JonBenet Ramsey Murder case

[Wickerman]

It's also strange that, during the morning, he had been on the phone to his pilot (John owned two airplanes) instructing him to get the plane ready as the family (what was left of it) would be flying to Atlanta that afternoon.

Actually that is not true.
The Ramsey's already had plans to fly to Michigan on the morning of the 26th, thats why they got up early that morning. John was on the phone to his pilot telling him what had happened (they've kidnapped JonBenet) and that the flight is (obviously) cancelled.

[Wickerman]

The Ramsey's wrote a book? I didn't know that. Unbelievable. I didn't think I could like them less, but wow, what a couple of attention whores..

I think he wrote two books.
The Death of Innocence, and
The Other Side of suffering.

[Pcdunn]

I think he wrote two books.
The Death of Innocence, and
The Other Side of suffering.

The first was written by both Patsy and John, the second title is John's memoir, written after Patsy had passed away.

[Abby Normal]

The first was written by both Patsy and John, the second title is John's memoir, written after Patsy had passed away.

I think I'm going to vomit

[Wickerman]

Anyone into reading a more reliable source, try this:

https://www.amazon.ca/Injustice-JonBenet-Murdered-Sadistic-Psychopath/dp/1475074824

I think everyone knows who Lou Smit was, and his years of experience in Homicide.
Bob Whitson was a Det. Sgt. in the Boulder Police, throughout the murder he believed the Ramsey's were responsible. When he retired (2005?) he took an interest in Psychology, and ended up writing a PhD dissertation. This experience demonstrated to him how wrong he had been about his conclusions of the case.
Now he realizes the intruder theory is more consistent with the facts.

[louisa]

Whitson was the most incompetent police officer on the JonBenet case. He even admitted that in a TV interview.

He allowed family, friends and others to tramp all over the house, contaminating the crime scene. He let the Ramseys do as they pleased, simply because he was in awe of their wealth and influence.

Wickerman - it seems that you only read books that are in favour of your 'intruder' theory. Naturally any books written by the Ramseys are going to be pressing home the idea that an intruder murdererd their daughter. Perhaps you should read some of the other books on the case in order to give yourself a more balanced viewpoint?

The Ramseys only broke their silence on New Year's Day with an interview on the Cable News Network instead of talking to the police. Arranging an interview with a news organization was a tactic they would use repeatedly in coming years and it was sheer propaganda, allowing them to spin a public relations story while avoiding the police.

What parent of a murdered child does not want to talk to the police? The Ramseys had the police running round in circles trying to catch up with them. First they were in Boulder, then Atlanta, then an unknown location, and back to Atlanta. They liked to tell the media that they wished to co-operate with the police but that was the LAST thing they wished to do. We have to ask ourselves Why?

John Ramsey also told the national television audience that he was "not angry" about the murder of his daughter and he and Patsy wanted to move on with their lives.

How could a parent not be angry about such a thing. Anger, particularly only days after a person's child has been violently slain, is a natural emotion.

[louisa]

What kidnapper would come to steal a child in the night without first having written a ransom demand, then be so brazen as to take the time to begin one or two, discard them, and compose a complicated three-page letter on a pad conveniently found in the house, with a pen found there too, and fashion a handy paintbrush into part of a murder weapon? would an intruder take the trouble to fake an elaborate kidnapping to disguise a murder?

Why tuck a blanket around the corpse, almost as if to protect her from the basement chill? In a locked room, like the wine cellar. Why cover her body at all? This would have taken even more time which again pointed to the murderer being in no hurry and unafraid of being caught while lugging the child through the dark house. The light switch to the basement was not in a place you would expect it to be but instead it was on a wall outside the basement and around the corner to the basement door.

And as for the ransom note, the War and Peace of all ransom notes - this oddly relaxed 'intruder' took the time to write some strange complimentary comments about John, that he had "good southern common sense" and then put in a commercial plug "We respect your business" and "We hope you are well rested" - in a ransom demand!

The person who wrote it was well educated using words like 'attache' (with the accent in place) and 'hence'. When analysed 34 out of 36 of the letters and numbers were found to be extremely similar to Patsy's writing. Don't forget the Ramseys had been given a photocopy of the ransom note so they could have a good look at it before giving their handwriting samples. John passed with flying colours by the way.

