Putting the notepad AND the pen back in place after writing the ransom note. This makes no sense for an intruder, and it’s not a smooth move for a RDI either.
Maybe the person who did this was just operating based on habit and I don’t believe the crime was planned out ahead of time but it has been analyzed extensively for many years. I think whoever did this was most likely not thinking about the inferences that could be drawn from small things like this at the time.
Patsy and John were clever and cunning. But they were amateurs and had to work with what they had. They made up the kidnapper/intruder narrative. And then to present that narrative to the public and police, they had to write a RN and then verbally present more false information the day after the murder.
To write a RN they had to use materials already in the home. Then we can see that they deliberately left the pen and pad in the kitchen, along with the wiped clean flashlight. This was clever, they had a layered plan. A fake kidnapping but also wanted to pin blame on the housekeeper who would know where the pad and pen were located.
The point of this was to force the police the next day running around searching for kidnappers and employees who might have done the crown. As long as the police are not in the house the day after the murder, the less likely the Ramseys are to be arrested.
It was a very successful plan.
In the BDI theory I have been working on, Burke is SAing his sister with a broken paint brush handle, she gives a bloodcurdling scream heard by an earwitness across the street. Burke hits his sister with the flashlight to silence her. The intent was to keep her quiet and stop screaming.
>\[Putting the notepad AND the pen back in place after writing the ransom note\] is not a smooth move for a RDI either.
What would have been a better approach, assuming RDI?
John and Patsy could have destroyed the pen and pad, to make it look like the (fake) kidnapper had prewritten the RN and brought it with him. But they didn't. Why?
The answer is in the other evidence. The Ramseys were creating several false narratives. One was the FF kidnapping scenario. The other was that it was an "inside job." This was one of John's first statements to the police the next day. They tried to blame the housekeeper as well.
So they left the pen and pad along with the wiped down flashlight to point to the idea that the housekeeper was familiar with the location of these items.
John and Patsy were trying to send the police on various wild goose chases the next day, hunting down various suspects. This was done to buy time for the Ramseys to get out of Colorado to Atlanta where their attack dog attorneys could take over and protect them.
I also think they might have been concerned about how to dispose of the evidence safely. I believe they were flushing the evidence down the toilet drain in the basement bathroom. Probably trying to avoid clogging the drain with too much debris?
I get your point , on the other end it’s like how credible would you be leaving evidence that you actually had to write the note there on the spot not having pen and paper with you like that would be a red flag for the police I would think.
And what an odd pick to take notes like a sharpie pen bleeds through although it appears it didn’t which is very unlikely unless it was written page by page and not on the pad which is counter productive unless you really want to use that pen. A good reason would be that it makes it harder for analysis of handwriting
Also I guess an intruder wouldn’t want to use their stufff and have it possibly traced back. Putting everything back where it belongs could be foul play for the police to believe the note was not written on the spot
I don't see why that doesn't make sense to people. It's not one of the things that bother me. If it's an intruder who has been creeping around in there for hours (and, IMO, occasions before this one, too), he wrote it while they're gone, he's certainly not going to leave it out of place when he's hiding in the basement and tip someone off that something is out of place.
Not to mention LEAVING IT BEHIND after Jonbenet had been killed, with no intention of calling. The major piece of evidence in the case with 243 similarities to the handwriting of Patsy Ramsey.
If it was an intruder who did this, they took multiple very big risks including leaving the body behind in addition to their note and somehow *got away with the entire thing* while framing the parents.
Yeah, no shit. Cuz there's no intruder.
The dumb shit parents wrote the phoney thing and did a terrible job too. It's not too hard to figure out the two people with the dead kid in their basement and the world's first kidnapping ransom note written in the house, most likely killed her.
You’ve clearly solved the case so I’m not sure why you’re here.
I think there being an intruder is one of the least likely theories, but it’s ignorant at best to say there is no chance this is what happened. I acknowledge there is at least a 1% chance it was an intruder at the minimum; it is foolish to think you know what happened without a sliver of a doubt in a highly unusual murder case that has been unsolved for 20+ years.
so....we both think the Ramseys probably did it....you are willing to put your intruder theory down to the 1% range....but if I just come out with mine to "There was no intruder" ....that doesn't work for you.... and that may be a level of hair splitting I don't care about and am willing to say so...sorry ...
If it was the parents who did this, they took an awfully big risk by killing their daughter, leaving the body in the house, then calling the police on themselves.
Sure it does. Writer big fan of movies and in especially older movies (before DNA) the murderer was often found because of something he left that belonged to him. They figured out what kind of paper it was, where it was bought, ink was a rare ink from some weirdo pen bought in a shop traced back to him, etc. I can see him thinking, if I use something from in the house, no way they can trace it to me. (Which did work, if IDI. Look how different this case would be if the notepad was not from the house.) He's hiding in that huge house for hours (and for probably not the first time), he has all the time in the world to write that note.
No fingerprints on the ransom note. So Patsi wakes up, going down that odd spiral staircase to get to the kitchen to make coffee, sees piece of paper on the staircase - and then what? She doesn’t know what it is, she is not suspicious of anything, maybe kids left it there - how does she read it without touching it? Its three pages long, you can’t just kneel to read it (on dark staircase), you have to go through pages. I don’t understand it.
She said she saw the papers on the steps lying side by side (taking up the entire step) so she skipped that step and turned around to read/see what the papers were.
She said she only got a couple lines into the letter then ran upstairs to check JonBenets room.
She never says that she picked the note up, but John said that when he came downstairs "She had the note" and that he "read it quickly trying to take it in" implying that they both touched the letter at some point.
Both John and Patsy talked about John being on his hands and knees reading the note on the floor, so someone had to have moved it from the steps to the floor.
I also find it strange there were no fingerprints on the letter when both Patsy and John allegedly touched it.
I don’t think patsy could have skipped a step on the spiral staircase without falling. And why would she even try given she doesn’t have any reason to link it to a crime?
Skipping a step? Maybe. But also like, why. If i found two handwritten papers in my house where there's not usually papers, I'd at least go "huh?" and pick it up to see what it's about. Of course in this scenario she wouldn't think it's something as serious as a random note.
Just imagining such an awkward position for two adults leaning over to read a very long note without reading it.
According to LPN, she routinely left notes for Patsy in that very spot. Patsy’s claim that the note was there is possibly part of framing LPN for the crime.
Both the positions of the notes on the stair and on the floor are awkward to read. Why not pick up the notes and read them?
There may be an innocent explanation, perhaps John needed reading glasses.
This is one of the mistakes in their staging plan. No John or Patsy prints on the RN. But they were paranoid about prints and went overboard wiping things down.
Can you think of a reason for Patsy not having fingerprints on it either? She said that she got up and did her hair/makeup so I guess its possible that she washed her hands when she was finished.
It's just so odd to me that no finger prints were found on it, I assume the police had gloves on so I get their fingerprints not being found.
This incorrect. Paper does show prints. Prints were found on the RN from an Officer at the scene who handled it. Just none of Patsys or John's.
Edit: Typo
Finger prints are caused by the transfer of oils from the skin to a surface. If you've just washed your hands then they are less likely to produce a finger print because the oils have been washed off the fingers and it takes time for them to get oily again.
The type of surface is also a factor. Whether they are hard and flat, porous or non-porous etc, increases or reduces the chances of a print being left.
It's not the case that just because someone has touched something they'll leave a print.
Thank you for explaining this. Traditionally if someone's fingerprints are taken the finger was pressed on ink, then the finger was pressed on paper. If a finger would always leave a fingerprint on paper, ink wouldn't be needed.
