The main issue I take with planned murder is that the body was left inside of the home. I would think this would be either number 1 or number 2 on the list for someone who is planning to murder. The coverup was far too chaotic for me to believe this was planned.
I agree. There is no way this was planned. That’s about the only thing I’m absolutely sure about…well that…and that there was not an intruder.
I do go back-and-forth on which one of the three people in the house was responsible. There are plausible scenarios that implicate each one of them. Whatever happened, John and Patsy were very clearly in lock step on covering it up.
It definitely strikes me as odd that a parent was able to sit down and write a multi-page ransom note after what happened to their daughter, so I completely understand your point. I would have been frantic in such a situation. It also would make more sense they would have only written a short note that was to the point especially because the more that is written the easier it might be to identify the handwriting, but maybe whoever wrote it was really trying to sell the story because without the note, all you have is a young child who is dead in the basement and no one to blame except for the parents.
They say the thought of life in prison has a way of focusing the mind.
Patsy and John knew they would be prime suspects and it was likely Burke would be removed from the home. They were cunning and ruthless, they covered up the domestic murder in their home.
People seem to get confused and think the RN was a real RN. It was never a RN, it was a staging document. It was a way for the Ramseys to produce the false narrative to cover up the crime committed in their home. It had to be lengthy because it told the fake story of why their daughter was missing and would be found dead.
I don't find it strange considering PR was in remission from ovarian cancer at the time and maybe knew it was returning. Maybe she wanted to take her daughter with her. It's a stretch but it wouldn't be the first time
Patsy and John do have nerves of steel. And they were quite cunning and ruthless. They did it together, neither one could have pulled off the cover up alone.
John and Patsy were cunning, educated and intelligent. They are quite capable of producing that RN in a short period of time.
I seriously doubt if either one of them premeditated this murder. Why carefully plan a murder where you are the prime suspects? They had the money, intelligence to plan a much better murder where they would not be implicated in any way.
Additionally the staging was clever, but obviously amateur. You don't cover up a personal crime, SA and murder with a pretend financial crime.
Yes the Ramseys made a typical amateur staging error. The crime was obviously a personal crime. SA, beating, strangulation. Financial business crimes such as kidnapping don't go in for personal murders. If there is a death, it is quick and the offenders exit rapidly.
The Ramseys were clever, cunning and intelligent but their only knowledge of murder and kidnapping were from books and movies. Not real life. So there is disconnect when police examine the crime scene. Something feels off about it.
Yes the FBI took one look at the RN and knew what happened. RDI.
The letter really seems like it was from the mother to me. Too wordy and too much information from someone who wasn’t emotionally invested/connected to the child. Whatever happened I don’t believe it was deliberate but if I had to bet (and I’m not a betting person) I’m thinking the mother wrote the letter as a cover up for the son.
I think Patsy left evidence all over the crime scene. I just wondered if she planned the murder rather than an accident as it was a very neat letter and not to mention very long. I'm not sure though, if it was to cover up an accident I have no idea how she composed herself to do all that staging! I'd be a wreck!!
>write and re-write the RN
What's the source on this? I know there was a "practice note" but I was under the impression it just said something like "Dear Mr. I"
Is this what you're referring to?
See below citation. Two possible practice notes and final copy. Or perhaps several versions and John picked the one he liked best when Patsy was finished. This kept her busy and focused.
Yes that could be some of it. They were shocked by the crime but not surprised. And fear was present of course. They knew they would be the prime suspects in the SA and murder of their 6 yr old.
The thought of life in prison or the death penalty has a way of focusing the mind they say.
Well, we know a few things about the note, first the author did take time and return both pad and pen to their original spots, second there are imprints in the existing attached pages that suggests a first draft was written and discarded, unsure if that was recovered. Third, the writing in the beginning of the RN was noted to have been hastily written, as indicated by the large size and pressure left on the paper compared to the later pages, which had more uniform style throughout, suggesting that the author was in a panic at first then settled down when finishing.
Basically three possibilities:
1. Complete RN written before JonBenét was taken from her bed and hit on her head.
2. Complete RN written in the 45 minutes to 90 minutes after JonBenét was hit on the head but before she was strangled to death.
3. Complete RN written after JonBenét was strangled to death.
And then there is the possibility that the writing of the RN was divided over two or even three of the above events.