[Wickerman]

Whitson was the most incompetent police officer on the JonBenet case. He even admitted that in a TV interview.

It sounds like you're letting your emotions get the better of you.
From what I understand both Whitson & Thomas believed the Ramsey's were responsible, once Whitson retired and broadened his knowledge on the subject he realized his mistake.
The same cannot be said for Thomas, who has not educated himself in these types of murder. Remember, the Boulder Police had NO appreciable experience with murder in general (something like 2 per year?), never mind a case of this sort.

Wickerman - it seems that you only read books that are in favour of your 'intruder' theory.

Generally speaking I avoid buying 'suspect' books, a point I've made more than once on Ripper threads.
I chose 'Injustice' (mentioned previously), and James Kolar's book, Foreign Faction, because they deal with the evidence rather than promote a particular suspect.
'Suspect' books have a tendency to be too biased, a reader needs to be presented with ALL the evidence, regardless in which direction it points.

I wasn't aware the FBI's leading expert on crimes against children was shut out of the inquiry once he advised the investigators that their hypothesis about the Ramsey's simply does not take into account all the evidence.
That this case is more likely one of an intruder.

This is not the first accusation against the Boulder Police concerning them shutting out anyone who did not agree with them.

I do feel it necessary to ask you, do you know anything about the activities of the sadistic sexual psychopath?
It's not a challenge, I'm not challenging you, just a genuine question.

They do like to break into houses with the occupants still inside, they do like to sexually assault their victim while other members of the house are but a few feet away. They do use hand-made implements to torture their victim before slowly killing them (I'm referring to the particular type of garrotte used on JonBenet).

What I find difficult to understand is, anyone who would believe a mother, who worshiped her daughter, could then garrotte her daughter to cover up an accident.
Whether Patsy or Burke accidentally caused the head trauma, no mother is going to fashion a specific type of garrotte and then strangle the daughters body.
The first instinct of any mother would be to call an ambulance, not create a bogus crime scene - someone is reading too many novels.

[Wickerman]

What kidnapper would come to steal a child in the night without first having written a ransom demand, then be so brazen as to take the time to begin one or two, discard them, and compose a complicated three-page letter on a pad conveniently found in the house, with a pen found there too, and fashion a handy paintbrush into part of a murder weapon?

When the police have a ransom note, as you know they will try compare the handwriting, but they will also trace the paper, the ink and obviously the pen.
Even if the intruder disguises the handwriting (as in this case), the paper, ink & pen-type can be traced back to him.
Neither of these items can be traced back to him, if he uses the Ramsey's stationary.

would an intruder take the trouble to fake an elaborate kidnapping to disguise a murder?

We do not know if the kidnapping was fake, ....fiber's from inside that suitcase were found on JonBenet, so she must have been inside that case at some point, dead or alive.
Why?

Why tuck a blanket around the corpse, almost as if to protect her from the basement chill? In a locked room, like the wine cellar. Why cover her body at all?

We do not know to what degree the body was covered, but kids like to carry their 'blanky' with them, that's pretty common with young kids.

And as for the ransom note, the War and Peace of all ransom notes - this oddly relaxed 'intruder' took the time to write some strange complimentary comments about John, that he had "good southern common sense" and then put in a commercial plug "We respect your business" and "We hope you are well rested" - in a ransom demand!

Any intruder who knew John Ramsey (and obviously he/she did), could have written that, not just Patsy.

The person who wrote it was well educated using words like 'attache' (with the accent in place) and 'hence'. When analysed 34 out of 36 of the letters and numbers were found to be extremely similar to Patsy's writing. Don't forget the Ramseys had been given a photocopy of the ransom note so they could have a good look at it before giving their handwriting samples. John passed with flying colours by the way.

The intruder doesn't have to be a homeless bum, with no schooling, sexual psychopaths have been known to be quite well educated.

The vague resemblance between the 10? characters was it?, when compared to Patsy's writing mean very little. When a score of 5 means "eliminated", then her score of 4.5 is not wholly convincing.

[louisa]

Wickerman - you have made some eroneous statements and you are nit-picking in the extreme. I put this down to the fact that you have read the fiction written by the Ramseys and have assumed everything in it to be fact, instead of the self serving claptrap it actually is.

There were NO fibres of any kind found within that suitcase that came from JonBenet's body.

