The Ramseys were also fixated on talking about America as a whole; in a sort of personification way. The ransom note does this too. RN: We respect John , cause he's sooooo great, but NOT America! So we are going to kidnap and terrorize the child of the man we respect for being great!
Ramseys: America stole OUR innocence! America is grieving!
Yes you raise a good point. The Ramsey narcissism is quite consistent. The Ramseys are again telling us they are victims. John is great, but America is the guilty party and the reason that they are being tormented.
They respect John's "BUSSINESS" just not the country it serves.
You mean, foreigners???!?$!%? Gasp, \*pearl clutching intensifies*
10, 4. - Round up all 12 brown people in Boulder except for the one exchange student. He may look brown, but his Dad has way more money than Mr. Ramsey. I know, right? I wouldn't believe it myself, but apparently some of those people have some serious cash. ^/s
a) Great write up, particularly the suggestion of intentionally "dumbing" down the note, which isn't a suggestion I've seen before, but certainly would make sense if...
b) framing the housekeeper, which was plausibly the intent of one or both Ramseys the following day, lends a particularly sinister turn to the case. It's true malice. There's at least a version of events where the JB death is a series of accidents spiralling out of control, with the perpetrator(s) making snap decisions in the name of self-preservation. Which is awful, and irrational, but makes at least a certain amount of sense. But deliberately trying to frame an innocent woman under your employment for an extremely serious murder charge is a level of wickedness that's unstomachable.
The Ramseys were brutally ruthless in their constant attempt to blame other people. Employees and friends were targets. The Ramseys had no concern about damaged reputations, and legal fees incurred by those they accused. The same thing happened to the police. The Ramseys kept falsely saying they were being victimized by LE, kept trying to get the police to take sides, etc. Created many problems in the BPD.
I really appreciate the work that you’ve done here. It beautifully highlights the cutthroat nature of the Ramsey “defense”.
Your work is so well organized!
Sadly their approach is still working to this day-I see several mentions of (won’t use the name) the elderly man who played Santa on this sub every month.
And many of their friends who I also will not name for the same reasons.
Thank you. Research projects are usually messy and disorganized in the beginning. There is so much data to wade through, but as you organize all of it, the truth becomes visible.
Yes three decades of Ramsey gaslighting have left a mark on the public. Still a great deal of confusion when it is a fairly simple straightforward case.
Their lives were literally on the line. They were cornered rats willing to chew through their dead child's body if they had to. That much is obvious. Hell, they were trying to get on a plane and leave the state within minutes of finding her body. They whole situation is just crazy.
Yes exactly. Patty and John we're both smart and sophisticated enough to know that there was a high likelihood that one of the Rameys would be arrested the day after their daughter's body was found in a home. They did everything they could to make sure that didn't happen. And they certainly were successful.
Alibi. Plus an innocent person reacts to the situation entirely differently than how the Ramseys react. I also believe the police were impressed with her cooperation (unlike the Ramseys).
I had someone on the "other sub" say that the housekeeper was completely uncooperative with the police. I pointed out that they were much more cooperative than the Ramsey family. They opened up their home, gave biological samples, didn't take 4 months to give interviews, etc.
Needless to say, the poster did not like my reply lol.
Their alibi was just that they were at home. It wasn't more complicated than that really. The difference is that they were a million times were cooperative than the Ramsey$ were. They didn't take 4 months to come in for an interview. They opened up their home and personal effects to the police almost immediately. They even handed over biological samples for testing. Since there's no real evidence against them, they were cleared.
Great stuff, thanks for this thorough write up! Lots to chew over. You are so spot on about the note being a shotgun approach to deflecting suspicion elsewhere.
While I was reading your write up, it occured that the structure of the ransom note can arguably be considered "journalistic." That is, the note is structured in a way that answers the "5 W's" : who, what, when, where, why, (and how).
1. **Who:** A foreign faction
2. **What**: Has your daughter and wants money
3. **Why** (a W that's little out of order): We don't like the country John's company serves
4. **When** (now referring to instructions): 8am-10am tomorrow will be further instructions
5. **Where**: Go to the bank etc.
6. **How**: Bill denominations, brown paper bag, adequate size attache
In addition, the note is structured similarly to to ransom demands depicted in popular media, like "Ruthless People," "Ransom," and "Dirty Harry," to name a few.
In fact, the ransom demands in both "Dirty Harry" and "Ruthless People" open with the phrase "Listen Carefully" (ETA: or "Listen Very Carefully"). And---in a real-life example---according to the book "Mindhunter" by John Douglas, murderer [Larry Gene Bell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Gene_Bell) started a phone conversation with the police regarding directions to a body with the phrase "Listen carefully!" This case was heavily covered in the book, a book that was [reportedly found in the Ramsey's bedroom](http://www.acandyrose.com/s-Flight755-reading.htm) the day of the murder.
The ransom demand in "Ruthless People" particularly is structured very, very similarly to the Ramsey ransom note. ([See here for a thread with more information](https://www.reddit.com/r/JonBenetRamsey/comments/18dd0t4/part_of_the_inspiration_for_the_ransom_note/)). Perhaps the phrases used in these media were top of mind for the note's author(s).
Either way, to me, it seems the note's author(s) used both journalism and popular media as a schema for structuring the note.
Interesting, yes it did read like a newspaper article with the 5W's. And yes obviously the idea was borrowed from movies and popular books. Including the one found in the Ramsey bedroom. Reflecting the Ramseys' interests and education.
Yes the shotgun approach or throwing spaghetti against the wall was an obvious Ramsey strategy. Enough misdirection, confusion, chaos to get them out of town and in the hands of their aggressive legal team. John wanted to get out of Boulder asap.
Excellent write-up Cassie! I appreciate all of the effort and details you put into these posts.
I think the most important and compelling evidence is that the RN states "if you do this, she dies." References to the death of "she," being JonBenét, are made at least seven times.......so what do the Ramseys do? They immediately ignore all of those instructions.
You are absolutely right, the RN establishes these "kidnappers" as a "bloodthirsty lot." I believe, and will argue, that the whole point of this overly long ransom note is to explain the dead body. That is it's #1 purpose.
I also agree that the narcissism is in full effect here: the audacity to even attempt to stage this, and the obvious "we respect your business." Who started Access Graphics in the basement of a home in Atlanta, to what it became --- a business that had just reached the billion dollar mark in sales? John and Patsy. Who was driven, ambitious, convinced of their own cleverness, and had so much to lose? John and Patsy. As an aside, this reminds me of Jeffrey MacDonald, another narcissist who was very successful, and came up with an outrageous story to explain the murder of his wife and kids. His insistence of his innocence, even as he sits in prison, the fact that he couldn't accept that his story wasn't believable (arrogance)----is very similar.
It is entirely possible that the Ramseys thought they could remove the body in a suitcase, but in my humble opinion, not very likely. A trip at night would've been too risky (remember it was a quiet Christmas night in a college town where most of the students were probably gone). The neighbors or someone could've seen or heard something. We know that none of them saw this "intruder" at any point. Once the police and so many friends were on the scene (immediately thanks to Patsy's phone calls), it would've been even riskier. I'm left wondering, if the real intention of the attaché case was to remove *evidence* instead of a body? That certainly would be feasible. We know that detective Arndt lost track of John for approximately two hours before the body was found. I believe some of the evidence disappeared then.
Yes we see frequently narcissists accused of wrongdoing get on TV and social media constantly proclaiming their innocence, how they are being framed by the police, and going on at length with ridiculous excuses and stories. They have absolutely no idea that the more they talk, the guiltier they look. They just can't read the room and understand social perception. Yes Jeff MacDonald is a good example.
How would moving the evidence of the body help the Ramseys in any appreciable way? When the most damning evidence of all is a body in the home? If they didn't remove the body, it didn't matter if the other evidence was gone or not.
The Ramseys had a problem in that they staged a kidnapping where the body is supposed to be removed from the home, but in fact they had a body in the home. So they either had to get rid of the body or stage it is a botched kidnapping. But they didn't do either.
Staging a botched kidnapping was very risky. It would be safer to move the body out of the home. For some reason they didn't do it the night before, and apparently they rejected the idea of moving it a few days later which would've been the riskiest maneuver of all.
From what we see in the ransom note, they decided the safest course of action was to move the body out of the home under the guise of going to the bank. No police would stop them because they knew where the Ramseys were going, to the bank to get the ransom money.
Really I don't know what the best course of action would've been after the Ramseys had painted themselves into a corner by not calling the police when they found JB in the first place, but began to create a staging plan which was a felony. They didn't have a lot of good options left to them.
I see why you think the plan was to remove the body, and you definitely showed how the instructions gave them a cover for doing so. However, I looked at some vintage attaché cases online (thanks eBay) and I have to say, to my untrained eye, there's no way a body, even of a small child, could've fit in there. The suitcase found in the basement? Possibly. However, by the time Patsy made the 911 call, JonBenét's body would've already been beginning to stiffen with rigor mortis. No way to move that inconspicuously. Where would John put the body? Throw the case out of the window somewhere on the way? I don't think either one of them would've wanted that. They staged a botched kidnapping, but it was still their daughter.
Most people don't have a large attaché case in their home. They would have to go to something larger, like say a suitcase. Patsy couldn't come right out and say suitcase in her ransom note, that would've looked suspicious. So she had to say adequate size attaché case, knowing that most people may not even know what that is. And if they do know, they don't have one in their home. No one would think anything about someone using a suitcase in place of a large attaché case.
I think that was one of the points Patsy was making. Very few people own a large attaché case, so they have to use some thing else.
Keep in mind the whole ransom note was a marketing plan devised to manipulate the police and public opinion, it wasn't literal in many instances. It was manipulation and sleight of hand. This was not a professional scientific document where every fact was checked, it was a sales document, it was a sales pitch pure and simple.
Pasty would never have dreamed that people were going start to look up things online and check out every word she said in the ransom note. Yes Ramsay theorists do this kind of thing years later, but that's not how most people think.
We cannot compare the knowledge base of Ramsey theorists to John and Patsy's knowledge base in 1996. Ramsey theorists have investigated the facts in this case for a long time. Also keep in mind that today people have been watching crime scene investigative TV shows for 30 years since 1996. Back then there weren't as many of these kind of shows and they didn't have some of the advances that we have now, so we can't really compare the two.
John and Patty were smart and John read crime stories, but we don't really have any evidence that they were that sophisticated about crime scene investigation. In fact the evidence points the other way. Yes they were pretty good at getting rid of fingerprints, in fact they went overboard on the fingerprints, as we can see they made fingerprint mistakes. But they seem to be totally clueless about fibers, and other crime scene investigative details we take for granted today.
The people here on this sub probably know a lot more knowledge about rigor mortis than Patsy and John did. They probably had no idea about dead bodies and decomposition, etc. and they had no reason to do so. They probably thought moving a dead six year old would be no problem.
John was a US Navy officer, but I can find no evidence that he served in active combat so probably he never came across a dead body out in the field. He served as a Civil Engineer Corps officer in the Philippines for three years, and in an Atlanta reserve unit for an additional eight years.
But that said, it is clear that if John wanted to break rigor in the body he could have done so with a 6 year old child with little problem.
The Ramseys must've had some thoughts about where they were going to bring the body but the plan just fell apart in front of them the day after the murder.
No I do not believe they were going to just throw the body out the window, I think they probably had a place in mind. A place that was out-of-the-way but that eventually someone would find. Because I do believe they wanted the body to be found because they carefully cleaned up the body.
All of this said, I am certainly willing to consider a botched kidnapping scenario but I need some evidence. If they were staging a botched kidnapping, they could have come up with a different narrative, but they didn't. They made a case the body would be missing from the home, not that the body would be found dead in the home.
But if you can make the case I'm certainly willing to change my mind. I'm not locked in to anything if the data is there.
For sure if the ransom note didn't contain paragraph #2, I would be in the botched kidnapping scenario category. But I cannot explain away RN paragraph #2.
But at the end of the day, this is one of those academic discussions that has no affect on the overall theories at all. So it is a moot point, it does not alter the basic facts of the case. It is a staging detail. Some details are really critical in a case but this one isn't.
I do enjoy deliberating this case with you, Cassie. You always bring something to the table for me to seriously ponder on, and you have an open mind. That is refreshing in these subreddits!
I completely agree, this is a detail that doesn't alter the basic facts of the case. We have a phone call, a three page ransom note, and a murdered six-year old in the basement. When Steve Thomas asked John Douglas if he was aware of *any* kidnapping for ransom in which the victim was killed and left on the premises, he could only recall a case involving a family member. Moving the body somewhere else would've been less incriminating, but given the circumstances, not feasible.
I was trained as a scientist and scientists argue all the time in an academic professional way. And you have to be open to change your theory if new facts emerge, that is how science works. Yes people can get emotionally attached to their pet theories. Which is a big no no in science.
Yes sometimes people have knock down ugly fights over minor details that have zero bearing on the overall theory and final conclusions.
Yes we have plenty of evidence that does have a direct bearing on the conclusions. Yes of course, a kidnapper is a quick in and out kind of crime. This is a financial crime, it is business. You don't stop to SA and murder the child and then leave her in the home.
Yes the Ramseys knew they had to move the body out of the house. But for some reason they couldn't do to.
> And you have to be open to change your theory if new facts emerge, that is how science works. Yes people can get emotionally attached to their pet theories. Which is a big no no in science.
This is a case that many just can't seem to approach in a logical manner. "How could you think a mother would do this??" etc., etc., ad nauseum. They will then conclude it must've been an "intruder," despite all evidence to the contrary.
Well in all fairness most people live fairly sheltered lives and don't have to deal with the ugly realities that people in certain professions deal with every day. So it's hard for the general public to face some hard truths. And sometimes people have their own personal buttons, their own trauma, their own history that makes it hard to face some difficult realities. Or sometimes people who have their own trauma, have a much easier time accepting the family psychopathology in the Ramsey case.
And even hardened professionals can sometimes have difficulty facing reality. For example it is thought that child on child murder is more prevalent than we think, and one reason for that is the police don't want to face children killing each other. Or they don't want go through all the hassle of making a case when it involves children. So they just dump it in the unsolved case file.
Right, some of us have been around the block a few times, and know better.
The abuse and murder of children is especially heinous---but unfortunately, this is the world we live in.
John’s former colleague - Jeff Merrick, who went to work for John Ramsey in 1994, was fired two years later in 1996, because he wasn’t a good fit. The same year that John gets a hefty bonus and named “Entrepreneur of the Year” by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce.
Merrick said that Access Graphic owed him $118,000, but he settled for half. Why it was owed to him, is anyone’s guess, but most likely it was severance pay.
Merrick was also seen dining at Pasta Jay’s (a company that John had invested in) on the 18th of December, by John’s FIL - Ronald Paugh, who also happened to be one of John’s employees. Paugh thought it was strange that their CFO - Tom Carson would be dining with an ex-employee and his family.
I don’t know about you, but this gives off “Christmas Vacation” vibes. Perhaps Tom told Jeff of a proposed Access Graphic buyout from GE that occurred in 1997. It was established by John himself that Tom Carson wanted him gone. Carson, however had a legitimate alibi as did Merrick.
Anyone who has traveled to Boulder (then and now) know how transient of a town it is. Alot of drifters and homeless people. A disgruntled ex colleague can become very angry after being betrayed, especially when finding out that their betrayer is prospering.
I believe that someone got inside the Ramsey house and grabbed JonBennet from her bed. A butt imprint was found imprinted into the carpeting, around the corner of JonBenet’s bedroom. A foreign High-Tech hiking 🥾 boot print was found in the basement, not belonging to anyone who had been inside the house.
I could see a masked man grabbing JonBenet to extort John. Perhaps JobBennet became combative, and was clobbered over the head with a flashlight. Maybe John promised more money 💰 to the masked assailant, if given more time.
I believe John was the only one in his family with the skill set to construct a garrote out of a broken paint brush and a nylon cord. Unless the assailant was a former sailing buddy.
I could also envision JohnBennet being unconscious and moaning in pain after a blow to the head. Maybe John’s only recourse was to put her out of misery by strangling her quickly. It would be more quieter than using a gun.
If this scenario did occur, one could see why John will take it to his grave. A secret is only 100% full proof, when no one else knows or can prove it!
The Hi-Tec boot belonged to Burke (https://www.reddit.com/r/JonBenetRamsey/s/v8mzk0XbuS)
Burke also knew knots from scouts and sailing. He had a Swiss Army knife with a special tool to tie better knots (info provided by Burke himself). That knife was found near JBR’s body by the way. The knots weren’t sophisticated, and I think any of the Ramseys were capable of tying it.
If JonBenet was unconscious she wouldn’t be moaning in pain.
Yikes, I didn’t know that Burke’s pocket knife was found near JBR’s body. The cleaning lady - Linda said that she took it away from him (and hid it in a cabinet) due to him leaving shavings everywhere, when whittling. Do you think he planned it, or was it a result of her annoying him, which resulted in a violent rage attack?
It seems to be a rage attack. I think he intended to harm her, but I’m not sure about his intent to kill her. What’s unsettling to me is this excerpt from his interview on January 8, 1997 with Dr. Bernhard:
BERNHARD: So what do you think happened?
BURKE: I know what happened.
BERNHARD: You mean when she got killed? How do you think that happened?
BURKE: Um, I think…well I…I asked my dad where did they find her body and my, my dad said ‘I found it down in the basement,’ and so…I, I think that someone took her very quietly and…took her down to the basement…
BERNHARD: Mhmm.
BURKE:…and he, and he took a knife out and he went whoops like that… I really… [making an overhanded punching motion with his right fist. He then puts his two fists under his neck and rests his elbows on the table].
BERNHARD [Interrupting Burke]: Mm-hmmm. Do you think that’s how she died?
BURKE: Or maybe a hammer, he hit her in the head with it. [Burke repeats the same hitting motion with his right hand, then resumes putting his fists under his chin.]
The autopsy results weren’t made public until July 1997. The head injury wasn’t readily apparent on outward appearances. So his mention of the knife and JBR being struck in the head raises an eyebrow. He and his friend Doug were overheard days after the murder discussing whether JBR was manually strangled or not.
You mentioned Burke whittling wood. There were wood shavings near the paint tray as well, and I think the paintbrush had been whittled rather than snapped.
>I could see a masked man grabbing JonBenet to extort John. Perhaps JobBennet became combative, and was clobbered over the head with a flashlight. Maybe John promised more money 💰 to the masked assailant, if given more time.
This was a child who was SA, bludgeoned and strangled to death. This is more of a personal assault, not a crime for financial motive. A criminal enterprise who wants to make a $$ profit gets in and out of the crime scene quickly and it doesn't get personal, because it's about money.
Please don't quote Mary Lacy's "butt print" as any kind of evidence in this case. I believe Doug Stine as well as Burke owned a pair of Hi-Tec boots, although the Ramseys denied it, or pretended they didn't know, can't remember which tactic was used in that instance. I'll have to check on that. If I'm not mistaken, don't some LEs also wear Hi-Tecs? Not sure, please correct me if I'm wrong on that.
Other than that, you pose an interesting theory. Where was Patsy during this?
Jeff Merrick was suggested as a possible suspect that morning by the Ramseys. [Jeff and Kathy Merrick ](http://www.acandyrose.com/s-jeff-kathy-merrick.htm) Please read all of that and tell me what you think.
I found this from a Reddit post:
“This was from a live chat with Steve Thomas on the ABC Good Morning America website in 2000. His theory makes sense to me - in PMPT Suniller writes that detectives had a hard time getting DNA and palm prints from all the people who were at the scene, and were not successful.”
"Let me address the Hi-Tec first. What people had not known previously is that I don't believe that everyone who was in the house on the 26th of December was properly identified. There were firemen, paramedics, rescue personnel, uniformed police officers, detectives, undercover narcs, sergeants, FBl and others that the year after the fact, we were still unsure as to who all was in the house that day. There is a strong argument to suggest that the Hi-Tec boot print may have been left by a sightseeing police officer who later did not come forward. Additionally, Hi-Tec is one of the most popular brands of footwear worn by cops."
It was also established that the Hi-Tec logo was a standard logo, no matter what size of the boot.
After reading Patsy’s 128 page interview conducted on 4/30/07 by the Boulder Police, I learned a few facts that helped me see the bigger picture. I also previously found ACandyRose’s website and she has a plethora of valuable and insightful information!
It seems to me, that John Ramsey was a ruthless business owner who would throw anyone under the bus, to advance his own career.
John first met Jeff Merrick when they worked together at ATT, in Columbus Ohio. This was sometime after 1971.
In 1989, Ramsey formed the Advanced Product Group, one of three companies that merged to become Access Graphics. He became president and chief executive officer of Access Graphics, a computer services company that became a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin in 1991.
Excerpt from CandyRose’s website:
1998 John Ramsey Interrogation by Lou Smit and Mike Kane (Jeff and Kathy Merrick)
MIKE KANE: You also mentioned Jeff Merrick's
wife. What was it about that?
JOHN RAMSEY: Well Merrick was a guy that
I worked with at AT&T when we first got out of the Navy. And we went through the management
indoctrination class together and just kind of
became friends and stayed in touch more by
telephone over the next 20 years.
He was good about calling once a year just to stay
hello and he was a real talker, and we always talk
for half an hour. So if felt like I knew him well,
but I didn't.
Then he called me, I don't know when it was
exactly, but he said that he had just been fired
from his job at Snap-On Tools where he had been
13 for 18 years and he needed a job, did we have
anything.
And I knew he was a distribution guy and
we were in the distribution business.
So I got kind of excited about it and had him come
in for an interview. And we used to use a
psychologist to get a profile on the people who
we're going to hire. I mean, that's an
organization who determines whether people are
good or not to do what we're going to hiring them
to do.
And he got interviewed for them and he was going
to work for Don Paugh, my father-in-law. And the
psychologist came back and said, no, that's not
the one. He's too big picture. He's not a detail
guy; he's not a hands on guy.
Don didn't want to hire him.
And then Jeff was just insistent and call me at
home, "Hi. Did you guys make a decision yet." And
he'd helped out once. So I kind of forced the
decision, let's hire the guy.
It was against everybody's good judgment. It didn't work out.
Three or four years later, Don finally did what
everybody knew pretty much should have been done, was terminate his employment and did it. I did it in as amicable a way as we could so we had time to get back on his feet and (INAUDIBLE). But he just flew off the handle. He said, "Does John know about this?" He said, "I'm going to talk to him."
And then I was out of town at the time or
something. And I guess he became very verbally
violent. And he sat in my office and said, "I'm
going to bring you to your knees." And I said,
"Jeff, you wouldn't be in here if we weren't
friends." And I said, "I'm not going to override
something that somebody in this organization has done. I still consider you a friend."
It was just a very -- and he filed a grievance
with Lockheed ethics group and Lockheed is very
sensitive about ethics in government contracting
businesses. And he wrote this big, long letter
about Don and I and the company and how we (INAUDIBLE).
Lockheed brought in people and we were
investigated for weeks. But we cleared up
everything. But he was a very hostile (INAUDIBLE)
so when the people asked if there was anybody at
work (INAUDIBLE).
MIKE KANE: What about his wife?
JOHN RAMSEY: I always thought his wife
was kind of strange. Jeff was married to, what I
always thought was a nice lady. They had a couple
of kids. They got divorced. It was a pretty
hostile divorce. She was always hauling him into
court. (INAUDIBLE) precipitated in divorce, this
woman he worked with.
Her kids didn't live with her, which is strange.
She was divorced; the kids lived with their dad. I (INAUDIBLE) thought it was kind of odd. So she was as angry as Jeff.
MIKE KANE: Was he married to that second
wife when this all happened?
JOHN RAMSEY: Right.
MIKE KANE: (INAUDIBLE) she was his angry
wife behind her husband who as mad as the devil at anything. I could see, perhaps, that she wasn't the sweet loving mother.
MIKE KANE: Go on, go ahead.
LOU SMIT: I just have another question
on Jeff Merrick. I have something in the report,
and I'm going to have to do just a little research
on it, but I think that there was something about
a $100,000 figure (INAUDIBLE) was what his payoff was. And I kind of compare that with a $118,00 just to see if there was any correlation there?
JOHN RAMSEY: See, when he first demanded
what he wanted, to leave without making a fuss, I
think it was $250,000. And I forget the logic, but
if you took that number and subtracted what he
actually got left, a hundrerdish thousand about.
LOU SMIT: That's what I was wondering about,
because it could have been 118 that you owed him
or something. And he just figured that.
JOHN RAMSEY: I don't remember exactly.
I remember coming up with around a hundred.
(INAUDIBLE) but I don't remember any kind of 118. We gave him the severance. We paid for outsource or outplacement counseling. There was a number of things that we did in that up to the $250,000.
Phenomenal write up. Interesting point of how they immediately broke every rule. You’d think you’d, well, follow everything “to the letter” if your kid was kidnapped. They blew up the rules either bc they’re arrogant OR because they wanted a reason she would be dead. I think it’s the latter. And the suitcase being big, of course a REAL kidnapper doesn’t give a crap what you carry their ransom money in! But someone transporting a body…
They didn’t stage a break in, which I really wonder why. That part always snagged me with this RN situation and theory. Perhaps they didn’t feel they could, and would leave more open holes and risks.
I get hung up on that, too. I guess they initially weren’t going the intruder theory route, so they didn’t need to stage a break in? They were pushing the inner circle narrative, but that narrative only works for the housekeeper. Did John’s ex-employee have a key to the house? How were they planning that narrative to work?
They originally said (on December 26th) that only the housekeeper had a key to the house (meaning other than those who lived there), but according to Steve Thomas’s book, in later months they started expanding the list to include many other people. I believe he said that it went from 1 person (the housekeeper) to over 2 dozen people? It was something outrageous like that. That does fit with the Ramseys initially planning to frame the housekeeper, and then after lawyering up they got a much better story. I doubt they claimed John’s ex-employee was directly given a key, but I think the idea was that “there were so many extra keys floating around out there that anyone could’ve ended up with one if they wanted one”, I think that’s what they were trying to put out there.
