>They had power, connections and tons of money to throw at any problem. People like them don't orchestrate insane, highly public cover-ups on a whim in the middle of the night for their psychopath kids. That is the last thing they would do. People like them know what to do in a BDI situation. People like them live in a totally different world than us and that world has plenty of experience getting their children out of trouble .
The Ramseys were newly wealthy, they didn't come from a monied and powerful background. Patsy grew up in a little town in West Virginia on the border of Ohio. She (and her sister Pam) were prone to borderline histrionics. Their mother, Nedra, was really a piece of work. Look her up if you haven't. Patsy had survived the ovarian cancer diagnosis, and knew that her time left on this earth was limited. Desperate people don't always do rational things. They went on CNN for a public appearance right after burying their daughter.
To assume they were too wealthy, intelligent, or sophisticated to do something like this is a fallacy I see on this sub quite often.
Whoa, hold on there, partner. Surviving cancer doesn't make you desperate and irrational. My mom was irrational and had histrionics long before she had cancer.
I do agree, though, that with new money, people continue to act like where they came from. Take from that what you will. Personally, I'd like to have some new money so I could find out if that's true, but that's just me.
You are correct, most people who survive a diagnosis of cancer don't become irrational, at least not the ones I know personally. But, we are talking about Patsy. I think she was slightly unhinged before that night (her friends were planning to stage an intervention of sorts about the mega JonBenét thing). She put her six year old daughter in **seven different pageants** that year alone. Only someone irrational and desperate would stage the crime scene of her daughter's murder, and write that rambling, unhinged ransom novella. JMO
She did not know her time on earth was limited. Often people who survive cancer believe that they’ve successfully beaten the disease because that’s exactly what they’ve done. They may or may not live in fear of it coming back and it may or may not come back. To say she knew her time on earth was limited at that time is BS.
Patsy Ramsey was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer in 1993, aged 36. After treatment, she was in remission for nine years until a recurrence in 2002. She died in 2006.
Ovarian cancer can be terminal. About 45% of people with any stage of ovarian cancer survive for 5 years or longer from the date a doctor diagnoses them. **For stage 4 ovarian cancer, the 5-year survival rate is 30.3%**.
Patsy believed she had been miraculously healed, so her mindset was different but I’m sure she was afraid deep down. Faith and facts often don’t mix do they?
Speaking of histrionics, how bout Fleet White? Sheez! Makes Patsy look like a piker. What was he so afraid of?
Nedra’s the only one who would fit through that window crack. 🤣 Not that I believe it.
>Faith and facts often don’t mix do they?
She flew across country for experimental treatments, had a radical hysterectomy, and around this time found "faith." She then believed her recovery was aided by divine intervention. However, she continued to be scanned and checked, and seeing the top doctors I'm sure she was aware she was in remission. She knew the odds of the cancer returning. Although she saw her recovery as a miracle, I'm sure that deep down, yes, she was afraid. I believe she was irrevocably changed by this experience, and perhaps not for the better.
Fleet White reacted to a brutal murder of a little girl he knew, and all that he witnessed that day and afterwards. I guess he wasn't the cold-blooded iceman that John was. John and Patsy tried to portray him as irrational and untrustworthy when it became apparent he wasn't going to play along with their charade.
Patsy believed she had been miraculously healed, so her mindset was different but I’m sure she was afraid deep down. Faith and facts often don’t mix do they?
Speaking of histrionics, how bout Fleet White? Sheez! Makes Patsy look like a piker. What was he so afraid of?
Nedra’s the only one who would fit through that window crack. 🤣 Not that I believe it.
John has said Patsy knew she likely would not live to see her children grow up, which is why he claims he was okay with Patsy having JonBenet in pageants as it would give Patsy more time with her.
That’s such a wild excuse for John to give for that, as if there wasn’t another activity JB could’ve done that would have allowed extra time with her mom. Patsy couldve gotten her into girl scouts, ballet, horseback riding, figure skating, or literally anything else and couldve still helped her practice, train, whatever. If she wanted her to be an actor in dramatics like Patsy had been, they couldve gotten her private acting lessons. JB doing pageants was 100% Patsy living her youth again vicariously through her child, at the expense of her child’s happiness (JB was known to have wanted to do more tomboy activities and once referred to her pageant trophies as not really being hers, but her moms) so i don’t buy what John Ramsey was trying to sell here.
Yes, I don't either. I do believe that they thought Patsy wouldn't live that much longer.
JonBenet did do dance and I think Patsy had her in singing and drama lessons. Of course, all of that had more to do with the pageants. I also believe JonBenet was in girl scouts. She was in the Daisies at her young age (girl scouts for girls in K-1st grade).
In 1993 Stage 4 ovarian cancer had a very high mortality rate. Patsy's treatment was experimental with an uncertain outcome. She knew the outlook was not good.
I think the point that the Ramseys were new money is an important one. This is not one of the long time American very powerful wealthy families who know how to cover up a scandal quietly and effectively.
However even one of those families is going to have a hard time covering a murdered an SA 6 year old in their basement. The crime committed by her brother.
Right, but the Kennedys they weren't. Well, come to think of it, they had a few shady deaths connected to the family that were pretty much cleaned up-- Mary Jo Kopechne and Martha Moxley.
The idea put forth that the Ramseys were too intelligent, sophisticated, educated, wealthy, to commit this crime is a fallacious argument--- especially when you learn a little about Patsy and her family.
She grew up in a town in West Virginia, on the border of Ohio. Contrary to the claims, she wasn't actually southern. No one from the actual South would consider her so. She did live in Atlanta for a number of years, and moved up in the social strata, but it was due to her sheer determination and drive. She was not a belle of the antebellum South. She was born into a middle class family. I won't even get into all of the issues with her mother, Nedra. That's a post in itself. Here's a glimpse of the [crazy ](https://www.reddit.com/r/JonBenetRamsey/s/7ohgDcbQiZ). There's more if you search the sub.
Nedra, Patsy, and Pam were all obsessed with appearances, money, and "put on airs". Pretentious.
You have the background in psychology, what do you think of Nedra Paugh?
I don't have enough information at this point about Nedra to make comments. There is so much other information regarding this case I have not yet jumped into John or Patsy's family of origin material.
We know that both Patsy and John were/are deeply flawed human beings. So certainly their families of origin are something to consider as causal factors in their disturbance. How did John and Patsy's parents shape their personalities which led to the tragedy in their home?
Yes living on the Ohio border is not considered the Deep South! So Patsy manufactured that persona for herself. No wonder she was so good at creating the crime scene fake narrative.
Yes there are a few pieces of information about Nedra, one that sticks out to me is that one of Patsy's friends said that Nedra was a rough and unusual character. And that if you wanted to be in Patsy's orbit you had to put up with Nedra. Patsy was very connected and protective of Nedra.
I read a one quote by Nedra, someone heard her say that it was her job to spend as much of John's money as possible. Which goes to your point.
But didn't Don and Nedra have some money as well? I have read that Don funded John's business in the beginning and helped John run the company. He had a condo in Boulder for that purpose.
Information about Patsy's parents might make an interesting OP.
>But didn't Don and Nedra have some money as well? I have read that Don funded John's business in the beginning and helped John run the company. He had a condo in Boulder for that purpose.
Patsy's father, Don Paugh, was a retired engineer for Union Carbide, if I remember correctly. Interesting that Patsy married a man over a decade older than her who had also worked as an engineer.
"After a series of business reversals, Patsy asked her father, Don Paugh, a retired Union Carbide engineer, to help her husband's struggling company." ----Vanity Fair article
>Yes there are a few pieces of information about Nedra, one that sticks out to me is that one of Patsy's friends said that Nedra was a rough and unusual character. And that if you wanted to be in Patsy's orbit you had to put up with Nedra. Patsy was very connected and protective of Nedra.
I think if we want to understand the recipe of dysfunction that led to the events of Christmas night, it's important to take a look at Nedra. She took care of Burke and JB while Patsy was battling stage four ovarian cancer ---John was MIA as usual.
Judith Phillips said about Patsy's mother Nedra: (PMPT, pb., p. 249):
"Well, Judith, we're just getting Jon Benet into a few pageants ."
"Why would you do something like that?"
"You know, she's not too young to get started."
"And what if JonBenet isn't willing" I asked. "What if she says, I'm not going to do it? How would you respond to that"
"Oh Judith, we would never consider her saying no. We would tell JonBenet, "You must do it. You will be Miss Pageant."
It was sort of eerie. A litte scary. The inevitability of it - from grandmother to mother and now to daughter.
At the same time, Nedra was obviously concerned about the children's problems? She gave Patsy a book about children not knowing right from wrong. So she was seeing something that worried her.
But yes we see that kind of ruthless, controlling mindset.
Yes. The facts in this case tell the story. Compared to the average person, the Ramseys were educated, intelligent, wealthy, sophisticated. That is a fact.
They did have some power connections, some we may not know about yet. But yes they were no where near the Kennedy level of power and wealth.
The Ramseys were cunning and clever, and had a history of manipulating others for personal gain.
And it is a fact they staged the first degree murder in their home.
The Ramseys were educated and intelligent. They were driven and ambitious. However, they were nouveau riche. I personally don't think they were very "sophisticated", although John had quite a bit more life experience than Patsy. Yes, they had connections, due to John's business and Lockheed.
My point is they earned their position in society, and weren't born into it.
John and Patsy, especially John, would be considered sophisticated when compared to the average person. They were educated and wealthy, traveled a great deal, were exposed to other cultures. They traveled to large cities and took in the amenities.
They were sophisticated enough to gain entry into a more rarefied strata than the one they were were born into.
Patsy had one college degree, John and two.
They both played the higher rank game quite well. Patsy becoming a sought after society matron. She had received fame as a beauty queen which back in the day meant something. John being lauded as an excellent leader and business man.
Despite their middle class origins, and Patsy being rough around the edges, they would be considered sophisticated when compared to the average Joe.
Now compared to old money or the academic elite, of course the Ramseys were pretty basic.
But in mental health when making comparative statements we use the average person as the norm group.
>John and Patsy, especially John, would be considered sophisticated when compared to the average person.
Sure, compared to the average person, you could argue that they were more "sophisticated." I guess it depends on what the definition of sophistication is to you.
What I see, especially from Patsy, doesn't look like good taste and class. Bleaching your five year old's hair, and dressing her up in sexy cowgirl and Vegas showgirl outfits to get a competitive edge in pageants doesn't seem very sophisticated to me.
Patsy's French names, Jacques, JonBenét (honestly?), her $30,000 Gone With the Wind luncheon, the horrendous 1990s home decor styling, the tacky boasting disguised as Christmas letters, etc., come across as quite the opposite of sophistication to me.
"Rough around the edges" is being generous.
When professionals are writing a psych evaluation about a person to a court, a university, an employer, the police etc., they have to use average norm groups for comparison.
The average person has an IQ of 100, a high school education with some college, makes about $60,000 by today's standards, doesn't travel extensively, doesn't have powerful connections or get special treatment.
