially the window thing! However, perhaps the "staging" was actually done by the killer to implicate the member(s) of the family. So many things like the overly long and dramatic note written on Patsy's notepad with her own pen, the suitcase full of belongings of the elder brother, who luckily was not home that day, the body left right in the home rather than being taken out of the home, the locked doors, and numerous other such seemingly "staged" events or findings really should have led the police to immediately suspect the family either in part or as a whole. Someone that really hated them might well think of doing such things to ensure that one of them or all of them were blamed for this crime. Lets face it, the father's friends and associates were not stupid people.
Also the pineapple thing has been pretty well dismissed as important, because she could have eaten the fruit in a fruit cocktail even days before as some other fruit other than pineapple was also found in her system. Plus, the family could easily have cleaned up the kitchen, and washed the dishes, if that was seen as an important part of or reason for her demise at their hands.
But back to the window deal. I can not believe that a couple with so much help around the house would leave a jagged broken window not repaired for at least 6 months! Especially in an area where their children routinely played, and in which Patsy worked on wrapping gifts. Just the fact that critters, rain, leaves and snow could get into the house through the opening would be enough reason to have one of them get it repaired shortly after the dad broke it if in fact he really did break it earlier that year. Maybe he suspected either one of his sons at the time, and said he had broken it instead so they would not be suspected of the current broken window. But I'm sure it was repaired, and that Patsy told the truth about that. John might really not know because he was so busy with his work, and he probably was not in that part of the house very often.
I especially enjoyed all of the intense concern about the ransom note and how it was written and then transcribed. I think you are probably right about that. But lets face it most people have access to a computer and if it was composed earlier all they would have to do is bring the computer written note with them and transcribe it to the notepad. Probably they were wondering if they should address it to just Mr Ramsey or include his wife. That would explain the other paper found that looked like a "practice" note.
Personally I think it was one or more fairly youthful people, or a couple, who were doing this together, deciding together how to do things, even how to stage the crime in order to implicate the most members of the family as possible.
As far as why the Ramseys called 911 instead of waiting, well, anyone who has watched TV or read anything about kidnappings knows that officials say to call right away and not wait. They probably thought the police would know what to do and not send a regular patrol car to the house. That is the fault of either the police or the 911 operator for not stating it was a kidnapping and to contact the FBI right away. You really can not fault the family for what the 911 operator and or police did in that regard.
Hi rose huntress. If you meant by "I just read your book" DocG's kindle book, and that you think it was "very well thought out" then you wouldn't/couldn't believe in an intruder theory. And if you do, then you are the only one here that does. Which is fine. I think we have an equal distribution of BDI and JDI here. There are maybe one or two who struggle with BDI and J covered up, and BDI and P covered up, and BDI and J and P covered up together.
First of all, no, there were no wadded up practice notes found anywhere. God, it's so easy for one piece of mistaken info to spread all over the place in no time. According to all the reliable sources, only one "practice note" was found -- in the notepad itself.
Secondly, if you want to frame someone with a phony ransom note you don't write it in you own hand, disguised or not -- you write it in the hand of the person you are trying to frame. Otherwise it works against you, not for you. No one has ever suggested that the note was a forgery. Yes some of the letters resembled Patsy's letters, but that's not unusual. If it was a deliberate attempt to make it look like she wrote it the similarities would have been much stronger and the case would have moved in a completely different direction.
So it could've been just one attempt at the note and then starting again with a different opening upon further thought? Mr. Ramsey instead of Mr. & Mrs.
Who said the pineapple has been dismissed as being important? It was undigested pineapple, Rose, so she most certainly hadn't eaten it "days before" - autopsy reports show it was consumed very shortly before her death, thus it becomes a very important part of the crime, as it means she was awake and probably in the kitchen at some point after coming home from the party. It is most unlikely an intruder walked up a flight of stairs in a darkened house to JB's bedroom, lured her down the stairs without being heard, then fed her pineapple before murdering her, don't you think?
It seems as though there might have been more than one practice note, judging from the pages torn out of the notepad, but apparently they were destroyed, as no others were found.
It's too soon to dismiss the pineapple evidence, but at this point we can't be sure. If Lin put the fruit cocktail into his lawsuit, I'm assuming he must know something -- unless he's bluffing, which is certainly possible.
The evidence shows that she had a number of different types of fruit including grape skins in her GI track consistent with her having ingested some fruit cocktail. Evidently such partially digested material can remain in the GI track for quite a while. So that is why the bowl of pineapple on the counter is not important proof of anything really, despite theories that it is a crucial piece of evidence.
John wrote the RN, no doubt IMO. He precariously left the practice notes because his plan was to have an entire 24 hour plus time frame to clean up his mess. His lengthy RN was his single biggest mistake. Had PR read the part about not "speaking to anyone", 911 would be out of the question, JR would have gotten rid of the body, stashed the cash and the police wouldn't have even been involved until late on the 27th. at the earliest.
Doubtful that JR would plan every detail and then allow his wife to blow it all by calling 911. They both lied about BR being asleep when the police arrived. They lied about not having ever seen the underwear JBR was wearing. They lied about which one told the other one to call 911. They lied about the broken window(who would have a broken window for 6 months with their kind of money? They wouldn't release phone records They wouldn't talk to police They wouldn't take lie detector tests
Why all the lies, why be uncooperative with LE, and the biggest question of all----Why did they stop looking for the killer and what happened to the foundation set up? I read where they donated $1000 and then it was shut down.
You would spend the rest of your life trying to finding the killer of your child.
I could go through this point by point but I'm getting tired of repeating myself. If anyone is curious to learn what my responses might be, he (or she) can do a search on this blog.
This blog will always go around in circles unless some new evidencd is found (which obviously won't happen) or unless someone involved comes forward (which I can't see happening either).
So we are all just speculating on circumstantial evidence as there is no hard evidence which points at one individual.
For me, I feel in my own mind the case is solved. It was not an intruder. Which means John did the garrote. Patsy wrote the RN and came up with SBTC at the bottom but John communicated a lot of things in the note too (which Patsy duly wrote down). Patsy was always going to be the one to ring 911 as she could do the petrified mother thing much more convincing than John (cool and calm). The 911 call was convincing in large parts but there was pieces of it which really stood out as being scripted...cant believe she never even mentioned JB's name.
The headblow could have been any of the three in the house to be honest and as I said above, we are just going around in circles talking about it. But with the evidence we have, Burke has to be the CLEAR favourite for doing this. The pineapple is key. The fruit cocktail is just bogus. I'm 100% certain Burke made that pineapple and milk (the way he likes it) due to his fingerprints, the oversized spoon (which points to a child) and Patsy saying she didn't know where that came from (I believed her). We know JB and Burke were both eating that pineapple on the night she was murdered. We know Burke, who just made himself a yummy snack, hardly ate any of it...to me this indicates that the headblow happened then. Who knows how long before he told his parents...could have been hours. But John and Burke both admitted (after 20 years...maybe Burke mentioned that by mistake so suddenly John had to say it too) that they used the flashlight. A flashlight indicates a child (sneaking up) and John used it to walk Burke back to bed (indicates they didnt want lights on and alert neighbours). And the flashlight was completely wiped down....hahahahaha. I also think Kolar is spot on with the train marks which points at a worried Burke prodding her. Nothing else makes sense for those marks. We can (and will) continue to speculate but this is the scenario which has the most credibility (far and away imo). BDI. Peace out.
Your interpretation is no different from everyone else's, regardless of who the favorite perp is. It's based on your own personal assumptions regarding the meaning of the evidence. But ALL the evidence is circumstantial so that sort of thing gets us nowhere. As I've said so many times, it's only when we focus on facts and logical inference that everything falls into place. That, at least, is my approach. And regardless of whether I'm right or wrong, it's NOT based on the same old same old same OLD assumptions.
And IF there was any prior sexual abuse (this is still a big if for me) I would be more inclined to look at Burke. He was at the age where he hears things at school and who knows what he did with JB in her room (they often shared a room). Who knows, maybe Patsy walked in one night to see Burke doing something and then she said from now on you sleep in your own room. And then when she was hit on the head maybe the sexual abuse was something they knew would be discovered, hence the coverup. That of course is all speculation (including the sexual abuse). But just shows that JDI, imo, is waaaaay more far fetched.
I had read somewhere, hate to say it but it might have been the housekeeper, that said JB would wet the bed and then go get in Burke's bed. He hated that.
autopsy: "the proximal portion of the small intestine contains fragmented pieces of yellow to light green-tan apparent vegetable or fruit material which may represent fragments of pineapple." I looked up the digestive process. Said it takes approximately 30 minutes for something you eat to get to the small intestine. Longer to show up in the large intestine/colon and then eliminate. So it's very likely pineapple, I don't know what factual evidence Woodward was pointing to that suggested she ate fruit cocktail but if she did it would have been at the White's, and the material would not have been in the small intestine, it would have already traveled to the large intestine due to the time. So it was likely pineapple, in the house, and shortly before death. Just some trivia here for y'all which might be useful. And I think Kolar contributed a lot here. The unbroken cobweb outside the window, the train track marks, and other things.
The new information wasn’t released publicly, and the pineapple-only myth with its handy bowl of fruit on the kitchen table of the Ramsey home continued to be circulated." (Kindle Locations 1856-1861)
Unfortunately, the police reports to which she refers appear to be unavailable to the public. According to Woodward the stomache contents were preserved and not fully analyzed until Oct. 1997 (see interview here: http://www.westword.com/news/jonbenet-paula-woodward-on-new-book-john-ramsey-burke-did-it-claims-8362070)
While I don't consider Woodward all that reliable, the fruit cocktail story does seem more reliable than some of her other assertions, as it's clearly referenced to police sources. I'll withhold my final verdict until I have a chance to actually read the sources to which she refers, but I don't think her findings can be ignored.
Anything that comes from Paula Woodward has to be verified and there is a good chance it is bogus. She is the worst journalist I have ever encountered. My first thought is if this were true then why would LE withold this finding and for 20 years ? In no interview has any detective or anyone involved in this case mentioned anything other than pineapple.
LOL! I love this fruit cocktail business, not because she is necessarily right, but because it reminds us of how tenuous all this so-called "evidence" really is. Hang your hat on any piece of evidence and risk having your theory blown out of the water by some "finding," new or old, that trashes it.
That's been the fate of the DNA "evidence," the window break-in "evidence," the stun gun evidence, the bed-wetting "evidence," etc., etc. -- and now the pineapple "evidence." As an old Italian poet once wrote: "ABANDON HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE"
Hi Doc, even if the fruit or vegetative material is fruit cocktail, that still doesn't mean she didn't come downstairs that night and get hit over the head. I do not think grabbing a piece of pineapple from the bowl was any kind of motive for getting slugged anyway. Just because CBS does a recreation that looks "real" don't make it so!
Yes, but that bowl of pineapple is the focus for their entire theory. The ONLY link with Burke is his prints on that bowl. Without those prints they have zilch.
Because that puts Burke downstairs when JB would have come down and ingested the pineapple. Proximity. I get that. But do you want to suggest J was lying in wait for her, allowed her to eat a piece of pineapple, then hit her over the head?
No but a perp could have gotten Jonbenet out of bed and downstairs with promise of extra gift from Santa or from perp in the basement. JBR could have simply picked a piece of pineapple on her way down stairs, since it was left on table. BR doesn't need to be anywhere near JBR for JBR to have access to pineapple at a different time.
I agree, but the pineapple wasn't completely digested at time of death. And if it takes 20 minutes for food to enter the small intestine (longer for the large intestine) then they can say with some degree of certainty that death occurred approx. 20 minutes after she ate that pineapple and who was possibly eating a bowl of pineapple other than Burke?
I am the artist formerly known as anonymous, lol. Lets stop arguing about what is evidence and what is not on the murder portion of this crime. The truth is there is 0 evidence pointing to anyone committing the murder. The only useless evidence that we do have is all on the staging end of this murder, which all points to the Ramseys.
Here is what the Ramsey vs. Spitz law suit says about the pineapple: 62. At the time when he uttered the false and defamatory accusations against Burke Ramsey, Defendant Spitz recklessly relied on a finding that JonBenet had pineapple in her lower intestine while recklessly ignoring the subsequent testing that established that she had fruit cocktail in her lower intestine – a combination of pineapple, cherries and grapes.
Even that's false information in the lawsuit. The autopsy results specifically say vegetable or fruit material was found in the small intestine. That is not the lower intestine. It takes longer for anything you ingest to make it down to the lower intestine, and there were byproducts found there according to the autopsy but it specifically states in the small intestine they could identify the material as possibly being pineapple. I know it sounds like we are quibbling about the small stuff but I tend to believe an autopsy report that has been released over some report that has not been released as the reasons for that are subject to theory and speculation. Also in Chief Bechner's last question and answer session on Reddit he said everything has been released.
The initial findings were pineapple. The later findings were never leaked or mentioned by any authority in the past 20 years. Irrc, the Ramsey LKL interview 3 years after the murder said they had never read the autopsy. In 2016 Burke says he has never read the ransom note. I would think that he also didn't read either reports on the stomach contents. I do however wonder in all the lawsuits the family has filed, do they give any to charity, domestic violence groups, victims of crimes, awareness organizations? Some medical examiner could say that the victim ate pineapple, separately, in addition to mixed fruit that also contained pineapple. I take it Burke's attorney is prepared for the defendant to have access to medical/psych records of Burke's going back to before the murder. That will be interesting.
Also there was disagreement over whether the erosion inside the vaginal wall represented chronic abuse or not. What they could agree on was that something had happened at least one time prior to the assault that night.
As I've said before, unless you are privy to the actual case files, if the experts come in after the fact and try to examine evidence, they get a 50 50 chance of getting it right. Even the case file may not be carefully put together if crucial evidence is overlooked, participants haphazardly interviewed, etc. but an autopsy report is scientific, objective, factual.
Inqui, you mentioned Reddit. I was just reading a Reddit entry about the "children" theory as well as another entry of a interview with Smit where he said a juvenile could have done this. Guess folks have made a big deal of the Stines and their son, as well as their male live in babysitter (Asian). https://m.reddit.com/r/JonBenet/comments/54xdr6/it_was_the_children/ I know DocG doesn't believe that 9 year old males would be involved with sex play let alone interest, but JonBenet did have males of all ages in her family's circle of friends.
Burke is suing Spitz. CC can comment on the law here, whether Burke is considered a public figure or not. AS for the BDI theory one could include that Burke tied JB up and assaulted her as well. But then I can't wrap my mind around the wiping down. He would have had to have told his father or mother that he did that as well, enough for one of them to have known to wipe her down. And I don't think Burke's behavior on Dr. Phil suggests that he did THAT much to his sister. It would be difficult to hide that information in his mind. IF you want to believe in gaslighting though it's possible his father convinced him that she would be all right after the head blow and to go back to bed, with a benedryl, and convince him that the next morning his sister was simply "missing" and then murdered - by someone else - an intruder. WHich he believes to this day.
Or there is another possibility. That she was not wiped down by the perpetrator trying to cover his tracks, but wiped down because she wet the bed earlier. And her panties were changed then. Then the assault took place and what tiny streaks of blood found in those clean panties were the result of the sexual assault, not a sexual assault that resulted in having had her panties changed. Make sense? Does to me. She wet the bed, was wiped down then - not after the assault.
I find that this is the easiest, most likely scenario. PR, and JBR, down in the basement at the washer and drier, washing out the nightgown and blanket.
Burke did it all. John wrote the note and staged the window and moved the body (scraping abraisions were on the back of her leg) and covered her with the blanket.