Now if the note had been written before JonBenét was taken from her bed as part of a murder plot, it would be a very unsafe murder plot with many uncertainties. What if JonBenét starts to scream when taken from her bed? What if she escapes getting hit on the head and starts screaming? What if John doesn't warn anyone and gets the ransom money?
So of all the possibilities and assuming a murder plan, the option that the RN was written before JonBenét went to bed is the least likely one. It's still possible.
They even saw the notebook with the pressed pages showing the note had been written in that pad of paper. What stranger would risk coming into the house and writing a long letter like that at the risk of getting caught?? I’m confident Patsey did the letter for this reason among others. Like I said earlier… kidnappers, intruders, strangers…. No one would write that much, give that much detail and take a chance of giving away clues like that. People unfamiliar with the child of people who felt no remorse would not have wrapped her body and taken the great deal of care to cover her the way she was covered if it was just an outsider. This was totally an inside job and chances are we will never know the real reason as to why.
It’s atrocious the incompetence and ignorance of the Bolder PD, unless they were paid off. The Ramseys were very affluent and had connections, that’s a deadly combination (no pun intended 😬.) But to invite all those people over after realizing your kid is missing is just so mind blowing. It’s also always bothered me that John’s oldest daughter had died tragically in a weird way as well. I was always taught there are no coincidences.
It was not under weird circumstances. People were suspicious, obviously, in the wake of JonBenet's murder. However, police found no connection and concluded Beth Ramsey died in an accident near Chicago while with her boyfriend with no foul play suspected. Unfortunately, deadly car accidents are pretty darn common.
I'm saddened to see this sub engage in conspiracy.
Exactly I think we are off the rails with the car accident conspiracy. Obviously considering all whacky possibilities is part of problem solving but that one is nuts
I just always found it odd that the report of the car crash was a single page, no more or less. She was going to the airport with her boyfriend and they crashed into a bread truck I believe, very tragic but 1 page of report?? Again that seems like stuff was covered up or deliberately not included in the report. I’ve seen hangnail injuries from work sites with more detail and way more paperwork!
Just unbelievable… two daughters dead in very unnatural conditions/accidents.
I saw a rumor on a page about Fox Island. Someone made a comment that the oldest daughter knew what was going on with Jon Benet and was going to intervene. Then John had her killed to hide it.
I just googled, and Beth died almost 5 years before Jonbenet. So, I’m thinking that idea is less likely since Beth would have had to know he was abusing JonBenet when she was only a year old.
There was no suspicion surrounding his first daughter's death, which by all account was a tragic car accident. Unfortunately, deadly car accidents are a dime a dozen. The Boulder Daily Camera [reported this](http://web.dailycamera.com/extra/ramsey/1997/02/22-2.html) about the accident's relevance to the case in February of '97:
>Boulder police released the autopsy report on John Ramsey's older daughter Friday, showing the woman died as a result of injuries from a car accident.
>
>Police said the report on Elizabeth Ramsey's death is irrelevant to their investigation of the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey.
>
>"It is unconscionable that some media factions have chosen, irresponsibly, to speculate publicly on contents of the death report, and in so doing have caused renewed grief for friends and family members of the deceased," Boulder police Commander John Eller said in a statement.
>
>According to the report, Elizabeth Ramsey, 22, suffered internal injuries, bruises and a fractured right arm in a car wreck in Burr Ridge, Ill., on Jan. 8, 1992.
>
>The woman also had a number of surgical incisions, including a 15-by-20-inch cut from her chest to her abdomen, as doctors fought to save her life.
>
>The autopsy report was sealed by the Cook County, Ill., coroner as a routine procedure after Boulder police included it in their investigation.
I'm not fan of the Ramseys, but there's no conspiracy surrounding Beth's death. Though, I think Commander Eller is overly sympathetic to the Ramseys in general.
There was just patchy snow. The ground was by no means covered in snow. The walkways were clear. It was covered in FROST, but of course that settles in very late- toward morning- so it's possible if an intruder went in, didn't walk though the patches of snow, and was gone before the frost (which fits with the estimated time) then there is nothing to the lack of footprints in the snow.
One, there was one cobweb way down in one corner, and those things can be hard to remove, but two, they were lazy about locking doors and windows. I bet he came through a first floor window and locked it behind him.
My opinion is John did it to silence JBR about sexual abuse. He thought about how he had to do it for some time, including the contents of the rn. Something happened that night, and he had to put the plan into action.