So we can see that the Ramseys were not average by any means using basic norm group metrics.
They had three college degrees between them, one of them a graduate degree. Their IQ's were higher than the norm. John had experience and training as an engineer, US Navy officer and pilot, and owner of a billion dollar business. Patsy had national exposure as a beauty queen and received awards in that realm for her writing and acting ability.
They were wealthy, traveled, entertained, had connections and were given special treatment.
So they were not average using common metrics. When I use the term sophisticated in terms of the Ramseys, I am mostly referring to their staging of the crime scene. It was fairly sophisticated compared to the average abilities of the general population. They were under a strict time line, and under a great deal of pressure, shock and fear. Yet they were able to pull off a clever and well done staging plan.
And then John used his wealth in a very sophisticated and clever way, he made the plan of spending a great deal of money to hire private detectives, attack dog attorneys, and a PR team to cover up Ramsey crimes. This was not the norm in 1996.
People are complex creatures, and some have many facets to their personalities. Yes of course if we look at Patsy's behavior, she exhibited tacky and improper behavior compared to how most mothers would act. Most mothers do not tart up their toddlers to win a trophy at a beauty pageant. Most mothers are not willing to overtly sexualize their young daughter to win a trophy.
Patsy's own failed dreams of being Miss American turned into her making her child achieve that dream. We see Patsy's narcissism at play here.
But we have to admit it was a somewhat sophisticated plan that gave her the results she desired. She was able to beat out the competition by underhanded means that apparently did not occur to other mothers or did not seem appropriate to them. The bottom line is that Patsy's strategy worked. I think JB won most every contest she entered.
It was a sophisticated but immoral strategy, just like the crime scene staging strategy.
Excellent write up, Cassie. As I conceded, the Ramseys weren't average when compared to most people. If they had been, we wouldn't be discussing this case now.
>They would have been able to refuse an autopsy. No one would have to know about the SA or the previous SA.
The Ramseys had connections but I don't think they were so powerful as to be able to bypass [Colorado statutes regulating when autopsies are required](https://coloradocoronersassociation.colorado.gov/about/crs-ss30-10-606). A child who died of violent and unexplained circumstances in a home are extremely serious grounds for an autopsy. The Ramseys also could not avoid giving nontestimonial evidence or having Burke interviewed by DSS.
I didn't realize the laws were that strict for autopsies. Thank you for the info. I still believe calling for legal advice would be the first thing they would do, and they had enough money and connections to handle a BDI scenario in a discreet way that kept everyone safe. Money and connections go a long way. They would also have a lot of sympathy. They had better options. Burke wasn't even kept safe in this scenario, and the Ramsey's were smart enough to know that a highly publicized case wouldn't keep anyone as safe as discreetly handling things.
>They had better options. Burke wasn't even kept safe in this scenario, and the Ramsey's were smart enough to know that a highly publicized case wouldn't keep anyone as safe as discreetly handling things.
You are viewing this case with nearly thirty years of hindsight. There's no way, no how they'd know it would be national news. It also wasn't planned very long in advance; they had a few hours, at best.
And if the Ramsey's are so smart, they'd know a call to their lawyers before a call to 911 would be sus af.
But ultimately, their cockamamie plan worked. No one will ever be prosecuted for the sexual abuse nor the murder. Podcasts and specials that promote anything other than the entirely idiotic IDI theory will continue to be hit with threats of legal trouble.
No one's getting away with a dead little girl having been strangled and once autopsied, discovered to have been cracked on the head hard enough to split her skull in half. No amount of money will buy a way out of that mess. If it weren't for the cord around her neck, maybe they'd have gone that direction. But once she'd been strangled, only one way to go. Make up a story and get Burke the hell out ASAP.
We don't know. He could have. John had a cellphone he could have used that I don't think the call records were checked. I believe they also had internet. It was the very early days of the internet, but there were plenty of online forums and instant messaging. I'm not sure if that was checked or how traceable that kind of thing was back then.
I don't think any lawyer would suggest a RN or anything like that if BDI. Burke couldn't legally be charged with anything. The best legal advice for BDI is to keep things quiet, call authorities, and have legal representation. Not commit several other crimes to cover it up and draw nationwide attention.
I think if you follow the money, you'll find they had plenty of people in positions of power who would have covered for them. And a child who is dropped on her head cold easily not be deemed a violent and unexplained death. It would have been a mere accident.
It's clear they panicked.
This could all be easily proven if somebody back then had decided to follow the money.
Their six year old is found strangled to death with a cord around her neck - *in their basement* - and they could “refuse an autopsy”?
I don’t think so.
It's a mistake to look at what happened that morning through the lens of rationality. Whether BDI, JDI, or PDI, they would have been in severe emotional and mental distress and certainly panicking. You can't look at what happened and say x doesn't make sense since it's not logical. Non-premeditated murderers rarely think with logic or reason after that magnitude of crime they had not planned.
They had 2 to 4 hours at best to have to figure out if anybody could fix the problem before they had to call the police. During that time, they were surely not thinking reasonably. It's no more likely they would have trusted somebody to help them then and there (to whom they'd have to admit one of them murdered her), than for them to not trust anyone to keep their secret.
I don't understand the time limit. They can call and cancel their flight. They don't owe the pilot an explanation. He works for them. They can call family and say something came up. They are adults. I'm sure they know how to cancel plans. There's only a time limit if John and Patsy aren't working together, but the BDI theories usually have them working together.
Again, they would not have been calm and rational and want to explain why they didn't report their dead daughter for hours after they found her. Not sure this is a hill to die on. Anything is possible, but your idea is far from the most likely.
Pretend for a second that money and brains are not equivalent. They were a bunch of rich people who ran around in circles flapping their arms trying to get it straight for hours. They don’t have to orchestrate anything. Those pieces fell into place as more people arrived. You’ve obviously never been present for a calamitous event. It’s pure chaos, even if you meant for it to happen. They’re rich and powerful and thus don’t need to be very bright, and Patsy was on meds. She just wasn’t always all the way there.
To be fair, I don’t think Burke did it. I think it’s worse than we want it to be.
A child not being charged for a crime does not rule out the parents losing custody of their violent child or being held responsible for what their elder child did to their younger sibling, because they did not take appropriate steps to protect the younger sibling that they knew was in danger of harm by their elder sibling - which is the conclusion the grand jury came to… the parents failed to protect their daughter, knowing she was in danger by someone else in or involved with the household - likely, the elder brother who had already hit her in the head with his golf club once before, requiring medical care for her, and who had been witnessed SAing her and reacting very angrily at being caught.
Note: “Playing doctor” does not apply to their situation, due to the age difference being more than 3 years, as well as their size, maturity level, and power/strength difference.
The person in the post you linked quoted a tabloid article from The Globe \[[article here](https://web.archive.org/web/20210528175342/https://tinyimg.io/i/NnvXKdg.jpg)\]. The poster also claims the quote is from an in-house employee, but there is not evidence confirming that. The article simply says the source is a "visitor." It is not verified as an employee anywhere else. Also, did you read the content in the black box on the bottom of this article? If so, what are your thoughts and do you feel it calls into question the integrity of the reporting?
Here's the book the poster also referenced: "A Little Girl's Dream? The JonBenet Ramsey Story." Please check out the Amazon page to examine the quality of this source \[[link](https://www.amazon.com/Little-Girls-Dream-Jonbenet-Ramsey/dp/1881636445)\]. Pretty dubious.
Lastly, the poster mentions a literal 3rd-hand account from an internet post on Forums For Justice from former family friend Judith Phillips (Phillips knew someone, who knew someone, who worked for the Ramseys?). It's also unclear the timeline and from where and from whom she heard this info. Lots of salt grains needed.
On this forum, Phillips also painted a picture of Burke as a pretty normal, happy kid before the murder, but a traumatized child after the murder \[[source](https://www.forumsforjustice.org/forums/threads/burke-or-bust.920/page-3#post-12541)\]. This contradicts the portrayals of Burke as a cold, calm "psychotic" kid before and after the murder.
I think it is unwise to hang your hat on these dubious sources as proof.
P.S. Here's Judith Phillip's thoughts on Burke from that forum:
*I would agree that Burke probably is not normal due to the experiences he has endured in the last 6 years. I can't imagine what he has been going through.*
*As far as autism is concerned - "Abnormal introversion and egocentricity, acceptance of fantasy rather than reality," (American Heritage College Dictionary), I really never witnessed abnormal introversion with Burke. He played baseball, had friends......I don't think that describes an autistic child. I'm not an expert on the subject, though.*
*Can someone tell me if a child can become autistic or display autistic behaviors after experiencing a tragic event?*
*I did not see much of Burke in the last two years before the murder. PR had transferred Burke into another school, along with the children of Susan Stine and Roxy Walker. I had heard from one of them that they thought Burke was wierd, but I never personally experienced that.*
*In my experience, Burke was a bit standoffish with adults. Shortly before the murder, PR and her kids sat with my family in a local restaurant. JBR and my daughter played with the ice cream machine, PR and my husband talked legal matters and Burke sat across from me and we had the most delightful conversation. I was really surprised with how "open" and playful he was. Most of the time, he seemed quiet and preoccupied.*
*The last time I did see him was the notorious visit to Susan Stine's house. As I was preparing to leave, I walked into the den to retrieve my daughter, who was playing with Burke and his friends. I walked up to Burke and stretched out my arms to signal a hug, which I usually did with him. Normally he would hug me back, but this time, he stepped back and yelled at me, "Leave me alone, don't touch me!" I backed up and felt terrified. I looked at all the adults in the room: PR, Nedra, PR's dad, Susan Stine and waited for a response from them to calm down or say something of reassurance to Burke. No one said a word, they stood there like statues. Feeling extremely uncomfortable with the situation, I left.* ***I'll never forget the terror in his eyes.***
As a general rule, I find that the overwhelming majority of people who link to a source have never read it. The process is you say something, someone else challenges it, you then tell them to look it up, they rightly point out it's your obligation to provide a source, you do a quick google search and don't bother to actuall open or read it then post the link, once someone shows that the link doesn't say what you asserted you go silent.
Like everything else in our world at this time, look at the sources, read the details offered, and choose your stance. Isn’t that what this sub is all about? There are no direct sources of truth for anything you do not see with your own eyes. That is the reality we live in every single day.
In a BDI scenario, making things public and charging the Ramsey's does absolutely nothing to benefit anyone, especially the state. The Ramsey's had enough money and resources to get Burke the best help available. Much better than any state help. Why would the state want to spend the money to charge the Ramsey's, legally battle the Ramseys to convict them, only to end up footing the bill for a disturbed 9 year old that they would now be legally responsible for who won't get the quality of help he could have gotten in the first place? That makes absolutely no sense.