Nine year old Burke fashioned a garrote - tying a sophisticated knot - and used it to strangle his sister to death after whacking her on the head.....and his parents, rather than being horrified by the actions of their psychopathic, homicidal son, decide to stage a phony kidnapping instead, complete with a rambling, three page ransom note which includes threats of beheading? Sorry......I don't buy it.
We don't even know that John wanted Patsy and Burke out of the house so he could remove the body. Doc has no evidence to support this, and how could he - it goes to state of mind. And it's his theory to explain why he thinks Patsy wasn't supposed to call 911, which is also a theory. I say she called 911 because they thought they had done everything they could do (with the exception of a few more details John took care of down in the basement when he disappeared around 10 a.m.). Maybe he did want Patsy and Burke out of the house so that he could finish the staging, but not to remove a body. way, way too risky.
"We don't even know that John wanted Patsy and Burke out of the house so he could remove the body. Doc has no evidence to support this, and how could he - it goes to state of mind."
Correct. As I made clear, my interpretation of the note was speculative. We have no way of knowing for sure what John's plan was. Maybe it didn't involve removing Patsy and Burke. Maybe he felt he could do what he needed to do by distracting them or waiting until they were both upstairs. But everything in my scenario is consistent with the evidence. And the most convincing aspect of my interpretation is that it explains the note, taking literally every detail into account.
This note obviously took time to prepare. The missing pages strongly suggest that there was at least one practice note of some length (now destroyed, apparently). If it was just a matter of staging an intruder it would have been far simpler and less detailed. And yes, that's "only" my opinion, but it does make sense. More sense than staging an intruder by writing a ransom note.
The ransom note didn't needed to be so elaborate if someone was covering for an accident, I think it has different purpose. The ransom note appears to have a few objectives if it's a fake RN: prevent reader from calling police (if left at stairwell, it was meant to be read by PR); create false motive (ie revenge/money); create reasonable doubt by deflecting away from person who committed crime (foreign faction); if not IDI potentially provides reason why attache with money(ie suitcase with body) transported out of house and why changed to paper bag? There are too many details in the ransom note that each sentence was written for particular purpose, reasonable doubt, etc. But I think whoever wrote the note did it after JBR was dead, because almost every other sentence is a reference to killing her. Jmo but whoever wrote the ransom note murdered JBR and wasn't covering for someone else's accident/crime.
I agree with part of your statement, but not all. I agree that she was dead when the ransom note was conceived of and written. But I don't think any of the "junk" in it was intended for any other purpose than to make it look like an intruder did it. I don't believe John wished to get the body out of the house and hoped Patsy would read the note and whisk herself and Burke out of the house so he could complete the task of removing the body. Too, way too, much of a risk. Any of her friends would have asked why she was so upset, she would have told them, any one of them could have called the police, or just gone over to John's house to see if they could be of assistance. If he was going to wait until cover of darkness to remove the body cadaver dogs would have picked up on her scent - from basement to garage to car trunk. Seen in that context, that JR was not going to remove the body, they BOTH had to go with the illusion created in the note that there was a kidnapping, her call to 911 whether J said to call or it was her idea, was a faked frightened Patsy call. I'm sure she was upset, but she knew what happened to her daughter, she had been up all night helping stage the scene. Remember that the 911 operator said after the call was complete she detected a change in tone? Kind of like a "now what do we do" tone.
The Ramsey ransom note is what it very clearly is: a ransom note. There is no getting around that FACT. Actually more than a fact: a tautology. And no one writes a fake ransom note to stage anything other than a kidnapping. That's a logical inference, and also just plain common sense.
I don't see any way to get around that. And your belief that John wouldn't want to take the risk of staging a kidnapping to buy time to get rid of the body on the following night is just that: a belief, i.e., an opinion. And in this case opinions mean nothing as everyone has one and they are all over the place. There is a huge difference between an opinion and a logical inference based on facts.
What you've written about the friends, cadaver dogs, etc. means little. The friends could easily have been sworn to silence. And if cadaver dogs traced JonBenet's body to the basement, all that would mean was that she was killed there, by the "kidnappers." If Patsy had not called 911 when she did, then John could easily have wrapped the body in a plastic garbage bag and placed it in the trunk of his car.
Sure, John's plan would have been filled with risks. But one does not stage a pedophile intruder by writing a ransom note from a would-be kidnapper. All that does is make you look even more suspicious, NOT less.
and you don't think a cadaver dog couldn't sniff out a dead body in the trunk of a car - specifically John's car. How do you think he would have gotten the body out of the house after wrapping it in plastic? Way way more dangerous. Talk about evidence if a cadaver dog smelled a dead body in the trunk of his car. As for the change of tone on the 911 call the operator said she heard a change of tone. I don't hear anything. Where did she say it? When questioned later but exactly who printed it I don't know. Perhaps it was in Kolar's book? I do agree with you on this point though: why write a ransom note about a kidnapping when you know the body is not "missing" but lying dead in your cellar. Very true. So I'll concede that. And answer is, I don't know. But I just can't go all the way to saying Patsy wasn't supposed to call 911 so that John could buy a whole day and a night to carry a dead body out of his house, into his car and to some dump site. Cadaver dogs.
You raise a very good point regarding cadaver dogs being able to detect the scent of a dead body in the trunk of John's car, Inquisitive. Minnesota Linda
That garrot wasn't all that sophisticated. Burke would have learned knot tying in the boy scouts. Or perhaps on John's boat. In my scenario the garrot and sexual assault were not staging. THe note was, and the window was.
Just to piggyback on what I originally thought, that Burke delivered the blow and John did the strangulation and sexual assault, I now believe Burke did all of it. What the parents did was write a phony kidnap/ransom note, open a window and break the glass, put a suitcase under the window (either right away or later) and move her into the wine cellar and bolt the door. It doesn't matter that the body was still in the house. How is that a greater risk than trying to remove it? He can always say that the kidnapper apparently was going to kidnap her but killed her instead. He didn't know how his note (the Ramsey's) would be interpreted, it was intentionally confusing.
In response I'll refer you to the first scenario of my Straw Poll:
Assume you are the mother of two children, one a six year old little girl and the other a 9 year old boy.
1. You hear a loud disturbance coming from the basement and go down there to investigate. You find your son hovering over your daughter, holding a strange device with an intricate knot he's tightening around her neck. She has already suffered a devastating head wound, blood is oozing out of her vagina and she is clearly dead. As you look on in horror, he turns to you and says: "she stole my pineapple." What would you do?
Answer to DocG, Eat a couple chunks of pineapple, without touching the bowl of course, then have Patsy proceed to write a novel of a ransom note. Then get some rest, take a shower and wait for Patsy to finish writing this incessantly long RN so she can call 911 and get this thing overwith so they can catch a flight to Disneyland.
DocG, I remember your straw poll. In that scenario, blood oozing away, and the excuse "she stole my pineapple" (which I don't believe for a minute that was the motive but I'll go with your scenario) I would : 1. feel for a pulse 2. yell "what have you done" 3. if I found no pulse I would NOT call the police and report that my son killed my daughter. 4. I would put my head together with my wife and figure out what to do about it 5. put my son to bed with a sleeping agent 6. weigh the pros and cons of reporting it to the police 7. and call a friend
That's me. Look how many friends of celebrities (who are also celebrities in some cases) don't call the police right away - Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger, Prince to name three.
I'd call the cops right away. Period. End of story. DocG....I just don't understand it....your method of logical inference seems so....logical to me. If people would only stipulate you've solved the case, we could all focus our attention on John---his past, present, and future--- and how we and/or the police could do unto him, as he done to us through the years, with the goal of, as you've stated so many times, forcing him to stand trial. One idea I've had, is to find someone to befriend Ramsey's new wife. In Patsy, John had found the perfect mix of intellect and emotional vulerability to make her susceptible to gaslighting. Is there any reason to believe his new spouse isn't similiarly Patsy-like in this repect? If so, could the right "undercover" friend, over time, turn her into an informant?
Or what about this?
Prentend you saunter into a Starbacks one day by yourself, buy a cup of coffee, then go outside to relax on the patio. To your utter astonishment John Ramsey is serendipitously seated by himself at a little table next to another little table you decide to occupy. He seems to be in a good mood and, of course, doesn't know a thing about you. How would you proceed? Would you acknowledge his celebrity right away or play dumb at first? What one or two questions would you ask him, given you were able to get past the chit-chat stage, and he was amenable to keep the conversation going? Just curious.
And yes, I mean the book that's cover is at the top of this website, Ruled In. I was really impressed with the author's analysis of how the ransom note might well have been written first on a computer and then later transcribed onto the notepad.
DocG, you know I think you are great. Your writing is superb, you have worked this out in as much detail as you can. And you made it possible for all of us here to discuss the case ad infinitum. And that's all I am doing as well. I've worked it out here, by arguing for different scenarios on what I think was possible, maybe even probable. But it doesn't all add up the way anyone has put it together. And I just want it to make sense. That's all.
I'm trying to figure out the doctor visits as well. 27 times in two years - I think you said Doc it was 27 times over a period of 2 years. That would come down to one visit a month. That's not unusual. But it could be - if we knew if the visits got more frequent in the last year of her life. If they were it could suggest there was a problem at home. Not with the father, but with the brother. Okay, I have no facts on that score. I would like to know if most of those 27 visits were concentrated in one particular year. Also didn't someone say she called the doctor 3 times in one day?
Take the RN out of the equation: What would have transpired if no ransom note was written at all? PR gets up, makes coffee, and then goes to wake the kids. She finds JB missing. THEY SEARCH THE HOUSE TOP TO BOTTOM, CALLING HER NAME, SEARCHING EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY. THEY MAY HAVE CALLED SOME FRIENDS TO HELP SEARCH THE HOUSE AND OUTSIDE. ONE OF THEM FINDS JB’S BODY IN THE BASEMENT. She is dead and has been strangled with a rope and her hands are tied above her head. [obviously the RN prevented a full scale search of the house by the family/friends]
OK, fine. Excellent. A sensible question. To make things even simpler, let's assume there was no broken window in the basement either. So, what "the Ramseys" would claim was that some intruder with a key had entered the house, sexually assaulted their daughter, then killed her and left.
But don't forget. This incident happened in the wake of the Susan Smith case, where an ostensibly innocent mother had claimed her car was hijacked and her sons taken from her. She was very convincing also, until she finally gave up and confessed.
Remember also that in the great majority of such cases the guilty party turns out to be someone from the victim's family. And since sexual assault was involved, the most likely family member would be the victim's father.
So. Maybe John's best bet would have been to do nothing and hope the police would decide, despite Susan Smith and despite the statistics, there just wasn't enough evidence to charge him.
Unfortunately for this scenario, a ransom note WAS found. A 2 1/2 page ransom note. And a broken window WAS found, a window that was certainly broken on the night of the crime, John's fanciful story about breaking in earlier notwithstanding. So regardless of how sensible it might seem for John -- or Patsy, if you prefer -- to have just left things as whey were, obviously one -- or both -- decided to do some staging instead. Unless you prefer the intruder theory, of course. Maybe we need to reconsider THAT. Anyone????
Good question. I myself personally think John would have been better off not attempting to stage a kidnapping but simply reporting a home invasion. Obviously he thought differently. Or Patsy did. Or both of them did. I have feeling the Susan Smith case had something to do with this decision. Without the staging of a kidnapping (including removing the body from the house), the Ramseys would certainly have been the object of suspicion. No evidence of an intruder. No sign of forced entry.
On the other hand, without a note to explain, a pedophile intruder would have made a lot more sense.
Yes, it does. Because BDI is a hopelessly absurd theory leading nowhere. Which is why Lin Wood had no hesitation deciding to sue CBS and the feeble minded "experts" who fingered his son. If CBS thinks there's a case to be made against Burke they'll take it to court and we'll get a chance to see that theory collapse in public. More likely they'll see the light and try to settle. If Lin let's them. We'll see.
Now wait a minute here. One event does not lead to another because your argument is that it's a "hopelessly absurd theory." I will for the sake of argument say that John wanted to remove the body - he wrote the note so Patsy would find it, leave the house, he could then spend a whole day with the dead body cleaning up anything he might have missed, wrapped her in plastic that night and put her in the trunk of his car, driven to some remote area, dumped the body, come home, told Patsy it was okay to come home now they could what, report their daughter missing after a whole day had expired? That makes 0 sense. When did you notice her missing? the police would ask. They would ask Patsy where were you while your husband was "taking care of it"? At a friend's house? So you're saying you got up at 5:52 a.m., saw a note, noticed your daughter was missing - went to a friend's house with your son and what were you doing all day Mr. Ramsey? Retrace your steps for us, you went to the bank, then what.
"When did you notice her missing? the police would ask."
After we found the note, around 5:30 or 5:40 AM, we went to her bedroom and she was missing. The note said they'd kill her if we called the police, so we decided to follow the instructions in the note.
"They would ask Patsy where were you while your husband was "taking care of it"? At a friend's house? So you're saying you got up at 5:52 a.m., saw a note, noticed your daughter was missing - went to a friend's house with your son"
Yes. Just waiting like that was very difficult, but we knew John had to follow the instructions in the note. And we were concerned that Burke might be at risk also, so John and I decided to take him out of the house, to our friends.
"and what were you doing all day Mr. Ramsey? Retrace your steps for us, you went to the bank, then what."
I went to the bank and collected the ransom. Then I went home and shortly afterward the kidnappers called with instructions to deliver the ransom to the location they had designated. They insisted I wait till after dark so I couldn't identify them later. I delivered the ransom as they requested. Then they just laughed and drove off. I waited there for over an hour, hoping they'd return JonBenet, but they never did. At that point I decided to call the police.
How is that "hopelessly absurd"? Many parents of kidnap victims cooperate fully with the kidnappers and agree to pay a ransom. And in many cases the victim is already dead.
And sure the police would be suspicious. But without evidence they'd have no basis for prosecution. The Ramseys would have been seen as victims by a great many and after the body was found in roughly the same area where John claimed to have delivered the ransom, the case would be closed.
So the police would be relying on Patsy and John's word that the ransom note existed and had been complied with up to the point where the kidnappers failed to hand over JBR?
(Knock on Ramsey's Door, John and Patsy answer)
Police: " Mr and Mrs Ramsey, I'm sorry to report your daughters body was found today exactly as you told us the kidnappers told you they would leave it in the ransom note they took back from John that neither of you happened to make a copy of and that no policeman or detective has ever seen or read.
Patsy (through fake tears): "Exactly what are you implying?"
Police (In a voice like Sgt. Joe Friday): "Nothing mam, just the facts...."
Way, way too much theory Jon. Wouldn't stand up with law enforcement. I think the reason he wrote a 2 1/2 page ransom note is quite simple. Although we should call it a phony ransom note because there was never going to be a payout as there was not a kidnapping. AS I said before, Doc's theory that a ransom note was concocted was for Patsy to read and her eyes only - then get herself and Burke out of the house so he could continue on. But that's so full of holes, primarily because it goes to a plan in John's mind that we have no FACTUAL evidence is so. I think she was up all night, with John, which is why she had on day old makeup from the night before and the same outfit. I think this is why a fiber from her jacket was found on the sticky side of the duct tape. I think this is also why she was wrapped in her favorite blanket with the barbie nightgown stuck to it. She was up all night with John. Calling 911 was a part of the drill. Listen to her panting, her breathing on that call as if she's out of breath. THat sounds staged to me. But that's the least of it.
Inq.. I think that makes the most sense given the fact that their timeline is near impossible as far as getting up at 5:30, dressing, applying make-up, messing around in the laundry area before going down the spiral stairs, finding the note, checking JB's room, having some type of conversation about what is happening (surely they read the entire note before calling 911 -- I would), all in 22 minutes. There is no way PR did her makeup and got dressed and did everything else she said she did in 22 minutes.