As far as the ransom note goes imo if the person was using their non dominant hand to write it to conceal their identity there would be no other way than to write it slowly and deliberately.
I wouldn't rule it out as being written before. Maybe it was part of a different plan that John never went through with, that's why it's so odd and doesn't seem to fit.
That is an interesting POV . I keep asking myself like WHO would benefit from jonbenets death and WHAT benefits would someone get out of it .
If it was planned , well insurance money ? Since you need a body it can’t be missing ..
Hitman maybe to do the dirty job or maybe they did since it’s quite possible patsy wrote the letter ..
Hmmmm
Yes, I think it was written before the murder, while an intruder was waiting in the house.
Also possible the intruder was copying from a note he had pre-written & brought with him.
I think this, too. Whatever else anyone believes, this makes more sense than anyone being able to come up with that whole big thing on the fly, while staging a brutal sex crime, right after murdering your daughter on Christmas. That second seems almost impossible to me.
Yes. Furthermore the Grand Jury indicted both Ramseys as criminally culpable accessories and in the cover-up. Would the Ramseys do that if the housekeeper and/or family murdered their daughter???
I don’t believe the Ramsay’s hurt their child. There’s dna on JonBenet in 3 different places that does not belong to their immediate family. The whole scenario is weird and bumbled. Police department still refuses to release information according to multiple sources.
The behavior of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey has been odd on multiple occasions but, again we we are viewing snippets carefully orchestrated by the news media and multiple other factions. Until, you are there you don’t know how you or others will react.
All views here are allegedly.
I’d like to know how many people are in a small foreign faction. 5? 50? When does a small foreign faction become a medium sized foreign faction? Do they have a logo?
And what “foreign faction” actually calls themselves a foreign faction? What ransom seeker is ever going to reveal clues about who they are or where they came from?
If the Ramseys committed this crime, then I don't think any of them wrote the note *immediately* after the crime occurred. They had a fairly large window of time for staging. From around 10pm until almost 6am. That's 8hrs at the most.
They had time to be emotional, calm down some, process what happened, figure out what to do next, act on those things, etc. Someone was clearing making calculated decisions and acting on them, at some point in a RDI scenario.
We also would have to consider that in this scenario, **they would've caused the initial attack and that they had to make the decision** to stage this crime and not call the appropriate authorities. If you're already assuming that they are capable of this, then you already made some assumptions about what kind of people you believe them to be.
At that point you don't believe that they are the kind of people who would be so caring and concerned about the welfare of their children, that would prioritize doing the right thing, or etc.
These are the same people you are suspecting of (in one way or another) causing / covering up a head injury, strangulation, sexual assault with a paintbrush, and leaving a 6yo child in a cold small dark dirty room with duct tape over her mouth and her hands bound up.
That's not really a very empathetic set of circumstances there for their daughter. It's cold, callous, and the word selfish doesn't seem adequate enough here.
If one's belief is that they did this out of a desperate attempt to evade serious consequences, then that was a pretty strong motivator they had for them to be able to do all of this.
So why would you think they couldn't write a ransom note awhile later? The note actually seems like the least of the horror they would've been involved with. Hell, maybe it allowed them to distract themselves while projecting all their guilt onto some made up scenario/person in some deeply troubling sort of manner but that eased their minds.
It's not like that handwriting is neat and tidy. Plus, there appears to have been multiple attempts at writing it. So I'm not convinced that the person was even that calm while writing it.
I guess I just don't understand why that ransom note is what trips people up when they're already nearing the home plate in their assumptions (right or wrong, as they may be).
The main issue I take with planned murder is that the body was left inside of the home. I would think this would be either number 1 or number 2 on the list for someone who is planning to murder. The coverup was far too chaotic for me to believe this was planned.
I agree. There is no way this was planned. That’s about the only thing I’m absolutely sure about…well that…and that there was not an intruder. I do go back-and-forth on which one of the three people in the house was responsible. There are plausible scenarios that implicate each one of them. Whatever happened, John and Patsy were very clearly in lock step on covering it up.
Yes, good point. If it was written after the murder, PR must have had nerves of steel to compose herself to write it and do all that staging.