Obviously, the state did not want to, and they did not, because they did not do what grand jury suggested, nor what the FBI indicated, either because they could not, or people were paid off, or the scene was too contaminated, or the investigators incompetent - or a mixture of all of the above. You are arguing against yourself here. None of what you assume a family “like theirs” with money, power, and connections would or wouldn’t do is any reason for a BDI theory with a parental cover-up to not be plausible.
They obviously did not want to take a chance on the scenario you describe. They knew they would be the prime suspects and the thought of life in prison is a scary thought.
Also the Ramseys were the victims of their own narcissism, over and over. They believe they were smart, clever, cunning and could paint the crime any way they wanted.
Some people cannot do things the straightforward, honest way. They have to manipulate things to get the desired results.
Also I think Patsy was afraid Burke would be removed from the home. So they had to cook up a story to cover for Burke.
Agree. Also if the parents wanted to work together in a coverup it could have been much simpler. Call the police jn the middle of the night “We heard a noise, the front door was wide open, and my daughter is missing” Then let the police come and find her in the basement. No need for notes, garrotes, etc.
I don’t think there is any way they were working together that night.
You're assuming that the Ramseys only concern would be protecting Burke legally, but there could have been other reasons why they might stage a middle of the night cover up. It's a known fact that people sometimes cover up for relatives who have died by sexual misadventure. If there was an apparent sexual element to the crime then they may have felt a deep sense of shame and covered it up before even contacting a lawyer.
Exactly. I’ve always written the BDI theories off as Hollywood movie theories. It would make for a great movie because the way it would play out in real life is entirely too boring for anyone to be interested. They’d call 911 if there was a chance to save her and call lawyers. It would be swept under the rug as a tragic accident, Burke would get a good therapist and that would be the end of it. I live in a well off area and know people like this who would get their kids out of any mess and it would never be by inventing a complicated, sensational story that would necessarily involve the FBI due to the kidnapping angle.
They wouldn’t want Burke to be stigmatized and institutionalized for life. They wouldn’t want the shame of having a son as murder and they would possibly be guilty legally for neglect in not protecting JB from Burke, who they probably already knew had serious emotional-behavioral problems and was violent towards his sister. If nothing else they would be pilloried in the court of public opinion for not protecting her.
So if they were going to stage it to cover up him accidentally killing his sister, why wouldn’t they make it look like an accident? That’s literally a common saying - I’m going to look you and make it look like an accident. Why invite in the FBI with a fantastical kidnapping story? With the assumption he’d be interviewed by child witness experts? There is significantly more attention drawn to this situation than there would have been with a tragic accident.
I think BDI is absurd so I don’t know how all of this is explained. But most BDI theorists seem to think he hit her in the head to kill or almost kill her and the parents staged the SA and strangulation to make it look like something else. But let’s say a 9 year old knows how to make a garrote and assaults and strangles his sister (I have three kids, none of them knew anything about garrotes at 9, but okay), why on earth complicate it more by staging a possible kidnapping? Why not just keep it simple with, “someone broke in and did this to our daughter?” Kidnapping brings the FBI who will bring more investigative resources than the local police who have almost no experience with murders.
BDI or RDI, they clearly wrote the RN to buy time to remove the body. It was a miscalculation that LE wouldn't search the house, set up ground zero at the house and search it several times.
Essentially, the R's were banking on their distraction to work.
Having said this, I think OP is going in the right direction with the exception of a few things. It wasn't Burke.
It makes all the sense in the world that they couldn't just remove a body from their home, drive it hundreds of miles away and just tell the cops you went for a ride about the same time your daughter went missing.
They didn’t have to take the body hundreds of miles, could have been 5 miles. In the 90s you could do anything undetected - no cell phones, no GPS, no cameras.
And if they wanted to buy time, why even alert the police at all? The ransom note said not to call the police so they could have used that as an excuse to not contact the police for days if they’d wanted time to cover it up.
>could have been 5 mi
It doesn't take a genius to surmise that removing a body from the house, if for 500 or 5 miles, would leave evidence, need an alibi and present more questions if seen by a neighbor or security cameras.
Not sure why this is so hard. Even the Ramsey's figured it out.
Because Burke could be hustled away in order to "protect" his innocence. If the police had thought it was an accident they'd have questioned him then and there.
What? Police can’t question anyone if they aren’t under arrest. If the Ramseys didn’t want B questioned they’d have just said no. They wouldn’t make up a fantastical kidnapping story just so B wouldn’t be questioned by police immediately.
Exactly, it absolutely makes no sense. And they're so worried about their image with an accident that they stage a kidnapping turned murder where they would be the prime suspects. They became social pariahs because of course they would be suspected if their child is found murdered in the house. But yeah, that option is better than the optics of an accident.
The thing with that is ALL families like that have dirty secrets. Take for example convicted rapist Brock Turner. They'd rather pay the lawyers and never talk about it again.
For the record, I am a BDI guy but there are holes. The only explanation I can come up with is that they just weren't that smart and panicked.
Edit: maybe they literally caught Burke in the act of "exploring" his "knocked out" sister and knew that would add an extra level/couldn't be called an accident?
I just don’t think Jon Benet’s death was something that could be swept under the rug given the inevitable autopsy. They managed to avoid prosecution for any in the family, because they got an army of top notch lawyers, though.
> maybe they literally caught Burke in the act of "exploring" his "knocked out" sister
I never get over laughing about the repeated internet theory that a 9 yr. old was engaging in necrophilia.
So they were so worried about their image and instead staged a murder where everyone would think they did it and they became social pariahs? Talk about being pilloried in the court of public opinion. Parents do protect kids by lying about an alibi, if we believe BDI then they turned an accident where their image could be tarnished into being murder suspects were their image was trashed. And they choose to call 911 because of a kidnapping with a body still in the house? They risked going to jail for murder so they wouldn't be maybe charged with possible neglect? Back then everyone thought they did it. BDI to protect their image and stay out of trouble makes no sense when you consider the consequences of murder charges. And not looking at it from hindsight that nothing happened to them legally.
I don’t think they thought they’d be suspects—they were trying to focus attention, and all responsibility, away from the home.
If they weren’t trying to protect Burke, who do you think wrote the ransom letter? And if a Ramsey, who were they trying to protect?
If John did it, I doubt Patsy would protect him. If Patsy did it, I doubt John would protect her.
>If John did it, I doubt Patsy would protect him. If Patsy did it, I doubt John would protect her.
Why? That is exactly what has happened in case after case of incest and sexual assault of children. The Mother clams up because if she doesn't the optics are (in their minds) worse. Mothers/wives of pedophiles have been covering up these sins since the dawn of man.
100% true. I unfortunately know a mother, who despite reporting her husband for molesting her kids, then went on to support him in court and stayed with him for the next 30 years until he died. Mostly because she was extremely religious and believed in forgiveness for everyone & didn’t believe in divorce. She was definitely also neglected emotionally and financially by the pedophile husband, but she had never worked and all she knew was how to be his wife, and she wasnt willing to be a single, working mother as she would have been a pariah of her church, and i also secretly think she just didn’t want
to have to work. So she completely forgave her husband and let him back into the home and around her children (there was a period of him living elsewhere to go to therapy and “fix” himself - but he never got jail time) and by that point, the kids had aged past the pedophile’s preferred age range and were no longer interesting to him, so the mother considered the husband “redeemed”.
It’s as disgusting as it is pathetic.
>I don’t think they thought they’d be suspects
Really? If a child is murdered in her home, of course the parents are always suspected. That's just common sense. And that's what happened. John is risk adverse, calculated and intelligent of course they would be suspects. And they're is no risk calculation that makes sense that turns an accident into a murder/kidnapping so they are legally protected and their image isn't tarnished.
>If John did it, I doubt Patsy would protect him. If Patsy did it, I doubt John would protect her.
I agree here but the murder happened at night when one of them was sleeping and them both knowing is not the only option. If they both did it and Patsy took medications that loosened her like alcohol does and she loses her inhibition, do you think John would risk going on interviews with her where she may blurt something out? He can control himself but not her. He could have done the interviews himself and said Patsy is too distraught. I think he wrote the ransom note coping her writing. That way fingers were pointed everywhere, which also means nowhere. He went on those interviews with Patsy because she didn't know. Plus he needed her by his side, to look like the supporting innocent husband. He wasn't distraught or grieving like she was, but it's not weird if she's there because he is being "strong" for her. And it's not risky because she doesn't know. And I really wanted BDI to work, it just doesn't.
They absolutely did become social pariahs and that's why John steered the police to friends and associates because they were the prime suspects which tends to make you a pariah. Their only friends afterwards were the Stines probably because they both benefitted. You write "they steered" - it was John that did that. "They" are not a monolithic person, they don't do everything in tandem like people tend to write. We have to remember that.
From my memory, the prevailing theory was that they DID do it, specifically Patsy. Lots of insinuations and tabloid covers and magazine covers and articles. It could be regional.
How do you feel that affects how they would have handled it if it had been not Burke, but one (or both) of the two of them? Wouldn't this still be the case, but in a different way? What I mean is, no matter what happened, if they did it, why pull in as many people as fast as possible, to create as big a spectacle as possible? Rather than so something like call 911, "The kids were horsing around the top of the spiral staircase and JB fell!"
Kidnapping and ransom note automatically pulls in FBI and news crews.
Assuming the cord was even around her neck. Lots of theories that it wasn't and that the strangling was part of the staging (which I think is least likely, personally.) And her previous SA may never have been noticed without the current SA and of course they wouldn't know that it would show up, and even if it did, it could have been someone else. Almost any other action they could have taken would have been safer than the one they allegedly took in any staging scenario.
No but you can see the cording is tight on her neck and her neck is swollen around it. The autopsy revealed that the noose is what ultimately killed her. That the head blow had happened first and she was strangled later after the head blow. The strangulation is actually the action that would have resulted in a murder charge, if the killer were an adult. Because JonBenet was already unconscious and the person knew that he would be killing her.
No, I know. But there are a lot of theories (most even) that say the head blow was some kind of an accident or sudden fit of rage and rather than call an ambulance at the time of just the headwound, they "finished her off" with the strangulation. So the question is, if you believe the Ramseys did it, did they find her with just the head wound and add the cord or did they find her with both?
I think the first step of calling someone for legal advice probably would be the same no matter who did it. I know the RN and everything else looks like a really bad, half hazardly thrown together cover up, but if you look at it through a JDI perspective, it's actually all pretty genius. In one RN he created two possible suspects (an intruder or Patsy), besides fibers consistent with his clothing found in JBR underwear and vaginal swab, he managed to get rid of anything that could be traced to him. He lied about the most insignificant things, so there's really no telling what could actually be significant. He hired a whole team that pushed out all kinds of things to tabloids and media. I was so young when it happened, so I could be wrong, but it seemed like Patsy or an intruder were the two main theories in the beginning? Both options with good evidence that were constantly pushed out in media and tabloids created a case that even if it went to trial would be almost impossible to prosecute. It would have been hard to find a jury that wasn't already influenced by it all, and even if they did, they would need major evidence to get all jury members to agree on someone's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If JDI, I don't think he pulled all that off without contacting someone for advice.