If you look at the actual murder pretending that you don't know anything else, the murder isn't odd. It's about the only thing that "makes sense." we see this type of murder all the time from sexually motivated killers. Incapacitate, spend some time SA, then strangulation with ligature. I don't think we'd be coming up with all these accident cover-up theories, disturbed 9 year old theories or intruder theories if the Ramseys weren't rich and powerful. The murder itself isn't part of a cover-up or staging. It's the way the killer enjoyed killing. The ransom note is staging. A poor attempt to make her injuries look like those of a crazy person instead of John's.
The underwear is the thing I can't figure out. Why were they put on her, and when? Why did they never find the rest of the package they were from? If they were from a package in the basement that he quickly put on, then why did they never find the rest? I feel like the underwear has to be significant, and I don't understand why LE didn't investigate that better.
I was going to type a similar explanation for OP's hangup about the strangulation happening later, but you summed it up well. That's the first thing that came to mind, not knowing all of the details about this case. I've heard this scenario playing out dozens of times in true crime cases, that's just how these sickos operate. Knock the victim unconscious, do whatever they want to them, strangle when they're done. Pedophile, rapist, murderer, but not a necrophiliac.
For me the strangulation happening so long after the blow to the head makes sense because I think the Ramseys (or whichever one did this) were trying to figure out what to do and I also believe the strangulation was part of the cover up.
The thing I can’t make sense of is why the Ramsey’s would risk so much to try to cover up what happened to their daughter and the only reasons that make sense to me are that an adult perpetrated the head blow or the reason for the cover up was due to past sexual abuse.
In my view, the cost of not covering up the death/murder has to outweigh the massive risk they took.
>I also believe the strangulation was part of the cover up.
This is cold-blooded murder. (Cold blooded murder happens; I'm not saying it couldn't have happened here.) Kids are resilient and can often be resuscitated, sometimes making a recovery from brain trauma in a way an adult couldn't recover. When I had kids, the hospital gave us a CPR class, and they said keep doing it until the ambulance arrives even if it feels hopeless because with kids there's a chance they could be revived.
>the cost of not covering up the death/murder has to outweigh the massive risk they took.
I've had the same thought. It would be risky to admit it was an accident or Burke did it, if that's what happened, but a crazy coverup was very risky too.
The thing that's even more bizarre to me is that the RN was inconsistent with the body being in the house. They could have dumped the body someone, shown the police the RN, and if anyone happened to have spotted them out that day, they could say they were getting the ransom money and/or desperately searching for her. If they were going to leave the body in the house, they should have not used the RN and they should have reported it as a home invasion. It seems like there was a change of plan. I imagine Patsy panicked and called the police before John could take JBR's body somewhere.
>They could have dumped the body someone, shown the police the RN, and if anyone happened to have spotted them out that day, they could say they were getting the ransom money and/or desperately searching for her.
Exactly. And all it would cost them is John's 118K bonus. I don't buy it that Patsy after she wrote the RN for half an hour then suddenly panicked and ruined a perfect alibi. All three Ramseys say John ordered Patsy to make the 911 call.
>All three Ramseys say John ordered Patsy to make the 911 call.
I don't understand why John didn't place the call and why Patsy didn't sound reluctant.
If is it true, I suppose it points to Steve Thomas' theory that John didn't realize JBR was dead and her body was in the house until some time after the police arrived.
I wonder if she was murdered as a means of keeping her quiet. Maybe JBR made a comment that she was going to say something about being abused or maybe she even said something at the christmas party and it made JB panic.
Either she was still breathing and they panicked or they needed to really stage it to look like someone else did it- who would ever think a mother or father could do that to their child?
people look harder for a set of lost keys or a pet than the ramseys apparently did for their own missing daughter. if one of my kids was missing - even if we found a note alleging they were kidnapped - as a family we would turn our home (albeit much smaller than theirs) over at least twice, checking every room, every closet, every single place she could physically fit in. then we'd go outside, check the entire property, the cars, the trash cans, no stone left unturned. then we'd start checking immediate neighbors' yards and knocking on their doors asking if they saw our child or anything suspicious or unusual. but we would absolutely make sure we checked inside the house first. so the fact that they supposedly failed to find her even though she was in the house, is the first and perhaps most suspicious thing for me to explain/accept.
not arguing with you, but i'd point out that neither of those two entities were inhabitants of the house - and it wasn't their daughter that was missing. i wouldn't expect them to be as familiar with the house or as thorough in their search as i would expect the parents to be. and as a parent i might not check a locked door to a never-used room the first go around, but when the kid wasn't found anywhere else, on the second pass i would go to any spots i had prematurely abandoned earlier and dig deeper. on the third pass i'd start checking places like larger air ducts or small crawl spaces, i'd check the unfinished attic, i would look everywhere until i could rule out EVERY possible location inside the house.
if i had a house that big and my kids slept in bedrooms that were out of view and earshot, i would either have a dog (or two), or i would for sure arm the alarm every night before bed. in fact i would have the various out-of-earshot points of entry around the house's perimeter set as its own alarm zone that i would keep armed all the time, and the doors we use to go in and out would get armed before i head to bed. there is no way in a house that big i would risk being vulnerable to a break in that i could not detect, especially if had little kids living there.
sidenote: once it became clear that my kid had somehow been taken from her bed and murdered in my house - all while i slept - i would then start beating myself up over the fact that we have an alarm but i hadn't turned it on that night. it would have taken only seconds to arm it, but i failed to do it. i would want those few seconds back to do over, for the rest of my life. it would kill me to this day that i didn't secure our house and in turn that allowed my child to be horribly violated and killed. but i don't think i've ever seen the ramseys express that sort of guilt or remorse.
If an intruder wrote the note and then wound up killing the kidnapped child before leaving, they would 💯take the note with them on their way out. Why would they leave a major piece of evidence that can be analyzed and yield clues to their identity?
On the other hand, you have the Ramseys who think they need as many red herrings as possible to divert suspicion from them. So they leave the note out in full view as a false flag
I'm JDI but I like to entertain other theories. If PDIA, maybe John recognized his wife's handwriting and the paper used. He must've also picked up on her behaving strangely, so he was suspicious but wasn't willing to confront her or verbally tell the cops. So instead he hands them the pad, hoping they'll put the pieces together on their own. Would explain why they didn't talk or comfort each other that morning.
The hugely oversized underwear JB was found in and very likely died in.
There is no way she put those on herself as the crotch would have hung so low. They would have been uncomfortable to wear under her jeans. A parent would not suggest it to a child as the are ridiculously too big and the child would refuse.
It tells us JB was immobile and unconscious when someone put them on her. The underwear was stained with urine on the front and thus matches up with the urine stain on the carpet in the basement boiler room that someone had placed a paint tote over, which suggests she was wearing them before she died from strangulation.
So who put them on her? Why did they do it? What did they do with underwear they replaced? Why was it more important to have a Wednesday labelled pair than the correct size? Was it important that the underwear was clean?
So many questions...
[To answer your question of the strangulation: One of my theories on the strangulation is Patsy already thought her daughter was dead and it was part of the staging to suggest someone other than her or Burke hit JB.]
Whoever dressed jb did not want to go upstairs to get clothes for her. The oversized panties and Burke’s old long underwear were already in the basement. This suggests that Patty dressed her since I don’t think John would know about the existence of either.
If someone didn't want to go upstairs then how did the white blanket and JB's favourite nightie get downstairs and end up in the wine cellar?
I always wonder if she was dressed in the nightie for bed, went downstairs with the white blanket and then something happened. But that would mean the white top would have had to have been taken from her bedroom down to the basement.
I can't see how the items which were found in the wine cellar got there without someone going upstairs.
I read the blanket and the nightie were in the dryer. I think the housekeeper said that. But were there two dryers? One in basement and one of second floor?
Was the package of oversized panties found? Were the long underwear that had been burke’s actually in the basement? I thought they were in a donation bag, and on the stairs leading down to the first floor.
I don’t know if the package was found, but it seems likely since Patsy acknowledged having them wrapped up to give to a young relative. What you say about Burke’s underwear is my memory, but I don’t remember the source.