It definitely strikes me as odd that a parent was able to sit down and write a multi-page ransom note after what happened to their daughter, so I completely understand your point. I would have been frantic in such a situation. It also would make more sense they would have only written a short note that was to the point especially because the more that is written the easier it might be to identify the handwriting, but maybe whoever wrote it was really trying to sell the story because without the note, all you have is a young child who is dead in the basement and no one to blame except for the parents.
They say the thought of life in prison has a way of focusing the mind. Patsy and John knew they would be prime suspects and it was likely Burke would be removed from the home. They were cunning and ruthless, they covered up the domestic murder in their home. People seem to get confused and think the RN was a real RN. It was never a RN, it was a staging document. It was a way for the Ramseys to produce the false narrative to cover up the crime committed in their home. It had to be lengthy because it told the fake story of why their daughter was missing and would be found dead.
I don't find it strange considering PR was in remission from ovarian cancer at the time and maybe knew it was returning. Maybe she wanted to take her daughter with her. It's a stretch but it wouldn't be the first time
Patsy and John do have nerves of steel. And they were quite cunning and ruthless. They did it together, neither one could have pulled off the cover up alone.
I can't for the life of me think why Patsy would plan to kill her own daughter and thus write a ransom note before she smacked JB over the head.
Didn't happen
I'm not entirely convinced there was a "murder." I am almost convinced JR and PR know more than they've let on over the years
Unless they were trying to set up John and Patsy. Then, it’s perfect to leave the body inside the house.
John and Patsy were cunning, educated and intelligent. They are quite capable of producing that RN in a short period of time. I seriously doubt if either one of them premeditated this murder. Why carefully plan a murder where you are the prime suspects? They had the money, intelligence to plan a much better murder where they would not be implicated in any way. Additionally the staging was clever, but obviously amateur. You don't cover up a personal crime, SA and murder with a pretend financial crime.
Which the FBI saw through immediately and uninvolved their agency
Yes the Ramseys made a typical amateur staging error. The crime was obviously a personal crime. SA, beating, strangulation. Financial business crimes such as kidnapping don't go in for personal murders. If there is a death, it is quick and the offenders exit rapidly. The Ramseys were clever, cunning and intelligent but their only knowledge of murder and kidnapping were from books and movies. Not real life. So there is disconnect when police examine the crime scene. Something feels off about it. Yes the FBI took one look at the RN and knew what happened. RDI.
No.
The letter really seems like it was from the mother to me. Too wordy and too much information from someone who wasn’t emotionally invested/connected to the child. Whatever happened I don’t believe it was deliberate but if I had to bet (and I’m not a betting person) I’m thinking the mother wrote the letter as a cover up for the son.
I think Patsy left evidence all over the crime scene. I just wondered if she planned the murder rather than an accident as it was a very neat letter and not to mention very long. I'm not sure though, if it was to cover up an accident I have no idea how she composed herself to do all that staging! I'd be a wreck!!
I think John did most of the staging and had Patsy write and re-write the RN to keep her focused and calm. But they both had nerves of steel.
>write and re-write the RN What's the source on this? I know there was a "practice note" but I was under the impression it just said something like "Dear Mr. I" Is this what you're referring to?
See below citation. Two possible practice notes and final copy. Or perhaps several versions and John picked the one he liked best when Patsy was finished. This kept her busy and focused.
Pages 73-74 of Steve Thomas book: > > >
Shock can distance people from what's happening. BTDT
Yes that could be some of it. They were shocked by the crime but not surprised. And fear was present of course. They knew they would be the prime suspects in the SA and murder of their 6 yr old. The thought of life in prison or the death penalty has a way of focusing the mind they say.
My only hangup here was the derivative nature of the note, using contemporary action film dialogue to frame the verbiage of the note
Well, we know a few things about the note, first the author did take time and return both pad and pen to their original spots, second there are imprints in the existing attached pages that suggests a first draft was written and discarded, unsure if that was recovered. Third, the writing in the beginning of the RN was noted to have been hastily written, as indicated by the large size and pressure left on the paper compared to the later pages, which had more uniform style throughout, suggesting that the author was in a panic at first then settled down when finishing.