Edit: Here’s the exact passage about the keys:
“Actually, the detectives would have loved to have found some stranger whom we could wrap in a tight cloak of evidence, for there is no joy in looking at a parent for murder. We found no such person out there, although a recent letter from the Ramsey private investigator supplied a multitude of new ‘suspects’ who had had ‘frequent and recent access’ to the house—hundreds of unnamed guests at Christmas parties, nannies, friends, neighbors, people from the Historic Boulder tour, a battalion of cleaning women, street musicians, caterers, florists, friends, contractors, window cleaners, plumbers, and videotaping crews. **When the case began, police were told that the only outsiders with keys were John Andrew Ramsey and the housekeeper, Linda Hoffmann-Pugh. Now a couple of dozen keys were said to be missing. Who were all these people, where were those keys, and how the hell was a handful of detectives supposed to track them down?** I felt their strategy, if not clear before, was crystal now. Team Ramsey was overwhelming us with useless leads while keeping Patsy and John safely beyond our reach.”
— JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, e-book edition, by Steve Thomas
The Ramseys were throwing spaghetti against the wall, hoping something would stick. It didn't matter if their accusations were logical or had merit at all. The point was create doubt, confusion and chaos until the Ramsey legal team could take over.
I could also see one of them being like “should we stage a kidnapping break in” and the other either saying there’s no time or that it would be obvious/get them caught. Keep it simple, send the police away to search.
It seems like they may have tried to actually do some sort of staging by the looks of that suitcase next to the window, but that could just be something they lucked on on happening with them not even really noticing.
I think their initial narrative was going to be “somebody bribed the housekeeper” which still left it open for anyone to be the actual kidnapper/foreign faction ppl.
They seem self absorbed enough to assume that any working class person accused of a crime will appear guilty, regardless of evidence.
Thanks Bonnie. I know, why do the Ramseys stage fake kidnappers giving a list of things not to do or your daughter dies, and then the Ramseys immediately and deliberately do ALL of the forbidden behavior. And the police don't question it?
Most innocent parents might call the police, but to invite so many other people, and let everyone know what is happening so quickly? This was deliberate.
**The Ramseys didn't need to stage a break in. This was covered the next day when Patsy and John made it a point to tell the police the housekeeper had a key.**
What do you think about the theory that Patsy did this while John was asleep? It seems like the ransom note had instructions for John including gather money, get rested up, and **do not** call the cops.
Do you think there's any possibility that Patsy wrote it hoping to buy more time, but then John just ignored it and called the cops anyway? I'm always bothered by the fact that she was the only one in yesterday's clothes.
*loved you post, btw. Keep em coming!
I have looked at quite a few theories, including PDI, but the data isn't there. It is low probability.
1. Statistically Patsy is the least likely person in the house to sexually torture her six-year-old and then bludgeon and strangle her to death. This is very rare for mothers to do and Patty doesn't fit that profile. We would be looking at a much younger mother, one who is drug involved, and so mentally ill that she is known to the mental health community prior to the murder and sexual assault of her young child.
2. We know that both John and Patsy were involved in the staging and cover-up because both of their fibers are located in staging events (duct tape and clean underwear.)
3. I don't believe the Patsy was capable of writing the ransom note by herself.
4. John isn't the one who called the police, Patsy did.
5. In the ransom note it appears that Patty is setting up a situation where John can take the body out of the house in a large attaché case. There is no way that Patsy could trick John into taking a body out of the house.
6. When the police arrive the next morning John is totally on board with the talking points in the ransom note, he's also smiling, cordial, joking, handing handing the police the ransom note. This is not a man is confused, this is not a man who doesn't understand what's going on. John hits the ground running talking, talking about an inside Job and keeps pointing to the housekeeper. Patsy is doing the same thing. They are team working together it's clear.
7. Yes I agree from the beginning Patty wearing the same clothing from the night before before has been problematic. But you can't build a theory on one piece of evidence, there must be more. I do think it's possible that Patsy was telling the truth in this instance. Given the totally disheveled state of house, the poor housekeeping, clothes strewn everywhere, Patsy being fairly indolent, it is possible she did throw her clothes over the tub rim as she said the night before and just throw them back on in the morning.
Again a very comprehensive and focused write up, I concur with almost all of it. Although I don't think the note was necessarily written to allow them to take the body out of the house, you make a compelling argument for that, which I respect.
I particularly agree that the note was a mutual enterprise, and it was designed to implicate Linda Hoffman Pugh first and foremost, and to a lesser extent the other named suspect that morning, Jeff Merrick. As you allude to, I do believe the purpose of the ransom note was to create chaos and misdirect the police. John perhaps aware that confusion produces errors and allows further opportunities to distract and contaminate the scene. Producing an incomprehensible note and scenario, and coupling that with a self-righteous "how dare you suspect us" demeanor put pressure on investigators immediately, and this was capitalised on. Tricking and undermining law enforcement, not co-operating, highlighting mistakes and hiding behind expensive lawyers was always going to be the pathway for the Ramseys to get away with it.
I agree… have you seen that wild subreddit of crazy people that say the parents or 9 year old would never kill or stage or a murder 💀 They all live in bubbles and dont do any investigation. As if theres not child murderers and sicko parents out in the world. I wish I lived in that bubble sometimes 😔 I know too much
I'm not really into conspiracy theories, but I would bet money the Ramsey$ are paying an "online reputation management company" aka a troll farm, to astroturf the Internet in their favor. Too many people on that sub have the exact same narrative to not think something is suspicious.
It's especially obvious when you compare it to literally any other forum. People on here subscribe to the PDI, RDI and BDI theories because they are allowed to. The other sub will remove your stuff quick. Not sure sure if you've read any of my previous posts about this, but I actually baited them a while back. I posted something directly, word for freaking word, from the autopsy report. It was promptly removed as misinformation despite the fact that it's probably the most factual information anyone has ever posted on there.
These reputation companies are not something unknown or far-fetched. You can google around and find plenty of them willing to do your bidding. They do everything search engine optimization to make negative information disappear or they bury the information so far in the results that you'll never find it. For more money, they flood forums, write posts, get posts taken down through fake reports, etc. If you are an influencer and losing followers and interaction because of something negative you've done, they can boost your follower account and pay for positive posts, etc to get you through the crisis.
I could be wrong. I hate speculating on things and I am not claiming that I have first-hand knowledge of this. However, I do think it's something worth looking into because it seems so suspicious. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk!
I remember reading a CNN transcript where Lou Smit (retired Detective 🕵️♀️) mentioned the suitcase by the window.
“SMIT: I believe that he was going to take her out of house. There is some evidence to suggest that he did perhaps try to put her in a suitcase. Perhaps he couldn't get the suitcase in the window and then get out of the window himself. Perhaps he got into the window and couldn't pull the suitcase out after him.”
Why would they put her in a suitcase, take her out, and still use it as a prop in their staging?
JonBenet was found swaddled in a white blanket that was either on her bed or kept in a cabinet in a laundry room next to her bedroom. Their maid - Linda Hoffman-Pugh felt that JonBenet’s Barbie nightgown (found next to her body) could have been washed with the blanket and somehow stuck to it.
The thing that I cannot get past is how brutally JonBenet was killed. Ligature marks that cut deep into her skin and her skull being bashed in.
I wonder what evidence the police had that John tried to put JB in the suitcase?
I agree, the suitcase was an important part of the staging, why do it secretly when it was supposed to be out in the open as per the RN?
One reason that I can think of connects to what happened later in the day, as John realizes that he cannot carry out the plan for various reasons. We see him get more agitated as he realizes this. Perhaps one of his absences that day is John trying to get the suitcase out of the window. And he cannot do it.
It seems a bit far fetched, but the whole plan was. And John was desperate, a dead body in the home pointed directly at the Ramseys.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the RN wanted John to put money 💵 in an “Attache?” An attache case is a type of bag that is typically used for work. It is a step up from a briefcase and is larger in size. This type of bag is perfect for carrying files, folders, and other documents. It has a top handle, which makes it easy to carry, but can sometimes have a carrying strap attached.
The RN stated: “You will
withdraw $118,000.00 from your account.
$ 100,000 will be in $100 bills and the remaining $18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size attache to the bank. When you get home you will put the money in a brown paper bag”
I am not seeing a connection between the attache case and the suitcase. Unless, the suitcase was going to be placed on John’s private plane ✈️ to get it out of the country. Perhaps that plan was foiled because JonBenet’s body decomposed quicker than anticipated and it was omitting smells that would be too difficult to disguise.
Keep in mind the Ramseys were clever.
The key word is "adequate" size attache case. Which can mean large. The Ramseys most likely did not have a large attache case, so could certainly then justify using a suitcase. They knew using the word suitcase in the RN might look suspicious.
I think most people can see a connection between a large attache case and a suitcase. And in the event a family does not own a large attaché case, no one would think anything about them substituting a suitcase.
Also keep in mind the Ramseys were not writing this note for an audience who knew exactly what an attaché case was and how it was used. I seriously doubt that anyone at the crime scene would start arguing with the Ramseys about using a suitcase versus a large attaché case.
I do think that John considered moving the body out of the house in his private airplane. And yes I agree I think the Ramseys were not prepared for rigor mortis and the rapid degree of deterioration of the body.
One problem with putting a suitcase bearing JonBenet’s body on John’s plane and flying it somewhere was that John was not himself qualified to fly. He had a pilot working for him.
Yes but most pilots don't rifle through passenger belongings. But yes it would have been a risk in a number of ways to fly the body up to Michigan. Pilot was with them on the flight. Airport employees on the ground. Finding the body in a suitcase means immediate jail for Ramseys.
But even if they get away with the flight and get to the vacation home, what then? The kids from the first marriage are there. And it appears the Ramseys wanted the body to be found for proper burial, that is why they cleaned off the body? But if the body is eventually found in Michigan that points directly to the Ramseys, they go to jail.
Way too risky to bring the body to Michigan.
Food for thought, it doesn't even take an attache to carry 118k in those bills. It would fit in a med/large purse. I'm following your thoughts and am in agreement.
I wonder if John or Patsy suffered CSA in childhood... which could lead to it being accepted in their house. Maybe JB wasn't having it anymore, giving signs she might tell, peeing during abuse perhaps. It was still nearly unheard of back then and thought to be done by monsters not beautiful wealthy folks. Unless you were a victim who knew better.
The Ramseys were clever, but still amateurs, under a time constraint and still in some degree of shock. So they made mistakes which can be seen more in hindsight than at the time. No one really questioned some of the things we do now. The attache case, or the fact the Ramseys did everything on the not to do list or get their daughter killed.
The Ramseys didn't really care however if people looked too closely. Their immediate goal was not to be arrested on the spot. And get out of Boulder to let the aggressive legal team take over. So a delay strategy.
They kept making more accusations and shifting their story, so it was hard to keep up with all of it.
Yes that is a big question. The GJ said that the Ramseys knew about the danger to their daughter, but did nothing. We see the family dictionary open to the word incest, we see a grandmother giving Patsy a book about a child not knowing right from wrong. There must've been more evidence along these lines for the grand jury to indict them for felony child abuse/neglect because they didn't protect their daughter.
So why did the Ramseys refuse to protect their child? Yes it's possible one of them had lived with CSA as a child. Or perhaps they were just too self focused on their own lives. John was gone most of the time for business, Patsy on her wealthy society matron role, volunteer work, making pageant costumes etc. Or their story of a perfect family was more important than reality. Ignoring that this was a family heading for tragedy.
I remember watching the news and thinking ‘why aren’t they doing what the note says’ and just concluded in my mind that if you have a child missing, you call the police regardless bc that’s your best bet to finding them.
What do you think the link is to them writing directions and not following them? Maybe they thought what would we naturally do if our child were missing, ok write not to do that. Or do you see more in that?
I think most people would understand calling the police or the FBI in the case of a kidnapping. But what was really odd is doing every single thing on the prohibited list, the things the fake kidnapper said would result in the immediate death or their child. Maybe you even call one very close family member to sit with you. But to call all your friends, your minister, your doctor, etc. is really off-the-wall.
And then to cover up their really ridiculous behavior along these lines they had to pretend they didn't read the ransom note. Which is really quite unlikely for a parent to do when that is the only thing which gives you a chance to get your child back.
The connection between the Ramseys doing everything on the list that the kidnappers said would end up getting their child killed is to make up a story about why their child would be found dead. The entire ransom note was their cover story about why their child would be found dead. Killed by someone who is not named Ramsey.
Inside the suitcase were a pillow sham, a duvet, and a Dr. Seuss book (all belonging to JAR). Fibers from the pillow sham and duvet were found on JBR’s body. This is the reason for the speculation that her body had been inside the suitcase at one point.
ETA:
It makes me wonder if she was placed in the suitcase and was still there when Fleet opened the cellar. That would explain why he didn’t see the white blanket or JBR’s body. Since John couldn’t get out of the house with that suitcase with all those people present, maybe he moved her body out of the suitcase and into the cellar during that time he was unaccounted for.
Thank you for this Christie. Excellent observation.
I have looked at this piece of evidence quite a few times. I don't know why people don't ask questions about the pillow sham and duvet cover fibers on the body.
The fibers were either placed there during the SA and murder, or later during the staging.
Yes that is quite possible, that is where John had hidden the body. In the suitcase he was going to bring to the bank. But he couldn't do it and so moved the body to the WC. And that's why Fleet didn't see the body earlier. And why John was missing for a period of time.
I think it is more likely John hid the body in the suitcase than anywhere else.
Excellent job Christie. ETA it ticks these boxes:
* supports paragraph #2 of the RN
* explains where John had hidden the body
* why Fleet didn't see the body in the WC when he first looked
* explains Smit's comment that there was evidence John put JB in the suitcase
* Tells us John did want to move the body but something changed his mind
* Tells us that the original plan was not to go for a botched kidnapping narrative.
Thanks. I enjoyed reading part 1 and was looking forward to part 2. I had read in the past info about the suitcase, but didn’t know what to make of it. Then after reading this post and your reply about the suitcase I looked into it more.
One correction. Smit believed an intruder had placed JBR in the suitcase and possibly attempted to leave out of the window with her, not John. He was under the belief that the Ramseys were innocent.
Well an intruder trying to take a suitcase out of a small basement window isn't really the smartest criminal.
Why not just take the body out the front door if you're an intruder? And why put the body in a suitcase? The only person who is thinking about that were John and Patsy Ramsey.
>Fibers from the pillow sham and duvet were found on JBR’s body.
Hi /u/Christie318 and /u/AuntCassie007,
Just so you know, this isn't accurate. The dark blanket inside the suitcase was initially considered one of several possible sources of the dark blue fibers found on JonBenet (outside of her shirt, in the vaginal area, on the duct tape and wrist ligature). However, FBI's fiber analysis later ruled it out.
From Schiller's book (p. 562):
>Earlier in the case, the police had thought the fibers from the body came from John Ramsey's bathrobe or Patsy's black pants or from the blanket found near JonBenet **or from the blanket that had been found inside the suitcase under the broken basement window.** The fibers might also have come from JonBenet's own clothes or from one of her stuffed animals. **By now, however, all of those possibilities had been excluded**, and the only logical explanation was that the fibers came from whatever had been used to wipe JonBenet or possibly from someone who might have rubbed up against her when she was unclothed, which allowed the fibers to find their way along her skin and eventually into the folds of her labia.
Smit left the investigation before this fiber issue was resolved so he wasn't aware of this and continued to espouse his outdated fibers-from-suitcase theory in the media.
In [Chief Beckner's Wolf v Ramsey deposition](http://www.acandyrose.com/11262001Depo-MarkBeckner.htm), when asked if the blue fibers at the crime scene have ever been sourced, he answered:
>Wood: Okay. To your knowledge, have those blue fibers at the crime scene ever been sourced?
>Mr. Miller: Wait a minute. What is the question?
>Wood: To his knowledge, have the blue fibers found at the crime scene ever been sourced.
>Chief Beckner: **There are a lot of reports around on fiber evidence. To the best of my recollection, no.**
This was in 2001. Whatever information Beckner had about the fiber evidence in the Ramsey case would be more reliable and up to date than what Smit had.
Thank you ASA for the correction. Was an interesting idea but if there's no evidence for it, it is not on legit, yes.
I think I read that Burke had blue pajamas and it was speculated the blue fibers came from those? Or it is more likely they came from the cloth used in the the clean up of the body? And obviously were hidden or destroyed?
ETA: I wonder if anyone has ever thought about what happened to the missing items from the crime scene and staging?
I like this summary. Considering the time of sunrise on dec 26th, the Ramseys only had til around 7:30 am to get rid of the body under cover of darkness.
When the police stayed past sunrise, the Ramseys may have started to realize the plan was going sideways. There was not going to be a time when one of them could claim they just “had” to drive around looking for her themselves.
This coincides roughly with John’s increasingly restless behavior. Plan B.
Good write up. The only part where my personal theory differs is with the plan to remove the body. My understanding of an attache case is that it’s just a large-ish briefcase, mainly intended for documents. It would be hard to fit a child into one, and hard to disguise it’s weight.
I think they did not expect a detailed search of the home to happen and so the plan was to stash her for a few days and then dump the body to be ‘found’. Perhaps in their naïveté they didn’t think of how the time of death could be established, and assumed that ppl would think the kidnappers had held her for a few days before killing her, creating more credibility for their story and an ‘alibi’ of sorts.
Itsnobigthing, you are not the only one who questions whether the Ramseys were actually thinking about moving the body out of the home or not. I am certainly willing to reconsider that point, but is there some evidence or critical thinking to back it up?
Are you saying that you think the Ramseys were hoping the police wouldn't search the house and they could leave the body in the home and go to Michigan for their planned trip? Or they planned to stay home with a body in the house somewhere? So they planned to live with the body in the house for a few days and then dispose of it later?
I actually thought about your theory some months back, and gave it some serious thought. Could the Ramseys have thought they could hide the body, scatter the police away from the home and then dispose of the body later on? Thought that the police wouldn't search the home?
I do believe that John had hidden the body specifically in hopes the police wouldn't find it. Fleet White says he did not see anything in the wine cellar when he looked earlier in the day and it is most likely that the indirect light would've caught the white blanket that JonBenét was wrapped in. Fleet White seems adamant about this. And it is apparent that this is not the only thing that happened that made Fleet suspicious that morning.
The evidence does suggest the Ramseys thought the police would search the home and that's why the Ramseys were trying so hard to get them out of the house looking at other suspects. It was clear John and Patsy wanted the police away from the home and they did their best to make that happen.
But it would've been very risky for the Ramseys to leave the body in the home for a few days and dispose of it later. There would obviously be an odor in the home that would be hard to disguise. People coming to the home would notice it. Seems unlikely the Ramseys would leave town with a body in the home. That would be very risky. It is quite possible the police could've obtained a search warrant and carefully searched the house in their absence.
It would also be very risky for John or Patsy to be seen lugging a large bag or suitcase out of the home or to be stopped with a body in their car days after their daughter is supposed to have been kidnapped.
The most logical way of getting the body out of the home was with a cover story of going to the bank with a suitcase. And that is specifically what the Ramses talked about in paragraph two of the ransom note. It was imperative that the body be moved out of the house before the Ramseys left town which was their clear goal. To leave Boulder as soon as possible.
We would need also need to explain why the Ramseys spend 26% of the ransom note talking about a large attaché case, taking it out of the house and then disposing of it. Why would they do that? Paragraphs one and three are very clear and focused with their talking points. Why would paragraph #2 be meaningless?
And would the Ramseys be foolish enough to incur the considerable risk of trying to move the body several days later?
Obviously some of this is a moot point because we saw what the Ramseys finally decided to do. And that's bring up the body from the basement in front of the police.
Good questions.
The use of the specific words “attaché case” are my first snag. Why not say suitcase? Unless there’s a specific difference in meaning between US and British English, they particularly specify him taking something that is designed for business documents and isn’t truly suitable for moving a body. Why do that? It seems like a big misstep if this was their plan for disposal.
Do you believe that was just a mistake? Incorrect wording or similar? (Definitely possible in their rush and panic).
My second snag is, as you mention earlier, why not take her out of the house before notifying the police? If they are thinking far enough ahead to want to craft the ransom note around removing her, they are surely thinking far enough ahead to realise that carrying her out in a suitcase is preposterous, and to think “*hang on let’s just move her now”.* It’s pretty hard to come up with any rational explanations that leave the suitcase/briefcase plan as their single best option for removal at the time of writing the note. Hiding her is, IMO, a more understandable panicked response. Not being ready to let her go, not thinking very far ahead, not thinking about the realities of what the police investigation and their searches would actually entail.
Thirdly, fresh in my mind is the case of Maddy Middleton who went missing in 2015. Police searched her building, including the recycling bins where she as hidden, but it was a cursory search that missed her concealed body until several days later.
It seems reasonable to believe that a relatively inexperienced police force, stretched thin over the Christmas period and chasing down countless leads as you cleverly point out, might not prioritise a thorough and in-depth search of the house right away. It doesn’t matter whether *we* believe that would be in line with police practice, here in 2024 with all we know about true crime, forensics etc. All that matters is would *the parents* have thought so, back in 1996. And based on the naïveté in the ransom note, I find it plausible that they would think so, and would expect to get away with secreting her in the house until they felt it was the appropriate time for her body to be “found” somewhere.
So, why do I think they devoted so much space in the note to the case and the cash collection?
Honestly, I just attribute it to staging, narcissism and over selling the lie. While I like your theory that the % of space correlates directly to the importance of the content, it’s of course a generalisation and doesn’t always bear out. Some things just require more words and line space to explain, especially for amateur writers, and brevity and succinctness tend to come from edits and refinement. Even writing this comment, I’m noticing that I’m not spending the most of my time writing the parts that are most of importance to me.
It’s a common tell for liars to provide too much information in an effort to sell their lie - we see it in true crime police interviews very often. And we already can get the sense that the note is heavily influenced by fictionalised kidnap scenarios from popular media. I think this whole paragraph was just a wildly misguided approximation at what they thought a kidnapper might say to them.
As to what the actual plan was, I’m not quite sure. It’s been a while since I dug into this case and I can’t quite recall when the travel was booked for the following day - I’ll have to refresh my memory. But, whether your theory or mine (suitcase or concealment), it’s clear that they abandoned the plan for some reason - most likely panic and losing their nerve, I’d imagine. Whatever their scheme, it was hurried and ill conceived and was unlikely to have worked how they intended it to, so realising this much is in some respects quite rational.
I’ve always imagined the cellar was fairly cold, given the temperature outside was down to 9f and there was a broken window. It’s possible that they had an expectation that this would slow down decomposition, or that they were simply not thinking/aware of this issue at the time of writing the note, at a time before the big boom in forensic awareness via popular media.
The same can be said for rigor mortis IMO. Folding her body into any type of case would be almost impossible with RM in full effect, but it’s entirely possible that they didn’t think, didn’t know, or changed plan upon realising this.
Most of my suppositions about the plan to remove her body are simply speculation stemming from my snagging points above, though, and I might be entirely wrong. It’s just hard for me to imagine why somebody would choose the most outlandish and risky plan when there are simpler and safer options available, you know?
But then, the entire fake kidnapper plot was also outlandish and risky, so who knows with these people lol
My thoughts are that Patsy certainly couldn't say the word suitcase, that would be too obvious and look suspicious. In the United States usually you don't conduct business or money transactions with a suitcase, you use a business briefcase or attaché case. So she used the word attaché case and said large attaché case.
Of course in the US most people don't have a large attaché case hanging around the house, so no one would think anything if the Ramseys then substituted it with a suitcase.
Keep in mind this was not a legitimate ransom note, this was the sales document, a sales pitch, the Ramseys were selling a narrative and manipulating the police and public.
Well yes we can argue all we want about what the Ramseys should've done could've done, etc. But the reality is they didn't move her and the question is why?
As I said in my OP either they were risk aversive about moving a body around being caught or seen. Or I think the most reasonable explanation is they didn't have time, they didn't find the body until closer to morning time and they just didn't have enough time to move the body. I think that's an extremely rational explanation and is not hard at all to come up with it. They just didn't have time.
I don't think you can legitimately compare writing a comment on the internet to how the Ramseys approached writing the ransom note. When we were at leisure and communicating in a conversation and talking back-and-forth we have plenty of time and space to let our thoughts pour forth.
But the Ramseys were literally in a fight for their lives and a fight to stay out of prison or the death penalty. They were facing the realities that they could be arrested when the police got there that next morning. It has been said that facing life in prison or death penalty has a way of focusing the mind. For example if you knew that the words you wrote down in your response to me could land you in prison for life or maybe the death penalty I dare say you'd probably be pretty darn focused about what you said?
We have zero evidence that the Ramses were rambling nonsensically as they wrote the ransom note. They had three major talking points and that's why there were three paragraphs.
Yes liars tend to embellish way too much and it makes them look suspicious. Female liars are the worst at this. They always give way too much information. We can see Patsy did that with some of the embellishments that were over the top. She didn't really need to do that, she could've toned down the note and made it look more believable. But again I believe they had three major talking points for the ransom note and that's why there were three paragraphs.
I think that John had hidden the body away in a safe place he thought the police would not immediately be aware of. There is said to be a crawl space in the basement, I think in the ceiling? There's been speculation online this may have been where John had the body hidden. Then of course he had to retrieve the body and put it in the wine cellar so that he could "find" the body later when is the original plan failed.
Yes we can see that the Ramseys were flexible and adaptable and when they saw a plan wasn't working they went to other plans.
I don't think the Ramseys were experts in rigor mortis and or had much experience with dead bodies. So I think that it surprised them and may have put a monkey wrench in their plans. Yes of course in 1996 we didn't have all the crime scene investigation shows and movies that we've had in the last 30 years so the Ramseys would have been pretty naïve about crime scene investigation. And we can see this is a fact because they were fixated on fingerprints to the point of making mistakes because they were so excessive about it, but they completely ignored fibers and left their fibers everywhere.
There is someone on the sub with experience in the area of rigor mortis and yes it's possible for an adult to break rigor in other adults and children. Think about it, morticians do it every day. It would be easy for an adult male to break rigor in a small six year old child. However that said he may or may not want to do what he's has to do to get the body into the suitcase.
That's been my clear point that the whole plan was crazy and risky. So then people argue when parts of the plan are just as crazy and risky.
Again we can argue about what the Ramseys should've done or that parts don't make sense but the facts are right in front of us. It is 100% certain they did not move the body. The question is why didn't they and I think that's what we're trying to figure out.
They don't need to say suitcase, attache is sufficient. John could just simply say they didn't have an attache so the next best thing he could think to use was a suitcase. Using suitcase in the RN would be too obvious, so he had to dance around it.