Your justification as to why a kidnapper would use pen and paper from the victim's home is frankly ridiculous, and you probably know it.

You read my post wrongly regarding the blanket. I did not say it seemed strange for a blanket to be there, in the basement. What I said was that the person who left JonBenet's body had taken the time to tuck the blanket in all around her, as if to keep her warm.

The note: Only Patsy's handwriting was 'inconclusive'. All the other hundreds of samples taken from just about everyone the Ramseys could think of accusing, had been eliminated, including John's.

Whitson was in the pocket of the Ramseys, almost from the beginning. The influence of the Ramseys was far reaching and that is why they literally got away with murder.

If the murder had happened the way it did in this country then the crime scene (initially as a kidnapping) would have been locked down, not trampled over. The Ramseys would have been interviewed separately and so would their friends, before the lawyers got to them first.

Steve Thomas knew the Ramseys were guilty, as did most of the police and detectives working on the case.

Nobody in the police force was 'biased' - why should they be? All they wanted was to be able to interview the Ramseys. Why was this denied to them? The Ramseys should have co operated fully with the police right from the start, as any other parent in this same situation would have.

Everything the Ramseys did pointed to their guilt and it's an abomination that they lied and kept on lying.

When the police went to interview their Minister he refused to say a word until he had contacted his lawyer. His whole demeanour was hostile. I bet that wasn't in the Ramsey's book was it?


I do feel it necessary to ask you, do you know anything about the activities of the sadistic sexual psychopath?
It's not a challenge, I'm not challenging you, just a genuine question.

They do like to break into houses with the occupants still inside, they do like to sexually assault their victim while other members of the house are but a few feet away

Wickerman I do know quite a lot about this subject, I've been studying the psyche of murderers for over 30 years and I can tell you that your above statement is the biggest load of cobblers I have ever read!


You are showing a certain naivete regarding what Patsy was capable of. I think she had an extremely complex persona and we must put nothing past her. Just because you cannot imagine a mother doing such things does not mean a mother of a certain temperment cannot. Desperate situations call for desperate means.

The Ramseys standing in community was, I believe, Patsy's overriding concern.

The police were not biased - why would they be? All they wanted was to get some interviews in order to eliminate people from their enquiries. Unfortunately they were not able to do this because of the lack of co operation. Yes they were inexperienced in cases like this but they would have been content to have some interviews. Maybe if they had brought in the more experienced investigators from nearby Jefferson County the Ramseys would have been brought to book. We'll never know.

In fact the police would have preferred the Ramseys to be eliminated from their enquiries; they did not want a trial because it would have been extremely costly. However, some of the officers working on the case were tenacious and wanted justice for JonBenet. I have to applaud them for this. Some went over to Team Ramsey, where the money was, or simply leaked information to the Ramseys' lawyers.

The only people biased were (obviously) the Ramseys, who knew the police would dig up the truth if only they gave them the interviews they wanted. This had to be avoided at all costs.

I have also read James Kolar's book and then put it straight on ebay. The author simply hinted at the Ramseys being the culprits but didn't have the guts to say so, presumably in case he got sued, the same way the Ramseys sued Steve Thomas for coming out and saying what he thought.


Can you not bring yourself to read the Steve Thomas book, Wickerman? Are you afraid you might change your opinion?

[Abby Normal]

It sounds like you're letting your emotions get the better of you.
From what I understand both Whitson & Thomas believed the Ramsey's were responsible, once Whitson retired and broadened his knowledge on the subject he realized his mistake.
The same cannot be said for Thomas, who has not educated himself in these types of murder. Remember, the Boulder Police had NO appreciable experience with murder in general (something like 2 per year?), never mind a case of this sort.



Generally speaking I avoid buying 'suspect' books, a point I've made more than once on Ripper threads.
I chose 'Injustice' (mentioned previously), and James Kolar's book, Foreign Faction, because they deal with the evidence rather than promote a particular suspect.
'Suspect' books have a tendency to be too biased, a reader needs to be presented with ALL the evidence, regardless in which direction it points.

I wasn't aware the FBI's leading expert on crimes against children was shut out of the inquiry once he advised the investigators that their hypothesis about the Ramsey's simply does not take into account all the evidence.
That this case is more likely one of an intruder.