The plan in John's mind is a logical inference based upon a conflation of various facts Doc has enumerated time and time again. Evidence isn't "factual" ; it either exists or it doesn't. To say that John's "plan" is all in Doc's head, is no different than saying your "think(ing) (Patsy) was up all night" is all in your head. The difference is, Doc's theory makes the ransom note necessary; your theory makes it superfluous. Why is this so hard to understand?
By the way, my name is Mike, which is how I'll identify myself in future posts.
I conceded below that John needed to get the body out of the house. But not that John did the killing. IT's possible Patsy slept in her makeup from the night before and got up at the crack of dawn and dressed for a long flight in her dressy suit jacket and pants from the night before, came downstairs to the breakfast area and just stumbled on that note. Not. Just because she and John said the note was spread out on the foot of the stairs when she came down the spiral staircase and she just found it that way doesn't make it so. They certainly could have laid that note out that way after they called 911.
The purpose of the "fake" ransom note was to have tangible evidence that someone had been in the house. Not so sure why a lot of you don't buy this. That was the only reason for it.
If IDI and ransom note indicated motive was about money, then it wasn't really about money because Jonbenet was killed before kidnappers attempted to get money, or it was about money if killing Jonbenet somehow caused perpetrator some monetary gain (like inheritance) or pageant wins etc. If the perpetrator was attempting to kidnap and something went wrong, it's strange that JBR ended up in the basement. Hypo- perp grabs JBR from room, wouldn't they just make a quick exit through first floor exits instead of going all the way back to basement (if that's where initially entered)? Going to the basement if kidnapping seems least likely place and if JBR weren't making noise on the way out of her room, why would perpetrator keep her in the house any longer than necessary and risk more noise? If IDI and accidentally hit her over the head to keep her quiet, why garrote and violate JBR...the motive wouldn't be money alone or pedophilia because JBR ended up murdered (defeats purpose of kidnapper pedophile, and kidnapper for ransom).
"And since sexual assault was involved, the most likely family member would be the victim's father." You keep saying this like no one posted the statistics of who would be the most likely to sexaully assault JBR in the last blog or 2. The statistics said that siblings have a much higher statistical percentage of sexual assault than a father. Just because you WANT it to be JR does not make it so. I do not neccessarily disagree with your theory, however if there was sexual abuse it was most likely BR. So the correct logical inference would be BR not JR. There is not 1 single shred of evidence that JR was sexually abusing his daughter. None. In fact there is not a single shred of evidence who committed this murder for which to draw any inference whatsoever. Any evidence that is available ONLY points to the staging aspect of this crime.
I totally agree with this Keiser Sozay. Statistics do show that siblings show a higher percentage of incest toward another sibling (older brother to younger sister) than fathers to daughters. You are absolutely right. I quoted that from some Journal or another of Psychiatry last week. And there isn't a shred of evidence that J was abusing JB. autopsy indicated abrasions on vaginal wall that indicate there may have been another incident prior to that night but could not determine it was "chronic."
Also if JR was sexually abusing JBR there is always a pattern of being a molester/pedo. As stated on here some molesters go for 50 yrs before being discovered or someone coming forth to expose the molester. If JR were or ever had been molesting children either here, in Amsterdam or the North Pole, then the magnitude of this case and the 20 yrs since this murder would have had SOMEONE come forward with some information or come forward accusing JR of prior molestation. That never happened, which leads the logical inference to be that JR was not molesting JBR.
I agree, Keiser Sozay. I can't imagine that if John had been molesting his daughter there wouldn't be others coming forward... especially since this is such a high-profile case. Minnesota Linda
I'm conceding that John wanted to get the body out of the house. But not that he did the murder. You would not write a long drawn out ransom note and then leave the body in the house. That wouldn't look like an authentic kidnapping for ransom, would it.
It was not meant to look authentic imo. It was meant to decieve. I am more in agreement with your first conclusion, however Doc's theory is not implausible, I just find no basis for the chain of events that occured for his theory to be THE most likely. The fact of the matter is we do not have enough evidence to draw any real logical inference. Which is why we have 1000 different scenarios and interpretation of what little conflicting evidence that we do have.
THey could have worked in tandem that night. Keiser, I think she messed up the plan by calling 911. She was going to call 911 and jumped the gun. He, J., possibly didn't tell her he needed that note for the police for later, after he had removed the body so that it would look like a real kidnapping for ransom (no body in the house). And she jumped the gun. This could explain the 911 hangup prior to the call. Then he knew she had to go through with it. Too late to remove that body now, so he goes downstairs and breaks the window, and does whatever else he can but they both knew she was in the cellar.
As to why I believe it was a massive coverup for their son who killed his sister, was how would that say in their community where they had built a reputation of their perfect family. He owned a billion dollar company he built from the ground up himself. He was planning on taking it global and expanding operations hiring thousands more employees. They were very well respected in their community, her daughter won pageants, she had a house on the Christmas home tour, they had dozens of friends and unimaginable wealth. It's not that their son would be exonerated due to his age and they weren't worried about that - they were worried about how it would look to have that kind of standing in the community and have it be known that their son had murdered his sister and there was a sexual attack as well. Not such a perfect family. That to me was the motive for the big coverup. To protect their family name. She was lying dead. Nothing more they could do for her. And I'll adios until tomorrow.
That sounds possible. The crux of my argument since day 1 is that PR at the very least knew her daughter was dead that morning. I think I have done the most studying of this case on PR. Her statements, her behaviors , her lies and anything she had to do with this case. I have come to only 2 conclusions which I feel are very solid in this case. They are this, PR, at the very least, knew JBR was dead by that morning and helped with the cover up there after and JR was, at the least, involved in the staging and cover up of this murder. In my mind those are the 2 facts that I have to work with. PR has been caught in many lies and has more memory loss than anyone in the history of suspects. So with those 2 facts I do not have anything I have came up with that I consider a solid theory nor will I claim to. I am certain about this though, some significant others may look the other way or ignore molestation within their family. What they will not do is look the other way at a brutal, sadistic, child killer then sleep next to him for 10 years with her other child who she would be worried about getting killed sleeping in the room next door. No way, which leads me to only 1 conclusion and that is by default. The only part I do not understand out of the whole scenario is why the brutal staging ? We obviously do not know all of the details of what was going on in that house and probably never will. There are parts to this story that we almost certainly are missing.
Just in case this message got lost in the midst of all the many others on the previous thread:
ReplyDeleteLeigh Too, I'm getting tired of your long string of one and two liners. You're taking up space here unnecessarily. Wait a while and save up what you want to say and put it into one longer post, OK? And don't just keep repeating variations on the same thing over and over, or else I'll just delete your posts. I don't mind seeing IDI arguments, but what you are doing is closer to trolling and it needs to stop.
I'm also concerned about personal comments coming from ANY source. I will track them down and I will terminate them with extreme prejudice.
Good morning!
DeleteThank you Doc for your post here. Since I found your blog, I've learned so much about the case and have enjoyed brainstorming and sharing with everyone. I think we all share a common goal in trying to find out what happened to JBR and one never knows. We might stumble upon something one day here that cracks the case.
EG
Even though I’m once again leaning towards Doc’s theory of what happened to JonBenet, I still can’t help but worry… what if we’re wrong?
ReplyDeleteHas anyone else here been following the resolution of the case of Jacob Wetterling’s abduction and murder here in Minnesota in 1989 by sexual predator Danny Heinrich? From the New York Daily News… “An elementary school music teacher who has lived under a cloud of suspicion since 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped from central Minnesota in 1989 can breathe easier now that another man has confessed to the boy's abduction and killing.” (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/person-interest-wetterling-case-relieved-article-1.2786041). What this poor man went through over the years is unbelievable.
A recently-released critically-acclaimed webcast entitled “In The Dark” (http://www.apmreports.org/in-the-dark) sheds some light on the ineptitude of local law enforcement in solving the case, along with their insistence that Dan Rassier was “their man.” Episode 5 deals specifically with his years-long nightmare of being wrongly accused. And, if you read the article and listen to the podcast, it wasn’t just law enforcement who made Dan’s life hell. Media and armchair detectives took the bait and ran with it. Long-time friends and neighbors turned their back on him, as well.
Even if you believe John Ramsey, based on the evidence, is clearly culpable in the death of JonBenet, I think you will find the “In The Dark” podcast extremely interesting and thought-provoking. It’s available on iTunes. Thank you!
Minnesota Linda
I too had second thoughts. Until I read John's testimony, in both his 1997 and 1998 police interviews, regarding his basement window breakin the previous summer. There are far too many signs that this story is a complete fabrication, which can lead to only one conclusion: he broke that window on the night of the crime to stage an intruder break-in. That clinched it for me. Whether you believe Patsy did it or Burke did it, or John did it, there is no question in my mind that John was involved, and I would therefore have no qualms whatsoever about him being indicted and forced, at the very least, to answer for his actions and his deceit.
DeleteIt was your section devoted to the basement window that clinched it for me also. Every time I have the slightest doubt regarding John's guilt, I always come back to that one detail. It is inescapable.
DeleteAgree with Doc 100% and that has been my exact thought for a long time. I feel sure that because of that window it undoubtably shows that JR was, at the least, involved in the cover up and should be put on the stand. At this point why not, LE hasnt gotten anywhere nor will there ever be an arrest. I believe PR, if still alive, should be put up as well as BR. We all really want it to happen but would anything come of it ? No, it surely would not, not with the lawyers JR has. His story would be stuck with and JR's lawyers are more than competent enough to know that this is nothing more than word of mouth and nothing can be proven before they even walk into court, unfortunately.
DeleteMinnesota Linda, I was thinking along the same lines after watching "Sully". Experts can get it wrong. Unprecedented events still occur. It is possible that an intruder committed this crime.
DeleteAnon... Never say never, right? Minnesota Linda
DeleteThe BDI theory has gained a lot of traction; however, and I am not disagreeing that BR might have hit JBR over the head knocking her unconscious but not killing her, why would JR or PR or both not call 911 for medical help with JBR still alive (checking for a pulse or watching for rise and fall of chest does not take medical expertise) and instead decide to stage a crime to protect BR and KILL their own daughter to do so?
ReplyDeleteIn order for the BDI theory to work, BR had to hit JBR over the head and proceed to sexually assault and kill her. JBR being dead when JR or PR first get to her is the only way they would stage a crime to cover up a murder. If JBR is still alive when JR or PR first get to her after BR assaults her, they call 911 for medical help not to report a kidnapping!
- GEH
GEH
DeleteYou would think that's what MOST parents would do. But in their case, they had a lot to lose as far as status and position in the community. Perhaps they didn't want their son labeled a murderer for the rest of his life, perhaps they thought she was dead, as they may have found her hours later. Who knows. We don't even know what came first. As I said in a previous post, I had read that the skull fracture was so severe, had it come first she would have bled from her nose and mouth. So, if the garrote came first, then it's a whole other ball game and JR just might have been molesting her. Not sure BR would have known, at 10 years of age, the sexual bondage type thing that the garrote clearly signifies, IMHO. Although, maybe he did, I don't know how far fetched that is but who knows what went on in that house. They did have older siblings in and out. How much does anyone know about the older son. JAR? He was said to have been seen that night near the house, but then he had an alibi that he was with his mother. Was that rock solid? A mother would lie for her son, so am sure they had to have had other witnesses.
EG
They lost everything anyway. I really can't see Patsy letting her beloved daughter suffer and die if Burke had hit her. No way. It is so obvious that she loved JBR so, so much.
DeleteThey would not of known how serious the injury was so why kill her?
- EG
DeleteYes, in my analysis of BDI, I am assuming the head blow came first. I have read somewhere that the swelling of the brain confirmed she was alive when she was struck in the head, but I would think that a blow that hard would cause bleeding of the nose and ears. So, which was it, the chicken or the egg? It does make a big difference. I, personally, think the head blow was first and the garrote was staging. A quick synopsis of what I believe (not all is fact but just a scenario of how I think the murder happened) is that JR wanted sex with PR after getting home and she either refused or was too exhausted/medicated to perform. JR went somewhere to read (possibly porn) or to cool down. JBR wet the bed and went to her parent’s bedroom and found her father not there so she went looking for him, possibly with the flashlight. JBR found her father and he helped her change, which, if he had been molesting her (still debating that), he decided to use JBR to satisfy himself. By satisfy, JR could have been, for some time, using JBR as a character in his fantasy having her dress up while he masturbated without her seeing (under his pants, under a robe, etc.) and without physically touching her (JBR would have been oblivious to it and was just dancing/parading for her father). JR wanted JBR to put on some outfit and dance or perform for him and she wanted nothing to do with it, too tired, not in the mood, whatever. JR got angry, JBR got scared, and JBR was going to run and tell PR or BR. JR grabbed the flashlight and hit her in a ‘reflex’ to stop her from running. If he simply grabbed her by her arm she would have screamed (maybe that is the scream heard by the neighbor). If he did grab her arm and she screamed, then he hit her to shut her up. Either way, he is now in a bad situation. He can’t just let her live now as he would never be able to explain a blow to the head of a child with a flashlight. He can’t stage an accident, because if JBR did survive and recover she might be able to tell someone what really happened. Thus JR decides to stage the kidnapping and sexual assault. He writes the RN to prevent PR from calling the cops before he has covered all of his tracks. The RN was long because JR was putting ‘steps’ for him to follow to cover his tracks and provide answers for his actions – attaché to get money from bank was really a way to move body out of the house undetected; move money to brown paper bag was really a way for JR to take money out and clean attaché of any evidence from the body (wrapped in blanket would minimize this); exhausting trade off so that way he could drive all over the place looking for a place to dump body under the excuse the kidnappers were guiding him to prevent him from being tailed; etc. Of course this all was derailed by PR calling the cops. I believe JR was in the shower cleaning himself off when he first called and that is why he was not able to stop PR from calling. I think if it was a genuine 911 call with both parents innocent, we would have heard JR’s voice in the background adding things to the conversation. I think JR acted alone and PR may have aided in the cover-up, mostly from manipulation, gaslighting, etc. Burke may have accidentally seen or heard something but was too scared to say and has suppressed the memory over the years and might have convinced himself he did not see what he thought he saw. The psychology of PR and BR after the crime is another topic to
debate.
- GEH
Diamondlil16,
ReplyDeleteI didn't know the blanket had PR's and BR's DNA on it. That is odd, as you mentioned, it had just been freshly laundered. Hmmm makes you wonder, doesn't it?
EG
Another very strange comment made by PR upon receiving the "look alike" doll she ordered for JBR was that it looked like JBR in a coffin. WHAT mother would even think something like that, much less actually SAY it??!!
ReplyDeleteAs Inq mentioned, they were both on anti depressant drugs. Who knows how much of a part that played in this. It's been known that those drugs can alter a person's thought process, brain chemistry, etc.
Getting back to the LK interview with Steve Thomas. It's blatantly obvious that JR did not want PR questioned directly and interrupted and answered for her several times. Something isn't right there.
EG
Just read that BR is suing for 150mill.. is this confirmed?
ReplyDeleteOf course it's going to cost Burke (who probably makes a low ball salary) and his father (who is no doubt doing the suing in Burke's behalf) a pile of money supposedly John doesn't have now. Coming up against a major network television station and their team of lawyers isn't going to be cheap. And in the end CBS will maintain their right to put forth any theory they want. Lin Wood is a defamation and libel attorney. He will say that Burke was defamed. John likes to use the media to get his point of view out there (notice he's not suing Dr. Phil) but it works both ways. The media believes they are acting in the interest of the viewers and got their point of view out there regardless of whether John goes along with it or not. But it will probably end up with a settlement. No "facts" will come out.