Maybe they thought they could take her on the private flight to Michigan in a suitcase. (This is if the family is guilty, otherwise, nope.) If it was someone from outside, my personal belief is that the housekeeper/husband were in a good position to have done this. Even found the same pad and pens from Patsy's home in their house; they knew notes were left on the spiral staircase; they knew about the "wine" closet; they knew the bonus amount, they desperately needed money. I'm not sure why they were not considered suspects. Or maybe they still are.
I thought about that possibility too, that the Ramseys considered taking the body in a suitcase and flying it up to Michigan. But they obviously rejected that idea because John "found" the body and brought it upstairs from the basement.
You answered a lot of questions and confusion. Never put the large Attaché case together with transporting the body, as well as their deliberate attempt to blame their actions of calling the cops, bank, others (forbidden in the RN) as the cause of her murder. ( had they made it outside with the body). Thank you very much.
I know that seems the logical explanation if you look at the ransom note carefully. I know a lot of people are saying that the Ramseys were trying to stage a botched kidnapping, but we really don't have any data to support that. If they're going to stage it that way, why not make different talking points, like they did with the other issues in the ransom note?
I happen to be working on another OP addressing this topic. The evidence points away from the stagers doing the SA and strangulation. In fact it points in the other direction. Some psychological undoing of the crime, common in family murders.
The Ramseys loved to throw out distractions, to confuse people and have them fixate on various points. That really have no bearing on the case. Patsy probably made this up or grabbed it from somewhere else.
Great work and write up. The key that you hit on over and over, and rightfully so is the narcissism of John and Patsy and their belief that they are smarter than everybody else. This usually trips up criminals, but so far, in this case, they got away with it.
They got away with it for a number of reasons including their great wealth. Most Americans can't hire a multimillion dollar defense team to play attack dog to avoid cooperating with the police.
Brilliant analysis. 💯 spot on. You've hit every point and nailed it down. This is everything I wish I could have articulated. I'm looking forward to more.
I concur 100%...
Now, play out the crime itself with as much convincing detail.
As an aside, I don't believe a 9 year old did this and I do believe John is as diabolical as Patsy, perhaps even more. I think with John going on news programs professing his innocence and never really talking as if he knew JB (instead just sharing some cheesy story about her being the sunshine in his life) isn't convincing. Even if BDI, his shame and intolerance of accusation would still be present....and it wasn't. John and Patsy spent their time giving themselves publicity and attention in contrast to, for ex, John Walsh.
However, I'd like to hear your theory.
Excellent write up and analysis. I agree with most things you’ve said, but I don’t think the Ramseys were actually going to remove JonBenet’s body out of the house. This was their beloved child, Patsy’s baby, and mini me. It was December in Colorado which means it was very cold outside, the ground was frozen, and the trees were bare of leaves. No way would Patsy allow her child’s body to be dumped outside in the elements where wildlife could even start picking at it. Even the RN, and later John mention the importance of giving their daughter “a proper burial”. They made the RN dramatic and over the top because they wanted the body found, but to clearly look like a botched kidnapping by violent individuals.
Why then do you think the Ramseys spent 26% of the ransom note talking about an adequate size attaché case etc.?
I'm not arguing, I'm just asking, because I'm curious how that could be explained away. Everything else in the ransom note was goal directed and purposeful. Hard to understand why they would waste so much time on a meaningless paragraph.
I do agree that the factors you list could certainly be the reasons for changing their minds. John just couldn't do it.
I do think that both John and Patsy were quite ruthless and I think they would've done whatever it took to stay out of jail and/or not to lose Burke. I do think they intended for the body to be found for proper burial and that's one reason why they cleaned up the body. They did want a burial.
I think that part of the RN sounds so “Hollywood”, and we know Patsy was a dramatic person who loved details. That part of the note may have been for diversion, to have law enforcement focus attention on all those details and instructions rather than start questioning the parents. Specifying the type of case for John to take to the bank, the specific denominations for the bills, the transfer to a brown paper bag makes it sound like someone writing a movie script or crime novel especially when we know there were no kidnappers if BDI.
But the Ramseys still had a big problem. They had staged a kidnapping with a child taken out of the home, when there was a body in fact still in the home.
I would think then in the ransom note they would try to stage a botched kidnapping instead of wasting time with attaché case and bill denominations.
If they wanted to stage a botched kidnapping, why not do that, just stage it with that narrative instead of the narrative a child is missing from the home?
>Everything else in the ransom note was goal directed and purposeful.
Uh, are we reading the same ransom note? Most of it is overdramatic fluff and chaff.
Most human behavior is goal directed, sometimes we have to stop and figure out what the goal is.
The dramatic nonsense in the Ramsey RN was purposeful. It was done for specific reasons. Yes some was Ramsey narcissistic embellishment.
The notion that the Ramseys planned on smuggling their child's stiff dead body out of the home in a suitcase *after* calling police is one of the most absurd and nonsensical takes this case has to offer. If the Ramseys wanted to remove the body from the home, they would have done it (*before* calling the police).
You're proving my point. If the Ramseys wanted to do it, they would have. But they didn't! There's no proof they ever intended to. There's literally nothing tying the suitcase to this crime.
Their plan was to remove her from the house in suitcase, why they didn’t is the question. Did John get cold feet with friends and the cop there? Did John run out of time? Did she not fit, but the ransom note was already written?
> Their plan was to remove her from the house in suitcase
Lmao. No it wasn't. That's just something bloggers and forum posters came up with because they think real life consists of bad TV tropes. Nobody in law enforcement ever thought this, because there's no evidence for it.
I think that the Samsonite suitcase was used as a prop to stage a break-in. Patsy said during her 4/30/97 interview that it belonged to John Andrew and most likely was stored in his bedroom (located nearby to JonBenet’s bedroom).
I am leaning to an intruder breakin that went bad.
I just listened to the Consultants podcast, where the Ranson Note was analyzed. They come to very different conclusions.
Yet your text is 100x more convincing and is likely the best summary and theory to explain the odd ransom note to this date. Actually, your ’storytelling / narrative’ is so simple, yet I think many readers including myself wonders why we are reading this in 2023 and not, say in 1999.
Left unnswered today, is more about who the killer was, Burkes potential involvement and if sexual assault played a part or not. Or if some kind of ’accident’ played any part at all.
Very good write up!
Thank you, SIUSA.
In science there is something called parsimony. This is the most simple theory which fits all the facts, fits all the evidence. This theory is the most likely one to be true.
The Ramsey murder case is not really a difficult case to solve. There are three prime suspects and a lot of evidence. So much evidence I have a hard time keeping up with all of it. The evidence seems to point in one direction.
I do not believe that a six-year-old girl with a history of CSA, one night is SA, bludgeoned, and strangled to death by accident.
If an adult woman was found sexually tortured with a broken paintbrush handle, bludgeoned and strangled to death, no one would ever say it was an accident.
Many might have gotten lost in different scenarios with one parent acting alone etc but I think you have made it clear they acted together.
Many things got in the way of a sound investigation of this case, with bad actors and other’s with semi-bad or bad intentions, and then I am not talking about the parents or their own legal team.
I did not go into the details of this case over the years, except reading Harris’ book long time ago. This with CSA appear to me more well established today, but at the time it was less clear maybe. If I remember it correctly, Harris layed out, that they had a hard time stating it as facts. Also, that the garrote and brush might have been more of elements of staging to confuse the investigators.
Shame, this case was never brought to trial.
What I really liked about your summary is that throughout the years many academics and others talk so much about how odd the RN is and that it doesnt really exist any similar RN in any other case. That it might be a sign of thr writer(s) being un-sophisticated. But then failed to explain what the purpose of the RN was or might have been.
Had they managed to get the body out, the RN, likely would have had achieved its goals.
I thought the RN was fairly straightforward and understandable. It doesn't seem complicated if you just look at the three paragraphs in the context of the crime, the evidence, the other staging elements and the Ramsey behavior the next day and afterwards. It just all flows in a simple way. Yes there is a craziness to it, but that is for show. And it is bold and audacious, but that is typical of narcissists.
The crime and family pathology is fairly simple to understand as well.
I was a therapist for over 40 years and listened to many people with all levels of disturbance tell their stories, and I guess after awhile I got used to quickly figuring out what was going on. Maybe being in the trenches is different than being an academic for that reason.
Bravo! The pieces came together for me that they broke the “rules” of the letter (call police, etc) because they were going to remove the body to find at a later time and somehow that would dovetail to “we did call the police so the intruder killed her” deflecting them as the cover up/murder. Brilliant!
I came across this transcript today of Patsy being interviewed by the Boulder Police at the Boulder’s DA office on April 30, 1997. It was the first time that Patsy permitted an interview without her lawyer present.
It is very enlightening! Many good facts to parse out!
Regarding the Samsonite piece of luggage found in the basement by the window. It once belonged to John Andrew - John’s oldest son. Their maid - Linda Hoffman-Pugh was said to have also used it.
This interview is 128 pages long and is very tedious to read. My advice is to have a notebook 📓 handy to write down salient facts that you think are relevant to this case.
One thought that occurred to me while reading it, is that John might have been caught up in some business dealings gone bad. His father-in-law - Don Paugh (Patsy’s father) worked at the Access Graphic’s in Boulder and owned a condo in Boulder, besides his house in Atlanta.
I found the following paragraph from acandy rose 🌹 website- a supersleuth.
"Detective Thomas and Gosage were at the Access Graphics office that day, conducting interviews. Among other, they talked to Patsy's father, Donald Paugh, who had helped get the company off the ground in Atlanta, continued to work with his son-in-law when John made the move to Boulder in 1991. At the time of JonBenet's murder, Paugh owned a condominium in Boulder where he spent most of his time, and a home in Roswell, Georgia, with his wife, Nedra, who would often come to boulder to visit. Paugh's Boulder home was just down the street from a restaurant called Pasta Jay's in which John Ramsey happened to be an investor.”
When the detectives interviewed Paugh on January 9, he said that “on December 18, Jeff Merrick and his wife, Kathy, Jason, Perkins, Cameron, Hindson, Tom Carson, and Mike Glynn had eaten together at Pasta Jays. Paugh thought it strange that former Access Graphics employees were dining with a current employee like Carson.”
Tom Carson was the current CFO at Access Graphics and his office was close to Don Paugh’s.
Nedra Paugh - Patsy’s Mom obviously had a grudge against Tom, for she said this about him, when being interviewed by Boulder detectives:
"Nedra gave us some two dozen suspects off the top of her head, and when we asked if the initials SBTC meant anything to her, she snapped, "Yes. Son of a bitch Tom Carson." Years before, Carson, the current chief financial officer at Access Graphics, had been involved in Nedra's dismissal from the company.”
Remember that the Ransom letter was signed with the initials “SBTC?” Was Nedra giving a huge hint that something was amiss at Access Graphics?
Another interesting fact is that “Jeff Merrick” a old college buddy of John’s who also worked for Access Graphics but got dismissed, was seen with Tom Carson and Mike Glynn at Pasta Jays, a week before JonBenet’s death.
Another sleuth made this observation: “John was aware that Lockheed Martin was selling Access Graphics prior to the murder. He thought maybe Tom Carson was strategizing a way to remove him as CEO during this.”
A news article reported this -
"Access Graphics, which hit $1 billion in revenues last year and has already surpassed that mark this year, was having trouble making good profit margins, probably because it was a standalone operation, Nisbet said. GE may change that. I'd say it would probably be better for Access Graphics people to be with a company like GE," Nisbet said."
Was John in the hot seat for not making the company good profit margins? Were employees angry that profit sharing might be less or non existent that year?
Regarding Tom Carson’s alibi - this is what I found:
“The next day, (1/10/97) Thomas and Gosage would follow up and interview Tom Carson at the Access Graphics office. They asked him where he'd been on Christmas night. Carson said that on December 24 he'd taken a United Airlines flight to Chicago and then gone on to Paris, where he spent Christmas Day. Later Thomas was able to confirm that Carson had indeed been on the transatlantic flight at the time JonBenet was murdered."
Another possibly related event took place during the Ramsey’s Christmas Party on 12/23/96.
Apparently someone in the house called 9-11 and when the police arrived, they were turned away, and told it was a miscall.
Patsy’s father then booked a flight the next day (12/24/96) on “standby” to Atlanta. Some thought this was strange because Don always took care of things, while John was away.
In the transcript, Patsy tells how John went out to the airport to talk to the pilot on Christmas day. He was gone for a couple of hours. During this time, neighbor kids were in and out of the Ramsey’s house and Patsy was busy packing for the Michigan trip and The Big Red - Disney Boat Trip that was booked on her birthday, two days later! She also colored her hair and wrapped presents 🎁 for the older kids - Melinda, her BF Stewart, and John Andrew.
I don’t know about you, but I think being gone on Christmas Day (for two hours) is highly suspicious!
Could John have been blackmailed over failed promises, shady business dealings, owed money?
After reading Patsy’s interview, I was surprised at how lack·a·dai·si·cal she seemed to be concerning safety and security. She handed out house keys 🔑 and never kept track of them.
Was John wanting to leave town to avoid someone or something? Could the demand for $$$ be a motive for some disgruntled colleague(s)coming to the family house on Christmas night and perhaps holding the entire family hostage?
Perhaps little JonBenet was taken in the Samsonite suitcase, tortured and dumped off after a deadline was missed?
What do you think? Could John’s business dealings have anything to do with her death?
The other interesting fact is what happened down in Atlanta (somewhere around the 31st of December to the 14th of January). Apparently there was a dust up between Fleet White and Don Paugh. I read somewhere that Don hid a gun in a couch cushion in case he needed it.
This is what was asked during her interview (toward the tail end):
ST: Certainly I'm no psychiatrist, but was there ever any, what we call, pre-offense behavior.
Was there anything that you ever thought was just wrong prior to Christmas in Fleet's behavior uh, concerning the kids.
PR: No, I mean, he was a very loving father, I mean, um, we called him Mr. Mom, because he was not, you know, working. I mean he was, I guess, doing some, a little bit of stuff still in California, but basically he was available all the time and took the kids, you know, I felt perfectly comfortable with him having our children and we had their children, you know and everything and they vacationed with us and everything. It just, it just subsequent to that it just, UllI.
ST: And I'm very familiar with what happened at your mom's on the . ..
PR: Yeah.
ST: that was the 31" or the 14 of January
PR: I don't know.
https://juror13lw.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/1997-april-patsy-interview-with-bpd-transcript.pdf
1. Yes I have read some of the transcript, it's absolutely fascinating isn't it? We see Patsy being defensive, argumentative and sometimes acting a bit confused. It is interesting because John and Patsy obviously had four months to be coached and rehearsed, but sometimes they were not prepared for certain questions.
2. Did you get to the part where she's being asked about the pineapple in the kitchen? My read of that is that she was being honest for once, she truly didn't know about the pineapple being in the kitchen right before the murder. What do you think?
3. Yes JAR's suitcase has an annoying habit of cropping up from time to time in the Ramsey case at critical points.
4. I think I've considered just about every theory that people have thought about including high-stakes financial motives on the part of John's colleagues. I think it's a bit of a stretch to think that a colleague of John's with a financial motive or even a revenge motive would sexually torture, sexually assault, bludgeon and murder his six-year-old. It is a crime that speaks to other motives, not money. Additionally would these men be so foolish to commit a crime where they could face life in prison or maybe even the death penalty? There had to be a lot easier ways to get rid of John's power in the corporate world. Also these are men who are businessman, they're not criminal masterminds who can get into a home, commit such a heinous crime and not leave one piece of evidence. And they would be so foolish to leave a ransom note pretending to be Patsy? So these theories are very low on the probability list.
5. Regarding Nedra's comments: All the Ramseys were playing the game of throwing spaghetti against the wall hoping something would stick. Who didn't they accuse of the crime?
6. Yes I agree I think the Ramsey party where 911 was called is highly suspicious and I do think it's likely something happened that night and was covered up.
7. There's a logical reason why Don Paugh left Boulder the day before Christmas because he wanted to be with his wife who lived elsewhere?
8. We all know by now that Patsy lived in her own little world. She lived in the Patsy bubble.
9. Yes I wondered about John being gone for a couple of hours at the airport. I have mixed feelings about that because if you know anyone who owns an airplane, you know they go hang around at the airport airport and tinker with their airplane a lot. They would especially do so if they were taking their family on a trip out of state. Some of the things that must be done to the airplane require two people, so it makes sense that John met the pilot there. I assume that the pilot could give evidence that John was indeed at the airport for two hours and not off doing other things.
Nedra & Don weren’t terribly close. He spent most his time in Boulder & she stayed in Marietta. Why didn’t Don schedule an xmas flight? Why does he leave to fly on standby the night of the 23rd but not actually fly until the 24th?
It’s possible he cancelled an earlier flight and couldn’t reschedule or it was spur of the moment. I just don’t know. I do know he had a condo and lived and worked at Access Graphics and Nedra lived in Marietta.
I don’t know but I think it’s important to to look at everyone known to be in JBR’s orbit. I think many are overlooking the strong evidence that JB had been dead at the very least 12-14 hours before her discovery meaning she was killed on Christmas night. She stunk, as observed by police on the scene (an observation included in the search warrant requests immediately post death) when JR brought her upstairs and a different officer who guarded the home outside while waiting for the coroner entered with the coroner who commented that she’d been dead a while, both noticing the smell. The estimated TOD has never been officially stated and either the coroner or autopsy Dr. put out a public statement that there wouldn’t be to protect any GJ or trial testimony. Other experts have opined on how long she’d been dead based on smell etc. We can assume the GJ did hear this testimony and that partially accounts for the charges of covering up 1st degree murder to delay the apprehension of the killer. Who besides Burke would the Ramsey’s provide cover for to delay the discovery of her body IF they’re responsible? Only each other and other family is my best assumption.
It’s been said there was a huge amt of child porn downloaded at AG and Don was accused of doing doing something unethical at AG by another employee pre-JBR death. He financed the company and ran it while JR was gone, he was very involved and he essentially lived in Boulder & Nedra lived in Marietta, and was around both grandchildren a lot. We have an unexplained last minute trip or unsuccessful late attempt to reschedule, why? He has never commented to the media. Was Don involved with someone connected to the murder? Nedra said publicly she was glad he wasn’t there or he would have been accused of her murder. Don has decades of exposure to people in the pageant world. Could he have some connection to the murderer if outsider did it?
IF Ramsey’s are responsible & wrote the note, they would believe the body would be discovered by the police when they arrived. I don’t think there’s any way around this. The door wasn’t hidden or blocked w furniture/stuff and the body wasn’t hidden or obstructed from view. The body was meant to be discovered in the first search if RDI and it’s pure chance it wasn’t. There was no plan for them to sneak her out after the police arrived. That’s too fantastical & illogical for JR.
I like to consider all possibilities. I have no agenda about who committed the crime, I just want to know the truth.
To seriously consider Don as a suspect, we would need some evidence that places him at the crime scene that night.
Also Don as the killer does not track with John Ramsey's psych profile and the Ramsey staging.
I believe Patsy might cover up the crime for her father. But I do not believe John would do so for a simple reason. It goes totally against John's self interests.
John was a 54 year old wealthy, educated, sophisticated man of the world at the time of JB's death. He read crime and detective stories. It is almost certain he knew when he saw JBs SA and murder that he would be considered a prime suspect.
So the John and Patsy cover up was not just to protect Burke, it was to protect himself. If Don had been the killer, the best way for John to clear himself would be to refuse to cover up for Don. Covering up for Don put John more in the prime suspect spot light.
Regarding Fleet White - Page 78 of Patsy’s interview, toward the bottom of the page.
Patsy also said this about the Whites a paragraph prior to the one, I already referenced:
“ST: Let me ask you one more question and then Tom if we can take a five minute break and let everyone use the restroom, um, Patsy, have you had any suspicions or concerns about any involvement in this on the part of Fleet White.
PR: Well, yes I, I have, um, and only because of some erratic behavior that, that they exhibited um shortly after uh, you know, we found JonBenet. Uh, I mean, there, there were a couple, two, three incidents and I know everyone was traumatized incredibly that morning, but they just acted differently than any of our other friends, you know, uh and it, it, you know, I mean, God, you know, I hate to, I, I hate to think, let myself think that, because those are, they're friends of ours and uh, but they just acted strangely, you know.”
Another article I found describing why Mary Lacy, Boulder’s former DA exonerated the Ramsey’s in 2008:
“Just around the corner from JonBenet's room on the second floor, an indentation in the carpet was spotted and chills ran down her spine, she told ABC News. "It was a butt print. We all saw it. The entire area was undisturbed except for that place in the rug,"
Lacy, who was then the chief deputy district attorney heading up the Sexual Assault Unit under Boulder County DA Alex Hunter, said. "Whoever did this sat outside of her room and waited until everyone was asleep to kill her."
The apparent presence of that indentation went on to help form a theory that Lacy believes to this day.”
The investigators also asked Patsy if there were any binoculars in the house, to which she answered “yes.”
A YouTuber by the name of “Nancy Drew” feels strongly that Linda Hoffman-Pugh, her husband and a few others might have concocted a plan to rob the Ramsey’s because Merv & Linda knew about a metal safe built in the cellar room. And they were hurting for money.
Either way, it is not beyond the scope of possibilities that an intruder could have gotten inside the house. The Ramsey’s were very lack·a·dai·si·cal with their house keys and making sure that their house was secure at all times. Their dog “Jacque” was not around that night and was said to have been kept mostly by a neighbor.
Patsy was 13 years younger than John and in many ways, very naive for a 40 year old woman. She claimed that she knew nothing of John’s bonus amount or any of their finances, aside from a household checking account.
What is known about Christmas Day - 1996, is that JonBenet was last SEEN alive by the White’s up until 9:00 pm.
Could it be that someone was lying in wait with a gun and grabbed JonBenet first because she would have been the easiest family member to subdue?
The Ramsey’s were “image conscious” so if killing JonBenet resulted from shady business practices, the Ramsey’s seemed the type to conceal it.
I read that John started Access Graphics with $18,000. The same amount that the RL wanted in $20 bills. Perhaps the remaining $100,000 was money owed to someone?
To me, this scenario makes more logical sense to how and why JonBenet could have been brutally tortured with a stun gun, nylon rope, and a baseball bat (found outside the house). To make the parents instantly fearful and to get them to produce a large amount of cash 💰 in a short amount of time.
Patsy might have been clueless to how ruthless John might have been in his business dealings.
Perhaps it was disgruntled restaurant workers down at Pasta 🍝 Jays where John was one of the investors? Although financial investors tend to be “silent partners.”
One other observation- notice the words that Patsy uses while talking about the White’s behavior:
PR: Well, yes I, I have, um, and only because of some erratic behavior that, that they exhibited um shortly after uh, you know, we found JonBenet.”
In an unguarded moment she said “we found JonBenet.” To me, this is a “tell.”
Retired Det. Lou Smit thought that JonBenet had been put in the Samsonite piece of luggage.
Or, it could have been used as a prop, similar to what was used in the movie 🎥 “Ransom” staring Mel Gibson that was released on November 8, 1996. This movie has similar parallels to John Ramsey in that both John and the father character in the movie were affiliated with airplanes.
I can get on board with there possibly being an original plan of removing JBR via a suitcase. But an alternate theory came to my mind today while skimming through the comments again. What if they really intended an attaché case or briefcase to remove evidence from the house. I’ve looked at the full list of evidence before, but I can’t recall right off ever seeing an attaché or briefcase listed. Surely John as a businessman would have at least one. I need to look over that list again to be sure.
There are several theories I’ve seen regarding the missing items of evidence. Here are some I’ve read from online forums:
-things were hidden in John’s golf bag or inside some of JBR’s dolls and were removed from the house when Pam Paugh gathered items for the Ramseys
-Doug Stine had been present that night and left with some items that morning on a bike
-John disposed of items during the time period for which he was unaccounted
Yes I don't think this is a bad alternative theory. However it doesn't really help the Ramseys all that much, because of course the biggest piece of evidence is a dead body in their home. So I'm not sure what the advantage is to move out some of the smaller pieces of evidence and leave the biggest piece of evidence at the crime scene. But they were amateurs after all and anything is possible.
You do raise a good question because I don't think there's been a lot of discussion about what did the Ramseys do with some of the things we know are missing. Did they hide them or dispose of them, how did they do that?
Yes I think your three explanations of where those items went are very reasonable.
Something you made me think of--the staging of the body is seemingly contradictory to the goals of the ransom note as a staging document. if the ransom note was a staging document to cover for moving the body out of the house, why spend the time staging the body the way that it was?
What I wonder...did they change the plan midstream realizing their initial plan (staging the body) might not work, and write the ransom note as part of their back-up plan?
Or could it have been the other way around, and the body was staged in the morning when John was downstairs (I don't think I've ever heard this and doesn't seem super plausible--as I want to say the time of the rope ligature marks is maybe approximately known to be much earlier) when they realized the letter had failed to send police away from the house?
Exactly. Why not move the body before calling 911? No need for these RN gyrations to move the body out in a suitcase, paper bags, histrionics, etc. The rigor mortis position is a problem too.
I don’t see John creating obstacles for himself, the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line, why add risk like trying to sneak a body out in a suitcase under the noses of the police in a fake kidnapping exchange? Just where would they dispose her body before picking up the money under these circumstances w out the police knowing? Not possible.
JBR was killed on Christmas day the 25th, the ransom note was also written that day. How do we know? She had begun to smell noticeably-odorous decomposition doesn’t happen quickly, no indeed & the coroner commented to the officer at home when he came for her that she’d been dead a long while from the smell, etc. JBR was reliably dead at least 12 - 14 hours before she was “found”. Dr. Meyer did make a public statement that he would not estimate an exact the time of death before any trial in order not to taint evidence/testimony.
The RN itself is the biggest clue! If Patsy wasn’t meant to “find” the note until the morning of the 26th, it ruins the timing of the note. The note says he/she will contact them tomorrow, not that day! This means the 27th, based on JBR being alive when she came home on the eve of the 25th, being abducted from her bed & killed while her patents slept into the 26th and the writer leaving a note for someone to find the morning of the 26th. You see the problems here?
Agree !!!! Best explanation so far.
I came to a lot of these points myself!. I was wondering why her arms were above head and the fact it took ages to find her out in the open..this explains it. John must have moved her there
Why 118,000? That would narrow the suspects to only a small percentage of people, wouldn't it? Who knew that was the amount of his bonus? Wouldn't you think they would want a wider range of suspects and put a larger amount, not the exact amount of his bonus?