This is not the first accusation against the Boulder Police concerning them shutting out anyone who did not agree with them.

I do feel it necessary to ask you, do you know anything about the activities of the sadistic sexual psychopath?
It's not a challenge, I'm not challenging you, just a genuine question.

They do like to break into houses with the occupants still inside, they do like to sexually assault their victim while other members of the house are but a few feet away. They do use hand-made implements to torture their victim before slowly killing them (I'm referring to the particular type of garrotte used on JonBenet).

What I find difficult to understand is, anyone who would believe a mother, who worshiped her daughter, could then garrotte her daughter to cover up an accident.
Whether Patsy or Burke accidentally caused the head trauma, no mother is going to fashion a specific type of garrotte and then strangle the daughters body.
The first instinct of any mother would be to call an ambulance, not create a bogus crime scene - someone is reading too many novels.

Hi wicker
In your opinion what's the best non biased book on the Ramsey case?

Re sadistic sexual psychopath. Totally agree with you. But we may be dealing with a pedophile sexual sadistc psychopath here. Who generally like to get the victims out of the house and in private or secluded area. Think less night stalker and more Wayne Williams (Atlanta child murderer).

Re mothers/family member killing there children. C'mon wick this happens all the time. The statistics show its even probable, especially when victim is found in the home.

[Wickerman]

Hi wicker
In your opinion what's the best non biased book on the Ramsey case?

Hi Abby, to date I believe Foreign Faction by James Kolar is as close to impartial as we can get. It is known from elsewhere that Kolar suspected Burke was responsible, but he doesn't promote this to any great extent in his book.
Kolar does overplay the importance of the 911 call (background voices), he calls them "distinct", which is completely untrue, and he does advocate against the intruder theory, which is why I wanted the Smit & Whitson book to balance that argument. Both these writers have unparalleled experience in their own fields.
Its funny, the scientific evidence supports the intruder theory. It is the emotional evidence that targets the family.

Re sadistic sexual psychopath. Totally agree with you. But we may be dealing with a pedophile sexual sadistc psychopath here. Who generally like to get the victims out of the house and in private or secluded area. Think less night stalker and more Wayne Williams (Atlanta child murderer).

Agreed, though there is always a first in every field.

Re mothers/family member killing there children. C'mon wick this happens all the time. The statistics show its even probable, especially when victim is found in the home.

Mothers kill their children yes, that is not the point I was alluding to.
Mothers who dote on their children, who worship them, who idolize them, do not kill their children. Patsy was re-living a childhood as a Princes, that she never had - starting the Pagentry later in life.
Mothers who decide their children are an inconvenience tend to kill them, like Casey Anthony - Patsy Ramsey was not a Casey Anthony.
Sorry for not being too clear.

[Harry D]

I just think that if the Ramseys had done this, they would've disposed of JonBenet's body instead of staging such an elaborate ruse. No body, no crime.

[louisa]

The Kolar book has no teeth and the author hasn't the guts to name his suspect.

It tells us nothing we do not already know.

The best unbiased book is Who Killed JonBenet by Steve Thomas. He had no axe to grind but simply wanted the truth. He made no money from the book, in fact he lost money because the greedy Ramseys sued him.

If you want to know exactly what went on that Christmas at the Ramsey house once the call was made, this is the book to get. Even the smallest details were noted by the police officers who were present.

Little details like Officer French noticing that while Patsy and John were waiting for the 'kidnapper' to call Patsy had her face covered by her hands but he could see her fingers parted as she 'eyeballed' him. He noted it down in his notebook but of course this kind of small detail isn't 'evidence' just a point of interest.

[louisa]

I just think that if the Ramseys had done this, they would've disposed of JonBenet's body instead of staging such an elaborate ruse. No body, no crime.

There was no time for the Ramseys to remove the body from the premises.

Perhaps they had considered doing this but thought better of it. It had been snowing and they would probably have thought that footsteps in the snow would have been seen during the investigations.

Also, in their panic they may not have been able to think of a suitable place to put the body at such short notice?


Another reason why the 'intruder' theory is invalid. No footsteps in the snow outside. And we are supposed to believe that an intruder would have taken the time (after committing this murder and staging a kidnapping) to close the basement window after himself and then replace the grating over the basement area containing the window before he made his getaway? Ludicrous!