Delete"defamation and libel" is redundant. Lin Wood is a defamation attorney who often takes cases on a contingent fee basis. The only out of pocket costs to John would be costs: filing fee, reporters at deposition and the like.
DeleteTogether they have pressed seven prior defamation suits against various media outlets, for multi millions. All have settled because the defendant's insurance carrier forced a settlement, which is precisely what will happen with CBS.
Ando Burke was, in fact, defamed.
CC
yes, no attorney wants to go to trial
DeleteWrong again - it's what trial lawyers live for. And while we're on the subject, it's cord, not chord; Beckner, not Bechner; and Burke was slandered, not libeled.
DeleteCC
HAH!! from BR vs Spitz
ReplyDelete50. def spitz falsely stated that jb was not sexually assaulted when murdered.
thoughts???
replying to my own post because I wanted to add a user ID
DeleteBurke and Lin Wood should just sue CBS for bad television.
DeleteI actually hope Burke wins against Spitz. Spitz is a fraud and targeted the wrong Ramsey without even knowing all the facts.Am tired of placed where posters are talking abot Burke' s smile and poop. They are all ignoring the evidence. Websleuths turned into a joke as well.
ReplyDeleteMD glad to see the new hat. There are cities in the U.S. that allow groups, like sleuthing groups, as long as they are sponsored and certified to work with police on cold cases. They are all of them background cleared, some are even former law enforcement, P.I.'s, school teachers, the gamut. They are allowed the case files and go over each piece of evidence, every paper generated, and consider everything. As I said before, we are at a disadvantage here. It's a blog. It's a fun blog, most of us here want clarity, we want to separate what we heard in 1996 and what is fact. But if we want to really help solve a cold case we should join one of those groups that are given all of the information and work closely with whatever investigator is in charge. They do a great service too. There are thousands of cases gone cold. When a department loses it's resources to continue on tracking down leads, etc., the case just stays open in some cases, but goes cold.
ReplyDeleteI just knew that them completely ignoring the sexual abuse will backfire! Now Burke is using this evidence on his behalf. Dunno whether to laugh ir cry. John must be so happy that no one has the guts to tell it like it is. He should have been the prime suspect the moment they discovered Jb' s genital injuries.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately this new treatment by Lifetime Movie that is coming out in November may possibly show PR as the killer, as they have assigned an actor to play Steve Thomas. What I will say for Steve Thomas is at least he was earnest, and tried to show that a family member could have done it, not an intruder. But he too overlooked anything that could have pointed to John. In the 1997 interview with JR he did push very hard to get him to take an FBI polygraph. His questions were good. He didn't lead or coach answers. He does deserve a place in the history of this crime mystery.
ReplyDeleteI am sure CBS had all of their disclosures posted which will protect them from any lawsuits that come forth.
ReplyDeleteInq - How interesting about the groups in some cities able to have access to evidence and be a part of solving a crime. Am going to look into that here in my city.
EG
That's awesome EG. I should look into my nearest big city department. I think you can go to a city website under "volunteer" which is one way. We had an officer that solved a cold case here, I know he doesn't have a task team of any sort, I was thinking of putting one together but I didn't follow through. IT would be a very rewarding enterprise.
DeleteI just listened to the 4th episode of "Real Crime Profile" on this case and felt the urge to post again. I beg any of you to listen to it as these are EXPERTS who have looked at thousands of child murder, kidnapping cases and looked at all the evidence on this case.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I am convinced without a doubt that BR struck the initial blow that killed his sister. His fingerprints being on both the pineapple bowl and the Iced Tea glass was the start of it for me. Then seeing how awkward he got when asked a simple question about what the bowl of pineapple was led me to believe he knew that they knew something and that's why he got awkward. Couple that with him doing his 1st interview EVER to the public and it just so happens to be a week before a series comes out naming HIM as the suspect. That's not a coincidence.
I am now convinced that PR was involved with JR on the cover up. 911 call felt scripted, RN looks like she could have written it and a lot of just odd behavior. But, I was having a hard time explaining why that 911 call would get made with the body in the house. It just really didn't have en explanation for me until now.
After BR hits her over the head and she was lifeless, it must have been absolute panic in the Ramsey house. In order to get the body out of the house they would have had to drive her body somewhere.......that's a major problem. Any neighbor could have seen them leave after midnight. Any person could have seen them driving and if you are going to report a kidnapping the following morning, you absolutely cannot have a single person come forward saying that they saw a Ramsey or a Ramsey car leave the house in the wee hours of the evening. Doc to fit his theory believes that JR wrote the RN to convince PR. This is where I completely disagree
The RN was written by both Ramseys as a way to fool the police and keep the police searching OUTSIDE and away from their house. Naturally the cops would HAVE to treat this like a kidnapping, so JBR's body being hidden in a suitcase downstairs would easily go undetected because there was no need to search the house for a body. This is what explains the oddest behavior by the Ramseys. Minutes after the 911 call is made, Patsy Ramsey calls friends to come over to a house where a kidnapping took place. Then PR and JR send their only living child to a friends house! None of this makes any sense on any level unless the friends were just there to create more chaos at the scene. BR being sent to the friends house is to get Burke (the murderer) away from the scene. The Ramseys weren't seasoned murderers, so there is no need to overthink this. Somewhere along the way, JR might have realized that they weren't buying the staging job they did and that's when he had to go downstairs to set the body up so it could be found by him!
-J
I agree with J on many points and my theory has always been very similar to his outside of the blow to the head until recently. After studying Doc's roots on the handwriting analyst, I conclude that JR wrote the RN. I do see a possible problem with prior exemplars as they may have been identified as the wrong creator of the exemplars, thus muddying the waters. Probably more misdirection by the Ramseys and there superteam of lawyers. I personally find it impossible for PR to not be able to identify writing in scrapbooks of her own family and in her own house. This and many, many obvious indicators have proven to me, without a doubt, that at some point PR was aboard with the cover-up. With both being aboard with the cover-up, my mind will not personally not accept that PR or anyone would cover for their pedo molesting pyscho killer husband. people want to claim that family memever cover for other family members who molest. I concur, yes they do. What they do not cover for is a brutal child killer, nor would PR in this case. Which leads us to only 1 conclusion by default.
DeleteJ,
DeleteThanks for the tip about that podcast, I had not yet heard of it.
Thank you as well for your very well written and immediately plausible BDI scenario.
1. “Minutes after the 911 call is made, Patsy Ramsey calls friends to come over to a house where a kidnapping took place.”
Agreed that PR inviting a group of people over to her own possibly unsafe residence may seem strange to crime sleuth bloggers, LE, and even perhaps her own friends. However, can you not believe that Patsy was convinced in the moment that the kidnapping actually occurred and wanted comfort from her friends in the immediate area (which would have presumably surmounted her fear over the kidnappers / perpetrators returning to the residence)?
2. “BR being sent to the friends house is to get Burke (the murderer) away from the scene.”
Again, it is perhaps to us crime sleuths that this move may seem unnatural, but how is it illogical to the Ramsey’s IDI point of view ?
3. “The RN was written by both Ramseys as a way to fool the police and keep the police searching OUTSIDE and away from their house. Naturally the cops would HAVE to treat this like a kidnapping, so JBR's body being hidden in a suitcase downstairs would easily go undetected because there was no need to search the house for a body.”
Yes it’s construable that the Ramsey’s would know that LE would have to initially react to the purported evidence as it was known at the time (RN and 911 call). However, I don’t judge them as unsophisticated enough to calculate that their daughter’s body, found in any configuration within the residence, would go “easily undetected”. They would absolutely have known that eventually a detectable smell would set in, and that once contracted, LE does not just “go away” after any reported major crime.
Agreeing in part with Doc here, once the call to LE was made, there was no realistic chance of the Ramsey’s in any pact, to remove the body from the house.
My problem with BDI - I just cannot believe that John and Patsy could have staged that ultra-disgusting paraphilia laced crime scene. There's nothing in either adult's history, to suggest they would have known how to pull that off entire staging (and I’m not referring to knot tying here), and neither adult had a motive. They would have just phoned LE and stated, “we have an accident” instead of “we have a kidnapping”.
CC2
Hi CC2,
DeleteThank you for the compliment and likewise on your post.
Patsy calling the friends to come over to the house is so important for me on 2 levels.
1. It's extremely odd to me that just minutes after making this dramatic call to 911, you call your friends to come over. That seems an awful lot like something people do for a funeral
2. The note specifically says to not alert ANYBODY including the authorities. SO, I can understand not obeying that and calling the police, but how in the world do you explain calling friends? If she believes the note and is not in on the staging, then calling the police and friends surely means her daughter is dead. The small foreign faction was very clear on what they needed and she disobeyed it immediately!
I respect your opinion, but the Ramseys knew it was safe to not only call the police but friends, because they knew there was no kidnapper on the loose.
-J
I agree that calling friends over is odd. It's certainly not something I would do. But it's just as odd if we assume Patsy's call was part of a plan on the part of Patsy and John to stage a coverup.
DeleteAs I see it, therefore, it is indeed odd, but in no way is it suspicious. We can speculate forever as to why Patsy did what she did. However, if she were staging an intruder scenario it's hard to see why she'd have called in friends either. Prior to the call they'd have been in a position to contaminate the crime scene any way they liked. They wouldn't have needed friends to do that.
See Doc, this is where I struggle with the JDI scenario. In order for it to be true, then PR cannot be involved right? Her pattern of behavior suggests she was very much aware and involved. IF she believes the RN, then I don't know how friends can be called. If she truly believed the note, the friends aren't called. I just can't believe that.
Delete-J
Are you at all considering that the initial calls to friends may have been to ask "has anyone seen JonBenet? Get in your car and see if any of you see anything on the way." Fan out in all directions. Keep an eye out.
DeleteAlso, anyone consider that John could have written the note and tried to make it look like Patsy's?
Not impossible. I used to be able to forge both my mother's and my father's signature.
CH
If perpetrator wrote ransom note as a deflection, Why wouldn't a perpetrator deflect by disguising handwriting including people known to them. As a matter of fact, it seems more likely if a perp was using every angle to deflect crime away from themselves/deception, that they would disguise or try to imitate someone else's writing other than their own regardless of relation. Disregard for life by murdering a little girl in a brutal manner, is not a perp who would have moral qualms about how their deflection may falsely implicate other people.
DeleteBut we don't know what John's true feelings were regards patsy and jbr
DeleteMust be convenient for John now that the focus shifted from PDI to BDI. He should thank ST and Kolar!
ReplyDeleteBut J, you can't explain the prior signs of sexual abuse. Forsensics could not say it was chronic, but that it was previous to the sexual assault that night. When would Burke have been able to do this. And why wouldn't she tell on him. She wouldn't tell on her father. Also all of that staging. It was too extreme to be thought of as a coverup for a crushed skull delivered by their son. I think Burke's distress over looking at a picture of the bowl of pineapple has more to do with him knowing that the story he was to stick to was that JB did not come downstairs that night, and no one saw her eat pineapple. If anything Burke would have had an adverse reaction to a picture of the flashlight (if he was the one who struck her). But then again I don't know if a picture of the flashlight was shown to him. All I know is he said the flashlight was handled by both him and his father. And that brought no adverse reaction from him. Burke's door was kept partially open, the hall light was on, he probably heard something. But if he struck that blow he would not be able to block that out and go on television.
ReplyDeleteA) We don’t know for certain that there was prior sexual abuse. It isn’t agreed upon by experts
ReplyDeleteB) IF she was being molested, it could have been BR. JR wasn’t home all the time and BR and JBR would sleep in the same room at times
C) Why is it so hard for people to believe he could have struck her? My brother hit me over the head with a toy wrestler we had when we were kids. Obviously Im alive because he didn’t do it with a Maglite flashlight that was heavy.
-J
It isn't hard for people to believe Burke may have struck his sister.
DeleteWhat is difficult to believe is that, instead of calling an ambulance (or even staging another accident to cover for their son, such as a fall down the stairs), two otherwise loving parents decide to garrote their daughter to death, penetrate her vagina, then write a phony ransom note.
Well, none of it makes any sense right? Somebody did it and we know it wasn't an intruder. Most people wouldn't chloroform their child to go party, but that's what Casey Anthony did. The fact is that all the stuff you wrote above about the scene did happen! The assumption was that they would have known that BR wasn't 10 so he couldn't have faced charges, but that's an assumption and there is also a very good chance they weren't aware of that. Either way, BR would have grown up as the kid who possibly molested, but killed his beauty queen sister. He would have been a pariah for life. Would most of us call 911? YES, absolutely.....but it didn't happen here.
Delete-J
Also, the autopsy at first didn't reveal that she had a head blow. The blow didn't break the skin, so that's obviously why there was no blood. JR is his book said it would have taken a grown man with strength to deliver the blow and that's just a flat out lie. SO, after BR hit her he probably couldn't know that she was dead because there wasn't any blood. But she was most certainly brain dead from the blow.
ReplyDelete-J
-J
If it wasn't readily apparent that JB was dead, why would the parents begin staging a cover up? Why wouldn't they have simply called an ambulance, assuming she may well just have a severe concussion?
Deleteshe was brain dead, therefore would have been lifeless. Plus BR may not have told them immediately. The head blow and the strangulation are separate acts. BR hits her over the head...panics because she isn't moving. Then at some point tells parents
DeleteWould most people call 911? YES of course....most people wouldn't hit their sister over the head with a flashlight
-J
-J
You said your brother hit you over the head with a toy when you were younger. Do you think it is conceivable your parents would have staged a kidnapping/sexual attack had the blow to your head been fatal?
DeleteWhy would parents create such a phony crime scene, rather than just stage another accident if protecting their son was the goal? This way they would have drawn a lot less attention to themselves.....staging a kidnapping as part of a cover up ensures there is going to be an investigation. A fall down the stairs probably would have been accepted, case closed.
DeleteC'mon Ms D! You know my point of that was to prove that these things do happen. Kids do have moments of rage.
DeleteThe staging happened. SO, somebody in that house did it. It comes down to whether you believe BR in a moment of anger accidentally struck his sister. PR hit her in a moment of anger after she wet her bed. OR JR the mad pedophile fed her pineapple before he decided to play a sex game that resulted in him knocking her out, then garroting her. Then writing the RN by himself. Then staging everything else.
I am not arguing that calling 911 wouldn't have made sense, but we have no idea what was going on. BR could have been molesting her, could have been doing all sorts of stuff, so they might have thought covering it up was the best way to save Burke.
-J
-J
DeleteI agree with your theory and think that's how it all happened. What is hard for any of us to believe is that parents would do this type of staging to protect their child. And we are right when we say MOST parents, would not.
However there ARE parents who have done HORRIBLE things to their own children. It's difficult for normal people to understand or accept this type behavior from parents BUT it DOES exist. Unfortunately.
EG
"Would most of us call 911? YES, absolutely.....but it didn't happen here."
ReplyDeleteAnd right there is evidence enough of why this "Burke accidentally killed his sister" scenario never happened.
Eh, Burke's fingerprints are on the pineapple bowl, the glass and the flashlight. You are entitled to your own opinion, but I feel extremely confident that Burke hit her over the head.
ReplyDeleteDo you honestly believe PR believed the RN was real and then called friends over to eat bagels?
-J
J - the bagels and drinks were brought in by a victim advocate's group. PR needed alot of distractions that day, or John provided them for her.
DeletePlease stop saying Burke's fingerprints were on the flashlight J. There were NO prints on the flashlight or the batteries.