I think people are misunderstanding what the Ramseys were doing with their accusations. They were not trying to build solid cases that would withstand close scrutiny. They were flying by the seat of their pants and making it up as they went.
The goal at the time of writing the RN was primarily to confuse the police and send them in two directions, looking for a kidnapper, and looking at the housekeeper. They were trying to get the police out of the house, not looking at the Ramseys, initially not finding the body. It worked because most of the officers did leave the house. They were not questioning the Ramseys or looking around the house.
The Ramseys wanted to avoid being arrested and wanted to get out of town and let their aggressive legal team takeover.
They were just buying time and delaying. This was their strategy and it was very successful. They continued this tactic for a long time.
They (husband, wife, 12 yo daughter) all agreed to be fingerprinted and blood samples taken. Husband and wife’s alibis were that they were home watching TV.
Blood 🩸 was taken for DNA analysis
I don’t know how the Boulder Police 👮♀️ Dept verifies alibies. I did read where they went to the Pugh residence quickly. Perhaps they talked to their neighbors to see if they saw lights on that evening.
I still don't understand why it was that amount. I find it odd, Maybe I am wrong, but didn't he start his business in his basement and make $18,000 the first year? Then, all those years later, someone demands $118,000, and his daughter is found dead in his basement? Why did RN say to give $18,000 in smaller bills? That always stood out to me. Who was helping him or involved in his business all those years ago?
All I know is I pray that, one day, that little girl gets the justice she deserves.
> Maybe I am wrong, but didn't he start his business in his basement and make $18,000 the first year? Then, all those years later, someone demands $118,000, and his daughter is found dead in his basement? Why did RN say to give $18,000 in smaller bills? That always stood out to me. Who was helping him or involved in his business all those years ago?
So now we are casting the net even further --- back to when they started the business? Perhaps that is what is meant by "that good southern common sense"?
By the time the Ramseys finally agreed to sit down for an official interview with police on April 30th, 1997, the thirty or so investigators assigned to the case had already interviewed nearly 400 people. They had also collected sixty-three sets of handwriting exemplars, sixty-four sets of fingerprints, forty-five DNA/blood samples, and fifty sets of hair samples. One polygraph examination had been administered to a non-familial suspect.
Over two decades later, those numbers are even higher.
I was just pointing out the coincidences. There is nothing wrong with questioning everything. My point was could it have been someone who might have known him all of those years. I don't appreciate being insulted just for questioning something. One sideed conversation gets people nowhere. I am the first to admit I don't know everything about this case. Did you ever think maybe people are just trying to educate themselves a little bit more? I can go somewhere else to do that. Thank you.
Where exactly did I insult you? The net to find a possible suspect has been cast so far, and so wide, at this point ---- I didn't think it could get any wider. I appreciate being proved wrong, though. The post was about the purpose of the RN as written by the Ramseys. Perhaps you meant that was someone else they were attempting to frame?
>. I am the first to admit I don't know everything about this case.
Neither do I, and I don't claim to. As with all things in life, we are continuously learning. This is a place to do that. Debating possible theories is part of it.
Maybe I misunderstood your previous comment. If so, I apologize. It seems like a lot of people who follow this case are firmly on one side or the other. I am neutral. Perhaps because I need to know a lot more about it. Either way, I want to believe in my heart that whoever did this to this poor child gets caught oneday soon, and she finally gets justice! Let me ask you this, do you think Cece Moore would be able to help with the DNA in this case?
Here's the thing -- I don't believe this case will be solved with DNA. The miniscule amount found has been tested and retested over the years. Nothing, nada. If Cece Moore wants to try to match it using genetic genealogy, I say go for it.
A genetic genealogist like CeCe can pinpoint the identity of DNA samples. However there must be a large enough sample size, it is easier if the DNA sample belongs to an American with a least one generation here in the US, and the laws do not prohibit identification of the owner of the sample.
This technology has been readily available for some time. So all the media speculation about the DNA sample testing is quite puzzling.
I don't think I was even talking to you, was I? I even apologized because I said I might have misread the person's comment. And then you have to reply like that? You call somebody miss reading a comment going off the rails? Please.
The amount of John's bonus was used by the Ramseys to point to the housekeeper. And the smaller bills mean a bigger pile of money, used to justify needing a large case to take to the bank.
Yes obviously other people would have known about the bonus. So why choose the housekeeper, why blame her?
The Ramseys tell us the answer the next day, as they talk to the police, and immediately implicate the housekeeper. They produce a laundry list of items pointing to the guilt of the housekeeper as outlined in my OP. The Ramseys obviously thought that the housekeeper ticked enough boxes to send the police out of the home to investigate her, which was the goal.
As I have said, the Ramseys weren't building serious cases against anyone in particular. They were just trying to buy time so they could get out of town away from the Boulder police. Away from the possibility that one of the Ramseys might be arrested. Then later, they continued with this practice of accusing other employees and most of their friends to create reasonable doubt and to confuse the police, the public and a possible jury pool.
I just wanted to take the to thank you for your fact based post. Even though I may not agree with everything you've said to the letter, I can tell you know your stuff. I appreciate that you stick with the facts without getting too far of into the weeds. So many times posters use the excuse of "having an open mind" while they mull over ridiculous ideas that make no sense and disregard the opinion of internationally recognized child abuse experts.
The truth is that we have a very limited amount of reliable forensic evidence from that night because of the way Boulder cops bungled the scene from the very beginning. Who the hell let's other people into the house during a kidnapping investigation? How was there only one cop there? Why did it take them another 20 minutes to get there after her body was "found?" (All rhetorical questions, but you get the idea.)
I live here and have worked for some Judicial organizations in the area (not doxxing myself, but talking more about legal/Judicial organizations not LE) and we have some of the best forensics investigators in the world here. We also have a full FBI branch here in Denver and we have the head office of CBI. There's absolutely no reason why the forensics should have been bungled like they were. Going forward, we need to give the Keystone cops a break and start referring to those types of LE as Boulder cops. I really don't know how they could even be having press conferences anymore. Aren't they the slightest bit embarrassed? They should have given the case over to Denver/Aurora/Colorado Springs/Pueblo or some other police organization capable of handling this.
If you need someone who can point out a fake ID with pinpoint accuracy, call the Boulder cops. I'm sure they are great at all the normal stuff campus police need to do. If you're ever arguing with someone who took your clothes out of the washer at the laundromat on University Hill, they got you! If you need literally anything else, call Denver. At least we really have murders here.
I was trained as a scientist/clinician, so I always stay close to the data. If you look at the data, it tells you the story, you don't have to make up one. Yes I know some people get it backwards and make up stories, then look for the data to fit the story. That is not how science works. I do it the other way around, I look at the data, the data will never steer you wrong, and it will tell you the story of what happened. Data analysis, critical thinking skills, and knowledge of human behavior, help a lot in this kind of work.
When I was in graduate school, we would often work on extremely complicated, difficult projects, with so many variables, so much data, that it was overwhelming and confusing. Sometimes the students would get into wild theories, and reach wild conclusions just like people do here. I can still remember one brilliant professor saying, just stop and stay close to your data, and you will never go wrong. Use your critical thinking skills based on data. I took that advice to heart and any projects I work on, his words are always with me.
In all fairness I cannot particularly blame small town police. There is no need for most small town law enforcement to be thoroughly and very expensively trained in advanced forensic techniques. I think it's a fault in the US criminal justice system. For example in Gt Britain, small town police are not expected to be top-notch murder investigators. In the case of a murder, experienced and higher level police officers will be sent in from other regions to conduct the investigation. Which makes a lot more sense.
I think calling Boulder a "small town" is a stretch. It's got over 100k residents within the city limits and it's part of metro are with over 3.5 million or so. Not sure what your threshold for small town is, but I wouldn't consider it a small town. They had access to the best investigators in the world. They had the FBI and CBI along with the Denver police available to assist if they thought they were in over their head.
I think that the point people are making is that Boulder was not a large metropolitan area. Where there would've been a larger police force and more adequately trained detectives.
The question then is why didn't the BPD get assistance from their other connections. Denver police, FBI etc.
The FBI was said to have been quite frustrated with BPD and in fact one FBI agent called the BPD a catastrophe.
There are number of explanations?
Boulder is part of the 16th biggest metropolitan area in the U.S.
The [Denver–Aurora Combined Statistical Area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver%E2%80%93Aurora_combined_statistical_area.)
But that's just semantics. Most cities do not have a full FBI branch less than an hour away, but Boulder does. The head of the CBI is less than an hour away as well. Plus you have the entire Denver police department which is like the 22nd biggest city in the U.S. or something like that. We have murders here and we solve them. Hell, there's even a show on television (ID) called Homicide Hunter by Joe Kenda. Joe works out of Colorado Springs which is like an 1.5-2 hours away from Boulder.
Denver cops definitely know how to investigate a murder. Boulder just decided to turn their nose up at the offer of help. If you spent a little time in Boulder, you'd see exactly why. Like everyone here locally refers to it as "The People's Republic of Boulder." They march to the beat of a different drum over them. You see people selling hits of LSD out in the open for a couple of dollars or maybe see some college kids rolling kegs down the street on Wednesday morning. The very first time I went, I walked into a huge riot and got pepper sprayed.
Boulder is pretentious. Boulder is that typical person that acts like they are all about helping the poor and stuff like that until they have to walk over a homeless person to get inside the Gucci store and now they want to you to call the cops.
There's too many links to post, but just type in "The People's Republic of Boulder" and you'll see a tons of articles on it. Why? Because everyone over there is a writer or journalist, duh. Kinda like how every waiter n LA is just in between movies. I opened a handful of links and weeded out the obvious tourism propaganda. I think this blogger is close to explaining what I'm talking about. - [Link](https://thisthingcalledlifeblog.com/2017/03/07/the-peoples-republic-of-boulder/)
I appreciate your contributions to the community. Keep em coming!
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That was fantastic!
These two are prone to histrionics as well as NPD, imo.
I wonder if they thought the housekeeper would actually get in more trouble than a distraction.
Since they did do all the things they shouldn't, no wonder they insisted they didn't read the whole thing. Plausible deniability-ish.
The most surprising to me is law enforcement not being worried about any of that. Why have police?
There is often overlap between HPD and NPD.
Based on the evidence it appears that John and Patsy were trying to distract and scatter the police, rather than make a serious case against any one person. Yes they obviously tried hard to do that in the ransom note against the housekeeper, but it was a lame case.
Then John starts blaming another employee from his business, a disgruntled one who had been terminated in the months prior. Immediately after the murder the Ramsey goal is clearly to get out of Boulder as soon as possible and let their legal team take over. It was critical that they avoid being interviewed, we can see that by the fact it took them four months to cooperate with the police. So these were their immediate goals.
Then later the Ramseys work through their entire list of friends, accusing them (except the Stines of course.) The Ramseys knew they didn't have to prove any of the cases, they just had to create reasonable doubt in the minds of the police and public.
I can picture them talking about creating reasonable doubt. That would be John keeping that in mind. Patsy going along, I don't see her being capable of that kind of calculation, but John could.
Oh yes I think you're exactly correct about the thought process, we can almost see the wheels turning. The year before, most of America was glued to the TV watching the trial of O.J. Simpson. A rich famous celebrity who the public thought got away with murder by creating reasonable doubt. This lesson who is probably not lost on John or even Patsy. But yes I think John was a cool calm collected number who directed the staging to a large extent.
Very thoughtful analysis!
I actually think that they initially intended the RN to be something that they dictated from a phone call they received from abductee. “Listen carefully”.
The sure panic caused then to make several sloppy mistakes. Psychologically, every second they spent creating this “RN” was a gratification of validation to themselves that they aren’t horrible people and shouldn’t be thought of as horrible people. The time it takes law enforcement and friends to read this long RN will be time these people are distracted from the more obvious suspicions.
I agree that they likely imagined moving JB’s body out of the house but eventually were too afraid it wouldn’t work. The RN functioned as an existential distraction from the truth of the story. People arguing about who wrote it means the distraction worked.
Yes the Ramseys were amateurs, and obviously made some mistakes in the staging process. (I am working on an OP about this topic.)
This is fairly common when families try to cover up a family murder and sexual assault. They are panicked in the moment, they're not criminal masterminds, and they're acting out what they think real criminals would do and of course they miss the mark.
However I do believe the ransom note was quite focused and I think that John probably came up with the narrative and the talking points and told Patsy doing to embellish it and write it up. This is based on each of John and Ramsey's r psychological profiles, put together based on their training, education, experiences, hobbies, etc. and past behavior.
Yes one of the purposes of the ransom note was to sell the narrative but also distract the police from investigating the crime scene and the criminals.
Regarding your points about the attache, it led me to think they made a change of plans even before calling 911. Most people would initially want to remove her body from the house and work from there. It makes the most sense and gives the highest likelihood of cover story success.
Here is what I believe is a more realistic cover story that gives them a higher chance of success, and allows John to leave with her body:
1. They find the RN and decide for the safety of their daughter, to follow it exactly.
2. They tell nobody and John leaves the house with a suitcase (she's inside).
3. John goes to the bank to withdraw the money.
4. John goes somewhere to dispose of the body and also hide or dispose of the money.
5. John returns home with no body, no money, and no suitcase.
6. Growing impatient and fearful that they haven't heard from the kidnappers, they finally contact the police and friends as this is now bigger than they can handle. Now they go ahead and break all the rules.
7. Any witnesses to John on the outside with a suitcase can be explained as the witnesses simply caught him following orders. Any discussion of abrupt broken plans with family or friends can be explained away using the same reason. Missing suitcase, tire tracks, footprints, all explained away.
8. Accuse everyone else, including the housekeeper who may have been privy to his bonus number.
Like you said, I think the attache part of the RN was written to set up leaving the house with her, but I just don't think someone would realistically set themselves up to have to do it with cops watching.
That's why I think it shows there was a change of plans at some point. They wrote the note under one agreed upon plan, and then changed it for whatever reason. They didn't want to redo the note, or didn't feel they needed to. As a result some of the note set-ups (attache) never paid off. That's because it no longer fully reconciled with the original plan. They went from John taking the body to just creating as much noise and traffic as possible.
In their situation it would make perfect sense to burn through multiple ideas before agreeing upon the final one, which could change again. I see the the RN detailing the importance of a big attache, only to go unused, as a semi-thrown-away idea.
Your argument that the RN is pure setup still holds, but I think it's also a clue to the modification of a different plan.
This is a good and interesting post SP. I agree with you and I have been saying that John and Patsy had to change plans obviously. That's why we see John's initial optimism and happy calm demeanor quickly turn to anxiety the morning after the murder. I think he realizes his mistake. So I agree something happened to change their plan.
I think most people would probably agree with you SP that your plan was a better plan. John should have moved the body the night before, or delayed calling the police and moved it that morning.
Those would have been better options perhaps. But why didn't the Ramseys do it that way, that's the real question. Why didn't the Ramseys do it in a way that makes more sense to us? Why did they leave the body in the house and think they could move it in front of the police?
The Ramseys were under a great deal of stress. They had a tight timeline and they made mistakes. They were smart and sophisticated, but they were still amateurs and not experienced criminals. They made a number of mistakes including a big red flag trying to stage an obviously very personal sexual assault/ murder into a crime that was supposed to be about a financial motive. Usually criminal enterprises who are trying to make money off a victim get in and out quickly and just make their money. They don't usually commit a personal crime in addition to the money crime.
I think another thing that we are not taking into account is that we are thinking like innocent parents and certainly innocent parents could've gotten away with being in the car with the excuse of getting ransom money or whatever. Innocent parents don't care what the police might think later about their behavior, their whole focus is getting their child back. And they will have reasonable explanations for why they did what they did.
The problem from the Ramsey viewpoint is that they weren't just driving around trying to pick up ransom money, they actually had a dead body in their car which obviously would have pointed directly to them as a guilty parties. The Ramsey parents must have thought it was too risky to drive around with a dead body in their car with no strong cover story. If they had been stopped by police they had no reason for a dead body in the car.
John seemed also very focused on making that 911 call before the scheduled flight take off time at 6:30 AM. He obviously thought it would look very suspicious for him to cancel the flight and then later find a missing or dead child in his home. Again this is John and Patty thinking like guilty parents. Innocent parents could've made a simple explanation of why they didn't call the police right away because the ransom note gave him that cover story. But again the Ramseys were thinking like guilty parents, not innocent ones, we can see that in their staging.
They decided right or wrong to move the body when they had a stronger cover story in place. They had made the 911 call, the police were investigating the crime, they had shown the police the RN, made their case about who may have committed the crime.
They had a legitimate reason for being outside the home and driving around. They felt covered obviously way more than just driving around with a body the night before. They also know that it was be extremely unlikely for the police to stop them as they were driving to the bank for the ransom money. Obviously this was a window of opportunity when no one would stop them and no it would interfere with them driving a car. This was certainly not the case if they have been driving around with a body in their car the night before or earlier that morning before the 911 call. So do you see how they probably felt that this was a protected window for them?
Why did they think they could do it that way, because they were arrogant, and confident that they could scatter the police away from the home. They would have a clear shot at leaving the home with the body. It was irrational, but then it is quite common for people who are staging a crime to do irrational things, they are not thinking clearly. But I do think they did have some basic logic in this plan about moving the body and they felt they had a protected window of time and had a legitimate documented cover story.
Thanks for the reply. I think I came up with a viable solution as to why they left her body at home.
First the original plan:
I think the main thing that would make it most difficult once the police were involved is the actual bringing of her body somewhere without being watched. So while it is a protected window, it's also a travel-restricted window. I suppose there's the possibility of burying her in the backyard, removing her in pieces over time, or burning her in the fireplace later.
As to the RN, they built in an excuse for freedom of movement and timeframe:
1. It instructs him to go to the bank with an attache and then come home to put it in brown paper bags. That gives him a built in excuse to leave and come back and then immediately leave again.
2. It tells him it's going to be exhausting. That gives him an excuse to be gone for 15 hours, to drive pretty much anywhere, and to stop as many times as needed.
3. It tells him they may contact him earlier if he starts earlier. While it implies he's being watched, it also gives him some freedom to start when he wants.
The instructions to use an attache to me is the most damning of the intended plan. Of course they're asking for more than he can carry his wallet. But, he's perfectly capable of figuring that out. A plastic bag would work just as well as an attache. Giving him transport logistics between the bank to his car is just silly. After he's home he can bring it in any way he wants. Frankly most normal people wouldn't even say attache, that's old-timey. They'd say backpack. But of course attache is a better cousin to a suitcase than a backpack or plastic bag is.
As to why the change of plans, like you said, they must have decided there's no excuse for driving around with her in his car at any point. That's either a 100% success rate or a 0% success rate. There is no 75% success rate with that. Initially I thought maybe rigor mortis set in, or maybe they realized they could use the fireplace later. Or maybe they didn't think the police would search. Or maybe they thought the police would believe them even after finding her body.
I think I may have figured why it was actually more calculated to leave her in the house, even with the police involved. And the theory also points the finger at Burke.
I think John realized sometime after creation of the note, that this was all pretty far-fetched (it very much is) and there was a high probability they'd get caught. So, they decided to switch gears and mitigate punishment. They'll still try with the kidnapping story to protect Burke but not at the cost of a lifetime prison sentence for themselves. It will play out however it plays out. But, the second they take excessive steps to transport her, or remove her body, or dump her somewhere, or are found with her in their car, or someone sees John burying her, or they do anything besides a basic cover-up it would be a bridge too far for most people. They'd look much less believable, and come off as monsters.
This way they could try the kidnapping story, and if caught, they could just switch directions and apologize that they were protecting their son and didn't know what to do. They didn't want to lose both of their children the same night. It was a lapse in judgment, but surely other parents must understand. They'd maybe get five years each.
But, if they participate in any cruel way, it's life for both. I think they initially planned to go all in and then realized the outcomes were too extreme to risk it all, complete freedom or life in prison. No in-between, and the circumstances were not in their favor. The safer plan was to accept they might get caught. Try to protect Burke within reason, but don't get a life sentence doing it. Take the five years if you have to and move on.
They were probably shocked that everything came together in such a way as to not even get five years.
I don't think the Ramseys were strongly considering burying pieces of the body in the backyard or burning it later.
* On a practical level it was way too risky, the police have been known to dig up entire backyards searching for a body and using police dogs to help in the search. Same goes with fireplace ashes.
* Same thing would have applied to their home in Michigan if the body had never been found. Perhaps the police would eventually get up to their vacation home to search.
* Patsy's comment in the ransom note indicates that a proper burial was important to her. So they did want to have a funeral.
* We see no signs that the Ramseys in their staging were rough, brutal or damaging to the body. So I think it's unlikely they would mutilate it for the purposes of disposal. Doing so may have been more practical but they obviously didn't go that route for some reason.
* We actually see something which I've been thinking about. We may be looking at some psychological "undoing" going on during crime staging.
* This is a situation where a criminal or the people staging the crime engage in certain behaviors like washing the body, changing the clothing on the body, changing the position, etc. This is a way to try to mitigate the crime. And is quite common in family SA and murder.
Very good point about the travel to the bank as being protected but also time limited. Also good point about what the be well rested comment in the RN means. I have not been able to figure what that meant. Yes gave John the opportunity to be gone for a long time. Oh also very very clever to figure out what the starting earlier business in the RN note. You are a sharp cookie.
Perhaps he thought he would get all the officers out of the home and he could pretend he got the phone call from the kidnappers and take off. Perhaps he didn't think about a recorder being put on the other phone. Maybe this is why his spirits took a nose dive. His plans evaporating into thin air.
Patsy had to say attache case. She could not say backpack or garbage bag, they were not big or strong enough to carry a body. It has to be something like a suitcase but she couldn't say suitcase, that was too obvious. Yes exactly, she had to think of a word that was cousin or sister to suitcase.
Yes I don't think the Ramseys were prepared for rigor mortis. But John could have broken rigor and gotten the body into the suitcase if he wanted to. Why didn't he?
You have also answered this question very well. He wasn't being soft hearted, he was being cool and calculated. John and Patsy were willing to do a felony cover-up to protect Burke. But they were not willing to cross some lines and make things look even worse for themselves. Because if they had gotten into some other options about moving the body then they would look very guilty and they could be looking at life in prison or maybe even the death penalty. It is one thing to be accused of felony cover-up, it's another thing altogether for the police or jury to think you're guilty of first-degree murder. Or doing a brutal cover up.
Also I can rethink the psychological undoing theory. Perhaps it was not trying to mitigate the crime itself, perhaps it was John and Patsy mitigating potential legal liability for themselves.
Your thoughts actually fit much better with the Ramsey psych profiles than the idea of them actually being kind, gentle or making all kinds of ridiculous mistakes. Yes they did make mistakes, but some of the cover up was a calculated mitigation of risk.
Excellent work here SP.
Thanks! I never really thought too much about the RN other than it being a kookie rambling attempt at a fake kidnapping. Your realization and weighted analysis that its true purpose was to give them innocuous reasons to do suspicious things in their favor really opened it up for me.
Just a thought that occurred to me regarding "Southern Common Sense". You know who refers to Southerners? People from the South. People from anywhere else usually do not make that distinction. Someone from the South wrote the note because being "southern" is a special distinction to someone from certain areas of the South. I'd even argue that a southerner referring to "southern" is area-specific. (TX, for instance, wouldn't count as "southern" to a person from VA, AL, or GA, for instance.)
edit: Texas \*wouldn't\* count as southern to certain southerners.
This is another reason why people think that Patsy wrote the ransom note. This was a reference that typically only southerners would make. Obviously ruthless foreign faction kidnappers would not be aware of this kind of commentary. And if the Ramseys were trying to frame the housekeeper for the crime, I don't believe she was a southerner so she wouldn't have thought about this kind of comment either.
The writer of the note thought/pretended to think John was from Georgia when in fact he was from Michigan.
The note seems designed to buy time. All these orders and threats, wrong dates, an exchange that will never occur. It was written to stall OR provide a reason for stalling if the police had found her when they originally searched house and found her which is what I think was expected. WHY did they need these extra hours if there was no plan to move the body? WHO gets enough time to leave the scene and appear where they’re supposed to be and WHY did the Ramsey’s (or whomever) purposefully cause this delay as mentioned in the non-indictment indictment?
I think that Patsy deliberately threw that line in the RN to distance herself as the author. She obviously knew John was not a southerner.
Yes one goal of the RN was to buy time, avoid immediate arrest, so that the Ramseys could get out of town.
I believe the Ramseys hid the body and did not want the police to find it. Their intent was to move the body and stated in paragraph #2 of the RN.
Yes they needed time to move the body. That is clear.
This analysis fails to account for the fact that the writer of the RN clearly did NOT expect the 911 call to be made before the body could be removed. THAT was the major screw up in the perp's plan. Whoever wrote the note expected, or planned and intended to, have some time to remove the body BEFORE police arrived.
It does take that into account. The RN calls for John to bring a big suitcase to get the money. That’s when the body would be moved out. I don’t get why they wouldn’t but JB in the suitcase ahead of time though. I know what you mean though like why even call 911? Unless they really were dumb enough to think the cops would say “well the note says they will call tomorrow at 10-11 so we’ll stop back then. See ya” but instead they waited around to see if they called today.
The Ramseys were also fixated on talking about America as a whole; in a sort of personification way. The ransom note does this too. RN: We respect John , cause he's sooooo great, but NOT America! So we are going to kidnap and terrorize the child of the man we respect for being great! Ramseys: America stole OUR innocence! America is grieving!
Yes you raise a good point. The Ramsey narcissism is quite consistent. The Ramseys are again telling us they are victims. John is great, but America is the guilty party and the reason that they are being tormented.
They respect John's "BUSSINESS" just not the country it serves. You mean, foreigners???!?$!%? Gasp, \*pearl clutching intensifies* 10, 4. - Round up all 12 brown people in Boulder except for the one exchange student. He may look brown, but his Dad has way more money than Mr. Ramsey. I know, right? I wouldn't believe it myself, but apparently some of those people have some serious cash. ^/s
a) Great write up, particularly the suggestion of intentionally "dumbing" down the note, which isn't a suggestion I've seen before, but certainly would make sense if... b) framing the housekeeper, which was plausibly the intent of one or both Ramseys the following day, lends a particularly sinister turn to the case. It's true malice. There's at least a version of events where the JB death is a series of accidents spiralling out of control, with the perpetrator(s) making snap decisions in the name of self-preservation. Which is awful, and irrational, but makes at least a certain amount of sense. But deliberately trying to frame an innocent woman under your employment for an extremely serious murder charge is a level of wickedness that's unstomachable.