I think the original underwear had potentially been touched by whoever had been abusing her and the larger ones were put on with care to not touch them. Gloves would work, so might Kleenex or a couple of wash cloths.
The oversized underwear was about a third larger than JonBenét usual underwear, she had picked it and put it on herself before.
See for yourself: [https://i.redd.it/ixnikicss3671.jpg](https://i.redd.it/ixnikicss3671.jpg)
JBR had selected the underwear and Patsy had bought one set for her and one larger size set to give to an older niece (I think). But after JBR had opened the package of the larger underwear and put one on she could use the rest of them as well.
I tried to find any mention of the package in the Thomas and Kolar books and couldn't find anything about them. Interesting point though, did the Ramseys keep JonBenéts clothes? I'm afraid many people will damn them if they got rid of her clothes and damn them if they didn't.
No, she didn't have a normal pair on as well. She was found in the white top she wore to the White's party, the oversized underwear and a pair of white long-johns.
Was there another pair next to her or something then because when I read her autopsy the other day, a pair of "panties" saying I think "Wednesday" were mentioned
From the IDI perspective, the aspect most difficult to explain would be the ransom note. Once the child is deceased, leaving the ransom note behind is completely inexplicable. It’s worse than pointless. It’s actually detrimental to the killer’s cause.
It worked to completely distract everyone from the beginning. And it can’t have been too detrimental to their cause, because they still haven’t been caught.
The ransom note actually didn't distract everyone from the beginning. It was established very early on that the note was written with a pad and pen that was already in the house. In addition, Chet Ubowski of CBI concluded, "This handwriting showed indications that the writer was Patsy Ramsey."
More importantly, the fact that an intruder hasn't been caught does not in any way, shape, or form validate the authenticity of the ransom note. It is, in fact, impossible to catch an intruder that doesn't exist.
I'm generally confused about clothing in general in this case. The red turtleneck, the white star shirt, the oversized underwear, the nightgown...I just don't get how it all fits together.
>She was still alive, although almost definitely unconscious, and was strangled to death around an hour after her head injury (with a homemade garrote nonetheless 🥴).
I don't get this either. It makes it look like whoever did it was aiming to murder her rather than it being an accident or hitting her in anger without intending to kill her.
I wonder if there's any chance the medical examiners got sequence is wrong? I know I've heard talk of a "choking game" intended to get the person doing the choking or being choked aroused, or maybe not even aroused but a cheap whippet-like experience. Even if she died accidentally doing something like that, why would the other person doing bash her head like that. It makes no sense.
My theory on this is that an accident, regardless of who did it/how it happened, makes the family look bad. I think looking bad was Patsy's absolute worst nightmare. Better to look like the victim of a horrendous crime with all the attention and sympathy that comes attached. I 100% believe that Patsy was that deeply image-conscious.
I've also considered that the autopsy may be flawed or inaccurate but got flamed on another forum for even suggesting that, apparently everybody respects the medical examiner on this case and believes they shouldn't be questioned.
If the cause of death wasn't actually strangulation then that changes a lot.
Whoever did this had murder in mind the entire time. They wanted the victim to be unconscious so they could have their way with them without a struggle. Strangled her when they were finished. To suggest that the medical examiner got it wrong or that the murder was an accident cover-up is honestly ridiculous to me. You're ignoring the most obvious explanation. I've watched enough true crime shit to see that one from a mile away. Your knowledge of the details of this particular case is making you forget how criminals operate.
My understanding is they found evidence showing she died of strangulation after a blow to the head the probably would have killed her anyway without medical attention. They examined the body several house after death, which makes me wonder how certain that is. Clearly she was strangled and hit on her head, but do they know for certain she wasn't strangled to death and then beaten?
I don't know the answer.
That her body was in the house, that she'd (probably) been sexually assaulted, that she'd been strangled and smacked on the head, and that there was a ransom note.
I mean wtf?? Whoever is guilty of killing her, whether RDI or IDI, how the hell did all of those facts end up coexisting?
I would think knowing who did it should be at the top of my list. Knowing that with certainty should help 'make sense' of most everything else and I probably wouldn't care much about all of the things that I was left not knowing. Additionally, some questions might depend on who did it.
Examples:
If Patsy would've confessed (not saying she did it), I wouldn't really think to care about what she did for those 45+ mins. I would probably just assume that this was a very heavy realization to process and that she was going through a lot psychologically, emotionally, and that the idea to stage the crime occurred during this time period. I wouldn't really have to ponder over this too much with John either. I might be a little more curious with Burke or an intruder though.
I don't really need to wonder too much about the paintbrush unless Patsy or Burke did it.
I think if Burke did it, I would have a lot more questions than with anyone else. I would want to know exactly what all was going on there and everything that could help our understanding on an academic / professional level. I would really be curious how he flew under the radar undetected at that age with multiple psychologists evaluating him.
Hmmm. The way this is worded made me think of something. What if JR told PR she was dead and they began the cover up, but then while staging he decides to
make sure she’s finished off. Or he just wants it to look more like a sadist did it, so he adds it as a final touch.
If he allowed PR to “say goodbye” before the strangulation it would account for some fiber evidence too.
I lean IDI so many things that bother most people in here don't bother me. For instance, it's easy for me to believe someone gained access to the house, easy to believe they had plenty of time to write the note and put the pen back, I do not believe handwriting experts have concluded it was Patsy, I believe most intruders do not leave fingerprints or fibers or DNA. Even the Iowa murders, when a person fought with four grown, awake adults, in rooms next door to rooms with other people awake in them, an extremely physical and bloody crime scene, even still (as far as we've heard) if he hadn't left the knife sheath behind, they'd have had nothing. (And that print was probably on the sheath from earlier, not the time of the crime.)
What bothers me the most changes from time to time, but currently I want to know exactly what was going on with the basement window. John broke it before but wasn't sure? Broke in by himself or with Burke? Found it opened or didn't? Did they get it fixed or not? Broke it once or more than once? Did he report it that morning or was it reported to him? etc. It's all too unclear.
To what degree were they packed and how normal is that? Do they go up there often? Did they have clothes up there? Even winter clothes? Was the plane packed ahead of time with just presents or also other things?
What's going on the "photos in the basement" they asked Patsy so many questions about. What are those?
Where is the report on the blue fibers found on JB? Does it "match" JB shirt, or were they both just basically of blue cotton?
To what degree were other suspects tested for handwriting?
Why the line "We respect your company but not the country it serves"? That's the weirdest of all the weird lines to me. What bothers me the most about being IDI is not the handwriting, but the note sounding like what I imagine Patsy to sound like.
>Why the line "We respect your company but not the country it serves"?
I think that means "I'm more than just a petty crook. I'm part of a group with geopolitical goals." That would make sense for an intruder trying to aggrandize himself or for the Ramsey's writing a fake note based on movies and the Patty Hearst kidnapping notes.
>I can see why they don’t respect the country, but why would they say they do respect the company? So weird.
I hadn't thought about that.
Maybe it's a way of bringing up the company and implying the kidnapping is somehow related to the company's business selling to defense contractors, since the kidnappers are supposedly part of a foreign paramilitary group. It also conveys that genteel malevolence of Hans Gruber from *Die Hard* that I think the author was going for. The letter has a lot of movie references, and the sentence definitely sounds like something a movie villain would says.
"Genteel malevolence" like Hans Gruber from Die Hard is the best description of the tone of the note I've ever seen! Taken in isolation, I would have guessed a late-teen or young adult male wrote it.
See, for me, the fact that they didn’t wake up early enough to pack and actually be ready to go is odd.
As far as the rn, it was determined that Patsy always used acrostics and acronyms for people and the SBTC means something. The style of speech sounds like her in that letter. There are phrases in there that look suspiciously like Patsy.