DeleteThe flashlight and batteries inside were both wiped clean of all prints, that is a fact right?
DeleteJ, I just went to the Real Crime Profile website and have been listening to the podcast. It is from the investigators that were on the CBS special. I agree, it is carefully through out, and it does seem a plausible scenario that JB came downstairs that night while Burke was eating his pineapple. I also didn't know she brought down her pillow - that was found on the kitchen counter along with the flashlight. I also didn't know there were TWO practice notes in the waste basket that weren't retrieved by the police right away. I only knew about the one practice "Mr and Mrs. Ramsey" note in the pad. Wonder how far the ransom note writer got in the two in the wastebasket - anyone know? In any event J, I can concede that the pineapple was further along in the digestive process because the blow to the head (delivered right after she ingested the pineapple according to CBS) didn't kill her, so I'm not a forensic scientist but if you are still breathing probably your stomach is still digesting. So J, I'm on the fence again - Burke could have delivered that head blow - and the parents did the rest. But J, read the autopsy report again. There was EROSION on the walls of her vagina, there was damage to her hymen - which did not happen that night. Erosion implies "over time." I think your theory is Burke could have been molesting her over time but the theorists on CBS denied ANY prior molestation. THey also discounted the sexual attack on her that night. Don't you find that a little specious?
ReplyDeleteHey Inquisitive,
DeleteThanks for the reply. BR's fingerprints being on the bowl and the iced tea tell me that was in fact his pineapple bowl. She had pineapple in her system, so I conclude she got the piece of pineapple from his bowl. I don't know that for sure that he hit her over the head over pineapple. It could have been over her wanting his toy, but regardless I am convinced it was Burke. It makes no sense that BR ate pineapple, played, then went to bed. Fast forward 20 minutes and down walks JR with JBR. He feeds her pineapple and then randomly hits her over the head.
-J
i have said before that there were two murders. And they are not consistent with one person being the killer. I cannot wrap my head around JR hitting her over the head to keep her from telling others about the sexual abuse. He said he carried JB up to bed from the car and that Patsy was right behind him. Patsy put her in her long johns for bed, either JB was asleep or she woke up for that. John says he goes to bed and falls asleep around 10:30-10:45 after reading a bit. He even names the book he was reading from. I think JB did get up out of bed on her own, come downstairs and find Burke eating a bowl of pineapple or playing with his toy, pineapple on the counter. She could have grabbed a piece, then "bothered" Burke in some way. Maybe she grabbed his toy, maybe she wanted to play with him and he was very focused on putting together this toy. Maybe she disturbed his construction of the toy. That's what angered him enough to chase her with the flashlight (which he had brought to go downstairs and continue staying up late and putting together his toy.) The rest.....we've gone over. Two killings, two killers, one victim. Burke could have at some previous time hurt JB sexually. But I do'nt believe he did that night. But then it's still all a mystery isn't it?
Delete"The staging happened. SO, somebody in that house did it. It comes down to whether you believe BR in a moment of anger accidentally struck his sister. PR hit her in a moment of anger after she wet her bed. OR JR the mad pedophile fed her pineapple before he decided to play a sex game that resulted in him knocking her out, then garroting her. Then writing the RN by himself. Then staging everything else. "
ReplyDeleteThe third scenario is really the only logical conclusion one can draw (as nothing about this case is logical anyway, because John's plan didn't go as he'd hoped, thus his staging was left incomplete). Doc points out why this is really the only logical scenario.....whether or not John was a "mad pedophile" or not is speculative, but the rest of the evidence pointing to him is overwhelming, and once one realizes this, most of the perplexing issues surrounding the case that seem to make no sense at all then make perfect sense (the seemingly random, but specific instructions addressed to John alone in ransom note - such as size of attache case, that he should be "well rested" etc.; the broken window; the changing of the panties; Patsy making the 911 call when she did etc.)
Ms D I have been on this blog for 5 years, so I know we have never spoke before but I am well aware of Doc's theory on this case. I respectfully disagree with him and you. I at one point was fully convinced Doc was correct, but I have looked at details that have come forward and adjusted my theory accordingly. All the things you said point to John, simply point to the staging of the crime which in the BDI scenario, still could have happened. Also, in order for JDI to be correct, then in no way, shape or form can PR be involved and I believe she was at some point.
ReplyDeleteYou still never answered my question. IF PR believed the RN and believed a small foreign faction took their daughter...THEN how in the world do you explain calling friends over, just minutes after the 911 call? The only logical conclusion is that they wanted to create chaos and confusion.
-J
Then why did the police send victim advocates over to the house? Were they in on the plot?
DeleteThe police sent victim advocates over the house because somehow Mrs. Ramsey, the doting mother as many of you claim, never even considers telling the police not to come to her house when the note clearly states her daughter will die if she does so repititively. That in and of itself is NOT the sign of PR worried about her childs life. She disobeys every warning in the note without ever so much as a care in the world about disobeying every single threat in the note. Even after LE and the whole neighborhood shows up PR still never mentions or seems to have a care in the world that SHE most likely just got her daughter killed. We can get into that whole well thats not what I would do but its logical here because ....It is NOT logical and makes no sense at all unless she already knows her daughter is dead.
DeleteAs I stated above, Patsy called 911 before reading through the "ransom note". She never made it as far as the dire consequences should she contact the authorities - she flew into a panic as soon as she read that her daughter had been abducted, and called the police immediately.
DeleteHad John have stated how important it was that no one call the authorities within the first couple of lines, his plan probably would have gone off without a hitch.
She did read the whole note. How and why would any mother NOT read a ransom note when her daughter is kidnapped ? If she somehow did NOT read thr whole ransom note than that makes PR a liar. She sure knew who signed the note when the 911 operator asked her. She claims JR was a ways away on the floor reading it when she was on the phone with 911 so either she is a liar, meaning she already knew what the note said or she already read the whole note but it is either 1 or the other.
DeleteJ, as far as I know, NO prints were retrieved from the flashlight, which is why John tried to push the theory it belonged to the intruder?
ReplyDeleteAs far as the bowl and glass is concerned, Burke would have touched them many times in the days prior. It was mentioned somewhere (maybe here on this blog? I can't quite remember) that the bowl of pineapple/tea may have been set up in the late afternoon and not upon returning from the White's party. It may have been already sitting there when JB entered the kitchen shortly before she was murdered. At any rate, his prints on the bowl are in no way evidence that Burke must have been up with JB that night eating pineapple.
How do you get that BR probably touched the bowl and the glass many times in the days before ???? If this is like any other household than the housekeeper or PR washes the dishes every time someone eats out of them, thus erasing any last fingerprints that were on them. Unless we are going to come up with some illogical, random, off the wall theory that a dirty bowl and glass were used for the pineapple or PR unloaded the dishwasher and handed the dishes to BR to put away. Then in turn someone with gloves or a phantom got the bowl and was eating pineapple with it. Logically whoever touched the bowl last would leave prints on it. Period.
DeleteHad the pineapple been from earlier that day, then whoever ate the pineapple earlier would surely have accounted for it to LE. Clearly, whoever was up that night has very good reason to deny the pineapple and thus they have. If it was from 3 pm then whoever served the pineapple, and/or whoever was eating would have stated that to LE.
DeleteIt is certainly conceivable that Burke's fingerprints could be on the bowl even if he did not touch it that night. He could have taken the bowl out of the cupboard that morning, or even in the days before, to retrieve something behind it, before putting the bowl back. Or he could have used the bowl at breakfast time, rinsed it under running water, then put it into the dish rack to dry off where it stayed until it was used later that night. Neither of these scenarios are remotely illogical, Keiser. Certainly not as illogical as the theory that JB stole a piece of pineapple from Burke's bowl, resulting in a fatal blow to the head, and a subsequent cover up by the parents involving a garrote and sexual abuse.
DeleteI did not say it is not possible , what I said is it is highly unlikely. In a normal household people eat off dishes then they wash them. Period. Well it could have been this or could have been that to fit a theory does not make it logical. An intruder could have hid in the house for a week just to learn everything about the Ramseys, then while the Ramseys were sleeping after the murder could have secretly had a cleaning crew come in to clean all the evidence and that is why there is none. Does that sound logical to you ? Of course not but its possible right ? Logic states this, someone had to take the bowl and put it on the table and put pineapple in it. The person who did that left fingerprints on those items. So unless a fingerprintless person or a phantom did it then it is logical to say Burke (whose prints were on all 3 items on the table) made that pineapple and was eating it.
DeleteActually, J, I did answer your question regarding PR calling 911, not too long after you asked it.....you must have missed it. :)
ReplyDeletehey sorry....yea I just didn't see it. Sorry about that
Delete-J
No worries. :)
DeleteIt's often difficult to keep track of all of the comments!
J, I've been reading up on the digestive process. However I still can't find what happens with the digestive process when one is rendered unconscious. But the pineapple "fibrous matter consistent with pineapple" was found in the duodenum, just as the CBS investigator said, or in otherwords the small intestine. It had not made it to the large intestine for elimination. I just don't know how long a process from mouth to esophagus to small intestine it takes to get there. But it did stop there. IF she was hit on the head immediately after "stealing a piece of pineapple" from the bowl would the pineapple have made it to the small intestine? Perhaps one could envision a scenario where he chased her with the flashlight. As she's running the pineapple could have made it to her small intestine before being hit over the head. I just don't know how fast digestion takes place. And I also don't know if it continues after the heart is still beating but the person is unconscious. WE know she was alive for 45 mintues to 2 hours after the blow to the head. Strangulation ended her life. And the pineapple stayed in the small intestine, never making it to the large intestine/colon for elimination. Also in the original timeline recorded by police taken from the parents John says he went to bed around 10-10:45. But where the question is asked: Burke ???? there are question marks and Patsy: ???? They didn't know when they went to bed? Or they just didn't answer.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to know what Mr. Kolar would say about Paula Woodward's allegation that JonBenet must have eaten fruit cocktail rather than pineapple. According to her this is part of the official record. If she's right then the bowl of pineapple has no bearing on the case at all.
DeleteWoodward's allegation is bogus - it has to be.
DeleteGrape skins and cherries were found along with pineapple is what PW alleges or was proven, I can't remember which is proven.
DeleteThere were fingerprints on the flashlight ? I thought that there were no fingerprints found on the flashlight ? I have never heard this anywhere, sources please ?
ReplyDeleteNo fingerprints on flashlight. Or batteries. Did someone say that?
DeleteJohn states they arrived home around 9:15-9:30 p.m. He carries a sleeping JB and lays her out on her bed, Patsy is somewhere behind him he says and assumes she is getting JB redressed out of her dress pants into the longjohns or jammies. He then stays up a bit with Burke helping him put together a toy, which he says is something like a transformer toy where the buildings and slides, etc. fold up and become something else. He then walks Burke back up to bed and puts him to bed, he even states that Burke often wears mismatched pajamas (when asked what Burke was wearing to bed). He then gets ready for bed, takes his melatonin (says he took two but he said he took one someplace else in some other interview but I don't think it's relevant). He says Patsy was already in bed at that time. Around 10. He reads for a while, then falls asleep around 10:30 or 10:45. None of us know when we really "fall" asleep, but many of us are clock watchers and might notice when we turn out a light, put down a book, and assume we fall asleep shortly after that. I submit that Burke got back OUT of bed and got himself a bowl of pineapple and wanted to either watch a movie or continue playing with is toy. John said in the past both kids would try to stay up late and squeeze in a movie or do something else. All kids do that. Then JB may have gone to Burke's room, seen he was not in his room and carried her pillow downstairs around midnight. Or shortly before. Then the rest is as described by J and myself. J, I do buy this scenario.
ReplyDeleteAnd why do you buy it? It's pure speculation based on a series of assumptions.
DeleteBecause I cannot imagine a scenario where John wishes to keep JB from telling on him the, what, day after Christmas at the family get together in Charlevoix, by clubbing her over the head with a flashlight, then overkilling her with the garrot and sexual assault. Or that he was fearful of being exposed for molestation and decides that night, after midnight to kill her.
DeleteBut you CAN imagine a scenario where Burke's parents decide to cover for him by penetrating their daughter's vagina, strangling her with a garrote, hiding her in the most obscure corner of the house, hand-writing a 2 1/2 page "ransom note" and then calling the police on themselves the next morning?
DeleteIt was me about the fingerprints on the flashlight. I thought I heard that on the podcast and maybe I misheard it. I will have to listen to it again, but at work right now.
ReplyDelete-J
I just think now that Burke got back OUT of bed after John put him to bed. Then JB came downstairs when he was not in his room. They were the only two up that late. And yes, I think J or P but probably J did the staging with the garrot, continuing perhaps later with the window and suitcase under it to show that the "intruder" had to step on it to get back out of the window, and the note - debateable. You're still hooked J! So am I! Thanks for being on here.
ReplyDeleteThanks Inquisitive! I love true crime and of all the cases I have been interested in (OJ, Adnan Syed, Amanda Knox) this one has always been my favorite to follow. Just such a fascinating mystery.
ReplyDeleteIn listening to the podcast and hearing the way Jim Clemente goes thru a case and dissects every aspect of it, he helped me come to the BDI conclusion. I will never understand why the Ramsey's did what they did, but they must have just felt as an affluent family (maybe the most affluent) in Colorado, they couldn't have one of their kids murdered by the other and therefore they had to stage the scene they did. I don't want to try and make much more sense of it then that, because it's hard to justify. That being said, I absolutely believe BR in a moment of anger snapped and with no intention of killing her, ended up killing her because he hit her with a very heavy object that quickly became a weapon.
-J
I'm agreeing with you more and more J.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI also think that someone, logically Burke, poked her with a toy or the train tracks to see if she would move or get up from that head blow. That accounts for the "two dried rust colored to slightly purple abrasions." I think Burke waited a while before telling a parent he had accidentally (or intentionally) hit her and she wasn't moving.
ReplyDeleteThe more I think about it Burke could have chased her upstairs with the flashlight and the blow may have happened there. When she saw he was serious, had a heavy object in his hand and was raising it over his head she may have run for the upstairs and her parents room, and didn't make it. Because do any of you remember it was reported that there were green artificial pieces of garland from the spiral staircase in her hair? It was surmised that someone carried her (the intruder at the time) downstairs and thus her hair caught some of the garland (of course after he stun gunned her which no one here believes) But isn't it just as possible that Burke chased her upstairs, felled the blow there, and when he told one or both parents, probably John, HE carried her downstairs thus getting the garland in her hair. She also had small scratch marks ("2 small scratch-lie abrasions which are dried and rust colored") on her left lower leg, "almost in the middle approximately 4 inches above the level of the heel" (autopsy report) which to me suggests dragging or pulling the body across a floor.
ReplyDeleteSome people are really letting their imaginations run away with them. There is no evidence, no facts, nor any logic to support any of this. It sounds "right" to you only because sibling rivalry is a clear and simple motive, whereas the murder of a child by a parent leads us into dark and complicated territory. And I agree. I all else were equal sibling rivalry would fit very nicely. But then we need to provide a motive for innocent parents to cover up in such a bizarre and disgusting manner, and at that point the theory falls apart. The CBS "experts" dwell on the first part but basically ignore the second. Totally irresponsible, imo.
DeleteYou are joking with saying there is no motive right Doc? Your entire theory is based on an assumption that A) there was a history of molestation and B)That JR was the one who was molesting her and then C) that JR murdered her to cover up his sexual deviance
Delete"experts" why in the world is that in quotations? I am not sure anybody would dispute they are EXPERTS.