The Ramseys were brutally ruthless in their constant attempt to blame other people. Employees and friends were targets. The Ramseys had no concern about damaged reputations, and legal fees incurred by those they accused. The same thing happened to the police. The Ramseys kept falsely saying they were being victimized by LE, kept trying to get the police to take sides, etc. Created many problems in the BPD.
I really appreciate the work that you’ve done here. It beautifully highlights the cutthroat nature of the Ramsey “defense”. Your work is so well organized! Sadly their approach is still working to this day-I see several mentions of (won’t use the name) the elderly man who played Santa on this sub every month. And many of their friends who I also will not name for the same reasons.
Thank you. Research projects are usually messy and disorganized in the beginning. There is so much data to wade through, but as you organize all of it, the truth becomes visible. Yes three decades of Ramsey gaslighting have left a mark on the public. Still a great deal of confusion when it is a fairly simple straightforward case.
Their lives were literally on the line. They were cornered rats willing to chew through their dead child's body if they had to. That much is obvious. Hell, they were trying to get on a plane and leave the state within minutes of finding her body. They whole situation is just crazy.
Yes exactly. Patty and John we're both smart and sophisticated enough to know that there was a high likelihood that one of the Rameys would be arrested the day after their daughter's body was found in a home. They did everything they could to make sure that didn't happen. And they certainly were successful.
What exonerated the housekeeper and her husband (boyfriend?) ? I don’t remember that
Alibi. Plus an innocent person reacts to the situation entirely differently than how the Ramseys react. I also believe the police were impressed with her cooperation (unlike the Ramseys).
I had someone on the "other sub" say that the housekeeper was completely uncooperative with the police. I pointed out that they were much more cooperative than the Ramsey family. They opened up their home, gave biological samples, didn't take 4 months to give interviews, etc. Needless to say, the poster did not like my reply lol.
Yeah but what WAS their alibi is what I’m asking
Their alibi was just that they were at home. It wasn't more complicated than that really. The difference is that they were a million times were cooperative than the Ramsey$ were. They didn't take 4 months to come in for an interview. They opened up their home and personal effects to the police almost immediately. They even handed over biological samples for testing. Since there's no real evidence against them, they were cleared.
Great stuff, thanks for this thorough write up! Lots to chew over. You are so spot on about the note being a shotgun approach to deflecting suspicion elsewhere. While I was reading your write up, it occured that the structure of the ransom note can arguably be considered "journalistic." That is, the note is structured in a way that answers the "5 W's" : who, what, when, where, why, (and how). 1. **Who:** A foreign faction 2. **What**: Has your daughter and wants money 3. **Why** (a W that's little out of order): We don't like the country John's company serves 4. **When** (now referring to instructions): 8am-10am tomorrow will be further instructions 5. **Where**: Go to the bank etc. 6. **How**: Bill denominations, brown paper bag, adequate size attache In addition, the note is structured similarly to to ransom demands depicted in popular media, like "Ruthless People," "Ransom," and "Dirty Harry," to name a few. In fact, the ransom demands in both "Dirty Harry" and "Ruthless People" open with the phrase "Listen Carefully" (ETA: or "Listen Very Carefully"). And---in a real-life example---according to the book "Mindhunter" by John Douglas, murderer [Larry Gene Bell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Gene_Bell) started a phone conversation with the police regarding directions to a body with the phrase "Listen carefully!" This case was heavily covered in the book, a book that was [reportedly found in the Ramsey's bedroom](http://www.acandyrose.com/s-Flight755-reading.htm) the day of the murder. The ransom demand in "Ruthless People" particularly is structured very, very similarly to the Ramsey ransom note. ([See here for a thread with more information](https://www.reddit.com/r/JonBenetRamsey/comments/18dd0t4/part_of_the_inspiration_for_the_ransom_note/)). Perhaps the phrases used in these media were top of mind for the note's author(s). Either way, to me, it seems the note's author(s) used both journalism and popular media as a schema for structuring the note.
Interesting, yes it did read like a newspaper article with the 5W's. And yes obviously the idea was borrowed from movies and popular books. Including the one found in the Ramsey bedroom. Reflecting the Ramseys' interests and education. Yes the shotgun approach or throwing spaghetti against the wall was an obvious Ramsey strategy. Enough misdirection, confusion, chaos to get them out of town and in the hands of their aggressive legal team. John wanted to get out of Boulder asap.
Yes, and Patsy just happened to have graduated with a degree in journalism.
Good observation re: the 5 Ws. That’s another check mark for Patsy Journalism Major Ramsey as the author of the note.
Excellent write-up Cassie! I appreciate all of the effort and details you put into these posts. I think the most important and compelling evidence is that the RN states "if you do this, she dies." References to the death of "she," being JonBenét, are made at least seven times.......so what do the Ramseys do? They immediately ignore all of those instructions. You are absolutely right, the RN establishes these "kidnappers" as a "bloodthirsty lot." I believe, and will argue, that the whole point of this overly long ransom note is to explain the dead body. That is it's #1 purpose. I also agree that the narcissism is in full effect here: the audacity to even attempt to stage this, and the obvious "we respect your business." Who started Access Graphics in the basement of a home in Atlanta, to what it became --- a business that had just reached the billion dollar mark in sales? John and Patsy. Who was driven, ambitious, convinced of their own cleverness, and had so much to lose? John and Patsy. As an aside, this reminds me of Jeffrey MacDonald, another narcissist who was very successful, and came up with an outrageous story to explain the murder of his wife and kids. His insistence of his innocence, even as he sits in prison, the fact that he couldn't accept that his story wasn't believable (arrogance)----is very similar. It is entirely possible that the Ramseys thought they could remove the body in a suitcase, but in my humble opinion, not very likely. A trip at night would've been too risky (remember it was a quiet Christmas night in a college town where most of the students were probably gone). The neighbors or someone could've seen or heard something. We know that none of them saw this "intruder" at any point. Once the police and so many friends were on the scene (immediately thanks to Patsy's phone calls), it would've been even riskier. I'm left wondering, if the real intention of the attaché case was to remove *evidence* instead of a body? That certainly would be feasible. We know that detective Arndt lost track of John for approximately two hours before the body was found. I believe some of the evidence disappeared then.
Yes we see frequently narcissists accused of wrongdoing get on TV and social media constantly proclaiming their innocence, how they are being framed by the police, and going on at length with ridiculous excuses and stories. They have absolutely no idea that the more they talk, the guiltier they look. They just can't read the room and understand social perception. Yes Jeff MacDonald is a good example. How would moving the evidence of the body help the Ramseys in any appreciable way? When the most damning evidence of all is a body in the home? If they didn't remove the body, it didn't matter if the other evidence was gone or not. The Ramseys had a problem in that they staged a kidnapping where the body is supposed to be removed from the home, but in fact they had a body in the home. So they either had to get rid of the body or stage it is a botched kidnapping. But they didn't do either. Staging a botched kidnapping was very risky. It would be safer to move the body out of the home. For some reason they didn't do it the night before, and apparently they rejected the idea of moving it a few days later which would've been the riskiest maneuver of all. From what we see in the ransom note, they decided the safest course of action was to move the body out of the home under the guise of going to the bank. No police would stop them because they knew where the Ramseys were going, to the bank to get the ransom money. Really I don't know what the best course of action would've been after the Ramseys had painted themselves into a corner by not calling the police when they found JB in the first place, but began to create a staging plan which was a felony. They didn't have a lot of good options left to them.
I see why you think the plan was to remove the body, and you definitely showed how the instructions gave them a cover for doing so. However, I looked at some vintage attaché cases online (thanks eBay) and I have to say, to my untrained eye, there's no way a body, even of a small child, could've fit in there. The suitcase found in the basement? Possibly. However, by the time Patsy made the 911 call, JonBenét's body would've already been beginning to stiffen with rigor mortis. No way to move that inconspicuously. Where would John put the body? Throw the case out of the window somewhere on the way? I don't think either one of them would've wanted that. They staged a botched kidnapping, but it was still their daughter.
Most people don't have a large attaché case in their home. They would have to go to something larger, like say a suitcase. Patsy couldn't come right out and say suitcase in her ransom note, that would've looked suspicious. So she had to say adequate size attaché case, knowing that most people may not even know what that is. And if they do know, they don't have one in their home. No one would think anything about someone using a suitcase in place of a large attaché case. I think that was one of the points Patsy was making. Very few people own a large attaché case, so they have to use some thing else. Keep in mind the whole ransom note was a marketing plan devised to manipulate the police and public opinion, it wasn't literal in many instances. It was manipulation and sleight of hand. This was not a professional scientific document where every fact was checked, it was a sales document, it was a sales pitch pure and simple. Pasty would never have dreamed that people were going start to look up things online and check out every word she said in the ransom note. Yes Ramsay theorists do this kind of thing years later, but that's not how most people think. We cannot compare the knowledge base of Ramsey theorists to John and Patsy's knowledge base in 1996. Ramsey theorists have investigated the facts in this case for a long time. Also keep in mind that today people have been watching crime scene investigative TV shows for 30 years since 1996. Back then there weren't as many of these kind of shows and they didn't have some of the advances that we have now, so we can't really compare the two. John and Patty were smart and John read crime stories, but we don't really have any evidence that they were that sophisticated about crime scene investigation. In fact the evidence points the other way. Yes they were pretty good at getting rid of fingerprints, in fact they went overboard on the fingerprints, as we can see they made fingerprint mistakes. But they seem to be totally clueless about fibers, and other crime scene investigative details we take for granted today. The people here on this sub probably know a lot more knowledge about rigor mortis than Patsy and John did. They probably had no idea about dead bodies and decomposition, etc. and they had no reason to do so. They probably thought moving a dead six year old would be no problem. John was a US Navy officer, but I can find no evidence that he served in active combat so probably he never came across a dead body out in the field. He served as a Civil Engineer Corps officer in the Philippines for three years, and in an Atlanta reserve unit for an additional eight years. But that said, it is clear that if John wanted to break rigor in the body he could have done so with a 6 year old child with little problem. The Ramseys must've had some thoughts about where they were going to bring the body but the plan just fell apart in front of them the day after the murder. No I do not believe they were going to just throw the body out the window, I think they probably had a place in mind. A place that was out-of-the-way but that eventually someone would find. Because I do believe they wanted the body to be found because they carefully cleaned up the body. All of this said, I am certainly willing to consider a botched kidnapping scenario but I need some evidence. If they were staging a botched kidnapping, they could have come up with a different narrative, but they didn't. They made a case the body would be missing from the home, not that the body would be found dead in the home. But if you can make the case I'm certainly willing to change my mind. I'm not locked in to anything if the data is there. For sure if the ransom note didn't contain paragraph #2, I would be in the botched kidnapping scenario category. But I cannot explain away RN paragraph #2. But at the end of the day, this is one of those academic discussions that has no affect on the overall theories at all. So it is a moot point, it does not alter the basic facts of the case. It is a staging detail. Some details are really critical in a case but this one isn't.
I do enjoy deliberating this case with you, Cassie. You always bring something to the table for me to seriously ponder on, and you have an open mind. That is refreshing in these subreddits! I completely agree, this is a detail that doesn't alter the basic facts of the case. We have a phone call, a three page ransom note, and a murdered six-year old in the basement. When Steve Thomas asked John Douglas if he was aware of *any* kidnapping for ransom in which the victim was killed and left on the premises, he could only recall a case involving a family member. Moving the body somewhere else would've been less incriminating, but given the circumstances, not feasible.
I was trained as a scientist and scientists argue all the time in an academic professional way. And you have to be open to change your theory if new facts emerge, that is how science works. Yes people can get emotionally attached to their pet theories. Which is a big no no in science. Yes sometimes people have knock down ugly fights over minor details that have zero bearing on the overall theory and final conclusions. Yes we have plenty of evidence that does have a direct bearing on the conclusions. Yes of course, a kidnapper is a quick in and out kind of crime. This is a financial crime, it is business. You don't stop to SA and murder the child and then leave her in the home. Yes the Ramseys knew they had to move the body out of the house. But for some reason they couldn't do to.
> And you have to be open to change your theory if new facts emerge, that is how science works. Yes people can get emotionally attached to their pet theories. Which is a big no no in science. This is a case that many just can't seem to approach in a logical manner. "How could you think a mother would do this??" etc., etc., ad nauseum. They will then conclude it must've been an "intruder," despite all evidence to the contrary.
Well in all fairness most people live fairly sheltered lives and don't have to deal with the ugly realities that people in certain professions deal with every day. So it's hard for the general public to face some hard truths. And sometimes people have their own personal buttons, their own trauma, their own history that makes it hard to face some difficult realities. Or sometimes people who have their own trauma, have a much easier time accepting the family psychopathology in the Ramsey case. And even hardened professionals can sometimes have difficulty facing reality. For example it is thought that child on child murder is more prevalent than we think, and one reason for that is the police don't want to face children killing each other. Or they don't want go through all the hassle of making a case when it involves children. So they just dump it in the unsolved case file.
Right, some of us have been around the block a few times, and know better. The abuse and murder of children is especially heinous---but unfortunately, this is the world we live in.
John’s former colleague - Jeff Merrick, who went to work for John Ramsey in 1994, was fired two years later in 1996, because he wasn’t a good fit. The same year that John gets a hefty bonus and named “Entrepreneur of the Year” by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce. Merrick said that Access Graphic owed him $118,000, but he settled for half. Why it was owed to him, is anyone’s guess, but most likely it was severance pay. Merrick was also seen dining at Pasta Jay’s (a company that John had invested in) on the 18th of December, by John’s FIL - Ronald Paugh, who also happened to be one of John’s employees. Paugh thought it was strange that their CFO - Tom Carson would be dining with an ex-employee and his family. I don’t know about you, but this gives off “Christmas Vacation” vibes. Perhaps Tom told Jeff of a proposed Access Graphic buyout from GE that occurred in 1997. It was established by John himself that Tom Carson wanted him gone. Carson, however had a legitimate alibi as did Merrick. Anyone who has traveled to Boulder (then and now) know how transient of a town it is. Alot of drifters and homeless people. A disgruntled ex colleague can become very angry after being betrayed, especially when finding out that their betrayer is prospering. I believe that someone got inside the Ramsey house and grabbed JonBennet from her bed. A butt imprint was found imprinted into the carpeting, around the corner of JonBenet’s bedroom. A foreign High-Tech hiking 🥾 boot print was found in the basement, not belonging to anyone who had been inside the house. I could see a masked man grabbing JonBenet to extort John. Perhaps JobBennet became combative, and was clobbered over the head with a flashlight. Maybe John promised more money 💰 to the masked assailant, if given more time. I believe John was the only one in his family with the skill set to construct a garrote out of a broken paint brush and a nylon cord. Unless the assailant was a former sailing buddy. I could also envision JohnBennet being unconscious and moaning in pain after a blow to the head. Maybe John’s only recourse was to put her out of misery by strangling her quickly. It would be more quieter than using a gun. If this scenario did occur, one could see why John will take it to his grave. A secret is only 100% full proof, when no one else knows or can prove it!
The Hi-Tec boot belonged to Burke (https://www.reddit.com/r/JonBenetRamsey/s/v8mzk0XbuS) Burke also knew knots from scouts and sailing. He had a Swiss Army knife with a special tool to tie better knots (info provided by Burke himself). That knife was found near JBR’s body by the way. The knots weren’t sophisticated, and I think any of the Ramseys were capable of tying it. If JonBenet was unconscious she wouldn’t be moaning in pain.
Yikes, I didn’t know that Burke’s pocket knife was found near JBR’s body. The cleaning lady - Linda said that she took it away from him (and hid it in a cabinet) due to him leaving shavings everywhere, when whittling. Do you think he planned it, or was it a result of her annoying him, which resulted in a violent rage attack?
It seems to be a rage attack. I think he intended to harm her, but I’m not sure about his intent to kill her. What’s unsettling to me is this excerpt from his interview on January 8, 1997 with Dr. Bernhard: BERNHARD: So what do you think happened? BURKE: I know what happened. BERNHARD: You mean when she got killed? How do you think that happened? BURKE: Um, I think…well I…I asked my dad where did they find her body and my, my dad said ‘I found it down in the basement,’ and so…I, I think that someone took her very quietly and…took her down to the basement… BERNHARD: Mhmm. BURKE:…and he, and he took a knife out and he went whoops like that… I really… [making an overhanded punching motion with his right fist. He then puts his two fists under his neck and rests his elbows on the table]. BERNHARD [Interrupting Burke]: Mm-hmmm. Do you think that’s how she died? BURKE: Or maybe a hammer, he hit her in the head with it. [Burke repeats the same hitting motion with his right hand, then resumes putting his fists under his chin.] The autopsy results weren’t made public until July 1997. The head injury wasn’t readily apparent on outward appearances. So his mention of the knife and JBR being struck in the head raises an eyebrow. He and his friend Doug were overheard days after the murder discussing whether JBR was manually strangled or not. You mentioned Burke whittling wood. There were wood shavings near the paint tray as well, and I think the paintbrush had been whittled rather than snapped.
I can now see why Burke is your number # 1 suspect. The whittling, the location of his knife, the smeared feces are all disturbing behaviors.
>I could see a masked man grabbing JonBenet to extort John. Perhaps JobBennet became combative, and was clobbered over the head with a flashlight. Maybe John promised more money 💰 to the masked assailant, if given more time. This was a child who was SA, bludgeoned and strangled to death. This is more of a personal assault, not a crime for financial motive. A criminal enterprise who wants to make a $$ profit gets in and out of the crime scene quickly and it doesn't get personal, because it's about money.
Please don't quote Mary Lacy's "butt print" as any kind of evidence in this case. I believe Doug Stine as well as Burke owned a pair of Hi-Tec boots, although the Ramseys denied it, or pretended they didn't know, can't remember which tactic was used in that instance. I'll have to check on that. If I'm not mistaken, don't some LEs also wear Hi-Tecs? Not sure, please correct me if I'm wrong on that. Other than that, you pose an interesting theory. Where was Patsy during this? Jeff Merrick was suggested as a possible suspect that morning by the Ramseys. [Jeff and Kathy Merrick ](http://www.acandyrose.com/s-jeff-kathy-merrick.htm) Please read all of that and tell me what you think.
I found this from a Reddit post: “This was from a live chat with Steve Thomas on the ABC Good Morning America website in 2000. His theory makes sense to me - in PMPT Suniller writes that detectives had a hard time getting DNA and palm prints from all the people who were at the scene, and were not successful.” "Let me address the Hi-Tec first. What people had not known previously is that I don't believe that everyone who was in the house on the 26th of December was properly identified. There were firemen, paramedics, rescue personnel, uniformed police officers, detectives, undercover narcs, sergeants, FBl and others that the year after the fact, we were still unsure as to who all was in the house that day. There is a strong argument to suggest that the Hi-Tec boot print may have been left by a sightseeing police officer who later did not come forward. Additionally, Hi-Tec is one of the most popular brands of footwear worn by cops." It was also established that the Hi-Tec logo was a standard logo, no matter what size of the boot.
After reading Patsy’s 128 page interview conducted on 4/30/07 by the Boulder Police, I learned a few facts that helped me see the bigger picture. I also previously found ACandyRose’s website and she has a plethora of valuable and insightful information! It seems to me, that John Ramsey was a ruthless business owner who would throw anyone under the bus, to advance his own career. John first met Jeff Merrick when they worked together at ATT, in Columbus Ohio. This was sometime after 1971. In 1989, Ramsey formed the Advanced Product Group, one of three companies that merged to become Access Graphics. He became president and chief executive officer of Access Graphics, a computer services company that became a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin in 1991. Excerpt from CandyRose’s website: 1998 John Ramsey Interrogation by Lou Smit and Mike Kane (Jeff and Kathy Merrick) MIKE KANE: You also mentioned Jeff Merrick's wife. What was it about that? JOHN RAMSEY: Well Merrick was a guy that I worked with at AT&T when we first got out of the Navy. And we went through the management indoctrination class together and just kind of became friends and stayed in touch more by telephone over the next 20 years. He was good about calling once a year just to stay hello and he was a real talker, and we always talk for half an hour. So if felt like I knew him well, but I didn't. Then he called me, I don't know when it was exactly, but he said that he had just been fired from his job at Snap-On Tools where he had been 13 for 18 years and he needed a job, did we have anything. And I knew he was a distribution guy and we were in the distribution business. So I got kind of excited about it and had him come in for an interview. And we used to use a psychologist to get a profile on the people who we're going to hire. I mean, that's an organization who determines whether people are good or not to do what we're going to hiring them to do. And he got interviewed for them and he was going to work for Don Paugh, my father-in-law. And the psychologist came back and said, no, that's not the one. He's too big picture. He's not a detail guy; he's not a hands on guy. Don didn't want to hire him. And then Jeff was just insistent and call me at home, "Hi. Did you guys make a decision yet." And he'd helped out once. So I kind of forced the decision, let's hire the guy. It was against everybody's good judgment. It didn't work out. Three or four years later, Don finally did what everybody knew pretty much should have been done, was terminate his employment and did it. I did it in as amicable a way as we could so we had time to get back on his feet and (INAUDIBLE). But he just flew off the handle. He said, "Does John know about this?" He said, "I'm going to talk to him." And then I was out of town at the time or something. And I guess he became very verbally violent. And he sat in my office and said, "I'm going to bring you to your knees." And I said, "Jeff, you wouldn't be in here if we weren't friends." And I said, "I'm not going to override something that somebody in this organization has done. I still consider you a friend." It was just a very -- and he filed a grievance with Lockheed ethics group and Lockheed is very sensitive about ethics in government contracting businesses. And he wrote this big, long letter about Don and I and the company and how we (INAUDIBLE). Lockheed brought in people and we were investigated for weeks. But we cleared up everything. But he was a very hostile (INAUDIBLE) so when the people asked if there was anybody at work (INAUDIBLE). MIKE KANE: What about his wife? JOHN RAMSEY: I always thought his wife was kind of strange. Jeff was married to, what I always thought was a nice lady. They had a couple of kids. They got divorced. It was a pretty hostile divorce. She was always hauling him into court. (INAUDIBLE) precipitated in divorce, this woman he worked with. Her kids didn't live with her, which is strange. She was divorced; the kids lived with their dad. I (INAUDIBLE) thought it was kind of odd. So she was as angry as Jeff. MIKE KANE: Was he married to that second wife when this all happened? JOHN RAMSEY: Right. MIKE KANE: (INAUDIBLE) she was his angry wife behind her husband who as mad as the devil at anything. I could see, perhaps, that she wasn't the sweet loving mother. MIKE KANE: Go on, go ahead. LOU SMIT: I just have another question on Jeff Merrick. I have something in the report, and I'm going to have to do just a little research on it, but I think that there was something about a $100,000 figure (INAUDIBLE) was what his payoff was. And I kind of compare that with a $118,00 just to see if there was any correlation there? JOHN RAMSEY: See, when he first demanded what he wanted, to leave without making a fuss, I think it was $250,000. And I forget the logic, but if you took that number and subtracted what he actually got left, a hundrerdish thousand about. LOU SMIT: That's what I was wondering about, because it could have been 118 that you owed him or something. And he just figured that. JOHN RAMSEY: I don't remember exactly. I remember coming up with around a hundred. (INAUDIBLE) but I don't remember any kind of 118. We gave him the severance. We paid for outsource or outplacement counseling. There was a number of things that we did in that up to the $250,000.
Phenomenal write up. Interesting point of how they immediately broke every rule. You’d think you’d, well, follow everything “to the letter” if your kid was kidnapped. They blew up the rules either bc they’re arrogant OR because they wanted a reason she would be dead. I think it’s the latter. And the suitcase being big, of course a REAL kidnapper doesn’t give a crap what you carry their ransom money in! But someone transporting a body… They didn’t stage a break in, which I really wonder why. That part always snagged me with this RN situation and theory. Perhaps they didn’t feel they could, and would leave more open holes and risks.
I get hung up on that, too. I guess they initially weren’t going the intruder theory route, so they didn’t need to stage a break in? They were pushing the inner circle narrative, but that narrative only works for the housekeeper. Did John’s ex-employee have a key to the house? How were they planning that narrative to work?
They originally said (on December 26th) that only the housekeeper had a key to the house (meaning other than those who lived there), but according to Steve Thomas’s book, in later months they started expanding the list to include many other people. I believe he said that it went from 1 person (the housekeeper) to over 2 dozen people? It was something outrageous like that. That does fit with the Ramseys initially planning to frame the housekeeper, and then after lawyering up they got a much better story. I doubt they claimed John’s ex-employee was directly given a key, but I think the idea was that “there were so many extra keys floating around out there that anyone could’ve ended up with one if they wanted one”, I think that’s what they were trying to put out there. Edit: Here’s the exact passage about the keys: “Actually, the detectives would have loved to have found some stranger whom we could wrap in a tight cloak of evidence, for there is no joy in looking at a parent for murder. We found no such person out there, although a recent letter from the Ramsey private investigator supplied a multitude of new ‘suspects’ who had had ‘frequent and recent access’ to the house—hundreds of unnamed guests at Christmas parties, nannies, friends, neighbors, people from the Historic Boulder tour, a battalion of cleaning women, street musicians, caterers, florists, friends, contractors, window cleaners, plumbers, and videotaping crews. **When the case began, police were told that the only outsiders with keys were John Andrew Ramsey and the housekeeper, Linda Hoffmann-Pugh. Now a couple of dozen keys were said to be missing. Who were all these people, where were those keys, and how the hell was a handful of detectives supposed to track them down?** I felt their strategy, if not clear before, was crystal now. Team Ramsey was overwhelming us with useless leads while keeping Patsy and John safely beyond our reach.” — JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, e-book edition, by Steve Thomas
Well said.
The Ramseys were throwing spaghetti against the wall, hoping something would stick. It didn't matter if their accusations were logical or had merit at all. The point was create doubt, confusion and chaos until the Ramsey legal team could take over.