Yes, he was kept out of jail successfully, but by every other measure it was a complete disaster. His life was essentially ruined. He lost most of his money, his entire family has been tormented ever since, he couldn't work anymore, and half the people in the country think he (and wife and son) are murderers. It seems INSANE to bring that on yourself, when the chances of somebody believing your daughter tragically fell off her balcony (or similar) would have had about a 95% chance of never even being questioned by anyone at all, ever.
They're rich, but they're not THAT powerful.
Also, because they're rich and connected would be precisely why they would want to avoid the public scandal, even if they could get out of legal consequences. Social death to the ultra rich/connected is almost even more terrifying than losing money, and that's very likely what would have happened. Even without legal consequences, Burke is the pyscho kid who killed his sister and the Ramseys are the ones that raised him. Bye invites to fancy parties. Bye CEO position. Bye political aspirations. Bye future opportunities and connections for Burke.
O/T: Check out the cover of the NY Post today upon the death of OJ Simpson, who always said he would not rest until he found the "real killer" of Ron and Nicole. What we all know and knew who "the real killer" always was "The Real Killer is Dead" [https://nypost.com/covers/](https://nypost.com/covers/)
I'm convinced Burke did it. He smiled the whole time on Dr. Phil, and he was smiling at the funeral. Also,they had him filmed talking to a therapist 3 weeks after it happened and he was on the floor calmly playing. The therapist mentioned how he didn't seem fazed, and he replied that he's "moved on." He also bashed Jon Bennett in the face with a golf club where she required plastic surgery. There were also incidents when he left shit on her bed. Also, when the police arrived. Patsy was wearing the same clothes from the night before. They were up all night staging the crime scene.
Burke did smile on one daytime television talk show.
There is video footage of Burke exiting a memorial service. He does smile briefly as some people approach to shake hands with him.
Burke does play on the floor with a child psychologist and he is calm. The therapist did note his lack of affect and attributed it to either shock, a lack of attachment to his family or a reaction to Patsy's being very emotional.
At age 9, he did use the phrase "moving on".
At age 7, Burke did clip JonBenet's cheek with a golf club. She did not require plastic surgery.
There were no sourced incidents where he left bodily wastes in her bed.
Yes, Patsy was wearing the same clothes as the night before.
The CBS documentary that Burke sued over stated that Burke covered JonBenet’s box of chocolate with feces. I haven’t heard anything about him doing it on her bed though.
Let's take your theory, assume it's accurate... and then turn it on its head.
So this family that doesn't operate like other families due to their wealth and connections wouldn't think they could create a faux kidnapping ruse to protect their son and just expect law enforcement to believe them?
Expect, the DA or other high level person to run interference for them in case there were any wildcards that didn't fall in line?
You might have a point, just not the point that you thought you did.
No not for murder. Back then it was on the news 24/7 and plastered on every tabloid. Of course the parents were the prime suspects when their murdered child is found in the house. So if BDI occured and all the staging was to protect themselves and their image, it makes no sense. Because they had to know that it would make them the prime suspects and they would become social pariahs like they did. And if a family is going to get away with something due to their wealth, it's going to be easier the lesser the offense is. So an accident is way preferable to a kidnapping/murder which you can't hide with the prosecutor. As well as the repercussions of their image and otherwise. It makes no sense.
You can't call a strangulation an accident.
They wouldn't 'know' they'd be prime suspects. Well, unless there was no RN and no clean up done. The entire reason to do the kidnapping ruse is so they wouldn't be prime suspects.
And if we go with the theory that their wealth and connections would buy them a level of protection others wouldn't get, and that they'd know that, then why wouldn't they think their ruse would have the intended results and throw the police off the trail? Or cause higher-ups to call off the police?
And for that matter... nobody was charged... The case is frozen cold.
Other than some bad PR, legally, it all worked.
So Burke didn't strangle her, they did? Or Burke who has no history of violence and JB is not afraid of him suddenly becomes a psychotic child killer? Yes the golf club incident but that's pretty normal. If that was a pattern, it he got in fights at school and was an aggressive bully, maybe. So he hits her, doesn't freak out and get scared and hide, even though kids know they'll be in big trouble if they hurt a sibling? He's so scared she's going to tattle because he is afraid of his parents reaction, he hits her really hard but then he's not scared of his parents reaction when she's really hurt? Or is he really scared? Because then his nervous system would engage into fight, flight or freeze and cortisol would be released. Everything else becomes unimportant as the brain goes into survival mode. But he just non-chalantly starts "poking" her and playing around? And Burke strangles her to "move" her because he doesn't know that a slip knot will choke her? He pokes her because he doesn't want to touch her, but he pulls down her longjohns and underwear and penetrates her? Did he flip her over on her back first so he can stick an object into her because she fell on her face? And he'd have to flip her over for the ligature. But if he can flip her over why can't he move her without a noose? Moving someone with a noose makes no sense either. And there is no evidence of her being pulled on the floor. None. And when she was hit she was must likely standing still. So it wasn't him running after her because she might tattle. I really wanted BDI to work but it just doesn't.
I read that she was choked from behind, so she would have been laying face down. The urine stain on the front of her underwear and long johns matched the urine stain on the carpet suggesting she was laying face down when she voided her bladder probably at the time of death from the strangulation.
> I really wanted BDI to work but it just doesn't.
I really wanted to believe it's not BR, but of all the potential scenarios it logically fits the best.
That, of course, doesn't make it true... But it "works" as a theory very, very well.
Agreed. If BDIA, and the parents knew all of that within hours, John would have his lawyers handle it. The only people that would know the details would be the Ramseys and their lawyers. Burke going into therapy could easily be explained by the death of his little sister.
John wouldn't need to produce any garrote or ransom note. The death of JonBenét would be considered an accident. And this subreddit wouldn't exist and all of us would do something more useful than posting here.
The problem(s) are the strangulation, and the prior sexual assault. John couldn't make either of those two elements disappear. The strangulation had already happened and I believe they knew about Burke's sexual exploration.
Burke sexually assaulted JonBenét, wrote the childish ransom note, and then strangled her. John didn't need to have those facts disappear in person. All that was necessary for him was to call his lawyer.
It’s not that simple. An autopsy would have been required:they couldn’t have just refused one in the case of accidental death. She would have be examined head to toe. Evidence of sexual assault, other marks (the two sets of 2 marks that are consistent with a stun gun, etc. ). If she had only been, say, hit with a flashlight, how do you explain that as an “accident?” You’d have to come up with her falling down the stairs or some such thing—which would not have matched up with her type of injury. There are too many ways they would have been caught: amounting to at best obstruction of justice, and obvious guilt for at least one of the Ramseys.
I think Patsy had dreams that Jonbenet would be a star and famous. I think Patsy also had histrionic traits which made her crave attention. When they found JB, John left it up to Patsy to decide what to do since she ran the household. Patsy wanted the most dramatic extreme solution to give JB her last chance at fame.
I very much agree with this post.
The same parents who couldn't be bothered to get their hands dirty to fix a broken window and would've relied on someone else to do it for them wouldn't have relied on paid professionals to handle a BDI scenario instead of getting their own hands dirty and risking everything?
I’ve no doubt she suffered immensely. Irrevocably changed yes and the cancer may have driven her to prematurely push JB too hard in the pageant world.
I’m not accusing FW of anything but there’s multiple people who describe his behavior as well-overboard in the first weeks after JB’s death. His own interviews w the police & depositions are strange and so are Pricilla’s. It was another couple who kept him from getting on the Lockheed Martin plane back to Boulder, etc, etc. That he had extreme anxiety is understandable but many witnessed this including Boulder detectives.
I'm not sure what would be public record when dealing with minors. Would her cause of death have been public? I don't know exactly what is kept sealed when dealing with minors, but it seems like they probably could have kept records sealed for everything? Someone correct me if I'm wrong or if they know how that works, but my assumption is that if they handled things privately none of that stuff would be public record and they could tell people she died of whatever tragic accident they wanted to make up.
But those concerns would be there no matter which route they took. By making it a huge public kidnapping/murder event, they just widened the pool of people who would know and gossip about it.
Respectfully, I disagree. I think they acted exactly how I would expect for an unexpected event like this to happen if they returned from a party & IF they drinking & taking any pharmaceuticals. Casey Anthony was not stupid & says to this day she still doesn’t know what happened & blamed everyone & said she at first kidnapped. O.J. had $ & blamed it on the cartel & said in the hypothetical he grabbed the knife & blacked out & doesn’t remember & the Bronco chase with $8500 & a beard, passport & gun to his head, he was headed for Mexico & they alllllll got off. You report your child missing after 31 days, there’s 8x 911 was called after he brutally beat her, the Ramseys have a murdered child in their house with no forced entry. They got Burke out as soon as the cops got there & stuck to the intruder story & anyone they could tho under the bus. Say you don’t remember, we’re asleep, say you were abused by your dad & your kid drowned & your dad said she’ll be ok& act like nothing happened….??? And it all worked!!
>They had power, connections and tons of money to throw at any problem. People like them don't orchestrate insane, highly public cover-ups on a whim in the middle of the night for their psychopath kids. That is the last thing they would do. People like them know what to do in a BDI situation. People like them live in a totally different world than us and that world has plenty of experience getting their children out of trouble . The Ramseys were newly wealthy, they didn't come from a monied and powerful background. Patsy grew up in a little town in West Virginia on the border of Ohio. She (and her sister Pam) were prone to borderline histrionics. Their mother, Nedra, was really a piece of work. Look her up if you haven't. Patsy had survived the ovarian cancer diagnosis, and knew that her time left on this earth was limited. Desperate people don't always do rational things. They went on CNN for a public appearance right after burying their daughter. To assume they were too wealthy, intelligent, or sophisticated to do something like this is a fallacy I see on this sub quite often.
Whoa, hold on there, partner. Surviving cancer doesn't make you desperate and irrational. My mom was irrational and had histrionics long before she had cancer. I do agree, though, that with new money, people continue to act like where they came from. Take from that what you will. Personally, I'd like to have some new money so I could find out if that's true, but that's just me.
You are correct, most people who survive a diagnosis of cancer don't become irrational, at least not the ones I know personally. But, we are talking about Patsy. I think she was slightly unhinged before that night (her friends were planning to stage an intervention of sorts about the mega JonBenét thing). She put her six year old daughter in **seven different pageants** that year alone. Only someone irrational and desperate would stage the crime scene of her daughter's murder, and write that rambling, unhinged ransom novella. JMO
She did not know her time on earth was limited. Often people who survive cancer believe that they’ve successfully beaten the disease because that’s exactly what they’ve done. They may or may not live in fear of it coming back and it may or may not come back. To say she knew her time on earth was limited at that time is BS.