-J
But your imagination ran away with you Doc by thinking that he was molesting her previously and decided to kill her to cover up his crimes on 12/26/96. Burke was not a normal little boy who just liked to play with his toys. He had swung a golf club earlier - and hit her in the face. Enough to send Patsy to a face surgeon. He says it was an accident - okay. I wasn't there. Maybe it was. He also was shut out by both his father who was at work all of the time or away on business and a mother who doted on her daughter by putting her in pageants, and all of the training that is involved in that. He might have had a form of autism as well, asberger's syndrome. That I can't back up, I read it so long ago. Burke was placed in the care of a psychologist for two years after the incident. He still exhibits unusual facial mannerisms and odd behavior.
DeleteThere is no reason for parents to ever cover up a murder of their daughter by their son. I think history proves that statement. If you think affluence had any bearing on how they would react, you have an ignorant view of affluence. Affluence does not erase basic decency in times of death and tragedy. Any parent would call 911 immediately upon finding their daughter unconscious, regardless of the cause or their affluence or lack thereof. Even if they did try to cover it up, the garrote and a staged, bungled kidnapping would not be one of their options. Burke did not hit Jonbenet. There are far more compelling facts and inferences that prove that nobody else killed Jonbenet AND masterminded a bizarre cover up via a bungled staged kidnaping, but John.
ReplyDeleteJon, if your son ran to you and said I hit my sister and she's not waking up and you ran to her and found her unconscious you would first ask what happened. Then you might decide she isn't going to wake up, you, not being a doctor might even think she's dead. Do you call 911 to try and save her? There would be an investigation. How would you explain it - my son was chasing her and was angry and hit her and killed her. Maybe they didn't want to risk him going to juvenile detention for years. Maybe John didn't want it known in the town in which he and his family were well known or in the business community where he was doing business or ready to take his company global that his son killed his sister. I'm just playing devils advocate here, trying to have others see that it's crazy, it may not fit, but it's POSSIBLE.
Delete"Do you call 911 to try and save her? There would be an investigation. How would you explain it - my son was chasing her and was angry and hit her and killed her. Maybe they didn't want to risk him going to juvenile detention for years. Maybe John didn't want it known in the town in which he and his family were well known or in the business community where he was doing business or ready to take his company global that his son killed his sister"
DeleteIf that were the case, why not stage an accident, then a call to paramedics once they are certain she cannot be revived? Why stage a phony kidnapping where police have to be called and a huge investigation is inevitable? By choosing the latter, they have MUCH more to lose than if they simply staged an accident and told authorities she fell down the stairs.
J. I actually was thinking the "experts" were idiots, while I watched the CBS show. So, ya, anybody could dispute that they are experts.
ReplyDeleteby the way what does "imo" stand for. I see it alot and don't know what it means, thanks!
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion.
DeleteYou may also see imho. In my humble/honest opinion. Not sure why you would add that. It may add a certain sincerity or friendly nuance to a heated discussion to some people.
Deletehow about imetbho - in my ever to be humble opinion - no, probably not
DeleteInquisitive. In that scenario, if his only idea is to either A: tell the truth with known outcome and ramifications or B: make up a very risky lie which involved gruesome deviant tasks with very questionable outcomes and ramifications, which would be worse for his reputation? If it were me, I would call 911 regardless of anything else, dead or alive. Unless, of course, I read the entire ransom note. :;
ReplyDeleteIf the BDI theorists on here have it right, the only way the parents covered would be if They found Burke had sexually assaulted jbr as well as knocking her unconscious and they believed she was dead. In this scenario, I believe affluence and position within the community could have driven them to cover, but not without Burke committing some sexual contact that they did not want to come out. Saying that, I'm still on the fence. Wow I've had some reading to catch up on this blog; only been away a week and taken me that long to catch up, nothing like the last couple of years lol.
ReplyDeleteyah, ha. Ransom note - which came later. No, I agree, not too great having your daughter murdered and the town and your business contacts think you may have had something to do with it - either. I just want people to argue their theories to the end to see if they are plausible. Then see how they are refuted, and if another theory makes more sense. I don't disbelieve or believe any of the theories so far. And apparently the case is stagnant. I wonder after the Lifetime movie next month if we will all be contemplating the "Patsy flew into a rage over bed wetting" theory. That one i let go.
ReplyDeleteimo
ReplyDeleteIf you are of the IDI camp, how do you explain the ransom note being so lengthy and the time it took to write it, not being prepared with it upon entry into the home, even taking the time to rewrite and 'practice' it, etc.?
ReplyDeleteHi. I just read your new book. Very well thought out. Especially the window thing! However, perhaps the "staging" was actually done by the killer to implicate the member(s) of the family. So many things like the overly long and dramatic note written on Patsy's notepad with her own pen, the suitcase full of belongings of the elder brother, who luckily was not home that day, the body left right in the home rather than being taken out of the home, the locked doors, and numerous other such seemingly "staged" events or findings really should have led the police to immediately suspect the family either in part or as a whole. Someone that really hated them might well think of doing such things to ensure that one of them or all of them were blamed for this crime. Lets face it, the father's friends and associates were not stupid people.
ReplyDeleteAlso the pineapple thing has been pretty well dismissed as important, because she could have eaten the fruit in a fruit cocktail even days before as some other fruit other than pineapple was also found in her system. Plus, the family could easily have cleaned up the kitchen, and washed the dishes, if that was seen as an important part of or reason for her demise at their hands.
But back to the window deal. I can not believe that a couple with so much help around the house would leave a jagged broken window not repaired for at least 6 months! Especially in an area where their children routinely played, and in which Patsy worked on wrapping gifts. Just the fact that critters, rain, leaves and snow could get into the house through the opening would be enough reason to have one of them get it repaired shortly after the dad broke it if in fact he really did break it earlier that year. Maybe he suspected either one of his sons at the time, and said he had broken it instead so they would not be suspected of the current broken window. But I'm sure it was repaired, and that Patsy told the truth about that. John might really not know because he was so busy with his work, and he probably was not in that part of the house very often.
I especially enjoyed all of the intense concern about the ransom note and how it was written and then transcribed. I think you are probably right about that. But lets face it most people have access to a computer and if it was composed earlier all they would have to do is bring the computer written note with them and transcribe it to the notepad. Probably they were wondering if they should address it to just Mr Ramsey or include his wife. That would explain the other paper found that looked like a "practice" note.
Personally I think it was one or more fairly youthful people, or a couple, who were doing this together, deciding together how to do things, even how to stage the crime in order to implicate the most members of the family as possible.
As far as why the Ramseys called 911 instead of waiting, well, anyone who has watched TV or read anything about kidnappings knows that officials say to call right away and not wait. They probably thought the police would know what to do and not send a regular patrol car to the house. That is the fault of either the police or the 911 operator for not stating it was a kidnapping and to contact the FBI right away. You really can not fault the family for what the 911 operator and or police did in that regard.
Hi rose huntress. If you meant by "I just read your book" DocG's kindle book, and that you think it was "very well thought out" then you wouldn't/couldn't believe in an intruder theory. And if you do, then you are the only one here that does. Which is fine. I think we have an equal distribution of BDI and JDI here. There are maybe one or two who struggle with BDI and J covered up, and BDI and P covered up, and BDI and J and P covered up together.
Deletealso there were two wadded up practice notes in the wastebasket and one left in the pad.
DeleteFirst of all, no, there were no wadded up practice notes found anywhere. God, it's so easy for one piece of mistaken info to spread all over the place in no time. According to all the reliable sources, only one "practice note" was found -- in the notepad itself.
DeleteSecondly, if you want to frame someone with a phony ransom note you don't write it in you own hand, disguised or not -- you write it in the hand of the person you are trying to frame. Otherwise it works against you, not for you. No one has ever suggested that the note was a forgery. Yes some of the letters resembled Patsy's letters, but that's not unusual. If it was a deliberate attempt to make it look like she wrote it the similarities would have been much stronger and the case would have moved in a completely different direction.
my apologies about two wadded up practice notes. THe CBS podcast said there were. that's where I got that.
DeleteSo it could've been just one attempt at the note and then starting again with a different opening upon further thought? Mr. Ramsey instead of Mr. & Mrs.
DeleteWho said the pineapple has been dismissed as being important? It was undigested pineapple, Rose, so she most certainly hadn't eaten it "days before" - autopsy reports show it was consumed very shortly before her death, thus it becomes a very important part of the crime, as it means she was awake and probably in the kitchen at some point after coming home from the party. It is most unlikely an intruder walked up a flight of stairs in a darkened house to JB's bedroom, lured her down the stairs without being heard, then fed her pineapple before murdering her, don't you think?
DeleteIt seems as though there might have been more than one practice note, judging from the pages torn out of the notepad, but apparently they were destroyed, as no others were found.
DeleteIt's too soon to dismiss the pineapple evidence, but at this point we can't be sure. If Lin put the fruit cocktail into his lawsuit, I'm assuming he must know something -- unless he's bluffing, which is certainly possible.
DeleteThe evidence shows that she had a number of different types of fruit including grape skins in her GI track consistent with her having ingested some fruit cocktail. Evidently such partially digested material can remain in the GI track for quite a while. So that is why the bowl of pineapple on the counter is not important proof of anything really, despite theories that it is a crucial piece of evidence.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteJohn wrote the RN, no doubt IMO. He precariously left the practice notes because his plan was to have an entire 24 hour plus time frame to clean up his mess. His lengthy RN was his single biggest mistake. Had PR read the part about not "speaking to anyone", 911 would be out of the question, JR would have gotten rid of the body, stashed the cash and the police wouldn't have even been involved until late on the 27th. at the earliest.
ReplyDeleteDoubtful that JR would plan every detail and then allow his wife to blow it all by calling 911.
ReplyDeleteThey both lied about BR being asleep when the police arrived.
They lied about not having ever seen the underwear JBR was wearing.
They lied about which one told the other one to call 911.
They lied about the broken window(who would have a broken window for 6 months with their kind of money?
They wouldn't release phone records
They wouldn't talk to police
They wouldn't take lie detector tests
Why all the lies, why be uncooperative with LE, and the biggest question of all----Why did they stop looking for the killer and what happened to the foundation set up? I read where they donated $1000 and then it was shut down.
You would spend the rest of your life trying to finding the killer of your child.
And on and on and on.
EG
I could go through this point by point but I'm getting tired of repeating myself. If anyone is curious to learn what my responses might be, he (or she) can do a search on this blog.
DeleteThis blog will always go around in circles unless some new evidencd is found (which obviously won't happen) or unless someone involved comes forward (which I can't see happening either).
ReplyDeleteSo we are all just speculating on circumstantial evidence as there is no hard evidence which points at one individual.
For me, I feel in my own mind the case is solved. It was not an intruder. Which means John did the garrote. Patsy wrote the RN and came up with SBTC at the bottom but John communicated a lot of things in the note too (which Patsy duly wrote down). Patsy was always going to be the one to ring 911 as she could do the petrified mother thing much more convincing than John (cool and calm). The 911 call was convincing in large parts but there was pieces of it which really stood out as being scripted...cant believe she never even mentioned JB's name.
The headblow could have been any of the three in the house to be honest and as I said above, we are just going around in circles talking about it. But with the evidence we have, Burke has to be the CLEAR favourite for doing this. The pineapple is key. The fruit cocktail is just bogus. I'm 100% certain Burke made that pineapple and milk (the way he likes it) due to his fingerprints, the oversized spoon (which points to a child) and Patsy saying she didn't know where that came from (I believed her). We know JB and Burke were both eating that pineapple on the night she was murdered. We know Burke, who just made himself a yummy snack, hardly ate any of it...to me this indicates that the headblow happened then. Who knows how long before he told his parents...could have been hours. But John and Burke both admitted (after 20 years...maybe Burke mentioned that by mistake so suddenly John had to say it too) that they used the flashlight. A flashlight indicates a child (sneaking up) and John used it to walk Burke back to bed (indicates they didnt want lights on and alert neighbours). And the flashlight was completely wiped down....hahahahaha. I also think Kolar is spot on with the train marks which points at a worried Burke prodding her. Nothing else makes sense for those marks. We can (and will) continue to speculate but this is the scenario which has the most credibility (far and away imo). BDI. Peace out.
Yes, exactly!
DeleteYour interpretation is no different from everyone else's, regardless of who the favorite perp is. It's based on your own personal assumptions regarding the meaning of the evidence. But ALL the evidence is circumstantial so that sort of thing gets us nowhere. As I've said so many times, it's only when we focus on facts and logical inference that everything falls into place. That, at least, is my approach. And regardless of whether I'm right or wrong, it's NOT based on the same old same old same OLD assumptions.
DeleteAnd IF there was any prior sexual abuse (this is still a big if for me) I would be more inclined to look at Burke. He was at the age where he hears things at school and who knows what he did with JB in her room (they often shared a room). Who knows, maybe Patsy walked in one night to see Burke doing something and then she said from now on you sleep in your own room. And then when she was hit on the head maybe the sexual abuse was something they knew would be discovered, hence the coverup. That of course is all speculation (including the sexual abuse). But just shows that JDI, imo, is waaaaay more far fetched.
ReplyDeleteBDI.
I had read somewhere, hate to say it but it might have been the housekeeper, that said JB would wet the bed and then go get in Burke's bed. He hated that.
Deleteautopsy: "the proximal portion of the small intestine contains fragmented pieces of yellow to light green-tan apparent vegetable or fruit material which may represent fragments of pineapple." I looked up the digestive process. Said it takes approximately 30 minutes for something you eat to get to the small intestine. Longer to show up in the large intestine/colon and then eliminate. So it's very likely pineapple, I don't know what factual evidence Woodward was pointing to that suggested she ate fruit cocktail but if she did it would have been at the White's, and the material would not have been in the small intestine, it would have already traveled to the large intestine due to the time. So it was likely pineapple, in the house, and shortly before death. Just some trivia here for y'all which might be useful. And I think Kolar contributed a lot here. The unbroken cobweb outside the window, the train track marks, and other things.
ReplyDeleteHere's what Woodward wrote:
Delete"According to previously unreleased BPD reports, laboratory testing revealed that JonBenét also ate cherries and grapes as well as pineapple. Remnants of cherries were found in the stomach/ proximal area of her small intestine. “Another item besides pineapple was cherries.” (BPD Report #1-1348.) In that same report: “Another item besides pineapple was grapes.” (BPD Report #1-1348.) Another report expands on the grapes, saying “grapes including skin and pulp.” (BPD Report #1-349.) The food described resembles what is included in most cans of fruit cocktail.
The new information wasn’t released publicly, and the pineapple-only myth with its handy bowl of fruit on the kitchen table of the Ramsey home continued to be circulated." (Kindle Locations 1856-1861)
Unfortunately, the police reports to which she refers appear to be unavailable to the public. According to Woodward the stomache contents were preserved and not fully analyzed until Oct. 1997 (see interview here: http://www.westword.com/news/jonbenet-paula-woodward-on-new-book-john-ramsey-burke-did-it-claims-8362070)
While I don't consider Woodward all that reliable, the fruit cocktail story does seem more reliable than some of her other assertions, as it's clearly referenced to police sources. I'll withhold my final verdict until I have a chance to actually read the sources to which she refers, but I don't think her findings can be ignored.
Anything that comes from Paula Woodward has to be verified and there is a good chance it is bogus. She is the worst journalist I have ever encountered. My first thought is if this were true then why would LE withold this finding and for 20 years ? In no interview has any detective or anyone involved in this case mentioned anything other than pineapple.
DeleteLOL! I love this fruit cocktail business, not because she is necessarily right, but because it reminds us of how tenuous all this so-called "evidence" really is. Hang your hat on any piece of evidence and risk having your theory blown out of the water by some "finding," new or old, that trashes it.