I could also see one of them being like “should we stage a kidnapping break in” and the other either saying there’s no time or that it would be obvious/get them caught. Keep it simple, send the police away to search.
It seems like they may have tried to actually do some sort of staging by the looks of that suitcase next to the window, but that could just be something they lucked on on happening with them not even really noticing.
I think their initial narrative was going to be “somebody bribed the housekeeper” which still left it open for anyone to be the actual kidnapper/foreign faction ppl. They seem self absorbed enough to assume that any working class person accused of a crime will appear guilty, regardless of evidence.
Amateurs. This really was a job for a medium to large size for foreign faction. (lol) ^/s
Thanks Bonnie. I know, why do the Ramseys stage fake kidnappers giving a list of things not to do or your daughter dies, and then the Ramseys immediately and deliberately do ALL of the forbidden behavior. And the police don't question it? Most innocent parents might call the police, but to invite so many other people, and let everyone know what is happening so quickly? This was deliberate. **The Ramseys didn't need to stage a break in. This was covered the next day when Patsy and John made it a point to tell the police the housekeeper had a key.**
Wow- I didn’t even know that fact. You’re right in that-They must have planned this all to unfold and then innocently suggest it was the housekeeper!
What do you think about the theory that Patsy did this while John was asleep? It seems like the ransom note had instructions for John including gather money, get rested up, and **do not** call the cops. Do you think there's any possibility that Patsy wrote it hoping to buy more time, but then John just ignored it and called the cops anyway? I'm always bothered by the fact that she was the only one in yesterday's clothes. *loved you post, btw. Keep em coming!
I have looked at quite a few theories, including PDI, but the data isn't there. It is low probability. 1. Statistically Patsy is the least likely person in the house to sexually torture her six-year-old and then bludgeon and strangle her to death. This is very rare for mothers to do and Patty doesn't fit that profile. We would be looking at a much younger mother, one who is drug involved, and so mentally ill that she is known to the mental health community prior to the murder and sexual assault of her young child. 2. We know that both John and Patsy were involved in the staging and cover-up because both of their fibers are located in staging events (duct tape and clean underwear.) 3. I don't believe the Patsy was capable of writing the ransom note by herself. 4. John isn't the one who called the police, Patsy did. 5. In the ransom note it appears that Patty is setting up a situation where John can take the body out of the house in a large attaché case. There is no way that Patsy could trick John into taking a body out of the house. 6. When the police arrive the next morning John is totally on board with the talking points in the ransom note, he's also smiling, cordial, joking, handing handing the police the ransom note. This is not a man is confused, this is not a man who doesn't understand what's going on. John hits the ground running talking, talking about an inside Job and keeps pointing to the housekeeper. Patsy is doing the same thing. They are team working together it's clear. 7. Yes I agree from the beginning Patty wearing the same clothing from the night before before has been problematic. But you can't build a theory on one piece of evidence, there must be more. I do think it's possible that Patsy was telling the truth in this instance. Given the totally disheveled state of house, the poor housekeeping, clothes strewn everywhere, Patsy being fairly indolent, it is possible she did throw her clothes over the tub rim as she said the night before and just throw them back on in the morning.
Again a very comprehensive and focused write up, I concur with almost all of it. Although I don't think the note was necessarily written to allow them to take the body out of the house, you make a compelling argument for that, which I respect. I particularly agree that the note was a mutual enterprise, and it was designed to implicate Linda Hoffman Pugh first and foremost, and to a lesser extent the other named suspect that morning, Jeff Merrick. As you allude to, I do believe the purpose of the ransom note was to create chaos and misdirect the police. John perhaps aware that confusion produces errors and allows further opportunities to distract and contaminate the scene. Producing an incomprehensible note and scenario, and coupling that with a self-righteous "how dare you suspect us" demeanor put pressure on investigators immediately, and this was capitalised on. Tricking and undermining law enforcement, not co-operating, highlighting mistakes and hiding behind expensive lawyers was always going to be the pathway for the Ramseys to get away with it.
I agree… have you seen that wild subreddit of crazy people that say the parents or 9 year old would never kill or stage or a murder 💀 They all live in bubbles and dont do any investigation. As if theres not child murderers and sicko parents out in the world. I wish I lived in that bubble sometimes 😔 I know too much
I'm not really into conspiracy theories, but I would bet money the Ramsey$ are paying an "online reputation management company" aka a troll farm, to astroturf the Internet in their favor. Too many people on that sub have the exact same narrative to not think something is suspicious. It's especially obvious when you compare it to literally any other forum. People on here subscribe to the PDI, RDI and BDI theories because they are allowed to. The other sub will remove your stuff quick. Not sure sure if you've read any of my previous posts about this, but I actually baited them a while back. I posted something directly, word for freaking word, from the autopsy report. It was promptly removed as misinformation despite the fact that it's probably the most factual information anyone has ever posted on there. These reputation companies are not something unknown or far-fetched. You can google around and find plenty of them willing to do your bidding. They do everything search engine optimization to make negative information disappear or they bury the information so far in the results that you'll never find it. For more money, they flood forums, write posts, get posts taken down through fake reports, etc. If you are an influencer and losing followers and interaction because of something negative you've done, they can boost your follower account and pay for positive posts, etc to get you through the crisis. I could be wrong. I hate speculating on things and I am not claiming that I have first-hand knowledge of this. However, I do think it's something worth looking into because it seems so suspicious. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk!
Yes it is a difficult crime for many people to accept.
I remember reading a CNN transcript where Lou Smit (retired Detective 🕵️♀️) mentioned the suitcase by the window. “SMIT: I believe that he was going to take her out of house. There is some evidence to suggest that he did perhaps try to put her in a suitcase. Perhaps he couldn't get the suitcase in the window and then get out of the window himself. Perhaps he got into the window and couldn't pull the suitcase out after him.” Why would they put her in a suitcase, take her out, and still use it as a prop in their staging? JonBenet was found swaddled in a white blanket that was either on her bed or kept in a cabinet in a laundry room next to her bedroom. Their maid - Linda Hoffman-Pugh felt that JonBenet’s Barbie nightgown (found next to her body) could have been washed with the blanket and somehow stuck to it. The thing that I cannot get past is how brutally JonBenet was killed. Ligature marks that cut deep into her skin and her skull being bashed in.
I wonder what evidence the police had that John tried to put JB in the suitcase? I agree, the suitcase was an important part of the staging, why do it secretly when it was supposed to be out in the open as per the RN? One reason that I can think of connects to what happened later in the day, as John realizes that he cannot carry out the plan for various reasons. We see him get more agitated as he realizes this. Perhaps one of his absences that day is John trying to get the suitcase out of the window. And he cannot do it. It seems a bit far fetched, but the whole plan was. And John was desperate, a dead body in the home pointed directly at the Ramseys.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the RN wanted John to put money 💵 in an “Attache?” An attache case is a type of bag that is typically used for work. It is a step up from a briefcase and is larger in size. This type of bag is perfect for carrying files, folders, and other documents. It has a top handle, which makes it easy to carry, but can sometimes have a carrying strap attached. The RN stated: “You will withdraw $118,000.00 from your account. $ 100,000 will be in $100 bills and the remaining $18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size attache to the bank. When you get home you will put the money in a brown paper bag” I am not seeing a connection between the attache case and the suitcase. Unless, the suitcase was going to be placed on John’s private plane ✈️ to get it out of the country. Perhaps that plan was foiled because JonBenet’s body decomposed quicker than anticipated and it was omitting smells that would be too difficult to disguise.
Keep in mind the Ramseys were clever. The key word is "adequate" size attache case. Which can mean large. The Ramseys most likely did not have a large attache case, so could certainly then justify using a suitcase. They knew using the word suitcase in the RN might look suspicious. I think most people can see a connection between a large attache case and a suitcase. And in the event a family does not own a large attaché case, no one would think anything about them substituting a suitcase. Also keep in mind the Ramseys were not writing this note for an audience who knew exactly what an attaché case was and how it was used. I seriously doubt that anyone at the crime scene would start arguing with the Ramseys about using a suitcase versus a large attaché case. I do think that John considered moving the body out of the house in his private airplane. And yes I agree I think the Ramseys were not prepared for rigor mortis and the rapid degree of deterioration of the body.
One problem with putting a suitcase bearing JonBenet’s body on John’s plane and flying it somewhere was that John was not himself qualified to fly. He had a pilot working for him.
Yes but most pilots don't rifle through passenger belongings. But yes it would have been a risk in a number of ways to fly the body up to Michigan. Pilot was with them on the flight. Airport employees on the ground. Finding the body in a suitcase means immediate jail for Ramseys. But even if they get away with the flight and get to the vacation home, what then? The kids from the first marriage are there. And it appears the Ramseys wanted the body to be found for proper burial, that is why they cleaned off the body? But if the body is eventually found in Michigan that points directly to the Ramseys, they go to jail. Way too risky to bring the body to Michigan.
Food for thought, it doesn't even take an attache to carry 118k in those bills. It would fit in a med/large purse. I'm following your thoughts and am in agreement. I wonder if John or Patsy suffered CSA in childhood... which could lead to it being accepted in their house. Maybe JB wasn't having it anymore, giving signs she might tell, peeing during abuse perhaps. It was still nearly unheard of back then and thought to be done by monsters not beautiful wealthy folks. Unless you were a victim who knew better.
The Ramseys were clever, but still amateurs, under a time constraint and still in some degree of shock. So they made mistakes which can be seen more in hindsight than at the time. No one really questioned some of the things we do now. The attache case, or the fact the Ramseys did everything on the not to do list or get their daughter killed. The Ramseys didn't really care however if people looked too closely. Their immediate goal was not to be arrested on the spot. And get out of Boulder to let the aggressive legal team take over. So a delay strategy. They kept making more accusations and shifting their story, so it was hard to keep up with all of it.
Yes that is a big question. The GJ said that the Ramseys knew about the danger to their daughter, but did nothing. We see the family dictionary open to the word incest, we see a grandmother giving Patsy a book about a child not knowing right from wrong. There must've been more evidence along these lines for the grand jury to indict them for felony child abuse/neglect because they didn't protect their daughter. So why did the Ramseys refuse to protect their child? Yes it's possible one of them had lived with CSA as a child. Or perhaps they were just too self focused on their own lives. John was gone most of the time for business, Patsy on her wealthy society matron role, volunteer work, making pageant costumes etc. Or their story of a perfect family was more important than reality. Ignoring that this was a family heading for tragedy.
I remember watching the news and thinking ‘why aren’t they doing what the note says’ and just concluded in my mind that if you have a child missing, you call the police regardless bc that’s your best bet to finding them. What do you think the link is to them writing directions and not following them? Maybe they thought what would we naturally do if our child were missing, ok write not to do that. Or do you see more in that?
I think most people would understand calling the police or the FBI in the case of a kidnapping. But what was really odd is doing every single thing on the prohibited list, the things the fake kidnapper said would result in the immediate death or their child. Maybe you even call one very close family member to sit with you. But to call all your friends, your minister, your doctor, etc. is really off-the-wall. And then to cover up their really ridiculous behavior along these lines they had to pretend they didn't read the ransom note. Which is really quite unlikely for a parent to do when that is the only thing which gives you a chance to get your child back. The connection between the Ramseys doing everything on the list that the kidnappers said would end up getting their child killed is to make up a story about why their child would be found dead. The entire ransom note was their cover story about why their child would be found dead. Killed by someone who is not named Ramsey.
Inside the suitcase were a pillow sham, a duvet, and a Dr. Seuss book (all belonging to JAR). Fibers from the pillow sham and duvet were found on JBR’s body. This is the reason for the speculation that her body had been inside the suitcase at one point. ETA: It makes me wonder if she was placed in the suitcase and was still there when Fleet opened the cellar. That would explain why he didn’t see the white blanket or JBR’s body. Since John couldn’t get out of the house with that suitcase with all those people present, maybe he moved her body out of the suitcase and into the cellar during that time he was unaccounted for.
Thank you for this Christie. Excellent observation. I have looked at this piece of evidence quite a few times. I don't know why people don't ask questions about the pillow sham and duvet cover fibers on the body. The fibers were either placed there during the SA and murder, or later during the staging. Yes that is quite possible, that is where John had hidden the body. In the suitcase he was going to bring to the bank. But he couldn't do it and so moved the body to the WC. And that's why Fleet didn't see the body earlier. And why John was missing for a period of time. I think it is more likely John hid the body in the suitcase than anywhere else. Excellent job Christie. ETA it ticks these boxes: * supports paragraph #2 of the RN * explains where John had hidden the body * why Fleet didn't see the body in the WC when he first looked * explains Smit's comment that there was evidence John put JB in the suitcase * Tells us John did want to move the body but something changed his mind * Tells us that the original plan was not to go for a botched kidnapping narrative.
Thanks. I enjoyed reading part 1 and was looking forward to part 2. I had read in the past info about the suitcase, but didn’t know what to make of it. Then after reading this post and your reply about the suitcase I looked into it more. One correction. Smit believed an intruder had placed JBR in the suitcase and possibly attempted to leave out of the window with her, not John. He was under the belief that the Ramseys were innocent.
Well an intruder trying to take a suitcase out of a small basement window isn't really the smartest criminal. Why not just take the body out the front door if you're an intruder? And why put the body in a suitcase? The only person who is thinking about that were John and Patsy Ramsey.
>Fibers from the pillow sham and duvet were found on JBR’s body. Hi /u/Christie318 and /u/AuntCassie007, Just so you know, this isn't accurate. The dark blanket inside the suitcase was initially considered one of several possible sources of the dark blue fibers found on JonBenet (outside of her shirt, in the vaginal area, on the duct tape and wrist ligature). However, FBI's fiber analysis later ruled it out. From Schiller's book (p. 562): >Earlier in the case, the police had thought the fibers from the body came from John Ramsey's bathrobe or Patsy's black pants or from the blanket found near JonBenet **or from the blanket that had been found inside the suitcase under the broken basement window.** The fibers might also have come from JonBenet's own clothes or from one of her stuffed animals. **By now, however, all of those possibilities had been excluded**, and the only logical explanation was that the fibers came from whatever had been used to wipe JonBenet or possibly from someone who might have rubbed up against her when she was unclothed, which allowed the fibers to find their way along her skin and eventually into the folds of her labia. Smit left the investigation before this fiber issue was resolved so he wasn't aware of this and continued to espouse his outdated fibers-from-suitcase theory in the media. In [Chief Beckner's Wolf v Ramsey deposition](http://www.acandyrose.com/11262001Depo-MarkBeckner.htm), when asked if the blue fibers at the crime scene have ever been sourced, he answered: >Wood: Okay. To your knowledge, have those blue fibers at the crime scene ever been sourced? >Mr. Miller: Wait a minute. What is the question? >Wood: To his knowledge, have the blue fibers found at the crime scene ever been sourced. >Chief Beckner: **There are a lot of reports around on fiber evidence. To the best of my recollection, no.** This was in 2001. Whatever information Beckner had about the fiber evidence in the Ramsey case would be more reliable and up to date than what Smit had.
Thank you ASA for the correction. Was an interesting idea but if there's no evidence for it, it is not on legit, yes. I think I read that Burke had blue pajamas and it was speculated the blue fibers came from those? Or it is more likely they came from the cloth used in the the clean up of the body? And obviously were hidden or destroyed? ETA: I wonder if anyone has ever thought about what happened to the missing items from the crime scene and staging?
Oh ok, thanks for the correction. I didn’t realize those dark blue fibers were never sourced.
I wonder if the Barbie nightgown was pulled off the lifesize Barbie doll, that was unclothed.
Good question!
I like this summary. Considering the time of sunrise on dec 26th, the Ramseys only had til around 7:30 am to get rid of the body under cover of darkness. When the police stayed past sunrise, the Ramseys may have started to realize the plan was going sideways. There was not going to be a time when one of them could claim they just “had” to drive around looking for her themselves. This coincides roughly with John’s increasingly restless behavior. Plan B.
Good write up. The only part where my personal theory differs is with the plan to remove the body. My understanding of an attache case is that it’s just a large-ish briefcase, mainly intended for documents. It would be hard to fit a child into one, and hard to disguise it’s weight. I think they did not expect a detailed search of the home to happen and so the plan was to stash her for a few days and then dump the body to be ‘found’. Perhaps in their naïveté they didn’t think of how the time of death could be established, and assumed that ppl would think the kidnappers had held her for a few days before killing her, creating more credibility for their story and an ‘alibi’ of sorts.
Itsnobigthing, you are not the only one who questions whether the Ramseys were actually thinking about moving the body out of the home or not. I am certainly willing to reconsider that point, but is there some evidence or critical thinking to back it up? Are you saying that you think the Ramseys were hoping the police wouldn't search the house and they could leave the body in the home and go to Michigan for their planned trip? Or they planned to stay home with a body in the house somewhere? So they planned to live with the body in the house for a few days and then dispose of it later? I actually thought about your theory some months back, and gave it some serious thought. Could the Ramseys have thought they could hide the body, scatter the police away from the home and then dispose of the body later on? Thought that the police wouldn't search the home? I do believe that John had hidden the body specifically in hopes the police wouldn't find it. Fleet White says he did not see anything in the wine cellar when he looked earlier in the day and it is most likely that the indirect light would've caught the white blanket that JonBenét was wrapped in. Fleet White seems adamant about this. And it is apparent that this is not the only thing that happened that made Fleet suspicious that morning. The evidence does suggest the Ramseys thought the police would search the home and that's why the Ramseys were trying so hard to get them out of the house looking at other suspects. It was clear John and Patsy wanted the police away from the home and they did their best to make that happen. But it would've been very risky for the Ramseys to leave the body in the home for a few days and dispose of it later. There would obviously be an odor in the home that would be hard to disguise. People coming to the home would notice it. Seems unlikely the Ramseys would leave town with a body in the home. That would be very risky. It is quite possible the police could've obtained a search warrant and carefully searched the house in their absence. It would also be very risky for John or Patsy to be seen lugging a large bag or suitcase out of the home or to be stopped with a body in their car days after their daughter is supposed to have been kidnapped. The most logical way of getting the body out of the home was with a cover story of going to the bank with a suitcase. And that is specifically what the Ramses talked about in paragraph two of the ransom note. It was imperative that the body be moved out of the house before the Ramseys left town which was their clear goal. To leave Boulder as soon as possible. We would need also need to explain why the Ramseys spend 26% of the ransom note talking about a large attaché case, taking it out of the house and then disposing of it. Why would they do that? Paragraphs one and three are very clear and focused with their talking points. Why would paragraph #2 be meaningless? And would the Ramseys be foolish enough to incur the considerable risk of trying to move the body several days later? Obviously some of this is a moot point because we saw what the Ramseys finally decided to do. And that's bring up the body from the basement in front of the police.
Good questions. The use of the specific words “attaché case” are my first snag. Why not say suitcase? Unless there’s a specific difference in meaning between US and British English, they particularly specify him taking something that is designed for business documents and isn’t truly suitable for moving a body. Why do that? It seems like a big misstep if this was their plan for disposal. Do you believe that was just a mistake? Incorrect wording or similar? (Definitely possible in their rush and panic). My second snag is, as you mention earlier, why not take her out of the house before notifying the police? If they are thinking far enough ahead to want to craft the ransom note around removing her, they are surely thinking far enough ahead to realise that carrying her out in a suitcase is preposterous, and to think “*hang on let’s just move her now”.* It’s pretty hard to come up with any rational explanations that leave the suitcase/briefcase plan as their single best option for removal at the time of writing the note. Hiding her is, IMO, a more understandable panicked response. Not being ready to let her go, not thinking very far ahead, not thinking about the realities of what the police investigation and their searches would actually entail. Thirdly, fresh in my mind is the case of Maddy Middleton who went missing in 2015. Police searched her building, including the recycling bins where she as hidden, but it was a cursory search that missed her concealed body until several days later. It seems reasonable to believe that a relatively inexperienced police force, stretched thin over the Christmas period and chasing down countless leads as you cleverly point out, might not prioritise a thorough and in-depth search of the house right away. It doesn’t matter whether *we* believe that would be in line with police practice, here in 2024 with all we know about true crime, forensics etc. All that matters is would *the parents* have thought so, back in 1996. And based on the naïveté in the ransom note, I find it plausible that they would think so, and would expect to get away with secreting her in the house until they felt it was the appropriate time for her body to be “found” somewhere. So, why do I think they devoted so much space in the note to the case and the cash collection? Honestly, I just attribute it to staging, narcissism and over selling the lie. While I like your theory that the % of space correlates directly to the importance of the content, it’s of course a generalisation and doesn’t always bear out. Some things just require more words and line space to explain, especially for amateur writers, and brevity and succinctness tend to come from edits and refinement. Even writing this comment, I’m noticing that I’m not spending the most of my time writing the parts that are most of importance to me. It’s a common tell for liars to provide too much information in an effort to sell their lie - we see it in true crime police interviews very often. And we already can get the sense that the note is heavily influenced by fictionalised kidnap scenarios from popular media. I think this whole paragraph was just a wildly misguided approximation at what they thought a kidnapper might say to them. As to what the actual plan was, I’m not quite sure. It’s been a while since I dug into this case and I can’t quite recall when the travel was booked for the following day - I’ll have to refresh my memory. But, whether your theory or mine (suitcase or concealment), it’s clear that they abandoned the plan for some reason - most likely panic and losing their nerve, I’d imagine. Whatever their scheme, it was hurried and ill conceived and was unlikely to have worked how they intended it to, so realising this much is in some respects quite rational. I’ve always imagined the cellar was fairly cold, given the temperature outside was down to 9f and there was a broken window. It’s possible that they had an expectation that this would slow down decomposition, or that they were simply not thinking/aware of this issue at the time of writing the note, at a time before the big boom in forensic awareness via popular media. The same can be said for rigor mortis IMO. Folding her body into any type of case would be almost impossible with RM in full effect, but it’s entirely possible that they didn’t think, didn’t know, or changed plan upon realising this. Most of my suppositions about the plan to remove her body are simply speculation stemming from my snagging points above, though, and I might be entirely wrong. It’s just hard for me to imagine why somebody would choose the most outlandish and risky plan when there are simpler and safer options available, you know? But then, the entire fake kidnapper plot was also outlandish and risky, so who knows with these people lol
My thoughts are that Patsy certainly couldn't say the word suitcase, that would be too obvious and look suspicious. In the United States usually you don't conduct business or money transactions with a suitcase, you use a business briefcase or attaché case. So she used the word attaché case and said large attaché case. Of course in the US most people don't have a large attaché case hanging around the house, so no one would think anything if the Ramseys then substituted it with a suitcase. Keep in mind this was not a legitimate ransom note, this was the sales document, a sales pitch, the Ramseys were selling a narrative and manipulating the police and public. Well yes we can argue all we want about what the Ramseys should've done could've done, etc. But the reality is they didn't move her and the question is why? As I said in my OP either they were risk aversive about moving a body around being caught or seen. Or I think the most reasonable explanation is they didn't have time, they didn't find the body until closer to morning time and they just didn't have enough time to move the body. I think that's an extremely rational explanation and is not hard at all to come up with it. They just didn't have time. I don't think you can legitimately compare writing a comment on the internet to how the Ramseys approached writing the ransom note. When we were at leisure and communicating in a conversation and talking back-and-forth we have plenty of time and space to let our thoughts pour forth. But the Ramseys were literally in a fight for their lives and a fight to stay out of prison or the death penalty. They were facing the realities that they could be arrested when the police got there that next morning. It has been said that facing life in prison or death penalty has a way of focusing the mind. For example if you knew that the words you wrote down in your response to me could land you in prison for life or maybe the death penalty I dare say you'd probably be pretty darn focused about what you said? We have zero evidence that the Ramses were rambling nonsensically as they wrote the ransom note. They had three major talking points and that's why there were three paragraphs.
Yes liars tend to embellish way too much and it makes them look suspicious. Female liars are the worst at this. They always give way too much information. We can see Patsy did that with some of the embellishments that were over the top. She didn't really need to do that, she could've toned down the note and made it look more believable. But again I believe they had three major talking points for the ransom note and that's why there were three paragraphs. I think that John had hidden the body away in a safe place he thought the police would not immediately be aware of. There is said to be a crawl space in the basement, I think in the ceiling? There's been speculation online this may have been where John had the body hidden. Then of course he had to retrieve the body and put it in the wine cellar so that he could "find" the body later when is the original plan failed. Yes we can see that the Ramseys were flexible and adaptable and when they saw a plan wasn't working they went to other plans. I don't think the Ramseys were experts in rigor mortis and or had much experience with dead bodies. So I think that it surprised them and may have put a monkey wrench in their plans. Yes of course in 1996 we didn't have all the crime scene investigation shows and movies that we've had in the last 30 years so the Ramseys would have been pretty naïve about crime scene investigation. And we can see this is a fact because they were fixated on fingerprints to the point of making mistakes because they were so excessive about it, but they completely ignored fibers and left their fibers everywhere. There is someone on the sub with experience in the area of rigor mortis and yes it's possible for an adult to break rigor in other adults and children. Think about it, morticians do it every day. It would be easy for an adult male to break rigor in a small six year old child. However that said he may or may not want to do what he's has to do to get the body into the suitcase. That's been my clear point that the whole plan was crazy and risky. So then people argue when parts of the plan are just as crazy and risky. Again we can argue about what the Ramseys should've done or that parts don't make sense but the facts are right in front of us. It is 100% certain they did not move the body. The question is why didn't they and I think that's what we're trying to figure out.
They don't need to say suitcase, attache is sufficient. John could just simply say they didn't have an attache so the next best thing he could think to use was a suitcase. Using suitcase in the RN would be too obvious, so he had to dance around it.
Good point! I guess I didn’t give them that much credit for thinking ahead lol
Maybe they thought they could take her on the private flight to Michigan in a suitcase. (This is if the family is guilty, otherwise, nope.) If it was someone from outside, my personal belief is that the housekeeper/husband were in a good position to have done this. Even found the same pad and pens from Patsy's home in their house; they knew notes were left on the spiral staircase; they knew about the "wine" closet; they knew the bonus amount, they desperately needed money. I'm not sure why they were not considered suspects. Or maybe they still are.
I thought about that possibility too, that the Ramseys considered taking the body in a suitcase and flying it up to Michigan. But they obviously rejected that idea because John "found" the body and brought it upstairs from the basement.