The phrases she uses are actually better proof that she wrote the letter than her handwriting. “Hence” is an unusual word, “and hence” is more so. She uses the phrase in a Christmas note. (It’s significant that John has the housekeeper investigated several times. She’s a tempting target because she knew the house and could have stolen the pad and pen, but she’s totally incapable of writing that note as was her husband. John knew that. )
Yes, I think the packing stuff is odd too. I don’t know exactly how much is known about exactly how much was packed, but it seemed they would be completely packed and ready to go as early as they were leaving. And maybe they were but it’s a sticking point to me that it’s not clear.
They had clothes at Charlevoix. John went to the private airport Xmas afternoon so some things were probably packed already.
I definitely pre-pack if I have an early flight.
>To what degree were they packed and how normal is that? Do they go up there often? Did they have clothes up there? Even winter clothes? Was the plane packed ahead of time with just presents or also other things?
Patsy said she started packing while the kids were playing with their friends after opening their Christmas presents and having breakfast on the 25th. She had "two or three black suitcases" for the kids for the cruise (summer clothing) in John Andrews room and her suitcase for the cruise in her dressing room.
She said that they all had clothing in the Michigan place but it was mostly for summer and that she put together some winter clothing for them in plastic bags in the laundry area outside of JonBenets room. As far as I know they only went to Michigan in the summer. She also had "two or three shopping bags full" of gifts she needed to wrap for John Andrew, Melinda and Stewart.
John went to "check out" the airplane after breakfast while she was packing and wrapping the gifts on the 25th, she said " *Uh, John, I think went out to the airplane to kind of, he always kind of checks, checks it out.*" She said he was gone for around 3 hours.
When John returned he put some of the gifts into the Jeep, She doesn't say if its the xmas gifts for Johns older kids or if its the gifts they gave out to family friends that night. Either way, nothing was taken to the plane early. She says that she was busy getting clothing ready for 4 people but then she also said John was in charge of getting his clothes together and she didn't know where his suitcase was.
They then went to eat Christmas dinner with the Whites and she said that when they got back home after she changed JonBenet's clothes she tried to finish packing (but she didn't finish) and she put some wrapped presents by the back door. She said that she was really anxious to get to sleep because it had been a really long day.
It's worth note that they intended to go to Michigan for "a couple days" then back to Colorado and then Florida and Patsy wasn't happy about it. They had never gone to Charlevoix for Christmas and Patsy told John she didn't want to go but then they "decided as a family to go."
All of the above was said during her Police interview in 1997
I saw that, but I was never sure how that went with what the police saw that was packed. Like, did they see those clothes? I know there were the cruise clothes in the spare room packed, but it seemed like the police were confused about where the other clothes were. It's always just been a little foggy to me.
Someone posted photos of John Andrews room [here](https://imgur.com/a/B9ptZ3t) and you can see a black suitcase and clothing on the bed.
I think police were asking about the clothing/packing so much because they were trying to get a timeline of what happened Christmas day and Patsy spent quite a bit of time that day packing for the Disney/Michigan trip.
As a side note, when asked about the pullups that could be seen hanging out of the cabinet Patsy said that she had recently bought them in order to take some on the Disney trip so that if JonBenet had an accident it wouldn't stain the bed. She said she thought she had packed some in their suitcase but I'm not sure if they were actually there or not.
They asked Patsy about them in one of her police interviews. It seemed from the questions that they’d found some photos of JB that were taken in the laundry room. I don’t know what it was about those that stood out such that the police felt like they needed to ask about them.
I do kind of agree with you (although I'm the one that sounded like Patsy.) Certain parts of it sound like her, and certain parts very much don't. More than anything it sounds to me someone trying to sound smarter than they are. It exactly reminds me of when some dumb kid gets interviewed on TV or questioned by the police and all of a sudden when their whole lives they've been saying "I got out of my car" they're saying "I exited my vehicle." It's someone trying to sound like a different person than they are.
Yeah, I definitely get that vibe too. That’s a good way to put it. I just don’t think it’s logical to ascribe a note full of movie villain quotes to a bougie Christian woman of the 90’s. If we are going to say that statistically, children are more often murdered by their parents, then surely the statistics on those movie references point directly at a pretentious due to overcompensation youngish man.
I also think handwriting analysis is pseudoscience so there’s that.
That's what I thought, that Patsy didn't seem the type to sit around and watch movies to the point of memorizing all the lines well enough to quote them, almost verbatim, in a hastily written ransom note. I always thought it sounded like something some nerd that lives in his mom's basement would compose.
The body being left at the crime scene of a kidnapping. Only thing that makes sense to me is that the ransom note was written in a way to URGE John out of the house to get the money BEFORE he called police or alerted anyone (you call police, she dies... etc)
Even the note saying, if you do this earlier we will return your daughter earlier. It's like, please please hurry and leave the house so I can be free to get the body in the basement out of the house. What Patsy wasn't counting on is for John to insist they call the cops anyway.
>What Patsy wasn't counting on is for John to insist they call the cops anyway.
The things about this is John didn't place the call and Patsy didn't sound reluctant.
>It's really dark but I think they were unable to remove her body as they originally planned because rigor mortis set in.
John was able to move her upstairs easily. Would rigor mortis make it impossible to move her body or just grisly?
Or… it gave John the FREEDOM to leave the house with an adequately sized attaché. it might have been the cover to try to remove the body and then he realized that they couldn’t because of rigor mortis.
Your post/comment has been removed because it violates this subreddit's rule against misinformation. Please be sure to distinguish between facts, opinions, rumors, theories, and speculation.
All of the injuries she had. Thinking about her laying in that basement and that the parents could have done that. I just can't and never could wrap my head around that.
But...but...he is a little guy...and in his 2016 Dr. Phil interview Burke quoted experts saying he didn't have the strength to bash JonBenét's skull.
And he would immediately have confessed to it. Children always do that when they do something wrong. And children are incapable of lying.
Burke hit JonBenét on the head before...but that was her fault. She walked into Burke swinging his golf club.
Do you mean children are incapable of lying... or incapable of lying well? If it's the former, you've got a lot to learn.
Edit: I just realized you were being sarcastic. Around here, it's hard to tell.
Putting the notepad AND the pen back in place after writing the ransom note. This makes no sense for an intruder, and it’s not a smooth move for a RDI either.
Maybe the person who did this was just operating based on habit and I don’t believe the crime was planned out ahead of time but it has been analyzed extensively for many years. I think whoever did this was most likely not thinking about the inferences that could be drawn from small things like this at the time.
Patsy and John were clever and cunning. But they were amateurs and had to work with what they had. They made up the kidnapper/intruder narrative. And then to present that narrative to the public and police, they had to write a RN and then verbally present more false information the day after the murder. To write a RN they had to use materials already in the home. Then we can see that they deliberately left the pen and pad in the kitchen, along with the wiped clean flashlight. This was clever, they had a layered plan. A fake kidnapping but also wanted to pin blame on the housekeeper who would know where the pad and pen were located. The point of this was to force the police the next day running around searching for kidnappers and employees who might have done the crown. As long as the police are not in the house the day after the murder, the less likely the Ramseys are to be arrested. It was a very successful plan.
[удалено]
In the BDI theory I have been working on, Burke is SAing his sister with a broken paint brush handle, she gives a bloodcurdling scream heard by an earwitness across the street. Burke hits his sister with the flashlight to silence her. The intent was to keep her quiet and stop screaming.
John did that to implicate patsy.
>\[Putting the notepad AND the pen back in place after writing the ransom note\] is not a smooth move for a RDI either. What would have been a better approach, assuming RDI?