DeleteThat's been the fate of the DNA "evidence," the window break-in "evidence," the stun gun evidence, the bed-wetting "evidence," etc., etc. -- and now the pineapple "evidence." As an old Italian poet once wrote: "ABANDON HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE"
Hi Doc, even if the fruit or vegetative material is fruit cocktail, that still doesn't mean she didn't come downstairs that night and get hit over the head. I do not think grabbing a piece of pineapple from the bowl was any kind of motive for getting slugged anyway. Just because CBS does a recreation that looks "real" don't make it so!
DeleteYes, but that bowl of pineapple is the focus for their entire theory. The ONLY link with Burke is his prints on that bowl. Without those prints they have zilch.
Delete
DeleteBecause that puts Burke downstairs when JB would have come down and ingested the pineapple. Proximity. I get that. But do you want to suggest J was lying in wait for her, allowed her to eat a piece of pineapple, then hit her over the head?
No but a perp could have gotten Jonbenet out of bed and downstairs with promise of extra gift from Santa or from perp in the basement. JBR could have simply picked a piece of pineapple on her way down stairs, since it was left on table. BR doesn't need to be anywhere near JBR for JBR to have access to pineapple at a different time.
DeleteI agree, but the pineapple wasn't completely digested at time of death. And if it takes 20 minutes for food to enter the small intestine (longer for the large intestine) then they can say with some degree of certainty that death occurred approx. 20 minutes after she ate that pineapple and who was possibly eating a bowl of pineapple other than Burke?
DeleteI am the artist formerly known as anonymous, lol. Lets stop arguing about what is evidence and what is not on the murder portion of this crime. The truth is there is 0 evidence pointing to anyone committing the murder. The only useless evidence that we do have is all on the staging end of this murder, which all points to the Ramseys.
ReplyDeleteThe fruit cocktail, versus pineapple alone, is specifically mentioned in Burke's lawsuit against Spitz.
ReplyDeleteHere is what the Ramsey vs. Spitz law suit says about the pineapple:
ReplyDelete62. At the time when he uttered the false and defamatory accusations against Burke Ramsey, Defendant Spitz recklessly relied on a finding that JonBenet had pineapple in her lower intestine while recklessly ignoring the subsequent testing that established that she had fruit cocktail in her lower intestine – a combination of pineapple, cherries and grapes.
https://www.scribd.com/document/326687568/Burke-Ramsey-vs-Werner-Spitz#fullscreen&from_embed
Even that's false information in the lawsuit. The autopsy results specifically say vegetable or fruit material was found in the small intestine. That is not the lower intestine. It takes longer for anything you ingest to make it down to the lower intestine, and there were byproducts found there according to the autopsy but it specifically states in the small intestine they could identify the material as possibly being pineapple. I know it sounds like we are quibbling about the small stuff but I tend to believe an autopsy report that has been released over some report that has not been released as the reasons for that are subject to theory and speculation. Also in Chief Bechner's last question and answer session on Reddit he said everything has been released.
DeleteThe initial findings were pineapple. The later findings were never leaked or mentioned by any authority in the past 20 years. Irrc, the Ramsey LKL interview 3 years after the murder said they had never read the autopsy. In 2016 Burke says he has never read the ransom note. I would think that he also didn't read either reports on the stomach contents.
ReplyDeleteI do however wonder in all the lawsuits the family has filed, do they give any to charity, domestic violence groups, victims of crimes, awareness organizations?
Some medical examiner could say that the victim ate pineapple, separately, in addition to mixed fruit that also contained pineapple.
I take it Burke's attorney is prepared for the defendant to have access to medical/psych records of Burke's going back to before the murder. That will be interesting.
Also there was disagreement over whether the erosion inside the vaginal wall represented chronic abuse or not. What they could agree on was that something had happened at least one time prior to the assault that night.
ReplyDeleteAs I've said before, unless you are privy to the actual case files, if the experts come in after the fact and try to examine evidence, they get a 50 50 chance of getting it right. Even the case file may not be carefully put together if crucial evidence is overlooked, participants haphazardly interviewed, etc. but an autopsy report is scientific, objective, factual.
ReplyDeleteInqui, you mentioned Reddit. I was just reading a Reddit entry about the "children" theory as well as another entry of a interview with Smit where he said a juvenile could have done this. Guess folks have made a big deal of the Stines and their son, as well as their male live in babysitter (Asian).
ReplyDeletehttps://m.reddit.com/r/JonBenet/comments/54xdr6/it_was_the_children/
I know DocG doesn't believe that 9 year old males would be involved with sex play let alone interest, but JonBenet did have males of all ages in her family's circle of friends.
Burke is suing Spitz. CC can comment on the law here, whether Burke is considered a public figure or not. AS for the BDI theory one could include that Burke tied JB up and assaulted her as well. But then I can't wrap my mind around the wiping down. He would have had to have told his father or mother that he did that as well, enough for one of them to have known to wipe her down. And I don't think Burke's behavior on Dr. Phil suggests that he did THAT much to his sister. It would be difficult to hide that information in his mind. IF you want to believe in gaslighting though it's possible his father convinced him that she would be all right after the head blow and to go back to bed, with a benedryl, and convince him that the next morning his sister was simply "missing" and then murdered - by someone else - an intruder. WHich he believes to this day.
ReplyDeleteOr there is another possibility. That she was not wiped down by the perpetrator trying to cover his tracks, but wiped down because she wet the bed earlier. And her panties were changed then. Then the assault took place and what tiny streaks of blood found in those clean panties were the result of the sexual assault, not a sexual assault that resulted in having had her panties changed. Make sense? Does to me. She wet the bed, was wiped down then - not after the assault.
ReplyDeleteVery good point. Minnesota Linda
DeleteI find that this is the easiest, most likely scenario. PR, and JBR, down in the basement at the washer and drier, washing out the nightgown and blanket.
DeleteCH
the washer and drier were on the same floor as JB's room
DeleteThere was another in the basement
DeleteBurke did it all. John wrote the note and staged the window and moved the body (scraping abraisions were on the back of her leg) and covered her with the blanket.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNine year old Burke fashioned a garrote - tying a sophisticated knot - and used it to strangle his sister to death after whacking her on the head.....and his parents, rather than being horrified by the actions of their psychopathic, homicidal son, decide to stage a phony kidnapping instead, complete with a rambling, three page ransom note which includes threats of beheading? Sorry......I don't buy it.
ReplyDeleteWe don't even know that John wanted Patsy and Burke out of the house so he could remove the body. Doc has no evidence to support this, and how could he - it goes to state of mind. And it's his theory to explain why he thinks Patsy wasn't supposed to call 911, which is also a theory. I say she called 911 because they thought they had done everything they could do (with the exception of a few more details John took care of down in the basement when he disappeared around 10 a.m.). Maybe he did want Patsy and Burke out of the house so that he could finish the staging, but not to remove a body. way, way too risky.
DeleteIf John had put the part about not talking to anyone on the first couple lines of the RN, Patsy would not have called 911, John would have put her and Burke on a plane, giving JR free reign of the crime scene for more than a day. By the time he filled the suitcase (er, "attaché") with cash, then replaced with the body, disposing of the body and the RN and stashing the cash he would have plenty of time solidifying his staging at home. The outcome would have been much more favorable to the IDI theory, his "detailed" plan from the beginning, and all the red herrings we now have the displeasure in re-hashing adnauseum, would not exist. I believe JR thought he had the perfect plan for an IDI. However, he obviously had to improvise from the first staged trigger, Patsy finding the RN.
DeleteHad he pulled it off, there likely wouldn't be much controversy outside the Ramsey family.
"We don't even know that John wanted Patsy and Burke out of the house so he could remove the body. Doc has no evidence to support this, and how could he - it goes to state of mind."
DeleteCorrect. As I made clear, my interpretation of the note was speculative. We have no way of knowing for sure what John's plan was. Maybe it didn't involve removing Patsy and Burke. Maybe he felt he could do what he needed to do by distracting them or waiting until they were both upstairs. But everything in my scenario is consistent with the evidence. And the most convincing aspect of my interpretation is that it explains the note, taking literally every detail into account.
This note obviously took time to prepare. The missing pages strongly suggest that there was at least one practice note of some length (now destroyed, apparently). If it was just a matter of staging an intruder it would have been far simpler and less detailed. And yes, that's "only" my opinion, but it does make sense. More sense than staging an intruder by writing a ransom note.
The ransom note didn't needed to be so elaborate if someone was covering for an accident, I think it has different purpose. The ransom note appears to have a few objectives if it's a fake RN: prevent reader from calling police (if left at stairwell, it was meant to be read by PR); create false motive (ie revenge/money); create reasonable doubt by deflecting away from person who committed crime (foreign faction); if not IDI potentially provides reason why attache with money(ie suitcase with body) transported out of house and why changed to paper bag? There are too many details in the ransom note that each sentence was written for particular purpose, reasonable doubt, etc. But I think whoever wrote the note did it after JBR was dead, because almost every other sentence is a reference to killing her. Jmo but whoever wrote the ransom note murdered JBR and wasn't covering for someone else's accident/crime.
ReplyDeleteI agree with part of your statement, but not all. I agree that she was dead when the ransom note was conceived of and written. But I don't think any of the "junk" in it was intended for any other purpose than to make it look like an intruder did it. I don't believe John wished to get the body out of the house and hoped Patsy would read the note and whisk herself and Burke out of the house so he could complete the task of removing the body. Too, way too, much of a risk. Any of her friends would have asked why she was so upset, she would have told them, any one of them could have called the police, or just gone over to John's house to see if they could be of assistance. If he was going to wait until cover of darkness to remove the body cadaver dogs would have picked up on her scent - from basement to garage to car trunk. Seen in that context, that JR was not going to remove the body, they BOTH had to go with the illusion created in the note that there was a kidnapping, her call to 911 whether J said to call or it was her idea, was a faked frightened Patsy call. I'm sure she was upset, but she knew what happened to her daughter, she had been up all night helping stage the scene. Remember that the 911 operator said after the call was complete she detected a change in tone? Kind of like a "now what do we do" tone.
DeleteThe Ramsey ransom note is what it very clearly is: a ransom note. There is no getting around that FACT. Actually more than a fact: a tautology. And no one writes a fake ransom note to stage anything other than a kidnapping. That's a logical inference, and also just plain common sense.
DeleteI don't see any way to get around that. And your belief that John wouldn't want to take the risk of staging a kidnapping to buy time to get rid of the body on the following night is just that: a belief, i.e., an opinion. And in this case opinions mean nothing as everyone has one and they are all over the place. There is a huge difference between an opinion and a logical inference based on facts.
What you've written about the friends, cadaver dogs, etc. means little. The friends could easily have been sworn to silence. And if cadaver dogs traced JonBenet's body to the basement, all that would mean was that she was killed there, by the "kidnappers." If Patsy had not called 911 when she did, then John could easily have wrapped the body in a plastic garbage bag and placed it in the trunk of his car.
Sure, John's plan would have been filled with risks. But one does not stage a pedophile intruder by writing a ransom note from a would-be kidnapper. All that does is make you look even more suspicious, NOT less.
As for Patsy's change of tone. You heard the tape and you heard the enhancement. Where, exactly did you hear Patsy's "change of tone"? Please!
Deleteand you don't think a cadaver dog couldn't sniff out a dead body in the trunk of a car - specifically John's car. How do you think he would have gotten the body out of the house after wrapping it in plastic? Way way more dangerous. Talk about evidence if a cadaver dog smelled a dead body in the trunk of his car. As for the change of tone on the 911 call the operator said she heard a change of tone. I don't hear anything. Where did she say it? When questioned later but exactly who printed it I don't know. Perhaps it was in Kolar's book? I do agree with you on this point though: why write a ransom note about a kidnapping when you know the body is not "missing" but lying dead in your cellar. Very true. So I'll concede that. And answer is, I don't know. But I just can't go all the way to saying Patsy wasn't supposed to call 911 so that John could buy a whole day and a night to carry a dead body out of his house, into his car and to some dump site. Cadaver dogs.
DeleteYou raise a very good point regarding cadaver dogs being able to detect the scent of a dead body in the trunk of John's car, Inquisitive. Minnesota Linda
DeleteThat garrot wasn't all that sophisticated. Burke would have learned knot tying in the boy scouts. Or perhaps on John's boat. In my scenario the garrot and sexual assault were not staging. THe note was, and the window was.
ReplyDeleteJust to piggyback on what I originally thought, that Burke delivered the blow and John did the strangulation and sexual assault, I now believe Burke did all of it. What the parents did was write a phony kidnap/ransom note, open a window and break the glass, put a suitcase under the window (either right away or later) and move her into the wine cellar and bolt the door. It doesn't matter that the body was still in the house. How is that a greater risk than trying to remove it? He can always say that the kidnapper apparently was going to kidnap her but killed her instead. He didn't know how his note (the Ramsey's) would be interpreted, it was intentionally confusing.
ReplyDeleteIn response I'll refer you to the first scenario of my Straw Poll:
DeleteAssume you are the mother of two children, one a six year old little girl and the other a 9 year old boy.
1. You hear a loud disturbance coming from the basement and go down there to investigate. You find your son hovering over your daughter, holding a strange device with an intricate knot he's tightening around her neck. She has already suffered a devastating head wound, blood is oozing out of her vagina and she is clearly dead. As you look on in horror, he turns to you and says: "she stole my pineapple." What would you do?
Forget about the Ramseys. What would YOU do?
Answer to DocG, Eat a couple chunks of pineapple, without touching the bowl of course, then have Patsy proceed to write a novel of a ransom note. Then get some rest, take a shower and wait for Patsy to finish writing this incessantly long RN so she can call 911 and get this thing overwith so they can catch a flight to Disneyland.
DeleteDocG, I remember your straw poll. In that scenario, blood oozing away, and the excuse "she stole my pineapple" (which I don't believe for a minute that was the motive but I'll go with your scenario) I would :
Delete1. feel for a pulse
2. yell "what have you done"
3. if I found no pulse I would NOT call the police and report that my son killed my daughter.
4. I would put my head together with my wife and figure out what to do about it
5. put my son to bed with a sleeping agent
6. weigh the pros and cons of reporting it to the police
7. and call a friend
That's me. Look how many friends of celebrities (who are also celebrities in some cases) don't call the police right away - Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger, Prince to name three.
I'd call the cops right away. Period. End of story.
DeleteDocG....I just don't understand it....your method of logical inference seems so....logical to me. If people would only stipulate you've solved the case, we could all focus our attention on John---his past, present, and future--- and how we and/or the police could do unto him, as he done to us through the years, with the goal of, as you've stated so many times, forcing him to stand trial. One idea I've had, is to find someone to befriend Ramsey's new wife. In Patsy, John had found the perfect mix of intellect and emotional vulerability to make her susceptible to gaslighting. Is there any reason to believe his new spouse isn't similiarly Patsy-like in this repect? If so, could the right "undercover" friend, over time, turn her into an informant?
Or what about this?
Prentend you saunter into a Starbacks one day by yourself, buy a cup of coffee, then go outside to relax on the patio. To your utter astonishment John Ramsey is serendipitously seated by himself at a little table next to another little table you decide to occupy. He seems to be in a good mood and, of course, doesn't know a thing about you. How would you proceed? Would you acknowledge his celebrity right away or play dumb at first? What one or two questions would you ask him, given you were able to get past the chit-chat stage, and he was amenable to keep the conversation going?
Just curious.
And yes, I mean the book that's cover is at the top of this website, Ruled In. I was really impressed with the author's analysis of how the ransom note might well have been written first on a computer and then later transcribed onto the notepad.