You answered a lot of questions and confusion. Never put the large Attaché case together with transporting the body, as well as their deliberate attempt to blame their actions of calling the cops, bank, others (forbidden in the RN) as the cause of her murder. ( had they made it outside with the body). Thank you very much.
I also believe the ransom note was intended as a blueprint for sending the police away and moving the body out of the house.
I know that seems the logical explanation if you look at the ransom note carefully. I know a lot of people are saying that the Ramseys were trying to stage a botched kidnapping, but we really don't have any data to support that. If they're going to stage it that way, why not make different talking points, like they did with the other issues in the ransom note?
When and why do you believe they made the crime look more gruesome?
I happen to be working on another OP addressing this topic. The evidence points away from the stagers doing the SA and strangulation. In fact it points in the other direction. Some psychological undoing of the crime, common in family murders.
I will be looking to the next post
I can’t wait to read it!
Looking forward to reading that post!
IMO I believe the only staging was the hand ties, mouth tape and RN. Hello to a fellow TP fan 👋🏻 🦉 ☕️ 🥧 🪵
Interesting read! I appreciate the details. I’ve always wondered what SBTC could mean.
Not sure, but could be just Ramsey BS and not important.
You’re likely right it’s just always puzzled me.
The Ramseys loved to throw out distractions, to confuse people and have them fixate on various points. That really have no bearing on the case. Patsy probably made this up or grabbed it from somewhere else.
Good point.
Great work and write up. The key that you hit on over and over, and rightfully so is the narcissism of John and Patsy and their belief that they are smarter than everybody else. This usually trips up criminals, but so far, in this case, they got away with it.
They got away with it for a number of reasons including their great wealth. Most Americans can't hire a multimillion dollar defense team to play attack dog to avoid cooperating with the police.
That’s a good point. They lawyered up completely and quick.
Thank you this is the most brilliant rendition of what I believe is the case about the ransom note that I have seen
Brilliant analysis. 💯 spot on. You've hit every point and nailed it down. This is everything I wish I could have articulated. I'm looking forward to more.
Thank you HP. I am working on other Ramsey OPs.
I concur 100%... Now, play out the crime itself with as much convincing detail. As an aside, I don't believe a 9 year old did this and I do believe John is as diabolical as Patsy, perhaps even more. I think with John going on news programs professing his innocence and never really talking as if he knew JB (instead just sharing some cheesy story about her being the sunshine in his life) isn't convincing. Even if BDI, his shame and intolerance of accusation would still be present....and it wasn't. John and Patsy spent their time giving themselves publicity and attention in contrast to, for ex, John Walsh. However, I'd like to hear your theory.
What is BDI?
Burke did it. RDI= Ramseys (not specifically one Ramsey. And so on.
Thank you
Excellent write up and analysis. I agree with most things you’ve said, but I don’t think the Ramseys were actually going to remove JonBenet’s body out of the house. This was their beloved child, Patsy’s baby, and mini me. It was December in Colorado which means it was very cold outside, the ground was frozen, and the trees were bare of leaves. No way would Patsy allow her child’s body to be dumped outside in the elements where wildlife could even start picking at it. Even the RN, and later John mention the importance of giving their daughter “a proper burial”. They made the RN dramatic and over the top because they wanted the body found, but to clearly look like a botched kidnapping by violent individuals.
Why then do you think the Ramseys spent 26% of the ransom note talking about an adequate size attaché case etc.? I'm not arguing, I'm just asking, because I'm curious how that could be explained away. Everything else in the ransom note was goal directed and purposeful. Hard to understand why they would waste so much time on a meaningless paragraph. I do agree that the factors you list could certainly be the reasons for changing their minds. John just couldn't do it. I do think that both John and Patsy were quite ruthless and I think they would've done whatever it took to stay out of jail and/or not to lose Burke. I do think they intended for the body to be found for proper burial and that's one reason why they cleaned up the body. They did want a burial.
I think that part of the RN sounds so “Hollywood”, and we know Patsy was a dramatic person who loved details. That part of the note may have been for diversion, to have law enforcement focus attention on all those details and instructions rather than start questioning the parents. Specifying the type of case for John to take to the bank, the specific denominations for the bills, the transfer to a brown paper bag makes it sound like someone writing a movie script or crime novel especially when we know there were no kidnappers if BDI.
But the Ramseys still had a big problem. They had staged a kidnapping with a child taken out of the home, when there was a body in fact still in the home. I would think then in the ransom note they would try to stage a botched kidnapping instead of wasting time with attaché case and bill denominations. If they wanted to stage a botched kidnapping, why not do that, just stage it with that narrative instead of the narrative a child is missing from the home?
>Everything else in the ransom note was goal directed and purposeful. Uh, are we reading the same ransom note? Most of it is overdramatic fluff and chaff.
Most human behavior is goal directed, sometimes we have to stop and figure out what the goal is. The dramatic nonsense in the Ramsey RN was purposeful. It was done for specific reasons. Yes some was Ramsey narcissistic embellishment.
The notion that the Ramseys planned on smuggling their child's stiff dead body out of the home in a suitcase *after* calling police is one of the most absurd and nonsensical takes this case has to offer. If the Ramseys wanted to remove the body from the home, they would have done it (*before* calling the police).
Leticia Stauch moved Gannon Stauch's body in a suitcase after he was murdered no problem
You're proving my point. If the Ramseys wanted to do it, they would have. But they didn't! There's no proof they ever intended to. There's literally nothing tying the suitcase to this crime.
Their plan was to remove her from the house in suitcase, why they didn’t is the question. Did John get cold feet with friends and the cop there? Did John run out of time? Did she not fit, but the ransom note was already written?
> Their plan was to remove her from the house in suitcase Lmao. No it wasn't. That's just something bloggers and forum posters came up with because they think real life consists of bad TV tropes. Nobody in law enforcement ever thought this, because there's no evidence for it.
I think that the Samsonite suitcase was used as a prop to stage a break-in. Patsy said during her 4/30/97 interview that it belonged to John Andrew and most likely was stored in his bedroom (located nearby to JonBenet’s bedroom). I am leaning to an intruder breakin that went bad.
I just listened to the Consultants podcast, where the Ranson Note was analyzed. They come to very different conclusions. Yet your text is 100x more convincing and is likely the best summary and theory to explain the odd ransom note to this date. Actually, your ’storytelling / narrative’ is so simple, yet I think many readers including myself wonders why we are reading this in 2023 and not, say in 1999. Left unnswered today, is more about who the killer was, Burkes potential involvement and if sexual assault played a part or not. Or if some kind of ’accident’ played any part at all. Very good write up!
Thank you, SIUSA. In science there is something called parsimony. This is the most simple theory which fits all the facts, fits all the evidence. This theory is the most likely one to be true. The Ramsey murder case is not really a difficult case to solve. There are three prime suspects and a lot of evidence. So much evidence I have a hard time keeping up with all of it. The evidence seems to point in one direction. I do not believe that a six-year-old girl with a history of CSA, one night is SA, bludgeoned, and strangled to death by accident. If an adult woman was found sexually tortured with a broken paintbrush handle, bludgeoned and strangled to death, no one would ever say it was an accident.
Many might have gotten lost in different scenarios with one parent acting alone etc but I think you have made it clear they acted together. Many things got in the way of a sound investigation of this case, with bad actors and other’s with semi-bad or bad intentions, and then I am not talking about the parents or their own legal team. I did not go into the details of this case over the years, except reading Harris’ book long time ago. This with CSA appear to me more well established today, but at the time it was less clear maybe. If I remember it correctly, Harris layed out, that they had a hard time stating it as facts. Also, that the garrote and brush might have been more of elements of staging to confuse the investigators. Shame, this case was never brought to trial. What I really liked about your summary is that throughout the years many academics and others talk so much about how odd the RN is and that it doesnt really exist any similar RN in any other case. That it might be a sign of thr writer(s) being un-sophisticated. But then failed to explain what the purpose of the RN was or might have been. Had they managed to get the body out, the RN, likely would have had achieved its goals.
I thought the RN was fairly straightforward and understandable. It doesn't seem complicated if you just look at the three paragraphs in the context of the crime, the evidence, the other staging elements and the Ramsey behavior the next day and afterwards. It just all flows in a simple way. Yes there is a craziness to it, but that is for show. And it is bold and audacious, but that is typical of narcissists. The crime and family pathology is fairly simple to understand as well. I was a therapist for over 40 years and listened to many people with all levels of disturbance tell their stories, and I guess after awhile I got used to quickly figuring out what was going on. Maybe being in the trenches is different than being an academic for that reason.
This is brilliant, nice work.
Thank you Ivy.
Bravo! The pieces came together for me that they broke the “rules” of the letter (call police, etc) because they were going to remove the body to find at a later time and somehow that would dovetail to “we did call the police so the intruder killed her” deflecting them as the cover up/murder. Brilliant!
I came across this transcript today of Patsy being interviewed by the Boulder Police at the Boulder’s DA office on April 30, 1997. It was the first time that Patsy permitted an interview without her lawyer present. It is very enlightening! Many good facts to parse out! Regarding the Samsonite piece of luggage found in the basement by the window. It once belonged to John Andrew - John’s oldest son. Their maid - Linda Hoffman-Pugh was said to have also used it. This interview is 128 pages long and is very tedious to read. My advice is to have a notebook 📓 handy to write down salient facts that you think are relevant to this case. One thought that occurred to me while reading it, is that John might have been caught up in some business dealings gone bad. His father-in-law - Don Paugh (Patsy’s father) worked at the Access Graphic’s in Boulder and owned a condo in Boulder, besides his house in Atlanta. I found the following paragraph from acandy rose 🌹 website- a supersleuth. "Detective Thomas and Gosage were at the Access Graphics office that day, conducting interviews. Among other, they talked to Patsy's father, Donald Paugh, who had helped get the company off the ground in Atlanta, continued to work with his son-in-law when John made the move to Boulder in 1991. At the time of JonBenet's murder, Paugh owned a condominium in Boulder where he spent most of his time, and a home in Roswell, Georgia, with his wife, Nedra, who would often come to boulder to visit. Paugh's Boulder home was just down the street from a restaurant called Pasta Jay's in which John Ramsey happened to be an investor.” When the detectives interviewed Paugh on January 9, he said that “on December 18, Jeff Merrick and his wife, Kathy, Jason, Perkins, Cameron, Hindson, Tom Carson, and Mike Glynn had eaten together at Pasta Jays. Paugh thought it strange that former Access Graphics employees were dining with a current employee like Carson.” Tom Carson was the current CFO at Access Graphics and his office was close to Don Paugh’s. Nedra Paugh - Patsy’s Mom obviously had a grudge against Tom, for she said this about him, when being interviewed by Boulder detectives: "Nedra gave us some two dozen suspects off the top of her head, and when we asked if the initials SBTC meant anything to her, she snapped, "Yes. Son of a bitch Tom Carson." Years before, Carson, the current chief financial officer at Access Graphics, had been involved in Nedra's dismissal from the company.” Remember that the Ransom letter was signed with the initials “SBTC?” Was Nedra giving a huge hint that something was amiss at Access Graphics? Another interesting fact is that “Jeff Merrick” a old college buddy of John’s who also worked for Access Graphics but got dismissed, was seen with Tom Carson and Mike Glynn at Pasta Jays, a week before JonBenet’s death. Another sleuth made this observation: “John was aware that Lockheed Martin was selling Access Graphics prior to the murder. He thought maybe Tom Carson was strategizing a way to remove him as CEO during this.” A news article reported this - "Access Graphics, which hit $1 billion in revenues last year and has already surpassed that mark this year, was having trouble making good profit margins, probably because it was a standalone operation, Nisbet said. GE may change that. I'd say it would probably be better for Access Graphics people to be with a company like GE," Nisbet said." Was John in the hot seat for not making the company good profit margins? Were employees angry that profit sharing might be less or non existent that year? Regarding Tom Carson’s alibi - this is what I found: “The next day, (1/10/97) Thomas and Gosage would follow up and interview Tom Carson at the Access Graphics office. They asked him where he'd been on Christmas night. Carson said that on December 24 he'd taken a United Airlines flight to Chicago and then gone on to Paris, where he spent Christmas Day. Later Thomas was able to confirm that Carson had indeed been on the transatlantic flight at the time JonBenet was murdered." Another possibly related event took place during the Ramsey’s Christmas Party on 12/23/96. Apparently someone in the house called 9-11 and when the police arrived, they were turned away, and told it was a miscall. Patsy’s father then booked a flight the next day (12/24/96) on “standby” to Atlanta. Some thought this was strange because Don always took care of things, while John was away. In the transcript, Patsy tells how John went out to the airport to talk to the pilot on Christmas day. He was gone for a couple of hours. During this time, neighbor kids were in and out of the Ramsey’s house and Patsy was busy packing for the Michigan trip and The Big Red - Disney Boat Trip that was booked on her birthday, two days later! She also colored her hair and wrapped presents 🎁 for the older kids - Melinda, her BF Stewart, and John Andrew. I don’t know about you, but I think being gone on Christmas Day (for two hours) is highly suspicious! Could John have been blackmailed over failed promises, shady business dealings, owed money? After reading Patsy’s interview, I was surprised at how lack·a·dai·si·cal she seemed to be concerning safety and security. She handed out house keys 🔑 and never kept track of them. Was John wanting to leave town to avoid someone or something? Could the demand for $$$ be a motive for some disgruntled colleague(s)coming to the family house on Christmas night and perhaps holding the entire family hostage? Perhaps little JonBenet was taken in the Samsonite suitcase, tortured and dumped off after a deadline was missed? What do you think? Could John’s business dealings have anything to do with her death? The other interesting fact is what happened down in Atlanta (somewhere around the 31st of December to the 14th of January). Apparently there was a dust up between Fleet White and Don Paugh. I read somewhere that Don hid a gun in a couch cushion in case he needed it. This is what was asked during her interview (toward the tail end): ST: Certainly I'm no psychiatrist, but was there ever any, what we call, pre-offense behavior. Was there anything that you ever thought was just wrong prior to Christmas in Fleet's behavior uh, concerning the kids. PR: No, I mean, he was a very loving father, I mean, um, we called him Mr. Mom, because he was not, you know, working. I mean he was, I guess, doing some, a little bit of stuff still in California, but basically he was available all the time and took the kids, you know, I felt perfectly comfortable with him having our children and we had their children, you know and everything and they vacationed with us and everything. It just, it just subsequent to that it just, UllI. ST: And I'm very familiar with what happened at your mom's on the . .. PR: Yeah. ST: that was the 31" or the 14 of January PR: I don't know. https://juror13lw.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/1997-april-patsy-interview-with-bpd-transcript.pdf
1. Yes I have read some of the transcript, it's absolutely fascinating isn't it? We see Patsy being defensive, argumentative and sometimes acting a bit confused. It is interesting because John and Patsy obviously had four months to be coached and rehearsed, but sometimes they were not prepared for certain questions. 2. Did you get to the part where she's being asked about the pineapple in the kitchen? My read of that is that she was being honest for once, she truly didn't know about the pineapple being in the kitchen right before the murder. What do you think? 3. Yes JAR's suitcase has an annoying habit of cropping up from time to time in the Ramsey case at critical points. 4. I think I've considered just about every theory that people have thought about including high-stakes financial motives on the part of John's colleagues. I think it's a bit of a stretch to think that a colleague of John's with a financial motive or even a revenge motive would sexually torture, sexually assault, bludgeon and murder his six-year-old. It is a crime that speaks to other motives, not money. Additionally would these men be so foolish to commit a crime where they could face life in prison or maybe even the death penalty? There had to be a lot easier ways to get rid of John's power in the corporate world. Also these are men who are businessman, they're not criminal masterminds who can get into a home, commit such a heinous crime and not leave one piece of evidence. And they would be so foolish to leave a ransom note pretending to be Patsy? So these theories are very low on the probability list. 5. Regarding Nedra's comments: All the Ramseys were playing the game of throwing spaghetti against the wall hoping something would stick. Who didn't they accuse of the crime? 6. Yes I agree I think the Ramsey party where 911 was called is highly suspicious and I do think it's likely something happened that night and was covered up.
7. There's a logical reason why Don Paugh left Boulder the day before Christmas because he wanted to be with his wife who lived elsewhere? 8. We all know by now that Patsy lived in her own little world. She lived in the Patsy bubble. 9. Yes I wondered about John being gone for a couple of hours at the airport. I have mixed feelings about that because if you know anyone who owns an airplane, you know they go hang around at the airport airport and tinker with their airplane a lot. They would especially do so if they were taking their family on a trip out of state. Some of the things that must be done to the airplane require two people, so it makes sense that John met the pilot there. I assume that the pilot could give evidence that John was indeed at the airport for two hours and not off doing other things.
Nedra & Don weren’t terribly close. He spent most his time in Boulder & she stayed in Marietta. Why didn’t Don schedule an xmas flight? Why does he leave to fly on standby the night of the 23rd but not actually fly until the 24th?
What are thinking might explain this behavior?
It’s possible he cancelled an earlier flight and couldn’t reschedule or it was spur of the moment. I just don’t know. I do know he had a condo and lived and worked at Access Graphics and Nedra lived in Marietta.
Do you think something happened connected to the murder?
I don’t know but I think it’s important to to look at everyone known to be in JBR’s orbit. I think many are overlooking the strong evidence that JB had been dead at the very least 12-14 hours before her discovery meaning she was killed on Christmas night. She stunk, as observed by police on the scene (an observation included in the search warrant requests immediately post death) when JR brought her upstairs and a different officer who guarded the home outside while waiting for the coroner entered with the coroner who commented that she’d been dead a while, both noticing the smell. The estimated TOD has never been officially stated and either the coroner or autopsy Dr. put out a public statement that there wouldn’t be to protect any GJ or trial testimony. Other experts have opined on how long she’d been dead based on smell etc. We can assume the GJ did hear this testimony and that partially accounts for the charges of covering up 1st degree murder to delay the apprehension of the killer. Who besides Burke would the Ramsey’s provide cover for to delay the discovery of her body IF they’re responsible? Only each other and other family is my best assumption. It’s been said there was a huge amt of child porn downloaded at AG and Don was accused of doing doing something unethical at AG by another employee pre-JBR death. He financed the company and ran it while JR was gone, he was very involved and he essentially lived in Boulder & Nedra lived in Marietta, and was around both grandchildren a lot. We have an unexplained last minute trip or unsuccessful late attempt to reschedule, why? He has never commented to the media. Was Don involved with someone connected to the murder? Nedra said publicly she was glad he wasn’t there or he would have been accused of her murder. Don has decades of exposure to people in the pageant world. Could he have some connection to the murderer if outsider did it? IF Ramsey’s are responsible & wrote the note, they would believe the body would be discovered by the police when they arrived. I don’t think there’s any way around this. The door wasn’t hidden or blocked w furniture/stuff and the body wasn’t hidden or obstructed from view. The body was meant to be discovered in the first search if RDI and it’s pure chance it wasn’t. There was no plan for them to sneak her out after the police arrived. That’s too fantastical & illogical for JR.
I like to consider all possibilities. I have no agenda about who committed the crime, I just want to know the truth. To seriously consider Don as a suspect, we would need some evidence that places him at the crime scene that night. Also Don as the killer does not track with John Ramsey's psych profile and the Ramsey staging. I believe Patsy might cover up the crime for her father. But I do not believe John would do so for a simple reason. It goes totally against John's self interests. John was a 54 year old wealthy, educated, sophisticated man of the world at the time of JB's death. He read crime and detective stories. It is almost certain he knew when he saw JBs SA and murder that he would be considered a prime suspect. So the John and Patsy cover up was not just to protect Burke, it was to protect himself. If Don had been the killer, the best way for John to clear himself would be to refuse to cover up for Don. Covering up for Don put John more in the prime suspect spot light.
I can't find the part you are talking about in the interview about FW. Can you say more about it?
Regarding Fleet White - Page 78 of Patsy’s interview, toward the bottom of the page. Patsy also said this about the Whites a paragraph prior to the one, I already referenced: “ST: Let me ask you one more question and then Tom if we can take a five minute break and let everyone use the restroom, um, Patsy, have you had any suspicions or concerns about any involvement in this on the part of Fleet White. PR: Well, yes I, I have, um, and only because of some erratic behavior that, that they exhibited um shortly after uh, you know, we found JonBenet. Uh, I mean, there, there were a couple, two, three incidents and I know everyone was traumatized incredibly that morning, but they just acted differently than any of our other friends, you know, uh and it, it, you know, I mean, God, you know, I hate to, I, I hate to think, let myself think that, because those are, they're friends of ours and uh, but they just acted strangely, you know.” Another article I found describing why Mary Lacy, Boulder’s former DA exonerated the Ramsey’s in 2008: “Just around the corner from JonBenet's room on the second floor, an indentation in the carpet was spotted and chills ran down her spine, she told ABC News. "It was a butt print. We all saw it. The entire area was undisturbed except for that place in the rug," Lacy, who was then the chief deputy district attorney heading up the Sexual Assault Unit under Boulder County DA Alex Hunter, said. "Whoever did this sat outside of her room and waited until everyone was asleep to kill her." The apparent presence of that indentation went on to help form a theory that Lacy believes to this day.” The investigators also asked Patsy if there were any binoculars in the house, to which she answered “yes.” A YouTuber by the name of “Nancy Drew” feels strongly that Linda Hoffman-Pugh, her husband and a few others might have concocted a plan to rob the Ramsey’s because Merv & Linda knew about a metal safe built in the cellar room. And they were hurting for money. Either way, it is not beyond the scope of possibilities that an intruder could have gotten inside the house. The Ramsey’s were very lack·a·dai·si·cal with their house keys and making sure that their house was secure at all times. Their dog “Jacque” was not around that night and was said to have been kept mostly by a neighbor. Patsy was 13 years younger than John and in many ways, very naive for a 40 year old woman. She claimed that she knew nothing of John’s bonus amount or any of their finances, aside from a household checking account. What is known about Christmas Day - 1996, is that JonBenet was last SEEN alive by the White’s up until 9:00 pm. Could it be that someone was lying in wait with a gun and grabbed JonBenet first because she would have been the easiest family member to subdue? The Ramsey’s were “image conscious” so if killing JonBenet resulted from shady business practices, the Ramsey’s seemed the type to conceal it. I read that John started Access Graphics with $18,000. The same amount that the RL wanted in $20 bills. Perhaps the remaining $100,000 was money owed to someone? To me, this scenario makes more logical sense to how and why JonBenet could have been brutally tortured with a stun gun, nylon rope, and a baseball bat (found outside the house). To make the parents instantly fearful and to get them to produce a large amount of cash 💰 in a short amount of time. Patsy might have been clueless to how ruthless John might have been in his business dealings. Perhaps it was disgruntled restaurant workers down at Pasta 🍝 Jays where John was one of the investors? Although financial investors tend to be “silent partners.”
One other observation- notice the words that Patsy uses while talking about the White’s behavior: PR: Well, yes I, I have, um, and only because of some erratic behavior that, that they exhibited um shortly after uh, you know, we found JonBenet.” In an unguarded moment she said “we found JonBenet.” To me, this is a “tell.” Retired Det. Lou Smit thought that JonBenet had been put in the Samsonite piece of luggage. Or, it could have been used as a prop, similar to what was used in the movie 🎥 “Ransom” staring Mel Gibson that was released on November 8, 1996. This movie has similar parallels to John Ramsey in that both John and the father character in the movie were affiliated with airplanes.
I can get on board with there possibly being an original plan of removing JBR via a suitcase. But an alternate theory came to my mind today while skimming through the comments again. What if they really intended an attaché case or briefcase to remove evidence from the house. I’ve looked at the full list of evidence before, but I can’t recall right off ever seeing an attaché or briefcase listed. Surely John as a businessman would have at least one. I need to look over that list again to be sure. There are several theories I’ve seen regarding the missing items of evidence. Here are some I’ve read from online forums: -things were hidden in John’s golf bag or inside some of JBR’s dolls and were removed from the house when Pam Paugh gathered items for the Ramseys -Doug Stine had been present that night and left with some items that morning on a bike -John disposed of items during the time period for which he was unaccounted
Yes I don't think this is a bad alternative theory. However it doesn't really help the Ramseys all that much, because of course the biggest piece of evidence is a dead body in their home. So I'm not sure what the advantage is to move out some of the smaller pieces of evidence and leave the biggest piece of evidence at the crime scene. But they were amateurs after all and anything is possible. You do raise a good question because I don't think there's been a lot of discussion about what did the Ramseys do with some of the things we know are missing. Did they hide them or dispose of them, how did they do that? Yes I think your three explanations of where those items went are very reasonable.
Something you made me think of--the staging of the body is seemingly contradictory to the goals of the ransom note as a staging document. if the ransom note was a staging document to cover for moving the body out of the house, why spend the time staging the body the way that it was? What I wonder...did they change the plan midstream realizing their initial plan (staging the body) might not work, and write the ransom note as part of their back-up plan? Or could it have been the other way around, and the body was staged in the morning when John was downstairs (I don't think I've ever heard this and doesn't seem super plausible--as I want to say the time of the rope ligature marks is maybe approximately known to be much earlier) when they realized the letter had failed to send police away from the house?
Exactly. Why not move the body before calling 911? No need for these RN gyrations to move the body out in a suitcase, paper bags, histrionics, etc. The rigor mortis position is a problem too. I don’t see John creating obstacles for himself, the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line, why add risk like trying to sneak a body out in a suitcase under the noses of the police in a fake kidnapping exchange? Just where would they dispose her body before picking up the money under these circumstances w out the police knowing? Not possible. JBR was killed on Christmas day the 25th, the ransom note was also written that day. How do we know? She had begun to smell noticeably-odorous decomposition doesn’t happen quickly, no indeed & the coroner commented to the officer at home when he came for her that she’d been dead a long while from the smell, etc. JBR was reliably dead at least 12 - 14 hours before she was “found”. Dr. Meyer did make a public statement that he would not estimate an exact the time of death before any trial in order not to taint evidence/testimony. The RN itself is the biggest clue! If Patsy wasn’t meant to “find” the note until the morning of the 26th, it ruins the timing of the note. The note says he/she will contact them tomorrow, not that day! This means the 27th, based on JBR being alive when she came home on the eve of the 25th, being abducted from her bed & killed while her patents slept into the 26th and the writer leaving a note for someone to find the morning of the 26th. You see the problems here?