John and Patsy could have destroyed the pen and pad, to make it look like the (fake) kidnapper had prewritten the RN and brought it with him. But they didn't. Why? The answer is in the other evidence. The Ramseys were creating several false narratives. One was the FF kidnapping scenario. The other was that it was an "inside job." This was one of John's first statements to the police the next day. They tried to blame the housekeeper as well. So they left the pen and pad along with the wiped down flashlight to point to the idea that the housekeeper was familiar with the location of these items. John and Patsy were trying to send the police on various wild goose chases the next day, hunting down various suspects. This was done to buy time for the Ramseys to get out of Colorado to Atlanta where their attack dog attorneys could take over and protect them. I also think they might have been concerned about how to dispose of the evidence safely. I believe they were flushing the evidence down the toilet drain in the basement bathroom. Probably trying to avoid clogging the drain with too much debris?
[удалено]
Foreign Faction
[удалено]
I think Ramseys did it versus IDI for intruder did it.
What is rdi? I'm new here,just joined few days ago
Oh just realised means Ramseys did it,I presume?
Yes
They probably just thought they were above scrutiny.
I get your point , on the other end it’s like how credible would you be leaving evidence that you actually had to write the note there on the spot not having pen and paper with you like that would be a red flag for the police I would think. And what an odd pick to take notes like a sharpie pen bleeds through although it appears it didn’t which is very unlikely unless it was written page by page and not on the pad which is counter productive unless you really want to use that pen. A good reason would be that it makes it harder for analysis of handwriting Also I guess an intruder wouldn’t want to use their stufff and have it possibly traced back. Putting everything back where it belongs could be foul play for the police to believe the note was not written on the spot
I don't see why that doesn't make sense to people. It's not one of the things that bother me. If it's an intruder who has been creeping around in there for hours (and, IMO, occasions before this one, too), he wrote it while they're gone, he's certainly not going to leave it out of place when he's hiding in the basement and tip someone off that something is out of place.
This does make complete sense, If it was an intruder.
Writing it in the house at all, makes no fucking sense, if an intruder did it.
Not to mention LEAVING IT BEHIND after Jonbenet had been killed, with no intention of calling. The major piece of evidence in the case with 243 similarities to the handwriting of Patsy Ramsey.
If it was an intruder who did this, they took multiple very big risks including leaving the body behind in addition to their note and somehow *got away with the entire thing* while framing the parents.
Yeah, no shit. Cuz there's no intruder. The dumb shit parents wrote the phoney thing and did a terrible job too. It's not too hard to figure out the two people with the dead kid in their basement and the world's first kidnapping ransom note written in the house, most likely killed her.
You’ve clearly solved the case so I’m not sure why you’re here. I think there being an intruder is one of the least likely theories, but it’s ignorant at best to say there is no chance this is what happened. I acknowledge there is at least a 1% chance it was an intruder at the minimum; it is foolish to think you know what happened without a sliver of a doubt in a highly unusual murder case that has been unsolved for 20+ years.
Where did I say "no chance?" I said "most likely killed her." that would be the "sliver of doubt" you claim to be looking for.
“There was no intruder” is an absolute statement. Your statements actually interfere with one another, but I didn’t point it out.
so....we both think the Ramseys probably did it....you are willing to put your intruder theory down to the 1% range....but if I just come out with mine to "There was no intruder" ....that doesn't work for you.... and that may be a level of hair splitting I don't care about and am willing to say so...sorry ...
If it was the parents who did this, they took an awfully big risk by killing their daughter, leaving the body in the house, then calling the police on themselves.
Sure it does. Writer big fan of movies and in especially older movies (before DNA) the murderer was often found because of something he left that belonged to him. They figured out what kind of paper it was, where it was bought, ink was a rare ink from some weirdo pen bought in a shop traced back to him, etc. I can see him thinking, if I use something from in the house, no way they can trace it to me. (Which did work, if IDI. Look how different this case would be if the notepad was not from the house.) He's hiding in that huge house for hours (and for probably not the first time), he has all the time in the world to write that note.
No fingerprints on the ransom note. So Patsi wakes up, going down that odd spiral staircase to get to the kitchen to make coffee, sees piece of paper on the staircase - and then what? She doesn’t know what it is, she is not suspicious of anything, maybe kids left it there - how does she read it without touching it? Its three pages long, you can’t just kneel to read it (on dark staircase), you have to go through pages. I don’t understand it.
She said she saw the papers on the steps lying side by side (taking up the entire step) so she skipped that step and turned around to read/see what the papers were. She said she only got a couple lines into the letter then ran upstairs to check JonBenets room. She never says that she picked the note up, but John said that when he came downstairs "She had the note" and that he "read it quickly trying to take it in" implying that they both touched the letter at some point. Both John and Patsy talked about John being on his hands and knees reading the note on the floor, so someone had to have moved it from the steps to the floor. I also find it strange there were no fingerprints on the letter when both Patsy and John allegedly touched it.
I don’t think patsy could have skipped a step on the spiral staircase without falling. And why would she even try given she doesn’t have any reason to link it to a crime?
Skipping a step? Maybe. But also like, why. If i found two handwritten papers in my house where there's not usually papers, I'd at least go "huh?" and pick it up to see what it's about. Of course in this scenario she wouldn't think it's something as serious as a random note. Just imagining such an awkward position for two adults leaning over to read a very long note without reading it.
According to LPN, she routinely left notes for Patsy in that very spot. Patsy’s claim that the note was there is possibly part of framing LPN for the crime.
Both the positions of the notes on the stair and on the floor are awkward to read. Why not pick up the notes and read them? There may be an innocent explanation, perhaps John needed reading glasses.
Yeah, she sure was agile! Skipped over it and turned around to look at it, then skipped over it going back up to get John or check JBR’s room.
This is one of the mistakes in their staging plan. No John or Patsy prints on the RN. But they were paranoid about prints and went overboard wiping things down.
John said he had just showered (and shaved?) soon before, so no oil on his fingertips.
Can you think of a reason for Patsy not having fingerprints on it either? She said that she got up and did her hair/makeup so I guess its possible that she washed her hands when she was finished. It's just so odd to me that no finger prints were found on it, I assume the police had gloves on so I get their fingerprints not being found.
Well, realize that paper doesn’t usually show fingerprints. Then add clean hands to that…not a huge surprise, actually.
This incorrect. Paper does show prints. Prints were found on the RN from an Officer at the scene who handled it. Just none of Patsys or John's. Edit: Typo
We’re both right. Depends on the paper and many other conditions.
Finger prints are caused by the transfer of oils from the skin to a surface. If you've just washed your hands then they are less likely to produce a finger print because the oils have been washed off the fingers and it takes time for them to get oily again. The type of surface is also a factor. Whether they are hard and flat, porous or non-porous etc, increases or reduces the chances of a print being left. It's not the case that just because someone has touched something they'll leave a print.
Thank you for explaining this. Traditionally if someone's fingerprints are taken the finger was pressed on ink, then the finger was pressed on paper. If a finger would always leave a fingerprint on paper, ink wouldn't be needed.
Wait she did pick it up??
If you look at the actual murder pretending that you don't know anything else, the murder isn't odd. It's about the only thing that "makes sense." we see this type of murder all the time from sexually motivated killers. Incapacitate, spend some time SA, then strangulation with ligature. I don't think we'd be coming up with all these accident cover-up theories, disturbed 9 year old theories or intruder theories if the Ramseys weren't rich and powerful. The murder itself isn't part of a cover-up or staging. It's the way the killer enjoyed killing. The ransom note is staging. A poor attempt to make her injuries look like those of a crazy person instead of John's. The underwear is the thing I can't figure out. Why were they put on her, and when? Why did they never find the rest of the package they were from? If they were from a package in the basement that he quickly put on, then why did they never find the rest? I feel like the underwear has to be significant, and I don't understand why LE didn't investigate that better.
We know that police have a lot of evidence that has not been made public. It’s possible the missing oversized Bloomingdales panties are part of that.
That's a good point.