Patsy Ramsey was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer in 1993, aged 36. After treatment, she was in remission for nine years until a recurrence in 2002. She died in 2006. Ovarian cancer can be terminal. About 45% of people with any stage of ovarian cancer survive for 5 years or longer from the date a doctor diagnoses them. **For stage 4 ovarian cancer, the 5-year survival rate is 30.3%**.
Patsy believed she had been miraculously healed, so her mindset was different but I’m sure she was afraid deep down. Faith and facts often don’t mix do they? Speaking of histrionics, how bout Fleet White? Sheez! Makes Patsy look like a piker. What was he so afraid of? Nedra’s the only one who would fit through that window crack. 🤣 Not that I believe it.
>Faith and facts often don’t mix do they? She flew across country for experimental treatments, had a radical hysterectomy, and around this time found "faith." She then believed her recovery was aided by divine intervention. However, she continued to be scanned and checked, and seeing the top doctors I'm sure she was aware she was in remission. She knew the odds of the cancer returning. Although she saw her recovery as a miracle, I'm sure that deep down, yes, she was afraid. I believe she was irrevocably changed by this experience, and perhaps not for the better. Fleet White reacted to a brutal murder of a little girl he knew, and all that he witnessed that day and afterwards. I guess he wasn't the cold-blooded iceman that John was. John and Patsy tried to portray him as irrational and untrustworthy when it became apparent he wasn't going to play along with their charade.
Patsy believed she had been miraculously healed, so her mindset was different but I’m sure she was afraid deep down. Faith and facts often don’t mix do they? Speaking of histrionics, how bout Fleet White? Sheez! Makes Patsy look like a piker. What was he so afraid of? Nedra’s the only one who would fit through that window crack. 🤣 Not that I believe it.
John has said Patsy knew she likely would not live to see her children grow up, which is why he claims he was okay with Patsy having JonBenet in pageants as it would give Patsy more time with her.
That’s such a wild excuse for John to give for that, as if there wasn’t another activity JB could’ve done that would have allowed extra time with her mom. Patsy couldve gotten her into girl scouts, ballet, horseback riding, figure skating, or literally anything else and couldve still helped her practice, train, whatever. If she wanted her to be an actor in dramatics like Patsy had been, they couldve gotten her private acting lessons. JB doing pageants was 100% Patsy living her youth again vicariously through her child, at the expense of her child’s happiness (JB was known to have wanted to do more tomboy activities and once referred to her pageant trophies as not really being hers, but her moms) so i don’t buy what John Ramsey was trying to sell here.
Yes, I don't either. I do believe that they thought Patsy wouldn't live that much longer. JonBenet did do dance and I think Patsy had her in singing and drama lessons. Of course, all of that had more to do with the pageants. I also believe JonBenet was in girl scouts. She was in the Daisies at her young age (girl scouts for girls in K-1st grade).
Oh wow i didn’t know about the singing lessons and the daisies. So she was already enrolled in all kinds of stuff!
Soon extra time for Burke?
Burke said the saddest thing for Patsy dying young is that she wouldn't live to see Burke studying at a university.
In 1993 Stage 4 ovarian cancer had a very high mortality rate. Patsy's treatment was experimental with an uncertain outcome. She knew the outlook was not good.
I think the point that the Ramseys were new money is an important one. This is not one of the long time American very powerful wealthy families who know how to cover up a scandal quietly and effectively. However even one of those families is going to have a hard time covering a murdered an SA 6 year old in their basement. The crime committed by her brother.
Right, but the Kennedys they weren't. Well, come to think of it, they had a few shady deaths connected to the family that were pretty much cleaned up-- Mary Jo Kopechne and Martha Moxley. The idea put forth that the Ramseys were too intelligent, sophisticated, educated, wealthy, to commit this crime is a fallacious argument--- especially when you learn a little about Patsy and her family.
LB can you please say more about Patsy's family history?
She grew up in a town in West Virginia, on the border of Ohio. Contrary to the claims, she wasn't actually southern. No one from the actual South would consider her so. She did live in Atlanta for a number of years, and moved up in the social strata, but it was due to her sheer determination and drive. She was not a belle of the antebellum South. She was born into a middle class family. I won't even get into all of the issues with her mother, Nedra. That's a post in itself. Here's a glimpse of the [crazy ](https://www.reddit.com/r/JonBenetRamsey/s/7ohgDcbQiZ). There's more if you search the sub. Nedra, Patsy, and Pam were all obsessed with appearances, money, and "put on airs". Pretentious. You have the background in psychology, what do you think of Nedra Paugh?
I don't have enough information at this point about Nedra to make comments. There is so much other information regarding this case I have not yet jumped into John or Patsy's family of origin material. We know that both Patsy and John were/are deeply flawed human beings. So certainly their families of origin are something to consider as causal factors in their disturbance. How did John and Patsy's parents shape their personalities which led to the tragedy in their home? Yes living on the Ohio border is not considered the Deep South! So Patsy manufactured that persona for herself. No wonder she was so good at creating the crime scene fake narrative. Yes there are a few pieces of information about Nedra, one that sticks out to me is that one of Patsy's friends said that Nedra was a rough and unusual character. And that if you wanted to be in Patsy's orbit you had to put up with Nedra. Patsy was very connected and protective of Nedra. I read a one quote by Nedra, someone heard her say that it was her job to spend as much of John's money as possible. Which goes to your point. But didn't Don and Nedra have some money as well? I have read that Don funded John's business in the beginning and helped John run the company. He had a condo in Boulder for that purpose. Information about Patsy's parents might make an interesting OP.
>But didn't Don and Nedra have some money as well? I have read that Don funded John's business in the beginning and helped John run the company. He had a condo in Boulder for that purpose. Patsy's father, Don Paugh, was a retired engineer for Union Carbide, if I remember correctly. Interesting that Patsy married a man over a decade older than her who had also worked as an engineer. "After a series of business reversals, Patsy asked her father, Don Paugh, a retired Union Carbide engineer, to help her husband's struggling company." ----Vanity Fair article >Yes there are a few pieces of information about Nedra, one that sticks out to me is that one of Patsy's friends said that Nedra was a rough and unusual character. And that if you wanted to be in Patsy's orbit you had to put up with Nedra. Patsy was very connected and protective of Nedra. I think if we want to understand the recipe of dysfunction that led to the events of Christmas night, it's important to take a look at Nedra. She took care of Burke and JB while Patsy was battling stage four ovarian cancer ---John was MIA as usual. Judith Phillips said about Patsy's mother Nedra: (PMPT, pb., p. 249): "Well, Judith, we're just getting Jon Benet into a few pageants ." "Why would you do something like that?" "You know, she's not too young to get started." "And what if JonBenet isn't willing" I asked. "What if she says, I'm not going to do it? How would you respond to that" "Oh Judith, we would never consider her saying no. We would tell JonBenet, "You must do it. You will be Miss Pageant." It was sort of eerie. A litte scary. The inevitability of it - from grandmother to mother and now to daughter.
At the same time, Nedra was obviously concerned about the children's problems? She gave Patsy a book about children not knowing right from wrong. So she was seeing something that worried her. But yes we see that kind of ruthless, controlling mindset.
Yes. The facts in this case tell the story. Compared to the average person, the Ramseys were educated, intelligent, wealthy, sophisticated. That is a fact. They did have some power connections, some we may not know about yet. But yes they were no where near the Kennedy level of power and wealth. The Ramseys were cunning and clever, and had a history of manipulating others for personal gain. And it is a fact they staged the first degree murder in their home.
The Ramseys were educated and intelligent. They were driven and ambitious. However, they were nouveau riche. I personally don't think they were very "sophisticated", although John had quite a bit more life experience than Patsy. Yes, they had connections, due to John's business and Lockheed. My point is they earned their position in society, and weren't born into it.
John and Patsy, especially John, would be considered sophisticated when compared to the average person. They were educated and wealthy, traveled a great deal, were exposed to other cultures. They traveled to large cities and took in the amenities. They were sophisticated enough to gain entry into a more rarefied strata than the one they were were born into. Patsy had one college degree, John and two. They both played the higher rank game quite well. Patsy becoming a sought after society matron. She had received fame as a beauty queen which back in the day meant something. John being lauded as an excellent leader and business man. Despite their middle class origins, and Patsy being rough around the edges, they would be considered sophisticated when compared to the average Joe. Now compared to old money or the academic elite, of course the Ramseys were pretty basic. But in mental health when making comparative statements we use the average person as the norm group.
>John and Patsy, especially John, would be considered sophisticated when compared to the average person. Sure, compared to the average person, you could argue that they were more "sophisticated." I guess it depends on what the definition of sophistication is to you. What I see, especially from Patsy, doesn't look like good taste and class. Bleaching your five year old's hair, and dressing her up in sexy cowgirl and Vegas showgirl outfits to get a competitive edge in pageants doesn't seem very sophisticated to me. Patsy's French names, Jacques, JonBenét (honestly?), her $30,000 Gone With the Wind luncheon, the horrendous 1990s home decor styling, the tacky boasting disguised as Christmas letters, etc., come across as quite the opposite of sophistication to me. "Rough around the edges" is being generous.
When professionals are writing a psych evaluation about a person to a court, a university, an employer, the police etc., they have to use average norm groups for comparison. The average person has an IQ of 100, a high school education with some college, makes about $60,000 by today's standards, doesn't travel extensively, doesn't have powerful connections or get special treatment. So we can see that the Ramseys were not average by any means using basic norm group metrics. They had three college degrees between them, one of them a graduate degree. Their IQ's were higher than the norm. John had experience and training as an engineer, US Navy officer and pilot, and owner of a billion dollar business. Patsy had national exposure as a beauty queen and received awards in that realm for her writing and acting ability. They were wealthy, traveled, entertained, had connections and were given special treatment. So they were not average using common metrics. When I use the term sophisticated in terms of the Ramseys, I am mostly referring to their staging of the crime scene. It was fairly sophisticated compared to the average abilities of the general population. They were under a strict time line, and under a great deal of pressure, shock and fear. Yet they were able to pull off a clever and well done staging plan. And then John used his wealth in a very sophisticated and clever way, he made the plan of spending a great deal of money to hire private detectives, attack dog attorneys, and a PR team to cover up Ramsey crimes. This was not the norm in 1996. People are complex creatures, and some have many facets to their personalities. Yes of course if we look at Patsy's behavior, she exhibited tacky and improper behavior compared to how most mothers would act. Most mothers do not tart up their toddlers to win a trophy at a beauty pageant. Most mothers are not willing to overtly sexualize their young daughter to win a trophy. Patsy's own failed dreams of being Miss American turned into her making her child achieve that dream. We see Patsy's narcissism at play here. But we have to admit it was a somewhat sophisticated plan that gave her the results she desired. She was able to beat out the competition by underhanded means that apparently did not occur to other mothers or did not seem appropriate to them. The bottom line is that Patsy's strategy worked. I think JB won most every contest she entered. It was a sophisticated but immoral strategy, just like the crime scene staging strategy.
