JonBenet Ramsey - a question for those who follow this story

[cabanafrau]

Remember they had to be up at the crack of dawn to fly out to visit family. Christmastime is stressful to any family. They had been running all day (and all week- JBR was in show at mall and concert at school and John had work function and they had party at the home and she always did some Christmas open house thing...all this the Ramsey's confirmed on show). Then there was potty issues with JBR. Lots of stress.

Because someone can speculate the household was stressful equates to the likelihood they committed the murder?

By the way, likelihood isn't the standard to prove guilt. To prove guilt you must have evidence that rises above reasonable doubt. Thank goodness!

 

[CdnCarrie]

Remember they had to be up at the crack of dawn to fly out to visit family. Christmastime is stressful to any family. They had been running all day (and all week- JBR was in show at mall and concert at school and John had work function and they had party at the home and she always did some Christmas open house thing...all this the Ramsey's confirmed on show). Then there was potty issues with JBR. Lots of stress.

Again disagree. I would be in a great mood if I was going to be getting up to fly and have a family vacation over the holidays. I have never found holiday parties stressful. Having chemo is stressful. Losing a child in a car accident is stressful. It puts life in perspective. After losing a child I doubt John thought that having a party was stressful. I doubt after nearly losing her life to cancer Patsy thought seeing her beloved daughter on stage at the mall was stressful. All in your perspective. You are clouding their innocence/guilt over what YOU think was stressful.

 

[RitaE]

As for Burke I will say this. IF he did it, and that is a theory I really do not believe, then I really don't believe the parents knew about it or were covering up for him ... at least not in the beginning day.

Look at it this way. He was 11 years old. If John and Patty were trying to "protect" him what would be the natural actions of any parent? To keep him close and monitor what he said and who he said it to would be what I would expect.

Instead, they sent him off out of the house to stay with a close friend. Completely out of their sight and out of their control.

 

[sunshinehighway]

As for Burke I will say this. IF he did it, and that is a theory I really do not believe, then I really don't believe the parents knew about it or were covering up for him ... at least not in the beginning day.

Look at it this way. He was 11 years old. If John and Patty were trying to "protect" him what would be the natural actions of any parent? To keep him close and monitor what he said and who he said it to would be what I would expect.

Instead, they sent him off out of the house to stay with a close friend. Completely out of their sight and out of their control.

Small point but..I think he was 9. He was 11 during the interview they showed portions of on that A&E show but he was 9 at the time of the the murder

 

[JaneBanks]

If anybody wants to really delve deep into some info, you should check out Websleuths , Forums For Justice and A Candy Rose. Hours and hours of reading material.
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?23-JonBenet-Ramsey
http://www.forumsforjustice.org/for...-Justice-for-JonBenet-Discussion-Public-Forum
http://www.acandyrose.com/jonbenetindex.htm

These forums are being run and contributed to by people who have been following this case from the beginning. Very interesting.

 

[King Schultz]

Because someone can speculate the household was stressful equates to the likelihood they committed the murder?

By the way, likelihood isn't the standard to prove guilt. To prove guilt you must have evidence that rises above reasonable doubt. Thank goodness!

I have no idea what happened, but how do you explain the 3 page ransom note that asked for $118,000, the exact amount as the bonus John Ramsey had just gotten?

That tells me it wasn't written by some random criminal.

 

[cabanafrau]

John gave similar timeline on show. What parts do you think are false?

Are you referring to the timeline you posted above that appears to have been culled from several different source documents? That timeline tells me next to nothing about what actually happened. You cannot simply take bits and pieces, absent all context and background of the source and circumstances the information was collected in and attempt to then extrapolate it in the fashion it's laid out here and attempt to present it as an accurate depiction of the truth. For example, the information that seems to be culled from deposition testimony is nearly useless without knowing the entirety of the questions asked and the answers given. It's entirely possible to completely mislead people simply by the selection of responses you present them.

 

[cabanafrau]

I have no idea what happened, but how do you explain the 3 page ransom note that asked for $118,000, the exact amount as the bonus John Ramsey had just gotten?

That tells me it wasn't written by some random criminal.

I have no idea what happened either. I highly doubt only the people within that family had access to that information. I don't think it's impossible someone could have entered the home, possibly not even for the first time, secreted themselves and been observing and listening to the family -- or even have come across the information within the home upon entry that night. It may have even been the genuine motive for the crime ultimately leading to the murder.

 

[lovin'fl]

Okay...huh? All I know is that timeline was created by documented sources and was similar to the timeline in the interviews the Ramseys, themselves, gave. It is what I posted earlier and another person said was all untrue. It's the timeline of the day not of what happened to cause her death. Tell me what part the above timeline are untrue? What I posted about what happened to cause her death...I very clearly stated were my thoughts and opinions only. I have no idea what really happened...just what I 'think' happened.

And websleuths, mentioned above, is a wealth of info on this case. And the members there, me included, are very anxiously awaiting the 3 part CBS show and DR Phil show coming up.