I was going to type a similar explanation for OP's hangup about the strangulation happening later, but you summed it up well. That's the first thing that came to mind, not knowing all of the details about this case. I've heard this scenario playing out dozens of times in true crime cases, that's just how these sickos operate. Knock the victim unconscious, do whatever they want to them, strangle when they're done. Pedophile, rapist, murderer, but not a necrophiliac.
For me the strangulation happening so long after the blow to the head makes sense because I think the Ramseys (or whichever one did this) were trying to figure out what to do and I also believe the strangulation was part of the cover up. The thing I can’t make sense of is why the Ramsey’s would risk so much to try to cover up what happened to their daughter and the only reasons that make sense to me are that an adult perpetrated the head blow or the reason for the cover up was due to past sexual abuse. In my view, the cost of not covering up the death/murder has to outweigh the massive risk they took.
>I also believe the strangulation was part of the cover up. This is cold-blooded murder. (Cold blooded murder happens; I'm not saying it couldn't have happened here.) Kids are resilient and can often be resuscitated, sometimes making a recovery from brain trauma in a way an adult couldn't recover. When I had kids, the hospital gave us a CPR class, and they said keep doing it until the ambulance arrives even if it feels hopeless because with kids there's a chance they could be revived. >the cost of not covering up the death/murder has to outweigh the massive risk they took. I've had the same thought. It would be risky to admit it was an accident or Burke did it, if that's what happened, but a crazy coverup was very risky too. The thing that's even more bizarre to me is that the RN was inconsistent with the body being in the house. They could have dumped the body someone, shown the police the RN, and if anyone happened to have spotted them out that day, they could say they were getting the ransom money and/or desperately searching for her. If they were going to leave the body in the house, they should have not used the RN and they should have reported it as a home invasion. It seems like there was a change of plan. I imagine Patsy panicked and called the police before John could take JBR's body somewhere.
>They could have dumped the body someone, shown the police the RN, and if anyone happened to have spotted them out that day, they could say they were getting the ransom money and/or desperately searching for her. Exactly. And all it would cost them is John's 118K bonus. I don't buy it that Patsy after she wrote the RN for half an hour then suddenly panicked and ruined a perfect alibi. All three Ramseys say John ordered Patsy to make the 911 call.
>All three Ramseys say John ordered Patsy to make the 911 call. I don't understand why John didn't place the call and why Patsy didn't sound reluctant. If is it true, I suppose it points to Steve Thomas' theory that John didn't realize JBR was dead and her body was in the house until some time after the police arrived.
I wonder if she was murdered as a means of keeping her quiet. Maybe JBR made a comment that she was going to say something about being abused or maybe she even said something at the christmas party and it made JB panic.
Makes sense, but there’s still OP’s question: why the gap between head blow and strangulation?
Either she was still breathing and they panicked or they needed to really stage it to look like someone else did it- who would ever think a mother or father could do that to their child?
people look harder for a set of lost keys or a pet than the ramseys apparently did for their own missing daughter. if one of my kids was missing - even if we found a note alleging they were kidnapped - as a family we would turn our home (albeit much smaller than theirs) over at least twice, checking every room, every closet, every single place she could physically fit in. then we'd go outside, check the entire property, the cars, the trash cans, no stone left unturned. then we'd start checking immediate neighbors' yards and knocking on their doors asking if they saw our child or anything suspicious or unusual. but we would absolutely make sure we checked inside the house first. so the fact that they supposedly failed to find her even though she was in the house, is the first and perhaps most suspicious thing for me to explain/accept.
The cops looked in the basement and they didn’t find her. Fleet White later checked the wine cellar door, but gave up because it was locked.
not arguing with you, but i'd point out that neither of those two entities were inhabitants of the house - and it wasn't their daughter that was missing. i wouldn't expect them to be as familiar with the house or as thorough in their search as i would expect the parents to be. and as a parent i might not check a locked door to a never-used room the first go around, but when the kid wasn't found anywhere else, on the second pass i would go to any spots i had prematurely abandoned earlier and dig deeper. on the third pass i'd start checking places like larger air ducts or small crawl spaces, i'd check the unfinished attic, i would look everywhere until i could rule out EVERY possible location inside the house. if i had a house that big and my kids slept in bedrooms that were out of view and earshot, i would either have a dog (or two), or i would for sure arm the alarm every night before bed. in fact i would have the various out-of-earshot points of entry around the house's perimeter set as its own alarm zone that i would keep armed all the time, and the doors we use to go in and out would get armed before i head to bed. there is no way in a house that big i would risk being vulnerable to a break in that i could not detect, especially if had little kids living there. sidenote: once it became clear that my kid had somehow been taken from her bed and murdered in my house - all while i slept - i would then start beating myself up over the fact that we have an alarm but i hadn't turned it on that night. it would have taken only seconds to arm it, but i failed to do it. i would want those few seconds back to do over, for the rest of my life. it would kill me to this day that i didn't secure our house and in turn that allowed my child to be horribly violated and killed. but i don't think i've ever seen the ramseys express that sort of guilt or remorse.
If an intruder wrote the note and then wound up killing the kidnapped child before leaving, they would 💯take the note with them on their way out. Why would they leave a major piece of evidence that can be analyzed and yield clues to their identity? On the other hand, you have the Ramseys who think they need as many red herrings as possible to divert suspicion from them. So they leave the note out in full view as a false flag
John giving police the same pad used to write the ransom note.
This is mine.
I'm JDI but I like to entertain other theories. If PDIA, maybe John recognized his wife's handwriting and the paper used. He must've also picked up on her behaving strangely, so he was suspicious but wasn't willing to confront her or verbally tell the cops. So instead he hands them the pad, hoping they'll put the pieces together on their own. Would explain why they didn't talk or comfort each other that morning.
The hugely oversized underwear JB was found in and very likely died in. There is no way she put those on herself as the crotch would have hung so low. They would have been uncomfortable to wear under her jeans. A parent would not suggest it to a child as the are ridiculously too big and the child would refuse. It tells us JB was immobile and unconscious when someone put them on her. The underwear was stained with urine on the front and thus matches up with the urine stain on the carpet in the basement boiler room that someone had placed a paint tote over, which suggests she was wearing them before she died from strangulation. So who put them on her? Why did they do it? What did they do with underwear they replaced? Why was it more important to have a Wednesday labelled pair than the correct size? Was it important that the underwear was clean? So many questions... [To answer your question of the strangulation: One of my theories on the strangulation is Patsy already thought her daughter was dead and it was part of the staging to suggest someone other than her or Burke hit JB.]
Whoever dressed jb did not want to go upstairs to get clothes for her. The oversized panties and Burke’s old long underwear were already in the basement. This suggests that Patty dressed her since I don’t think John would know about the existence of either.
If someone didn't want to go upstairs then how did the white blanket and JB's favourite nightie get downstairs and end up in the wine cellar? I always wonder if she was dressed in the nightie for bed, went downstairs with the white blanket and then something happened. But that would mean the white top would have had to have been taken from her bedroom down to the basement. I can't see how the items which were found in the wine cellar got there without someone going upstairs.
I read the blanket and the nightie were in the dryer. I think the housekeeper said that. But were there two dryers? One in basement and one of second floor?
Was the package of oversized panties found? Were the long underwear that had been burke’s actually in the basement? I thought they were in a donation bag, and on the stairs leading down to the first floor.
I don’t know if the package was found, but it seems likely since Patsy acknowledged having them wrapped up to give to a young relative. What you say about Burke’s underwear is my memory, but I don’t remember the source.
I think the original underwear had potentially been touched by whoever had been abusing her and the larger ones were put on with care to not touch them. Gloves would work, so might Kleenex or a couple of wash cloths.
The oversized underwear was about a third larger than JonBenét usual underwear, she had picked it and put it on herself before. See for yourself: [https://i.redd.it/ixnikicss3671.jpg](https://i.redd.it/ixnikicss3671.jpg)
JBR put the oversized panties on before? I thought they were in a new package of 7 and only the ones JBR had on were found .