ReplyDeleteDocG, you know I think you are great. Your writing is superb, you have worked this out in as much detail as you can. And you made it possible for all of us here to discuss the case ad infinitum. And that's all I am doing as well. I've worked it out here, by arguing for different scenarios on what I think was possible, maybe even probable. But it doesn't all add up the way anyone has put it together. And I just want it to make sense. That's all.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to figure out the doctor visits as well. 27 times in two years - I think you said Doc it was 27 times over a period of 2 years. That would come down to one visit a month. That's not unusual. But it could be - if we knew if the visits got more frequent in the last year of her life. If they were it could suggest there was a problem at home. Not with the father, but with the brother. Okay, I have no facts on that score. I would like to know if most of those 27 visits were concentrated in one particular year. Also didn't someone say she called the doctor 3 times in one day?
ReplyDeleteI don't find suspicious that Patsy called the doctor three times in one day... that could be a simple case of playing "phone tag." Minnesota Linda
DeleteTake the RN out of the equation: What would have transpired if no ransom note was written at all? PR gets up, makes coffee, and then goes to wake the kids. She finds JB missing. THEY SEARCH THE HOUSE TOP TO BOTTOM, CALLING HER NAME, SEARCHING EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY. THEY MAY HAVE CALLED SOME FRIENDS TO HELP SEARCH THE HOUSE AND OUTSIDE. ONE OF THEM FINDS JB’S BODY IN THE BASEMENT. She is dead and has been strangled with a rope and her hands are tied above her head. [obviously the RN prevented a full scale search of the house by the family/friends]
ReplyDeleteOK, fine. Excellent. A sensible question. To make things even simpler, let's assume there was no broken window in the basement either. So, what "the Ramseys" would claim was that some intruder with a key had entered the house, sexually assaulted their daughter, then killed her and left.
DeleteBut don't forget. This incident happened in the wake of the Susan Smith case, where an ostensibly innocent mother had claimed her car was hijacked and her sons taken from her. She was very convincing also, until she finally gave up and confessed.
Remember also that in the great majority of such cases the guilty party turns out to be someone from the victim's family. And since sexual assault was involved, the most likely family member would be the victim's father.
So. Maybe John's best bet would have been to do nothing and hope the police would decide, despite Susan Smith and despite the statistics, there just wasn't enough evidence to charge him.
Unfortunately for this scenario, a ransom note WAS found. A 2 1/2 page ransom note. And a broken window WAS found, a window that was certainly broken on the night of the crime, John's fanciful story about breaking in earlier notwithstanding. So regardless of how sensible it might seem for John -- or Patsy, if you prefer -- to have just left things as whey were, obviously one -- or both -- decided to do some staging instead. Unless you prefer the intruder theory, of course. Maybe we need to reconsider THAT. Anyone????
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOkay, then we have to ask what was the purpose of writing the long note.
ReplyDeleteGood question. I myself personally think John would have been better off not attempting to stage a kidnapping but simply reporting a home invasion. Obviously he thought differently. Or Patsy did. Or both of them did. I have feeling the Susan Smith case had something to do with this decision. Without the staging of a kidnapping (including removing the body from the house), the Ramseys would certainly have been the object of suspicion. No evidence of an intruder. No sign of forced entry.
DeleteOn the other hand, without a note to explain, a pedophile intruder would have made a lot more sense.
If John did want to remove the body from the house that does not mean Burke didn't do the killing.
ReplyDeleteYes, it does. Because BDI is a hopelessly absurd theory leading nowhere. Which is why Lin Wood had no hesitation deciding to sue CBS and the feeble minded "experts" who fingered his son. If CBS thinks there's a case to be made against Burke they'll take it to court and we'll get a chance to see that theory collapse in public. More likely they'll see the light and try to settle. If Lin let's them. We'll see.
DeleteNow wait a minute here. One event does not lead to another because your argument is that it's a "hopelessly absurd theory." I will for the sake of argument say that John wanted to remove the body - he wrote the note so Patsy would find it, leave the house, he could then spend a whole day with the dead body cleaning up anything he might have missed, wrapped her in plastic that night and put her in the trunk of his car, driven to some remote area, dumped the body, come home, told Patsy it was okay to come home now they could what, report their daughter missing after a whole day had expired? That makes 0 sense. When did you notice her missing? the police would ask. They would ask Patsy where were you while your husband was "taking care of it"? At a friend's house? So you're saying you got up at 5:52 a.m., saw a note, noticed your daughter was missing - went to a friend's house with your son and what were you doing all day Mr. Ramsey? Retrace your steps for us, you went to the bank, then what.
DeleteLin Wood is only suing Dr. Spitz, not the other feeble minded experts.
DeleteEarly days.
DeleteCC
"When did you notice her missing? the police would ask."
DeleteAfter we found the note, around 5:30 or 5:40 AM, we went to her bedroom and she was missing. The note said they'd kill her if we called the police, so we decided to follow the instructions in the note.
"They would ask Patsy where were you while your husband was "taking care of it"? At a friend's house? So you're saying you got up at 5:52 a.m., saw a note, noticed your daughter was missing - went to a friend's house with your son"
Yes. Just waiting like that was very difficult, but we knew John had to follow the instructions in the note. And we were concerned that Burke might be at risk also, so John and I decided to take him out of the house, to our friends.
"and what were you doing all day Mr. Ramsey? Retrace your steps for us, you went to the bank, then what."
I went to the bank and collected the ransom. Then I went home and shortly afterward the kidnappers called with instructions to deliver the ransom to the location they had designated. They insisted I wait till after dark so I couldn't identify them later. I delivered the ransom as they requested. Then they just laughed and drove off. I waited there for over an hour, hoping they'd return JonBenet, but they never did. At that point I decided to call the police.
How is that "hopelessly absurd"? Many parents of kidnap victims cooperate fully with the kidnappers and agree to pay a ransom. And in many cases the victim is already dead.
And sure the police would be suspicious. But without evidence they'd have no basis for prosecution. The Ramseys would have been seen as victims by a great many and after the body was found in roughly the same area where John claimed to have delivered the ransom, the case would be closed.
The ransom note was written purely for Patsy by John. It's purpose was to give John time to finish staging the kidnapping. It's length is because John believed that it needed to include everything that could possibly be needed for future gaslighting and alibi misdirecting...... Once Patsy reads the RN, they decide it best to send Patsy and Burke to Charlevoix, for their own safty, and to leave John alone to deal with the Factionista's himself. Afterall, he needed peace and quiet so as to be "rested". I believe once PR and BR are out of the way, his plan was to put the headless body in the "attaché"(suitcase), drive to the bank, get the money, Then go back to the house "between 8 and 10", put the head "in a brown paper bag" and then in his vehicle, perhaps waving to the neighbors accross the way. After driving somewhere and doing his "exhausting" task of burrying the body and the head, he has many options now for further misdirection. He then could have easily burned the RN, stashed the cash and told the police the Factionistas took both and told him to wait for further instructions before he got his daughter back. How much time before he calls Patsy and/or the police? As much time as he needed to further clean up his mess at home. He did try to stage the perfect murder except Patsy couldn't read to the middle of the second page of the RN where it said "talking to anyone would lead to the beheading of your daughter" before she freaked out and called 911.
ReplyDeleteSo the police would be relying on Patsy and John's word that
Deletethe ransom note existed and had been complied with up to the point where the kidnappers failed to hand over JBR?
(Knock on Ramsey's Door, John and Patsy answer)
Police: " Mr and Mrs Ramsey, I'm sorry to report your daughters body was found today exactly as you told us the kidnappers told you they would leave it in the ransom note
they took back from John that neither of you happened to make a copy of and that no policeman or detective has ever seen or read.
Patsy (through fake tears):
"Exactly what are you implying?"
Police (In a voice like Sgt. Joe Friday):
"Nothing mam, just the facts...."
Mike
Way, way too much theory Jon. Wouldn't stand up with law enforcement. I think the reason he wrote a 2 1/2 page ransom note is quite simple. Although we should call it a phony ransom note because there was never going to be a payout as there was not a kidnapping. AS I said before, Doc's theory that a ransom note was concocted was for Patsy to read and her eyes only - then get herself and Burke out of the house so he could continue on. But that's so full of holes, primarily because it goes to a plan in John's mind that we have no FACTUAL evidence is so. I think she was up all night, with John, which is why she had on day old makeup from the night before and the same outfit. I think this is why a fiber from her jacket was found on the sticky side of the duct tape. I think this is also why she was wrapped in her favorite blanket with the barbie nightgown stuck to it. She was up all night with John. Calling 911 was a part of the drill. Listen to her panting, her breathing on that call as if she's out of breath. THat sounds staged to me. But that's the least of it.
ReplyDeleteInq.. I think that makes the most sense given the fact that their timeline is near impossible as far as getting up at 5:30, dressing, applying make-up, messing around in the laundry area before going down the spiral stairs, finding the note, checking JB's room, having some type of conversation about what is happening (surely they read the entire note before calling 911 -- I would), all in 22 minutes. There is no way PR did her makeup and got dressed and did everything else she said she did in 22 minutes.
DeleteThe plan in John's mind is a logical inference based upon a conflation of various facts Doc has enumerated time and time again. Evidence isn't "factual" ; it either exists or it doesn't. To say that John's "plan" is all in Doc's head, is no different than saying your "think(ing) (Patsy) was up all night" is all in your head. The difference is, Doc's theory makes the ransom note necessary; your theory makes it superfluous. Why is this so hard to understand?
DeleteBy the way, my name is Mike, which is how I'll identify myself in future posts.
I conceded below that John needed to get the body out of the house. But not that John did the killing. IT's possible Patsy slept in her makeup from the night before and got up at the crack of dawn and dressed for a long flight in her dressy suit jacket and pants from the night before, came downstairs to the breakfast area and just stumbled on that note. Not. Just because she and John said the note was spread out on the foot of the stairs when she came down the spiral staircase and she just found it that way doesn't make it so. They certainly could have laid that note out that way after they called 911.
DeleteThe purpose of the "fake" ransom note was to have tangible evidence that someone had been in the house. Not so sure why a lot of you don't buy this. That was the only reason for it.
ReplyDeleteIf IDI and ransom note indicated motive was about money, then it wasn't really about money because Jonbenet was killed before kidnappers attempted to get money, or it was about money if killing Jonbenet somehow caused perpetrator some monetary gain (like inheritance) or pageant wins etc. If the perpetrator was attempting to kidnap and something went wrong, it's strange that JBR ended up in the basement. Hypo- perp grabs JBR from room, wouldn't they just make a quick exit through first floor exits instead of going all the way back to basement (if that's where initially entered)? Going to the basement if kidnapping seems least likely place and if JBR weren't making noise on the way out of her room, why would perpetrator keep her in the house any longer than necessary and risk more noise? If IDI and accidentally hit her over the head to keep her quiet, why garrote and violate JBR...the motive wouldn't be money alone or pedophilia because JBR ended up murdered (defeats purpose of kidnapper pedophile, and kidnapper for ransom).
ReplyDelete"And since sexual assault was involved, the most likely family member would be the victim's father." You keep saying this like no one posted the statistics of who would be the most likely to sexaully assault JBR in the last blog or 2. The statistics said that siblings have a much higher statistical percentage of sexual assault than a father. Just because you WANT it to be JR does not make it so. I do not neccessarily disagree with your theory, however if there was sexual abuse it was most likely BR. So the correct logical inference would be BR not JR. There is not 1 single shred of evidence that JR was sexually abusing his daughter. None. In fact there is not a single shred of evidence who committed this murder for which to draw any inference whatsoever. Any evidence that is available ONLY points to the staging aspect of this crime.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with this Keiser Sozay. Statistics do show that siblings show a higher percentage of incest toward another sibling (older brother to younger sister) than fathers to daughters. You are absolutely right. I quoted that from some Journal or another of Psychiatry last week. And there isn't a shred of evidence that J was abusing JB. autopsy indicated abrasions on vaginal wall that indicate there may have been another incident prior to that night but could not determine it was "chronic."
Deleteor who did it.
DeleteAlso if JR was sexually abusing JBR there is always a pattern of being a molester/pedo. As stated on here some molesters go for 50 yrs before being discovered or someone coming forth to expose the molester. If JR were or ever had been molesting children either here, in Amsterdam or the North Pole, then the magnitude of this case and the 20 yrs since this murder would have had SOMEONE come forward with some information or come forward accusing JR of prior molestation. That never happened, which leads the logical inference to be that JR was not molesting JBR.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Keiser Sozay. I can't imagine that if John had been molesting his daughter there wouldn't be others coming forward... especially since this is such a high-profile case. Minnesota Linda
DeleteI'm conceding that John wanted to get the body out of the house. But not that he did the murder. You would not write a long drawn out ransom note and then leave the body in the house. That wouldn't look like an authentic kidnapping for ransom, would it.
ReplyDeleteIt was not meant to look authentic imo. It was meant to decieve. I am more in agreement with your first conclusion, however Doc's theory is not implausible, I just find no basis for the chain of events that occured for his theory to be THE most likely. The fact of the matter is we do not have enough evidence to draw any real logical inference. Which is why we have 1000 different scenarios and interpretation of what little conflicting evidence that we do have.
ReplyDeleteTHey could have worked in tandem that night. Keiser, I think she messed up the plan by calling 911. She was going to call 911 and jumped the gun. He, J., possibly didn't tell her he needed that note for the police for later, after he had removed the body so that it would look like a real kidnapping for ransom (no body in the house). And she jumped the gun. This could explain the 911 hangup prior to the call. Then he knew she had to go through with it. Too late to remove that body now, so he goes downstairs and breaks the window, and does whatever else he can but they both knew she was in the cellar.
DeleteAs to why I believe it was a massive coverup for their son who killed his sister, was how would that say in their community where they had built a reputation of their perfect family. He owned a billion dollar company he built from the ground up himself. He was planning on taking it global and expanding operations hiring thousands more employees. They were very well respected in their community, her daughter won pageants, she had a house on the Christmas home tour, they had dozens of friends and unimaginable wealth. It's not that their son would be exonerated due to his age and they weren't worried about that - they were worried about how it would look to have that kind of standing in the community and have it be known that their son had murdered his sister and there was a sexual attack as well. Not such a perfect family. That to me was the motive for the big coverup. To protect their family name. She was lying dead. Nothing more they could do for her. And I'll adios until tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds possible. The crux of my argument since day 1 is that PR at the very least knew her daughter was dead that morning. I think I have done the most studying of this case on PR. Her statements, her behaviors , her lies and anything she had to do with this case. I have come to only 2 conclusions which I feel are very solid in this case. They are this, PR, at the very least, knew JBR was dead by that morning and helped with the cover up there after and JR was, at the least, involved in the staging and cover up of this murder. In my mind those are the 2 facts that I have to work with. PR has been caught in many lies and has more memory loss than anyone in the history of suspects. So with those 2 facts I do not have anything I have came up with that I consider a solid theory nor will I claim to. I am certain about this though, some significant others may look the other way or ignore molestation within their family. What they will not do is look the other way at a brutal, sadistic, child killer then sleep next to him for 10 years with her other child who she would be worried about getting killed sleeping in the room next door. No way, which leads me to only 1 conclusion and that is by default. The only part I do not understand out of the whole scenario is why the brutal staging ? We obviously do not know all of the details of what was going on in that house and probably never will. There are parts to this story that we almost certainly are missing.
ReplyDelete"way way too much theory"? It was my attempt at explaining the way way too long RN.
ReplyDeletebtw: I always put my clothes on that I wore the day before while going down to breakfast.
ReplyDelete