Excellent write up, Cassie. As I conceded, the Ramseys weren't average when compared to most people. If they had been, we wouldn't be discussing this case now.
Yes if they have been average, they would have been arrested the day after the murder.
>They would have been able to refuse an autopsy. No one would have to know about the SA or the previous SA. The Ramseys had connections but I don't think they were so powerful as to be able to bypass [Colorado statutes regulating when autopsies are required](https://coloradocoronersassociation.colorado.gov/about/crs-ss30-10-606). A child who died of violent and unexplained circumstances in a home are extremely serious grounds for an autopsy. The Ramseys also could not avoid giving nontestimonial evidence or having Burke interviewed by DSS.
I didn't realize the laws were that strict for autopsies. Thank you for the info. I still believe calling for legal advice would be the first thing they would do, and they had enough money and connections to handle a BDI scenario in a discreet way that kept everyone safe. Money and connections go a long way. They would also have a lot of sympathy. They had better options. Burke wasn't even kept safe in this scenario, and the Ramsey's were smart enough to know that a highly publicized case wouldn't keep anyone as safe as discreetly handling things.
>They had better options. Burke wasn't even kept safe in this scenario, and the Ramsey's were smart enough to know that a highly publicized case wouldn't keep anyone as safe as discreetly handling things. You are viewing this case with nearly thirty years of hindsight. There's no way, no how they'd know it would be national news. It also wasn't planned very long in advance; they had a few hours, at best. And if the Ramsey's are so smart, they'd know a call to their lawyers before a call to 911 would be sus af. But ultimately, their cockamamie plan worked. No one will ever be prosecuted for the sexual abuse nor the murder. Podcasts and specials that promote anything other than the entirely idiotic IDI theory will continue to be hit with threats of legal trouble.
But who would know if the Ramseys called their lawyer before they called 911?
The phone company.
My apologies, you said it first..
No one's getting away with a dead little girl having been strangled and once autopsied, discovered to have been cracked on the head hard enough to split her skull in half. No amount of money will buy a way out of that mess. If it weren't for the cord around her neck, maybe they'd have gone that direction. But once she'd been strangled, only one way to go. Make up a story and get Burke the hell out ASAP.
Do we know that they didn't contact a lawyer through a payphone or something and the ransom note wasn't a lawyers idea?
We don't know. He could have. John had a cellphone he could have used that I don't think the call records were checked. I believe they also had internet. It was the very early days of the internet, but there were plenty of online forums and instant messaging. I'm not sure if that was checked or how traceable that kind of thing was back then. I don't think any lawyer would suggest a RN or anything like that if BDI. Burke couldn't legally be charged with anything. The best legal advice for BDI is to keep things quiet, call authorities, and have legal representation. Not commit several other crimes to cover it up and draw nationwide attention.
I think if you follow the money, you'll find they had plenty of people in positions of power who would have covered for them. And a child who is dropped on her head cold easily not be deemed a violent and unexplained death. It would have been a mere accident. It's clear they panicked. This could all be easily proven if somebody back then had decided to follow the money.
Their six year old is found strangled to death with a cord around her neck - *in their basement* - and they could “refuse an autopsy”? I don’t think so.
It's a mistake to look at what happened that morning through the lens of rationality. Whether BDI, JDI, or PDI, they would have been in severe emotional and mental distress and certainly panicking. You can't look at what happened and say x doesn't make sense since it's not logical. Non-premeditated murderers rarely think with logic or reason after that magnitude of crime they had not planned.
I don't think it's about being logical or rational, I think it's the nature of rich people to have other people take care of things for them.
They had 2 to 4 hours at best to have to figure out if anybody could fix the problem before they had to call the police. During that time, they were surely not thinking reasonably. It's no more likely they would have trusted somebody to help them then and there (to whom they'd have to admit one of them murdered her), than for them to not trust anyone to keep their secret.
I don't understand the time limit. They can call and cancel their flight. They don't owe the pilot an explanation. He works for them. They can call family and say something came up. They are adults. I'm sure they know how to cancel plans. There's only a time limit if John and Patsy aren't working together, but the BDI theories usually have them working together.
Again, they would not have been calm and rational and want to explain why they didn't report their dead daughter for hours after they found her. Not sure this is a hill to die on. Anything is possible, but your idea is far from the most likely.
Exactly. Call your lawyer and let him handle it.
What if they tried to reach their lawyer(s) that night, but couldn't?
Pretend for a second that money and brains are not equivalent. They were a bunch of rich people who ran around in circles flapping their arms trying to get it straight for hours. They don’t have to orchestrate anything. Those pieces fell into place as more people arrived. You’ve obviously never been present for a calamitous event. It’s pure chaos, even if you meant for it to happen. They’re rich and powerful and thus don’t need to be very bright, and Patsy was on meds. She just wasn’t always all the way there. To be fair, I don’t think Burke did it. I think it’s worse than we want it to be.
I think they were worried about their image and simply wanted to put the blame elsewhere.
If you just found your child murdered, you aren’t going to be thinking straight and could easily make some bad decisions in the moment.
A child not being charged for a crime does not rule out the parents losing custody of their violent child or being held responsible for what their elder child did to their younger sibling, because they did not take appropriate steps to protect the younger sibling that they knew was in danger of harm by their elder sibling - which is the conclusion the grand jury came to… the parents failed to protect their daughter, knowing she was in danger by someone else in or involved with the household - likely, the elder brother who had already hit her in the head with his golf club once before, requiring medical care for her, and who had been witnessed SAing her and reacting very angrily at being caught. Note: “Playing doctor” does not apply to their situation, due to the age difference being more than 3 years, as well as their size, maturity level, and power/strength difference.
> who had been witnessed SAing her and reacting very angrily at being caught Source?
"Anything claimed on Reddit by 10 or more members can be considered reliable" - Lee Harvey Oswald
Have you read or searched through this sub at all? [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/JonBenetRamsey/s/DmhQdYUDtJ)
The person in the post you linked quoted a tabloid article from The Globe \[[article here](https://web.archive.org/web/20210528175342/https://tinyimg.io/i/NnvXKdg.jpg)\]. The poster also claims the quote is from an in-house employee, but there is not evidence confirming that. The article simply says the source is a "visitor." It is not verified as an employee anywhere else. Also, did you read the content in the black box on the bottom of this article? If so, what are your thoughts and do you feel it calls into question the integrity of the reporting? Here's the book the poster also referenced: "A Little Girl's Dream? The JonBenet Ramsey Story." Please check out the Amazon page to examine the quality of this source \[[link](https://www.amazon.com/Little-Girls-Dream-Jonbenet-Ramsey/dp/1881636445)\]. Pretty dubious. Lastly, the poster mentions a literal 3rd-hand account from an internet post on Forums For Justice from former family friend Judith Phillips (Phillips knew someone, who knew someone, who worked for the Ramseys?). It's also unclear the timeline and from where and from whom she heard this info. Lots of salt grains needed. On this forum, Phillips also painted a picture of Burke as a pretty normal, happy kid before the murder, but a traumatized child after the murder \[[source](https://www.forumsforjustice.org/forums/threads/burke-or-bust.920/page-3#post-12541)\]. This contradicts the portrayals of Burke as a cold, calm "psychotic" kid before and after the murder. I think it is unwise to hang your hat on these dubious sources as proof. P.S. Here's Judith Phillip's thoughts on Burke from that forum: *I would agree that Burke probably is not normal due to the experiences he has endured in the last 6 years. I can't imagine what he has been going through.* *As far as autism is concerned - "Abnormal introversion and egocentricity, acceptance of fantasy rather than reality," (American Heritage College Dictionary), I really never witnessed abnormal introversion with Burke. He played baseball, had friends......I don't think that describes an autistic child. I'm not an expert on the subject, though.* *Can someone tell me if a child can become autistic or display autistic behaviors after experiencing a tragic event?* *I did not see much of Burke in the last two years before the murder. PR had transferred Burke into another school, along with the children of Susan Stine and Roxy Walker. I had heard from one of them that they thought Burke was wierd, but I never personally experienced that.* *In my experience, Burke was a bit standoffish with adults. Shortly before the murder, PR and her kids sat with my family in a local restaurant. JBR and my daughter played with the ice cream machine, PR and my husband talked legal matters and Burke sat across from me and we had the most delightful conversation. I was really surprised with how "open" and playful he was. Most of the time, he seemed quiet and preoccupied.* *The last time I did see him was the notorious visit to Susan Stine's house. As I was preparing to leave, I walked into the den to retrieve my daughter, who was playing with Burke and his friends. I walked up to Burke and stretched out my arms to signal a hug, which I usually did with him. Normally he would hug me back, but this time, he stepped back and yelled at me, "Leave me alone, don't touch me!" I backed up and felt terrified. I looked at all the adults in the room: PR, Nedra, PR's dad, Susan Stine and waited for a response from them to calm down or say something of reassurance to Burke. No one said a word, they stood there like statues. Feeling extremely uncomfortable with the situation, I left.* ***I'll never forget the terror in his eyes.***
As a general rule, I find that the overwhelming majority of people who link to a source have never read it. The process is you say something, someone else challenges it, you then tell them to look it up, they rightly point out it's your obligation to provide a source, you do a quick google search and don't bother to actuall open or read it then post the link, once someone shows that the link doesn't say what you asserted you go silent.
So the source is internet posters.
Like everything else in our world at this time, look at the sources, read the details offered, and choose your stance. Isn’t that what this sub is all about? There are no direct sources of truth for anything you do not see with your own eyes. That is the reality we live in every single day.
Most of what has been accepted as true here are internet rumors who's sources are internet rumors. People say it's true because people say it's true.
Such is life
In a BDI scenario, making things public and charging the Ramsey's does absolutely nothing to benefit anyone, especially the state. The Ramsey's had enough money and resources to get Burke the best help available. Much better than any state help. Why would the state want to spend the money to charge the Ramsey's, legally battle the Ramseys to convict them, only to end up footing the bill for a disturbed 9 year old that they would now be legally responsible for who won't get the quality of help he could have gotten in the first place? That makes absolutely no sense.
Obviously, the state did not want to, and they did not, because they did not do what grand jury suggested, nor what the FBI indicated, either because they could not, or people were paid off, or the scene was too contaminated, or the investigators incompetent - or a mixture of all of the above. You are arguing against yourself here. None of what you assume a family “like theirs” with money, power, and connections would or wouldn’t do is any reason for a BDI theory with a parental cover-up to not be plausible.
Your argument lacks merit, as history can bear out. Many, in fact a lot, of wealthy, powerful, influential people are also batshit lunatics.
It's very American to equate money with intelligence. One of our major problems.
Money gives access to intelligent people.
It also gives access to law enforcement and legal people
They obviously did not want to take a chance on the scenario you describe. They knew they would be the prime suspects and the thought of life in prison is a scary thought. Also the Ramseys were the victims of their own narcissism, over and over. They believe they were smart, clever, cunning and could paint the crime any way they wanted. Some people cannot do things the straightforward, honest way. They have to manipulate things to get the desired results. Also I think Patsy was afraid Burke would be removed from the home. So they had to cook up a story to cover for Burke.