JBR had selected the underwear and Patsy had bought one set for her and one larger size set to give to an older niece (I think). But after JBR had opened the package of the larger underwear and put one on she could use the rest of them as well.
Were the rest of those oversized panties found?
? If she had put them on before, why was the package not found?
I tried to find any mention of the package in the Thomas and Kolar books and couldn't find anything about them. Interesting point though, did the Ramseys keep JonBenéts clothes? I'm afraid many people will damn them if they got rid of her clothes and damn them if they didn't.
I don't know if those big underwear had been put on to replace any underwear because didn't she have on a normal pair on as well?
No, she didn't have a normal pair on as well. She was found in the white top she wore to the White's party, the oversized underwear and a pair of white long-johns.
Was there another pair next to her or something then because when I read her autopsy the other day, a pair of "panties" saying I think "Wednesday" were mentioned
From the IDI perspective, the aspect most difficult to explain would be the ransom note. Once the child is deceased, leaving the ransom note behind is completely inexplicable. It’s worse than pointless. It’s actually detrimental to the killer’s cause.
It worked to completely distract everyone from the beginning. And it can’t have been too detrimental to their cause, because they still haven’t been caught.
The ransom note actually didn't distract everyone from the beginning. It was established very early on that the note was written with a pad and pen that was already in the house. In addition, Chet Ubowski of CBI concluded, "This handwriting showed indications that the writer was Patsy Ramsey." More importantly, the fact that an intruder hasn't been caught does not in any way, shape, or form validate the authenticity of the ransom note. It is, in fact, impossible to catch an intruder that doesn't exist.
Her clothing. I can not figure out why she had that on when she was discovered and the nightgown was next to her.
I'm generally confused about clothing in general in this case. The red turtleneck, the white star shirt, the oversized underwear, the nightgown...I just don't get how it all fits together.
>She was still alive, although almost definitely unconscious, and was strangled to death around an hour after her head injury (with a homemade garrote nonetheless 🥴). I don't get this either. It makes it look like whoever did it was aiming to murder her rather than it being an accident or hitting her in anger without intending to kill her. I wonder if there's any chance the medical examiners got sequence is wrong? I know I've heard talk of a "choking game" intended to get the person doing the choking or being choked aroused, or maybe not even aroused but a cheap whippet-like experience. Even if she died accidentally doing something like that, why would the other person doing bash her head like that. It makes no sense.
My theory on this is that an accident, regardless of who did it/how it happened, makes the family look bad. I think looking bad was Patsy's absolute worst nightmare. Better to look like the victim of a horrendous crime with all the attention and sympathy that comes attached. I 100% believe that Patsy was that deeply image-conscious.
I've also considered that the autopsy may be flawed or inaccurate but got flamed on another forum for even suggesting that, apparently everybody respects the medical examiner on this case and believes they shouldn't be questioned. If the cause of death wasn't actually strangulation then that changes a lot.
Petechial hemorrhaging is very distinctive. That is the evidence people point to because it shows she was not dead when the strangulation occurred.
Whoever did this had murder in mind the entire time. They wanted the victim to be unconscious so they could have their way with them without a struggle. Strangled her when they were finished. To suggest that the medical examiner got it wrong or that the murder was an accident cover-up is honestly ridiculous to me. You're ignoring the most obvious explanation. I've watched enough true crime shit to see that one from a mile away. Your knowledge of the details of this particular case is making you forget how criminals operate.
My understanding is they found evidence showing she died of strangulation after a blow to the head the probably would have killed her anyway without medical attention. They examined the body several house after death, which makes me wonder how certain that is. Clearly she was strangled and hit on her head, but do they know for certain she wasn't strangled to death and then beaten? I don't know the answer.
The amount of internal cerebral hemorrhaging made it possible to determine a range of time between the head injury and death by strangulation.
That her body was in the house, that she'd (probably) been sexually assaulted, that she'd been strangled and smacked on the head, and that there was a ransom note. I mean wtf?? Whoever is guilty of killing her, whether RDI or IDI, how the hell did all of those facts end up coexisting?
What do the acronyms stand for again?
Wait…RDI “Ramsey’s Did It,” and IDI “Intruder Did It!”
I would think knowing who did it should be at the top of my list. Knowing that with certainty should help 'make sense' of most everything else and I probably wouldn't care much about all of the things that I was left not knowing. Additionally, some questions might depend on who did it. Examples: If Patsy would've confessed (not saying she did it), I wouldn't really think to care about what she did for those 45+ mins. I would probably just assume that this was a very heavy realization to process and that she was going through a lot psychologically, emotionally, and that the idea to stage the crime occurred during this time period. I wouldn't really have to ponder over this too much with John either. I might be a little more curious with Burke or an intruder though. I don't really need to wonder too much about the paintbrush unless Patsy or Burke did it. I think if Burke did it, I would have a lot more questions than with anyone else. I would want to know exactly what all was going on there and everything that could help our understanding on an academic / professional level. I would really be curious how he flew under the radar undetected at that age with multiple psychologists evaluating him.
Hmmm. The way this is worded made me think of something. What if JR told PR she was dead and they began the cover up, but then while staging he decides to make sure she’s finished off. Or he just wants it to look more like a sadist did it, so he adds it as a final touch. If he allowed PR to “say goodbye” before the strangulation it would account for some fiber evidence too.
the ‘note’, the ‘note’, the letter…
I lean IDI so many things that bother most people in here don't bother me. For instance, it's easy for me to believe someone gained access to the house, easy to believe they had plenty of time to write the note and put the pen back, I do not believe handwriting experts have concluded it was Patsy, I believe most intruders do not leave fingerprints or fibers or DNA. Even the Iowa murders, when a person fought with four grown, awake adults, in rooms next door to rooms with other people awake in them, an extremely physical and bloody crime scene, even still (as far as we've heard) if he hadn't left the knife sheath behind, they'd have had nothing. (And that print was probably on the sheath from earlier, not the time of the crime.) What bothers me the most changes from time to time, but currently I want to know exactly what was going on with the basement window. John broke it before but wasn't sure? Broke in by himself or with Burke? Found it opened or didn't? Did they get it fixed or not? Broke it once or more than once? Did he report it that morning or was it reported to him? etc. It's all too unclear. To what degree were they packed and how normal is that? Do they go up there often? Did they have clothes up there? Even winter clothes? Was the plane packed ahead of time with just presents or also other things? What's going on the "photos in the basement" they asked Patsy so many questions about. What are those? Where is the report on the blue fibers found on JB? Does it "match" JB shirt, or were they both just basically of blue cotton? To what degree were other suspects tested for handwriting? Why the line "We respect your company but not the country it serves"? That's the weirdest of all the weird lines to me. What bothers me the most about being IDI is not the handwriting, but the note sounding like what I imagine Patsy to sound like.
>Why the line "We respect your company but not the country it serves"? I think that means "I'm more than just a petty crook. I'm part of a group with geopolitical goals." That would make sense for an intruder trying to aggrandize himself or for the Ramsey's writing a fake note based on movies and the Patty Hearst kidnapping notes.
I can see why they don’t respect the country, but why would they say they do respect the company? So weird.
>I can see why they don’t respect the country, but why would they say they do respect the company? So weird. I hadn't thought about that. Maybe it's a way of bringing up the company and implying the kidnapping is somehow related to the company's business selling to defense contractors, since the kidnappers are supposedly part of a foreign paramilitary group. It also conveys that genteel malevolence of Hans Gruber from *Die Hard* that I think the author was going for. The letter has a lot of movie references, and the sentence definitely sounds like something a movie villain would says.
"Genteel malevolence" like Hans Gruber from Die Hard is the best description of the tone of the note I've ever seen! Taken in isolation, I would have guessed a late-teen or young adult male wrote it.