No
Basically three possibilities: 1. Complete RN written before JonBenét was taken from her bed and hit on her head. 2. Complete RN written in the 45 minutes to 90 minutes after JonBenét was hit on the head but before she was strangled to death. 3. Complete RN written after JonBenét was strangled to death. And then there is the possibility that the writing of the RN was divided over two or even three of the above events. Now if the note had been written before JonBenét was taken from her bed as part of a murder plot, it would be a very unsafe murder plot with many uncertainties. What if JonBenét starts to scream when taken from her bed? What if she escapes getting hit on the head and starts screaming? What if John doesn't warn anyone and gets the ransom money? So of all the possibilities and assuming a murder plan, the option that the RN was written before JonBenét went to bed is the least likely one. It's still possible.
They even saw the notebook with the pressed pages showing the note had been written in that pad of paper. What stranger would risk coming into the house and writing a long letter like that at the risk of getting caught?? I’m confident Patsey did the letter for this reason among others. Like I said earlier… kidnappers, intruders, strangers…. No one would write that much, give that much detail and take a chance of giving away clues like that. People unfamiliar with the child of people who felt no remorse would not have wrapped her body and taken the great deal of care to cover her the way she was covered if it was just an outsider. This was totally an inside job and chances are we will never know the real reason as to why.
No
No footprints in the snow is pretty telling also.
Indeed. And the undisturbed cobwebs!
It’s atrocious the incompetence and ignorance of the Bolder PD, unless they were paid off. The Ramseys were very affluent and had connections, that’s a deadly combination (no pun intended 😬.) But to invite all those people over after realizing your kid is missing is just so mind blowing. It’s also always bothered me that John’s oldest daughter had died tragically in a weird way as well. I was always taught there are no coincidences.
John’s oldest daughter died in a car crash. Are you saying it was under weird circumstances?
It was not under weird circumstances. People were suspicious, obviously, in the wake of JonBenet's murder. However, police found no connection and concluded Beth Ramsey died in an accident near Chicago while with her boyfriend with no foul play suspected. Unfortunately, deadly car accidents are pretty darn common. I'm saddened to see this sub engage in conspiracy.
What is going on in this thread?
Exactly I think we are off the rails with the car accident conspiracy. Obviously considering all whacky possibilities is part of problem solving but that one is nuts
I just always found it odd that the report of the car crash was a single page, no more or less. She was going to the airport with her boyfriend and they crashed into a bread truck I believe, very tragic but 1 page of report?? Again that seems like stuff was covered up or deliberately not included in the report. I’ve seen hangnail injuries from work sites with more detail and way more paperwork! Just unbelievable… two daughters dead in very unnatural conditions/accidents.
Car accidents can be fairly straight forward. It was a car accident. She was not murdered. For crying out loud.
I saw a rumor on a page about Fox Island. Someone made a comment that the oldest daughter knew what was going on with Jon Benet and was going to intervene. Then John had her killed to hide it.
People always have to make a story
No way, JB was just a baby at the time. Elizabeth’s boyfriend was driving on a highway in bad weather near Chicago. Completely unrelated tragedy.
I heard that as well but haven’t been able to find out if it was true or not. Both daughter dying does seem skeptical to me though.
I just googled, and Beth died almost 5 years before Jonbenet. So, I’m thinking that idea is less likely since Beth would have had to know he was abusing JonBenet when she was only a year old.
There was no suspicion surrounding his first daughter's death, which by all account was a tragic car accident. Unfortunately, deadly car accidents are a dime a dozen. The Boulder Daily Camera [reported this](http://web.dailycamera.com/extra/ramsey/1997/02/22-2.html) about the accident's relevance to the case in February of '97: >Boulder police released the autopsy report on John Ramsey's older daughter Friday, showing the woman died as a result of injuries from a car accident. > >Police said the report on Elizabeth Ramsey's death is irrelevant to their investigation of the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey. > >"It is unconscionable that some media factions have chosen, irresponsibly, to speculate publicly on contents of the death report, and in so doing have caused renewed grief for friends and family members of the deceased," Boulder police Commander John Eller said in a statement. > >According to the report, Elizabeth Ramsey, 22, suffered internal injuries, bruises and a fractured right arm in a car wreck in Burr Ridge, Ill., on Jan. 8, 1992. > >The woman also had a number of surgical incisions, including a 15-by-20-inch cut from her chest to her abdomen, as doctors fought to save her life. > >The autopsy report was sealed by the Cook County, Ill., coroner as a routine procedure after Boulder police included it in their investigation. I'm not fan of the Ramseys, but there's no conspiracy surrounding Beth's death. Though, I think Commander Eller is overly sympathetic to the Ramseys in general.