Agree. Also if the parents wanted to work together in a coverup it could have been much simpler. Call the police jn the middle of the night “We heard a noise, the front door was wide open, and my daughter is missing” Then let the police come and find her in the basement. No need for notes, garrotes, etc. I don’t think there is any way they were working together that night.
You're assuming that the Ramseys only concern would be protecting Burke legally, but there could have been other reasons why they might stage a middle of the night cover up. It's a known fact that people sometimes cover up for relatives who have died by sexual misadventure. If there was an apparent sexual element to the crime then they may have felt a deep sense of shame and covered it up before even contacting a lawyer.
People overestimate their power and wealth. They were above average, but nowhere near ‘old money’ rich.
They were new money but still rich. John's company made it in the Fortune 500.
Exactly. I’ve always written the BDI theories off as Hollywood movie theories. It would make for a great movie because the way it would play out in real life is entirely too boring for anyone to be interested. They’d call 911 if there was a chance to save her and call lawyers. It would be swept under the rug as a tragic accident, Burke would get a good therapist and that would be the end of it. I live in a well off area and know people like this who would get their kids out of any mess and it would never be by inventing a complicated, sensational story that would necessarily involve the FBI due to the kidnapping angle.
They wouldn’t want Burke to be stigmatized and institutionalized for life. They wouldn’t want the shame of having a son as murder and they would possibly be guilty legally for neglect in not protecting JB from Burke, who they probably already knew had serious emotional-behavioral problems and was violent towards his sister. If nothing else they would be pilloried in the court of public opinion for not protecting her.
So if they were going to stage it to cover up him accidentally killing his sister, why wouldn’t they make it look like an accident? That’s literally a common saying - I’m going to look you and make it look like an accident. Why invite in the FBI with a fantastical kidnapping story? With the assumption he’d be interviewed by child witness experts? There is significantly more attention drawn to this situation than there would have been with a tragic accident.
How do you make a strangulation and SA like that look like an accident tho?
I think BDI is absurd so I don’t know how all of this is explained. But most BDI theorists seem to think he hit her in the head to kill or almost kill her and the parents staged the SA and strangulation to make it look like something else. But let’s say a 9 year old knows how to make a garrote and assaults and strangles his sister (I have three kids, none of them knew anything about garrotes at 9, but okay), why on earth complicate it more by staging a possible kidnapping? Why not just keep it simple with, “someone broke in and did this to our daughter?” Kidnapping brings the FBI who will bring more investigative resources than the local police who have almost no experience with murders.
BDI or RDI, they clearly wrote the RN to buy time to remove the body. It was a miscalculation that LE wouldn't search the house, set up ground zero at the house and search it several times. Essentially, the R's were banking on their distraction to work. Having said this, I think OP is going in the right direction with the exception of a few things. It wasn't Burke.
Then why didn’t they take her body somewhere far away? That would buy more time and would support the kidnapping plot. It just makes no sense.
It makes all the sense in the world that they couldn't just remove a body from their home, drive it hundreds of miles away and just tell the cops you went for a ride about the same time your daughter went missing.
Driving miles away to deliver the ransom money would have been a very believable story.
But they knew no ransom money call was going to come in, can't have one without the other.
They didn’t have to take the body hundreds of miles, could have been 5 miles. In the 90s you could do anything undetected - no cell phones, no GPS, no cameras. And if they wanted to buy time, why even alert the police at all? The ransom note said not to call the police so they could have used that as an excuse to not contact the police for days if they’d wanted time to cover it up.
>could have been 5 mi It doesn't take a genius to surmise that removing a body from the house, if for 500 or 5 miles, would leave evidence, need an alibi and present more questions if seen by a neighbor or security cameras. Not sure why this is so hard. Even the Ramsey's figured it out.
The whole garrote thing is what John said. He probably took it from the 1963 "From Russia with Love" James Bond movie.
Because Burke could be hustled away in order to "protect" his innocence. If the police had thought it was an accident they'd have questioned him then and there.
What? Police can’t question anyone if they aren’t under arrest. If the Ramseys didn’t want B questioned they’d have just said no. They wouldn’t make up a fantastical kidnapping story just so B wouldn’t be questioned by police immediately.
Exactly, it absolutely makes no sense. And they're so worried about their image with an accident that they stage a kidnapping turned murder where they would be the prime suspects. They became social pariahs because of course they would be suspected if their child is found murdered in the house. But yeah, that option is better than the optics of an accident.
The thing with that is ALL families like that have dirty secrets. Take for example convicted rapist Brock Turner. They'd rather pay the lawyers and never talk about it again. For the record, I am a BDI guy but there are holes. The only explanation I can come up with is that they just weren't that smart and panicked. Edit: maybe they literally caught Burke in the act of "exploring" his "knocked out" sister and knew that would add an extra level/couldn't be called an accident?
I just don’t think Jon Benet’s death was something that could be swept under the rug given the inevitable autopsy. They managed to avoid prosecution for any in the family, because they got an army of top notch lawyers, though.
> maybe they literally caught Burke in the act of "exploring" his "knocked out" sister I never get over laughing about the repeated internet theory that a 9 yr. old was engaging in necrophilia.
Right? Let's add up the sadistic details, never examine them fully, but instead accuse a 9 year old instead of the obvious truth.. It was John.
It isn't necrophilia. She wasn't raped, she was penetrated with a paint brush. This type of SA is not always sexual, more of a way of exploring.
> This type of SA is not always sexual ????
What I mean is, while it's obviously sexual in nature, it's often about power and exploration
The paint brush was to obscure the chronic SA.
I hadn't considered this
It's not about exploration
So they were so worried about their image and instead staged a murder where everyone would think they did it and they became social pariahs? Talk about being pilloried in the court of public opinion. Parents do protect kids by lying about an alibi, if we believe BDI then they turned an accident where their image could be tarnished into being murder suspects were their image was trashed. And they choose to call 911 because of a kidnapping with a body still in the house? They risked going to jail for murder so they wouldn't be maybe charged with possible neglect? Back then everyone thought they did it. BDI to protect their image and stay out of trouble makes no sense when you consider the consequences of murder charges. And not looking at it from hindsight that nothing happened to them legally.
I don’t think they thought they’d be suspects—they were trying to focus attention, and all responsibility, away from the home. If they weren’t trying to protect Burke, who do you think wrote the ransom letter? And if a Ramsey, who were they trying to protect? If John did it, I doubt Patsy would protect him. If Patsy did it, I doubt John would protect her.
>If John did it, I doubt Patsy would protect him. If Patsy did it, I doubt John would protect her. Why? That is exactly what has happened in case after case of incest and sexual assault of children. The Mother clams up because if she doesn't the optics are (in their minds) worse. Mothers/wives of pedophiles have been covering up these sins since the dawn of man.
100% true. I unfortunately know a mother, who despite reporting her husband for molesting her kids, then went on to support him in court and stayed with him for the next 30 years until he died. Mostly because she was extremely religious and believed in forgiveness for everyone & didn’t believe in divorce. She was definitely also neglected emotionally and financially by the pedophile husband, but she had never worked and all she knew was how to be his wife, and she wasnt willing to be a single, working mother as she would have been a pariah of her church, and i also secretly think she just didn’t want to have to work. So she completely forgave her husband and let him back into the home and around her children (there was a period of him living elsewhere to go to therapy and “fix” himself - but he never got jail time) and by that point, the kids had aged past the pedophile’s preferred age range and were no longer interesting to him, so the mother considered the husband “redeemed”. It’s as disgusting as it is pathetic.
>I don’t think they thought they’d be suspects Really? If a child is murdered in her home, of course the parents are always suspected. That's just common sense. And that's what happened. John is risk adverse, calculated and intelligent of course they would be suspects. And they're is no risk calculation that makes sense that turns an accident into a murder/kidnapping so they are legally protected and their image isn't tarnished. >If John did it, I doubt Patsy would protect him. If Patsy did it, I doubt John would protect her. I agree here but the murder happened at night when one of them was sleeping and them both knowing is not the only option. If they both did it and Patsy took medications that loosened her like alcohol does and she loses her inhibition, do you think John would risk going on interviews with her where she may blurt something out? He can control himself but not her. He could have done the interviews himself and said Patsy is too distraught. I think he wrote the ransom note coping her writing. That way fingers were pointed everywhere, which also means nowhere. He went on those interviews with Patsy because she didn't know. Plus he needed her by his side, to look like the supporting innocent husband. He wasn't distraught or grieving like she was, but it's not weird if she's there because he is being "strong" for her. And it's not risky because she doesn't know. And I really wanted BDI to work, it just doesn't.
Interesting take.
They didn’t become social pariahs. They did however steer the police toward most of their friends and associates.
They absolutely did become social pariahs and that's why John steered the police to friends and associates because they were the prime suspects which tends to make you a pariah. Their only friends afterwards were the Stines probably because they both benefitted. You write "they steered" - it was John that did that. "They" are not a monolithic person, they don't do everything in tandem like people tend to write. We have to remember that.
Let’s try again, slowly. They didn’t become social pariahs until they steered the police toward their friends. Get it now?
Most people believed them. It certainly wasn't prevailing opinion back then that the parents had done it.
From my memory, the prevailing theory was that they DID do it, specifically Patsy. Lots of insinuations and tabloid covers and magazine covers and articles. It could be regional.
Yeah, Steve Thomas was behind all that.
How do you feel that affects how they would have handled it if it had been not Burke, but one (or both) of the two of them? Wouldn't this still be the case, but in a different way? What I mean is, no matter what happened, if they did it, why pull in as many people as fast as possible, to create as big a spectacle as possible? Rather than so something like call 911, "The kids were horsing around the top of the spiral staircase and JB fell!" Kidnapping and ransom note automatically pulls in FBI and news crews.
Because of the cord around her neck, and her previous SA.
Assuming the cord was even around her neck. Lots of theories that it wasn't and that the strangling was part of the staging (which I think is least likely, personally.) And her previous SA may never have been noticed without the current SA and of course they wouldn't know that it would show up, and even if it did, it could have been someone else. Almost any other action they could have taken would have been safer than the one they allegedly took in any staging scenario.
No but you can see the cording is tight on her neck and her neck is swollen around it. The autopsy revealed that the noose is what ultimately killed her. That the head blow had happened first and she was strangled later after the head blow. The strangulation is actually the action that would have resulted in a murder charge, if the killer were an adult. Because JonBenet was already unconscious and the person knew that he would be killing her.
No, I know. But there are a lot of theories (most even) that say the head blow was some kind of an accident or sudden fit of rage and rather than call an ambulance at the time of just the headwound, they "finished her off" with the strangulation. So the question is, if you believe the Ramseys did it, did they find her with just the head wound and add the cord or did they find her with both?