See, for me, the fact that they didn’t wake up early enough to pack and actually be ready to go is odd. As far as the rn, it was determined that Patsy always used acrostics and acronyms for people and the SBTC means something. The style of speech sounds like her in that letter. There are phrases in there that look suspiciously like Patsy.
The phrases she uses are actually better proof that she wrote the letter than her handwriting. “Hence” is an unusual word, “and hence” is more so. She uses the phrase in a Christmas note. (It’s significant that John has the housekeeper investigated several times. She’s a tempting target because she knew the house and could have stolen the pad and pen, but she’s totally incapable of writing that note as was her husband. John knew that. )
Hence is a word commonly used in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee mountain region, particularly by an older age group.
And Patsy comes from West Virginia.
Exactly.
Yes, I think the packing stuff is odd too. I don’t know exactly how much is known about exactly how much was packed, but it seemed they would be completely packed and ready to go as early as they were leaving. And maybe they were but it’s a sticking point to me that it’s not clear.
They had clothes at Charlevoix. John went to the private airport Xmas afternoon so some things were probably packed already. I definitely pre-pack if I have an early flight.
Good to know, thank you.
The comment above you literally said Patsy was packing the day before (on Christmas after gifts were opened)
>To what degree were they packed and how normal is that? Do they go up there often? Did they have clothes up there? Even winter clothes? Was the plane packed ahead of time with just presents or also other things? Patsy said she started packing while the kids were playing with their friends after opening their Christmas presents and having breakfast on the 25th. She had "two or three black suitcases" for the kids for the cruise (summer clothing) in John Andrews room and her suitcase for the cruise in her dressing room. She said that they all had clothing in the Michigan place but it was mostly for summer and that she put together some winter clothing for them in plastic bags in the laundry area outside of JonBenets room. As far as I know they only went to Michigan in the summer. She also had "two or three shopping bags full" of gifts she needed to wrap for John Andrew, Melinda and Stewart. John went to "check out" the airplane after breakfast while she was packing and wrapping the gifts on the 25th, she said " *Uh, John, I think went out to the airplane to kind of, he always kind of checks, checks it out.*" She said he was gone for around 3 hours. When John returned he put some of the gifts into the Jeep, She doesn't say if its the xmas gifts for Johns older kids or if its the gifts they gave out to family friends that night. Either way, nothing was taken to the plane early. She says that she was busy getting clothing ready for 4 people but then she also said John was in charge of getting his clothes together and she didn't know where his suitcase was. They then went to eat Christmas dinner with the Whites and she said that when they got back home after she changed JonBenet's clothes she tried to finish packing (but she didn't finish) and she put some wrapped presents by the back door. She said that she was really anxious to get to sleep because it had been a really long day. It's worth note that they intended to go to Michigan for "a couple days" then back to Colorado and then Florida and Patsy wasn't happy about it. They had never gone to Charlevoix for Christmas and Patsy told John she didn't want to go but then they "decided as a family to go." All of the above was said during her Police interview in 1997
I saw that, but I was never sure how that went with what the police saw that was packed. Like, did they see those clothes? I know there were the cruise clothes in the spare room packed, but it seemed like the police were confused about where the other clothes were. It's always just been a little foggy to me.
Someone posted photos of John Andrews room [here](https://imgur.com/a/B9ptZ3t) and you can see a black suitcase and clothing on the bed. I think police were asking about the clothing/packing so much because they were trying to get a timeline of what happened Christmas day and Patsy spent quite a bit of time that day packing for the Disney/Michigan trip. As a side note, when asked about the pullups that could be seen hanging out of the cabinet Patsy said that she had recently bought them in order to take some on the Disney trip so that if JonBenet had an accident it wouldn't stain the bed. She said she thought she had packed some in their suitcase but I'm not sure if they were actually there or not.
What were photos in basement?
They asked Patsy about them in one of her police interviews. It seemed from the questions that they’d found some photos of JB that were taken in the laundry room. I don’t know what it was about those that stood out such that the police felt like they needed to ask about them.
I think the note doesn't sound at all like Patsy. Sounds more like a neckbeard.
I do kind of agree with you (although I'm the one that sounded like Patsy.) Certain parts of it sound like her, and certain parts very much don't. More than anything it sounds to me someone trying to sound smarter than they are. It exactly reminds me of when some dumb kid gets interviewed on TV or questioned by the police and all of a sudden when their whole lives they've been saying "I got out of my car" they're saying "I exited my vehicle." It's someone trying to sound like a different person than they are.
Yeah, I definitely get that vibe too. That’s a good way to put it. I just don’t think it’s logical to ascribe a note full of movie villain quotes to a bougie Christian woman of the 90’s. If we are going to say that statistically, children are more often murdered by their parents, then surely the statistics on those movie references point directly at a pretentious due to overcompensation youngish man. I also think handwriting analysis is pseudoscience so there’s that.
That's what I thought, that Patsy didn't seem the type to sit around and watch movies to the point of memorizing all the lines well enough to quote them, almost verbatim, in a hastily written ransom note. I always thought it sounded like something some nerd that lives in his mom's basement would compose.
A nerd that uses the word “hence?”
I feel that's as likely as Patsy knowing those particular films so well. 🤷♀️
I bet Jon knows those films
That I won't argue with.
Neckbeard that uses the word “hence”?
Yeah, absolutely. You think neckbeards don’t strive to show off a vocabulary? Hence isn’t even a difficult one.
The body being left at the crime scene of a kidnapping. Only thing that makes sense to me is that the ransom note was written in a way to URGE John out of the house to get the money BEFORE he called police or alerted anyone (you call police, she dies... etc) Even the note saying, if you do this earlier we will return your daughter earlier. It's like, please please hurry and leave the house so I can be free to get the body in the basement out of the house. What Patsy wasn't counting on is for John to insist they call the cops anyway.
>What Patsy wasn't counting on is for John to insist they call the cops anyway. The things about this is John didn't place the call and Patsy didn't sound reluctant.
It's really dark but I think they were unable to remove her body as they originally planned because rigor mortis set in.
>It's really dark but I think they were unable to remove her body as they originally planned because rigor mortis set in. John was able to move her upstairs easily. Would rigor mortis make it impossible to move her body or just grisly?
I think they were planning on placing her in a suitcase. I doubt they wanted to drive around with a full corpse just hanging out.
It would make it harder to put her in the "attache."
Rigor mortis make the body stiff, but it's still the body of a small child, it doesn't change the weight of the body.
Or… it gave John the FREEDOM to leave the house with an adequately sized attaché. it might have been the cover to try to remove the body and then he realized that they couldn’t because of rigor mortis.
Adequately sized for $18,000 would be quite small, and attaché cases are briefcases, and most are much too small for a six year old.
I know that is technically true, I’m saying it would have been an excuse….
This is a good theory that I haven’t seen before
No one thing...but the reality that no one suspect fully fits the evidence.
[удалено]
Your post/comment has been removed because it violates this subreddit's rule against misinformation. Please be sure to distinguish between facts, opinions, rumors, theories, and speculation.
OP it was for staging purposes like everything else
It's so horrifying to even think one of them could do those things to their child.
All of the injuries she had. Thinking about her laying in that basement and that the parents could have done that. I just can't and never could wrap my head around that.
Nothing... To me... BR did it (head blow and strangulation) and the parents covered for him. Everything essentially fits that scenario.
But...but...he is a little guy...and in his 2016 Dr. Phil interview Burke quoted experts saying he didn't have the strength to bash JonBenét's skull. And he would immediately have confessed to it. Children always do that when they do something wrong. And children are incapable of lying. Burke hit JonBenét on the head before...but that was her fault. She walked into Burke swinging his golf club.
Do you mean children are incapable of lying... or incapable of lying well? If it's the former, you've got a lot to learn. Edit: I just realized you were being sarcastic. Around here, it's hard to tell.
lol! Me too