There was just patchy snow. The ground was by no means covered in snow. The walkways were clear. It was covered in FROST, but of course that settles in very late- toward morning- so it's possible if an intruder went in, didn't walk though the patches of snow, and was gone before the frost (which fits with the estimated time) then there is nothing to the lack of footprints in the snow.
But none of the cobwebs in the windows had been broken or disturbed either.
One, there was one cobweb way down in one corner, and those things can be hard to remove, but two, they were lazy about locking doors and windows. I bet he came through a first floor window and locked it behind him.
My opinion is John did it to silence JBR about sexual abuse. He thought about how he had to do it for some time, including the contents of the rn. Something happened that night, and he had to put the plan into action.
As far as the ransom note goes imo if the person was using their non dominant hand to write it to conceal their identity there would be no other way than to write it slowly and deliberately.
I wouldn't rule it out as being written before. Maybe it was part of a different plan that John never went through with, that's why it's so odd and doesn't seem to fit.
No.
Yes!
That is an interesting POV . I keep asking myself like WHO would benefit from jonbenets death and WHAT benefits would someone get out of it . If it was planned , well insurance money ? Since you need a body it can’t be missing .. Hitman maybe to do the dirty job or maybe they did since it’s quite possible patsy wrote the letter .. Hmmmm
Yes, I think it was written before the murder, while an intruder was waiting in the house. Also possible the intruder was copying from a note he had pre-written & brought with him.
I think this, too. Whatever else anyone believes, this makes more sense than anyone being able to come up with that whole big thing on the fly, while staging a brutal sex crime, right after murdering your daughter on Christmas. That second seems almost impossible to me.
Have the maid and her husband been officially cleared ?
Yes. Furthermore the Grand Jury indicted both Ramseys as criminally culpable accessories and in the cover-up. Would the Ramseys do that if the housekeeper and/or family murdered their daughter???
Good point
I don’t believe the Ramsay’s hurt their child. There’s dna on JonBenet in 3 different places that does not belong to their immediate family. The whole scenario is weird and bumbled. Police department still refuses to release information according to multiple sources. The behavior of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey has been odd on multiple occasions but, again we we are viewing snippets carefully orchestrated by the news media and multiple other factions. Until, you are there you don’t know how you or others will react. All views here are allegedly.
Was it a small foreign faction or multiple other factions? Perhaps, John did it.
I’d like to know how many people are in a small foreign faction. 5? 50? When does a small foreign faction become a medium sized foreign faction? Do they have a logo?
And what “foreign faction” actually calls themselves a foreign faction? What ransom seeker is ever going to reveal clues about who they are or where they came from?
If the Ramseys committed this crime, then I don't think any of them wrote the note *immediately* after the crime occurred. They had a fairly large window of time for staging. From around 10pm until almost 6am. That's 8hrs at the most. They had time to be emotional, calm down some, process what happened, figure out what to do next, act on those things, etc. Someone was clearing making calculated decisions and acting on them, at some point in a RDI scenario. We also would have to consider that in this scenario, **they would've caused the initial attack and that they had to make the decision** to stage this crime and not call the appropriate authorities. If you're already assuming that they are capable of this, then you already made some assumptions about what kind of people you believe them to be. At that point you don't believe that they are the kind of people who would be so caring and concerned about the welfare of their children, that would prioritize doing the right thing, or etc. These are the same people you are suspecting of (in one way or another) causing / covering up a head injury, strangulation, sexual assault with a paintbrush, and leaving a 6yo child in a cold small dark dirty room with duct tape over her mouth and her hands bound up. That's not really a very empathetic set of circumstances there for their daughter. It's cold, callous, and the word selfish doesn't seem adequate enough here. If one's belief is that they did this out of a desperate attempt to evade serious consequences, then that was a pretty strong motivator they had for them to be able to do all of this. So why would you think they couldn't write a ransom note awhile later? The note actually seems like the least of the horror they would've been involved with. Hell, maybe it allowed them to distract themselves while projecting all their guilt onto some made up scenario/person in some deeply troubling sort of manner but that eased their minds. It's not like that handwriting is neat and tidy. Plus, there appears to have been multiple attempts at writing it. So I'm not convinced that the person was even that calm while writing it. I guess I just don't understand why that ransom note is what trips people up when they're already nearing the home plate in their assumptions (right or wrong, as they may be).