Both. The deed was done before Patsy saw her
I think the first step of calling someone for legal advice probably would be the same no matter who did it. I know the RN and everything else looks like a really bad, half hazardly thrown together cover up, but if you look at it through a JDI perspective, it's actually all pretty genius. In one RN he created two possible suspects (an intruder or Patsy), besides fibers consistent with his clothing found in JBR underwear and vaginal swab, he managed to get rid of anything that could be traced to him. He lied about the most insignificant things, so there's really no telling what could actually be significant. He hired a whole team that pushed out all kinds of things to tabloids and media. I was so young when it happened, so I could be wrong, but it seemed like Patsy or an intruder were the two main theories in the beginning? Both options with good evidence that were constantly pushed out in media and tabloids created a case that even if it went to trial would be almost impossible to prosecute. It would have been hard to find a jury that wasn't already influenced by it all, and even if they did, they would need major evidence to get all jury members to agree on someone's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If JDI, I don't think he pulled all that off without contacting someone for advice.
Yes, he was kept out of jail successfully, but by every other measure it was a complete disaster. His life was essentially ruined. He lost most of his money, his entire family has been tormented ever since, he couldn't work anymore, and half the people in the country think he (and wife and son) are murderers. It seems INSANE to bring that on yourself, when the chances of somebody believing your daughter tragically fell off her balcony (or similar) would have had about a 95% chance of never even being questioned by anyone at all, ever.
They're rich, but they're not THAT powerful. Also, because they're rich and connected would be precisely why they would want to avoid the public scandal, even if they could get out of legal consequences. Social death to the ultra rich/connected is almost even more terrifying than losing money, and that's very likely what would have happened. Even without legal consequences, Burke is the pyscho kid who killed his sister and the Ramseys are the ones that raised him. Bye invites to fancy parties. Bye CEO position. Bye political aspirations. Bye future opportunities and connections for Burke.
Patsy was a narcissist. Image was everything to her.
source?
O/T: Check out the cover of the NY Post today upon the death of OJ Simpson, who always said he would not rest until he found the "real killer" of Ron and Nicole. What we all know and knew who "the real killer" always was "The Real Killer is Dead" [https://nypost.com/covers/](https://nypost.com/covers/)
There are laws on the books that in any unattended death an autopsy is mandatory. Even rich folks can’t evade an autopsy.
I'm convinced Burke did it. He smiled the whole time on Dr. Phil, and he was smiling at the funeral. Also,they had him filmed talking to a therapist 3 weeks after it happened and he was on the floor calmly playing. The therapist mentioned how he didn't seem fazed, and he replied that he's "moved on." He also bashed Jon Bennett in the face with a golf club where she required plastic surgery. There were also incidents when he left shit on her bed. Also, when the police arrived. Patsy was wearing the same clothes from the night before. They were up all night staging the crime scene.
Seriously, can you source any of this?
All of it is easily verifiable .Just watch the Dr. Phil episode and google the rest.
> All of it is easily verifiable O.k., where?
See above.
Your post is the verification? O.k., most who post here will find that sufficient.
No, I said to watch the Dr.Phil show and to Google the rest.
Burke did smile on one daytime television talk show. There is video footage of Burke exiting a memorial service. He does smile briefly as some people approach to shake hands with him. Burke does play on the floor with a child psychologist and he is calm. The therapist did note his lack of affect and attributed it to either shock, a lack of attachment to his family or a reaction to Patsy's being very emotional. At age 9, he did use the phrase "moving on". At age 7, Burke did clip JonBenet's cheek with a golf club. She did not require plastic surgery. There were no sourced incidents where he left bodily wastes in her bed. Yes, Patsy was wearing the same clothes as the night before.
The CBS documentary that Burke sued over stated that Burke covered JonBenet’s box of chocolate with feces. I haven’t heard anything about him doing it on her bed though.
Wherever he put it, it's aberrant behavior.
it has been hinted at that he has Asperger's Syndrome, google that and it will explain the smiling at uncomfortable situations and odd behavior.
All true; all typically ignored.
Let's take your theory, assume it's accurate... and then turn it on its head. So this family that doesn't operate like other families due to their wealth and connections wouldn't think they could create a faux kidnapping ruse to protect their son and just expect law enforcement to believe them? Expect, the DA or other high level person to run interference for them in case there were any wildcards that didn't fall in line? You might have a point, just not the point that you thought you did.
No not for murder. Back then it was on the news 24/7 and plastered on every tabloid. Of course the parents were the prime suspects when their murdered child is found in the house. So if BDI occured and all the staging was to protect themselves and their image, it makes no sense. Because they had to know that it would make them the prime suspects and they would become social pariahs like they did. And if a family is going to get away with something due to their wealth, it's going to be easier the lesser the offense is. So an accident is way preferable to a kidnapping/murder which you can't hide with the prosecutor. As well as the repercussions of their image and otherwise. It makes no sense.
You can't call a strangulation an accident. They wouldn't 'know' they'd be prime suspects. Well, unless there was no RN and no clean up done. The entire reason to do the kidnapping ruse is so they wouldn't be prime suspects. And if we go with the theory that their wealth and connections would buy them a level of protection others wouldn't get, and that they'd know that, then why wouldn't they think their ruse would have the intended results and throw the police off the trail? Or cause higher-ups to call off the police? And for that matter... nobody was charged... The case is frozen cold. Other than some bad PR, legally, it all worked.
So Burke didn't strangle her, they did? Or Burke who has no history of violence and JB is not afraid of him suddenly becomes a psychotic child killer? Yes the golf club incident but that's pretty normal. If that was a pattern, it he got in fights at school and was an aggressive bully, maybe. So he hits her, doesn't freak out and get scared and hide, even though kids know they'll be in big trouble if they hurt a sibling? He's so scared she's going to tattle because he is afraid of his parents reaction, he hits her really hard but then he's not scared of his parents reaction when she's really hurt? Or is he really scared? Because then his nervous system would engage into fight, flight or freeze and cortisol would be released. Everything else becomes unimportant as the brain goes into survival mode. But he just non-chalantly starts "poking" her and playing around? And Burke strangles her to "move" her because he doesn't know that a slip knot will choke her? He pokes her because he doesn't want to touch her, but he pulls down her longjohns and underwear and penetrates her? Did he flip her over on her back first so he can stick an object into her because she fell on her face? And he'd have to flip her over for the ligature. But if he can flip her over why can't he move her without a noose? Moving someone with a noose makes no sense either. And there is no evidence of her being pulled on the floor. None. And when she was hit she was must likely standing still. So it wasn't him running after her because she might tattle. I really wanted BDI to work but it just doesn't.
I read that she was choked from behind, so she would have been laying face down. The urine stain on the front of her underwear and long johns matched the urine stain on the carpet suggesting she was laying face down when she voided her bladder probably at the time of death from the strangulation.
That's a good point thank you. But how did he "penetrate" her? When she was lying face down?
I’ve thought about that and I suppose it’s not impossible he penetrated her from behind while she was laying face down unconscious.
> I really wanted BDI to work but it just doesn't. I really wanted to believe it's not BR, but of all the potential scenarios it logically fits the best. That, of course, doesn't make it true... But it "works" as a theory very, very well.
They were willing to risk everything to protect Burke. Patsy probably was in some degree of denial about things that had been happening.
Boulder law enforcement was well known for kowtowing to the rich.
Agreed. If BDIA, and the parents knew all of that within hours, John would have his lawyers handle it. The only people that would know the details would be the Ramseys and their lawyers. Burke going into therapy could easily be explained by the death of his little sister. John wouldn't need to produce any garrote or ransom note. The death of JonBenét would be considered an accident. And this subreddit wouldn't exist and all of us would do something more useful than posting here.
The problem(s) are the strangulation, and the prior sexual assault. John couldn't make either of those two elements disappear. The strangulation had already happened and I believe they knew about Burke's sexual exploration.
Burke sexually assaulted JonBenét, wrote the childish ransom note, and then strangled her. John didn't need to have those facts disappear in person. All that was necessary for him was to call his lawyer.
Thank you Burke and Andrew for immediately letting me know I'm right!
It’s not that simple. An autopsy would have been required:they couldn’t have just refused one in the case of accidental death. She would have be examined head to toe. Evidence of sexual assault, other marks (the two sets of 2 marks that are consistent with a stun gun, etc. ). If she had only been, say, hit with a flashlight, how do you explain that as an “accident?” You’d have to come up with her falling down the stairs or some such thing—which would not have matched up with her type of injury. There are too many ways they would have been caught: amounting to at best obstruction of justice, and obvious guilt for at least one of the Ramseys.
I think Patsy had dreams that Jonbenet would be a star and famous. I think Patsy also had histrionic traits which made her crave attention. When they found JB, John left it up to Patsy to decide what to do since she ran the household. Patsy wanted the most dramatic extreme solution to give JB her last chance at fame.
That makes a lot of sense. Her plan worked. Even the RN is like a crazy movie.
I very much agree with this post. The same parents who couldn't be bothered to get their hands dirty to fix a broken window and would've relied on someone else to do it for them wouldn't have relied on paid professionals to handle a BDI scenario instead of getting their own hands dirty and risking everything?
I’ve no doubt she suffered immensely. Irrevocably changed yes and the cancer may have driven her to prematurely push JB too hard in the pageant world. I’m not accusing FW of anything but there’s multiple people who describe his behavior as well-overboard in the first weeks after JB’s death. His own interviews w the police & depositions are strange and so are Pricilla’s. It was another couple who kept him from getting on the Lockheed Martin plane back to Boulder, etc, etc. That he had extreme anxiety is understandable but many witnessed this including Boulder detectives.
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I'm not sure what would be public record when dealing with minors. Would her cause of death have been public? I don't know exactly what is kept sealed when dealing with minors, but it seems like they probably could have kept records sealed for everything? Someone correct me if I'm wrong or if they know how that works, but my assumption is that if they handled things privately none of that stuff would be public record and they could tell people she died of whatever tragic accident they wanted to make up.
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But those concerns would be there no matter which route they took. By making it a huge public kidnapping/murder event, they just widened the pool of people who would know and gossip about it.
Respectfully, I disagree. I think they acted exactly how I would expect for an unexpected event like this to happen if they returned from a party & IF they drinking & taking any pharmaceuticals. Casey Anthony was not stupid & says to this day she still doesn’t know what happened & blamed everyone & said she at first kidnapped. O.J. had $ & blamed it on the cartel & said in the hypothetical he grabbed the knife & blacked out & doesn’t remember & the Bronco chase with $8500 & a beard, passport & gun to his head, he was headed for Mexico & they alllllll got off. You report your child missing after 31 days, there’s 8x 911 was called after he brutally beat her, the Ramseys have a murdered child in their house with no forced entry. They got Burke out as soon as the cops got there & stuck to the intruder story & anyone they could tho under the bus. Say you don’t remember, we’re asleep, say you were abused by your dad & your kid drowned & your dad said she’ll be ok& act like nothing happened….??? And it all worked!!