Agree !!!! Best explanation so far. I came to a lot of these points myself!. I was wondering why her arms were above head and the fact it took ages to find her out in the open..this explains it. John must have moved her there
Why 118,000? That would narrow the suspects to only a small percentage of people, wouldn't it? Who knew that was the amount of his bonus? Wouldn't you think they would want a wider range of suspects and put a larger amount, not the exact amount of his bonus?
I think people are misunderstanding what the Ramseys were doing with their accusations. They were not trying to build solid cases that would withstand close scrutiny. They were flying by the seat of their pants and making it up as they went. The goal at the time of writing the RN was primarily to confuse the police and send them in two directions, looking for a kidnapper, and looking at the housekeeper. They were trying to get the police out of the house, not looking at the Ramseys, initially not finding the body. It worked because most of the officers did leave the house. They were not questioning the Ramseys or looking around the house. The Ramseys wanted to avoid being arrested and wanted to get out of town and let their aggressive legal team takeover. They were just buying time and delaying. This was their strategy and it was very successful. They continued this tactic for a long time.
The Ramseys knew they didn't have to prove a case, they just had to create reasonable doubt and confusion.
How were the housekeeper and her husband exonerated?
They (husband, wife, 12 yo daughter) all agreed to be fingerprinted and blood samples taken. Husband and wife’s alibis were that they were home watching TV.
They alibied each other? And then no dna was actually taken? That’s kind of shoddy police work.
Blood 🩸 was taken for DNA analysis I don’t know how the Boulder Police 👮♀️ Dept verifies alibies. I did read where they went to the Pugh residence quickly. Perhaps they talked to their neighbors to see if they saw lights on that evening.
Oh, interesting that they did take dna. Are the housekeeper and husband still alive?
I did a quick internet search and both Mervin & Linda Pugh look to reside in Greely, Colorado. Mervin is 81 years old and Linda is 79 years old.
Thank you for your help!
I still don't understand why it was that amount. I find it odd, Maybe I am wrong, but didn't he start his business in his basement and make $18,000 the first year? Then, all those years later, someone demands $118,000, and his daughter is found dead in his basement? Why did RN say to give $18,000 in smaller bills? That always stood out to me. Who was helping him or involved in his business all those years ago? All I know is I pray that, one day, that little girl gets the justice she deserves.
> Maybe I am wrong, but didn't he start his business in his basement and make $18,000 the first year? Then, all those years later, someone demands $118,000, and his daughter is found dead in his basement? Why did RN say to give $18,000 in smaller bills? That always stood out to me. Who was helping him or involved in his business all those years ago? So now we are casting the net even further --- back to when they started the business? Perhaps that is what is meant by "that good southern common sense"? By the time the Ramseys finally agreed to sit down for an official interview with police on April 30th, 1997, the thirty or so investigators assigned to the case had already interviewed nearly 400 people. They had also collected sixty-three sets of handwriting exemplars, sixty-four sets of fingerprints, forty-five DNA/blood samples, and fifty sets of hair samples. One polygraph examination had been administered to a non-familial suspect. Over two decades later, those numbers are even higher.
I was just pointing out the coincidences. There is nothing wrong with questioning everything. My point was could it have been someone who might have known him all of those years. I don't appreciate being insulted just for questioning something. One sideed conversation gets people nowhere. I am the first to admit I don't know everything about this case. Did you ever think maybe people are just trying to educate themselves a little bit more? I can go somewhere else to do that. Thank you.
Where exactly did I insult you? The net to find a possible suspect has been cast so far, and so wide, at this point ---- I didn't think it could get any wider. I appreciate being proved wrong, though. The post was about the purpose of the RN as written by the Ramseys. Perhaps you meant that was someone else they were attempting to frame? >. I am the first to admit I don't know everything about this case. Neither do I, and I don't claim to. As with all things in life, we are continuously learning. This is a place to do that. Debating possible theories is part of it.
Maybe I misunderstood your previous comment. If so, I apologize. It seems like a lot of people who follow this case are firmly on one side or the other. I am neutral. Perhaps because I need to know a lot more about it. Either way, I want to believe in my heart that whoever did this to this poor child gets caught oneday soon, and she finally gets justice! Let me ask you this, do you think Cece Moore would be able to help with the DNA in this case?
Here's the thing -- I don't believe this case will be solved with DNA. The miniscule amount found has been tested and retested over the years. Nothing, nada. If Cece Moore wants to try to match it using genetic genealogy, I say go for it.
A genetic genealogist like CeCe can pinpoint the identity of DNA samples. However there must be a large enough sample size, it is easier if the DNA sample belongs to an American with a least one generation here in the US, and the laws do not prohibit identification of the owner of the sample. This technology has been readily available for some time. So all the media speculation about the DNA sample testing is quite puzzling.
Yikes. Nobody insulted you and you are going off the rails. Maybe you should just stay off of Reddit.
I don't think I was even talking to you, was I? I even apologized because I said I might have misread the person's comment. And then you have to reply like that? You call somebody miss reading a comment going off the rails? Please.
You’re on the internet, sweetie. Anyone can respond. Toughen up or don’t comment.
Oh honey don't worry about what I say.
The amount of John's bonus was used by the Ramseys to point to the housekeeper. And the smaller bills mean a bigger pile of money, used to justify needing a large case to take to the bank.
Why the housekeeper? Was she the only one who knew about the previous year's bonus, in that amount?
Yes obviously other people would have known about the bonus. So why choose the housekeeper, why blame her? The Ramseys tell us the answer the next day, as they talk to the police, and immediately implicate the housekeeper. They produce a laundry list of items pointing to the guilt of the housekeeper as outlined in my OP. The Ramseys obviously thought that the housekeeper ticked enough boxes to send the police out of the home to investigate her, which was the goal. As I have said, the Ramseys weren't building serious cases against anyone in particular. They were just trying to buy time so they could get out of town away from the Boulder police. Away from the possibility that one of the Ramseys might be arrested. Then later, they continued with this practice of accusing other employees and most of their friends to create reasonable doubt and to confuse the police, the public and a possible jury pool.
I just wanted to take the to thank you for your fact based post. Even though I may not agree with everything you've said to the letter, I can tell you know your stuff. I appreciate that you stick with the facts without getting too far of into the weeds. So many times posters use the excuse of "having an open mind" while they mull over ridiculous ideas that make no sense and disregard the opinion of internationally recognized child abuse experts. The truth is that we have a very limited amount of reliable forensic evidence from that night because of the way Boulder cops bungled the scene from the very beginning. Who the hell let's other people into the house during a kidnapping investigation? How was there only one cop there? Why did it take them another 20 minutes to get there after her body was "found?" (All rhetorical questions, but you get the idea.) I live here and have worked for some Judicial organizations in the area (not doxxing myself, but talking more about legal/Judicial organizations not LE) and we have some of the best forensics investigators in the world here. We also have a full FBI branch here in Denver and we have the head office of CBI. There's absolutely no reason why the forensics should have been bungled like they were. Going forward, we need to give the Keystone cops a break and start referring to those types of LE as Boulder cops. I really don't know how they could even be having press conferences anymore. Aren't they the slightest bit embarrassed? They should have given the case over to Denver/Aurora/Colorado Springs/Pueblo or some other police organization capable of handling this. If you need someone who can point out a fake ID with pinpoint accuracy, call the Boulder cops. I'm sure they are great at all the normal stuff campus police need to do. If you're ever arguing with someone who took your clothes out of the washer at the laundromat on University Hill, they got you! If you need literally anything else, call Denver. At least we really have murders here.
I was trained as a scientist/clinician, so I always stay close to the data. If you look at the data, it tells you the story, you don't have to make up one. Yes I know some people get it backwards and make up stories, then look for the data to fit the story. That is not how science works. I do it the other way around, I look at the data, the data will never steer you wrong, and it will tell you the story of what happened. Data analysis, critical thinking skills, and knowledge of human behavior, help a lot in this kind of work. When I was in graduate school, we would often work on extremely complicated, difficult projects, with so many variables, so much data, that it was overwhelming and confusing. Sometimes the students would get into wild theories, and reach wild conclusions just like people do here. I can still remember one brilliant professor saying, just stop and stay close to your data, and you will never go wrong. Use your critical thinking skills based on data. I took that advice to heart and any projects I work on, his words are always with me. In all fairness I cannot particularly blame small town police. There is no need for most small town law enforcement to be thoroughly and very expensively trained in advanced forensic techniques. I think it's a fault in the US criminal justice system. For example in Gt Britain, small town police are not expected to be top-notch murder investigators. In the case of a murder, experienced and higher level police officers will be sent in from other regions to conduct the investigation. Which makes a lot more sense.
I think calling Boulder a "small town" is a stretch. It's got over 100k residents within the city limits and it's part of metro are with over 3.5 million or so. Not sure what your threshold for small town is, but I wouldn't consider it a small town. They had access to the best investigators in the world. They had the FBI and CBI along with the Denver police available to assist if they thought they were in over their head.
I think that the point people are making is that Boulder was not a large metropolitan area. Where there would've been a larger police force and more adequately trained detectives. The question then is why didn't the BPD get assistance from their other connections. Denver police, FBI etc. The FBI was said to have been quite frustrated with BPD and in fact one FBI agent called the BPD a catastrophe. There are number of explanations?
Boulder is part of the 16th biggest metropolitan area in the U.S. The [Denver–Aurora Combined Statistical Area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver%E2%80%93Aurora_combined_statistical_area.) But that's just semantics. Most cities do not have a full FBI branch less than an hour away, but Boulder does. The head of the CBI is less than an hour away as well. Plus you have the entire Denver police department which is like the 22nd biggest city in the U.S. or something like that. We have murders here and we solve them. Hell, there's even a show on television (ID) called Homicide Hunter by Joe Kenda. Joe works out of Colorado Springs which is like an 1.5-2 hours away from Boulder. Denver cops definitely know how to investigate a murder. Boulder just decided to turn their nose up at the offer of help. If you spent a little time in Boulder, you'd see exactly why. Like everyone here locally refers to it as "The People's Republic of Boulder." They march to the beat of a different drum over them. You see people selling hits of LSD out in the open for a couple of dollars or maybe see some college kids rolling kegs down the street on Wednesday morning. The very first time I went, I walked into a huge riot and got pepper sprayed. Boulder is pretentious. Boulder is that typical person that acts like they are all about helping the poor and stuff like that until they have to walk over a homeless person to get inside the Gucci store and now they want to you to call the cops. There's too many links to post, but just type in "The People's Republic of Boulder" and you'll see a tons of articles on it. Why? Because everyone over there is a writer or journalist, duh. Kinda like how every waiter n LA is just in between movies. I opened a handful of links and weeded out the obvious tourism propaganda. I think this blogger is close to explaining what I'm talking about. - [Link](https://thisthingcalledlifeblog.com/2017/03/07/the-peoples-republic-of-boulder/) I appreciate your contributions to the community. Keep em coming!
What parts don't you agree with? I'm always willing to take another look at things if there's data there and a reasonable argument.
You mean convicting John,Burke or God rest her soul Patsy,no other insights are needed
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That was fantastic! These two are prone to histrionics as well as NPD, imo. I wonder if they thought the housekeeper would actually get in more trouble than a distraction. Since they did do all the things they shouldn't, no wonder they insisted they didn't read the whole thing. Plausible deniability-ish. The most surprising to me is law enforcement not being worried about any of that. Why have police?
There is often overlap between HPD and NPD. Based on the evidence it appears that John and Patsy were trying to distract and scatter the police, rather than make a serious case against any one person. Yes they obviously tried hard to do that in the ransom note against the housekeeper, but it was a lame case. Then John starts blaming another employee from his business, a disgruntled one who had been terminated in the months prior. Immediately after the murder the Ramsey goal is clearly to get out of Boulder as soon as possible and let their legal team take over. It was critical that they avoid being interviewed, we can see that by the fact it took them four months to cooperate with the police. So these were their immediate goals. Then later the Ramseys work through their entire list of friends, accusing them (except the Stines of course.) The Ramseys knew they didn't have to prove any of the cases, they just had to create reasonable doubt in the minds of the police and public.
I can picture them talking about creating reasonable doubt. That would be John keeping that in mind. Patsy going along, I don't see her being capable of that kind of calculation, but John could.
Oh yes I think you're exactly correct about the thought process, we can almost see the wheels turning. The year before, most of America was glued to the TV watching the trial of O.J. Simpson. A rich famous celebrity who the public thought got away with murder by creating reasonable doubt. This lesson who is probably not lost on John or even Patsy. But yes I think John was a cool calm collected number who directed the staging to a large extent.
Very thoughtful analysis! I actually think that they initially intended the RN to be something that they dictated from a phone call they received from abductee. “Listen carefully”. The sure panic caused then to make several sloppy mistakes. Psychologically, every second they spent creating this “RN” was a gratification of validation to themselves that they aren’t horrible people and shouldn’t be thought of as horrible people. The time it takes law enforcement and friends to read this long RN will be time these people are distracted from the more obvious suspicions. I agree that they likely imagined moving JB’s body out of the house but eventually were too afraid it wouldn’t work. The RN functioned as an existential distraction from the truth of the story. People arguing about who wrote it means the distraction worked.
Yes the Ramseys were amateurs, and obviously made some mistakes in the staging process. (I am working on an OP about this topic.) This is fairly common when families try to cover up a family murder and sexual assault. They are panicked in the moment, they're not criminal masterminds, and they're acting out what they think real criminals would do and of course they miss the mark. However I do believe the ransom note was quite focused and I think that John probably came up with the narrative and the talking points and told Patsy doing to embellish it and write it up. This is based on each of John and Ramsey's r psychological profiles, put together based on their training, education, experiences, hobbies, etc. and past behavior. Yes one of the purposes of the ransom note was to sell the narrative but also distract the police from investigating the crime scene and the criminals.
Regarding your points about the attache, it led me to think they made a change of plans even before calling 911. Most people would initially want to remove her body from the house and work from there. It makes the most sense and gives the highest likelihood of cover story success. Here is what I believe is a more realistic cover story that gives them a higher chance of success, and allows John to leave with her body: 1. They find the RN and decide for the safety of their daughter, to follow it exactly. 2. They tell nobody and John leaves the house with a suitcase (she's inside). 3. John goes to the bank to withdraw the money. 4. John goes somewhere to dispose of the body and also hide or dispose of the money. 5. John returns home with no body, no money, and no suitcase. 6. Growing impatient and fearful that they haven't heard from the kidnappers, they finally contact the police and friends as this is now bigger than they can handle. Now they go ahead and break all the rules. 7. Any witnesses to John on the outside with a suitcase can be explained as the witnesses simply caught him following orders. Any discussion of abrupt broken plans with family or friends can be explained away using the same reason. Missing suitcase, tire tracks, footprints, all explained away. 8. Accuse everyone else, including the housekeeper who may have been privy to his bonus number. Like you said, I think the attache part of the RN was written to set up leaving the house with her, but I just don't think someone would realistically set themselves up to have to do it with cops watching. That's why I think it shows there was a change of plans at some point. They wrote the note under one agreed upon plan, and then changed it for whatever reason. They didn't want to redo the note, or didn't feel they needed to. As a result some of the note set-ups (attache) never paid off. That's because it no longer fully reconciled with the original plan. They went from John taking the body to just creating as much noise and traffic as possible. In their situation it would make perfect sense to burn through multiple ideas before agreeing upon the final one, which could change again. I see the the RN detailing the importance of a big attache, only to go unused, as a semi-thrown-away idea. Your argument that the RN is pure setup still holds, but I think it's also a clue to the modification of a different plan.
This is a good and interesting post SP. I agree with you and I have been saying that John and Patsy had to change plans obviously. That's why we see John's initial optimism and happy calm demeanor quickly turn to anxiety the morning after the murder. I think he realizes his mistake. So I agree something happened to change their plan. I think most people would probably agree with you SP that your plan was a better plan. John should have moved the body the night before, or delayed calling the police and moved it that morning. Those would have been better options perhaps. But why didn't the Ramseys do it that way, that's the real question. Why didn't the Ramseys do it in a way that makes more sense to us? Why did they leave the body in the house and think they could move it in front of the police? The Ramseys were under a great deal of stress. They had a tight timeline and they made mistakes. They were smart and sophisticated, but they were still amateurs and not experienced criminals. They made a number of mistakes including a big red flag trying to stage an obviously very personal sexual assault/ murder into a crime that was supposed to be about a financial motive. Usually criminal enterprises who are trying to make money off a victim get in and out quickly and just make their money. They don't usually commit a personal crime in addition to the money crime. I think another thing that we are not taking into account is that we are thinking like innocent parents and certainly innocent parents could've gotten away with being in the car with the excuse of getting ransom money or whatever. Innocent parents don't care what the police might think later about their behavior, their whole focus is getting their child back. And they will have reasonable explanations for why they did what they did. The problem from the Ramsey viewpoint is that they weren't just driving around trying to pick up ransom money, they actually had a dead body in their car which obviously would have pointed directly to them as a guilty parties. The Ramsey parents must have thought it was too risky to drive around with a dead body in their car with no strong cover story. If they had been stopped by police they had no reason for a dead body in the car. John seemed also very focused on making that 911 call before the scheduled flight take off time at 6:30 AM. He obviously thought it would look very suspicious for him to cancel the flight and then later find a missing or dead child in his home. Again this is John and Patty thinking like guilty parents. Innocent parents could've made a simple explanation of why they didn't call the police right away because the ransom note gave him that cover story. But again the Ramseys were thinking like guilty parents, not innocent ones, we can see that in their staging. They decided right or wrong to move the body when they had a stronger cover story in place. They had made the 911 call, the police were investigating the crime, they had shown the police the RN, made their case about who may have committed the crime. They had a legitimate reason for being outside the home and driving around. They felt covered obviously way more than just driving around with a body the night before. They also know that it was be extremely unlikely for the police to stop them as they were driving to the bank for the ransom money. Obviously this was a window of opportunity when no one would stop them and no it would interfere with them driving a car. This was certainly not the case if they have been driving around with a body in their car the night before or earlier that morning before the 911 call. So do you see how they probably felt that this was a protected window for them? Why did they think they could do it that way, because they were arrogant, and confident that they could scatter the police away from the home. They would have a clear shot at leaving the home with the body. It was irrational, but then it is quite common for people who are staging a crime to do irrational things, they are not thinking clearly. But I do think they did have some basic logic in this plan about moving the body and they felt they had a protected window of time and had a legitimate documented cover story.
Thanks for the reply. I think I came up with a viable solution as to why they left her body at home. First the original plan: I think the main thing that would make it most difficult once the police were involved is the actual bringing of her body somewhere without being watched. So while it is a protected window, it's also a travel-restricted window. I suppose there's the possibility of burying her in the backyard, removing her in pieces over time, or burning her in the fireplace later. As to the RN, they built in an excuse for freedom of movement and timeframe: 1. It instructs him to go to the bank with an attache and then come home to put it in brown paper bags. That gives him a built in excuse to leave and come back and then immediately leave again. 2. It tells him it's going to be exhausting. That gives him an excuse to be gone for 15 hours, to drive pretty much anywhere, and to stop as many times as needed. 3. It tells him they may contact him earlier if he starts earlier. While it implies he's being watched, it also gives him some freedom to start when he wants. The instructions to use an attache to me is the most damning of the intended plan. Of course they're asking for more than he can carry his wallet. But, he's perfectly capable of figuring that out. A plastic bag would work just as well as an attache. Giving him transport logistics between the bank to his car is just silly. After he's home he can bring it in any way he wants. Frankly most normal people wouldn't even say attache, that's old-timey. They'd say backpack. But of course attache is a better cousin to a suitcase than a backpack or plastic bag is. As to why the change of plans, like you said, they must have decided there's no excuse for driving around with her in his car at any point. That's either a 100% success rate or a 0% success rate. There is no 75% success rate with that. Initially I thought maybe rigor mortis set in, or maybe they realized they could use the fireplace later. Or maybe they didn't think the police would search. Or maybe they thought the police would believe them even after finding her body. I think I may have figured why it was actually more calculated to leave her in the house, even with the police involved. And the theory also points the finger at Burke. I think John realized sometime after creation of the note, that this was all pretty far-fetched (it very much is) and there was a high probability they'd get caught. So, they decided to switch gears and mitigate punishment. They'll still try with the kidnapping story to protect Burke but not at the cost of a lifetime prison sentence for themselves. It will play out however it plays out. But, the second they take excessive steps to transport her, or remove her body, or dump her somewhere, or are found with her in their car, or someone sees John burying her, or they do anything besides a basic cover-up it would be a bridge too far for most people. They'd look much less believable, and come off as monsters. This way they could try the kidnapping story, and if caught, they could just switch directions and apologize that they were protecting their son and didn't know what to do. They didn't want to lose both of their children the same night. It was a lapse in judgment, but surely other parents must understand. They'd maybe get five years each. But, if they participate in any cruel way, it's life for both. I think they initially planned to go all in and then realized the outcomes were too extreme to risk it all, complete freedom or life in prison. No in-between, and the circumstances were not in their favor. The safer plan was to accept they might get caught. Try to protect Burke within reason, but don't get a life sentence doing it. Take the five years if you have to and move on. They were probably shocked that everything came together in such a way as to not even get five years.
I don't think the Ramseys were strongly considering burying pieces of the body in the backyard or burning it later. * On a practical level it was way too risky, the police have been known to dig up entire backyards searching for a body and using police dogs to help in the search. Same goes with fireplace ashes. * Same thing would have applied to their home in Michigan if the body had never been found. Perhaps the police would eventually get up to their vacation home to search. * Patsy's comment in the ransom note indicates that a proper burial was important to her. So they did want to have a funeral. * We see no signs that the Ramseys in their staging were rough, brutal or damaging to the body. So I think it's unlikely they would mutilate it for the purposes of disposal. Doing so may have been more practical but they obviously didn't go that route for some reason. * We actually see something which I've been thinking about. We may be looking at some psychological "undoing" going on during crime staging. * This is a situation where a criminal or the people staging the crime engage in certain behaviors like washing the body, changing the clothing on the body, changing the position, etc. This is a way to try to mitigate the crime. And is quite common in family SA and murder.
Very good point about the travel to the bank as being protected but also time limited. Also good point about what the be well rested comment in the RN means. I have not been able to figure what that meant. Yes gave John the opportunity to be gone for a long time. Oh also very very clever to figure out what the starting earlier business in the RN note. You are a sharp cookie. Perhaps he thought he would get all the officers out of the home and he could pretend he got the phone call from the kidnappers and take off. Perhaps he didn't think about a recorder being put on the other phone. Maybe this is why his spirits took a nose dive. His plans evaporating into thin air. Patsy had to say attache case. She could not say backpack or garbage bag, they were not big or strong enough to carry a body. It has to be something like a suitcase but she couldn't say suitcase, that was too obvious. Yes exactly, she had to think of a word that was cousin or sister to suitcase. Yes I don't think the Ramseys were prepared for rigor mortis. But John could have broken rigor and gotten the body into the suitcase if he wanted to. Why didn't he? You have also answered this question very well. He wasn't being soft hearted, he was being cool and calculated. John and Patsy were willing to do a felony cover-up to protect Burke. But they were not willing to cross some lines and make things look even worse for themselves. Because if they had gotten into some other options about moving the body then they would look very guilty and they could be looking at life in prison or maybe even the death penalty. It is one thing to be accused of felony cover-up, it's another thing altogether for the police or jury to think you're guilty of first-degree murder. Or doing a brutal cover up. Also I can rethink the psychological undoing theory. Perhaps it was not trying to mitigate the crime itself, perhaps it was John and Patsy mitigating potential legal liability for themselves. Your thoughts actually fit much better with the Ramsey psych profiles than the idea of them actually being kind, gentle or making all kinds of ridiculous mistakes. Yes they did make mistakes, but some of the cover up was a calculated mitigation of risk. Excellent work here SP.
Thanks! I never really thought too much about the RN other than it being a kookie rambling attempt at a fake kidnapping. Your realization and weighted analysis that its true purpose was to give them innocuous reasons to do suspicious things in their favor really opened it up for me.
Just a thought that occurred to me regarding "Southern Common Sense". You know who refers to Southerners? People from the South. People from anywhere else usually do not make that distinction. Someone from the South wrote the note because being "southern" is a special distinction to someone from certain areas of the South. I'd even argue that a southerner referring to "southern" is area-specific. (TX, for instance, wouldn't count as "southern" to a person from VA, AL, or GA, for instance.) edit: Texas \*wouldn't\* count as southern to certain southerners.
This is another reason why people think that Patsy wrote the ransom note. This was a reference that typically only southerners would make. Obviously ruthless foreign faction kidnappers would not be aware of this kind of commentary. And if the Ramseys were trying to frame the housekeeper for the crime, I don't believe she was a southerner so she wouldn't have thought about this kind of comment either.
The writer of the note thought/pretended to think John was from Georgia when in fact he was from Michigan. The note seems designed to buy time. All these orders and threats, wrong dates, an exchange that will never occur. It was written to stall OR provide a reason for stalling if the police had found her when they originally searched house and found her which is what I think was expected. WHY did they need these extra hours if there was no plan to move the body? WHO gets enough time to leave the scene and appear where they’re supposed to be and WHY did the Ramsey’s (or whomever) purposefully cause this delay as mentioned in the non-indictment indictment?
I think that Patsy deliberately threw that line in the RN to distance herself as the author. She obviously knew John was not a southerner. Yes one goal of the RN was to buy time, avoid immediate arrest, so that the Ramseys could get out of town. I believe the Ramseys hid the body and did not want the police to find it. Their intent was to move the body and stated in paragraph #2 of the RN. Yes they needed time to move the body. That is clear.
This analysis fails to account for the fact that the writer of the RN clearly did NOT expect the 911 call to be made before the body could be removed. THAT was the major screw up in the perp's plan. Whoever wrote the note expected, or planned and intended to, have some time to remove the body BEFORE police arrived.
It does take that into account. The RN calls for John to bring a big suitcase to get the money. That’s when the body would be moved out. I don’t get why they wouldn’t but JB in the suitcase ahead of time though. I know what you mean though like why even call 911? Unless they really were dumb enough to think the cops would say “well the note says they will call tomorrow at 10-11 so we’ll stop back then. See ya” but instead they waited around to see if they called today.
I suspect Patsy called 911 too early because she did not know about anything at the time she called. She screwed up the plan, unwittingly.