 

[EMom]

The police bungled this case from the beginning and I do not blame the parents for lawyering up. It quickly became apparent to the Ramseys that the police viewed the parents (and perhaps Burke) as the only real suspects. If I'd been in their shoes, that would have meant two things.
1. Not only am I, my spouse and my surviving child going to be wrongly targeted with the murder of my daughter, which let's face it, is bad enough, but
2. It means the police are have blinders on and are refusing to even consider ANYONE else as a suspect. It's us and no one else. They are not even looking. He could be waving at them with a sign and they wouldn't see him.

And the even more important reason for a legal team:
1. There is a very good chance, with the public hatred out there because of the nature of this murder, that either I, my spouse or both of us will wind up on prison for decades for a crime we didn't commit.........the worst crime we could ever have been accused of. And far worse than that,
2. Because of the misdirected, laser focus of the police, someone who committed a murder of the most vicious nature is walking around, free to do it again. It hardly seems likely they'd stop after just one time.

So yes, I'd lawyer up. To put it in simplest terms, the police were out to get the Ramseys and when someone is out to get you, if you are in a position to protect yourself and your surviving child, you do it. The police did a dismal job of evidence collection, didn't protect the crime scene, jumped to conclusions, and generally engaged in small minded thinking and it resulted in a killer being free all these years. Their work was astonishingly bad and they used the media to spread bold faced lies in an effort to ruin the Ramseys. People clearly still believe those long-debunked lies to this day, so their campaign worked pretty well.

I don't think we will every know who killed that child. I don't think the killer stopped killing that day, unless this murder was more about the Ramseys than JonBenet. If it was about her, he has killed again. And that is the rea crime concerning how the police mishandled this case.

I have to say, I watched the 4 hour show and I rolled my eyes at the policewoman who struck me as the female version of Barney Fife. With her bluster about how , after the father discovered the body, she felt her sidearm and mentally counted the rounds of ammunition, because she was sure "the killer was still in the house," she sickened me. And there were way too many of her sort on that case.

 

[RitaE]

I have no idea what happened, but how do you explain the 3 page ransom note that asked for $118,000, the exact amount as the bonus John Ramsey had just gotten?

That tells me it wasn't written by some random criminal.

If you read the analysis of John Douglas on the case (ex-FBI Profiler) he believes the $118,000 amount actually points the suspicion away from either John or Patsy.

These are wealthy people and that particular amount really doesn't scale to what they would imagine a ransom should be. They were getting ready to hop on a Private Plane to fly to their vacation home kind of wealth. He thinks they would have likely chose an amount in the millions rather than the salary bonus amount. From the amount and some of the verbiage in the ransom letter - I think there were some movie references?? he profiled a male likely in their late teens or 20's I believe who had been in the house and seen a paystub or had other means to know the bonus amount. In other words, somebody much more likely to think $118,000 is a large amount.

 

[lovin'fl]

Or could be they wanted LE to be looking for someone who knew the bonus amount and/or they knew that amount was easy to gather together (since it was just put in his account) for the ransom.

 

[EMom]

I have no idea what happened, but how do you explain the 3 page ransom note that asked for $118,000, the exact amount as the bonus John Ramsey had just gotten?

That tells me it wasn't written by some random criminal.

The bonus could have been known in many ways. Word gets around the office. Things get leaked. Husbands tell wives. It wasn't a classified secret. Or someone could have listened from inside the house. Just as the body lay hidden for hours, a killer could have hidden for days. If you have ever been in houses like this, some have nooks and crannies that people just don't do into and don't have in their line of sight. We have lived in such houses. Had I not filled up the areas with various stuff, someone could have hidden in my house for ages, come out to snack and go to the bathroom when we left, and heard a lot of what we said while we chatted, including the amount of our bonus. Heck, they could have looked through our mail or grabbed a legal pad and pen if they liked. And we wouldn't have been aware of them. And our houses could not compare to the Ramsey house.

How can John Ramsey be faulted for finding her body while the police are given a pass for NOT discovering it? Because it was in an obscure area? He should have never been encouraged to search for her. That's insane. Everything about the case was handled badly.

 

[JaneBanks]

I also highly suggest this book. Foreign Faction by James Kolar. This guy knows what he's talking about.

https://www.amazon.com/Foreign-Faction-Really-Kidnapped-JonBenet/dp/098476321X

 

[EMom]

Or could be they wanted LE to be looking for someone who knew the bonus amount and/or they knew that amount was easy to gather together (since it was just put in his account) for the ransom.

That would NARROW the focus. If you wanted to make the police look at other possible (but false) suspects, you'd want as wide a pool as possible.

 

[msjprincess]

That would NARROW the focus. If you wanted to make the police look at other possible (but false) suspects, you'd want as wide a pool as possible.

MTE.

 

[cabanafrau]

Okay...huh? All I know is that timeline was created by documented sources and was similar to the timeline in the interviews the Ramseys, themselves, gave. It is what I posted earlier and another person said was all untrue. It's the timeline of the day not of what happened to cause her death. Tell me what part the above timeline are untrue?

And websleuths, mentioned above, is a wealth of info on this case.

You do understand that the timeline of the day is all based on recollection of human beings, not of recording devices with timeclocks built in to mark each and every instance of their days? If I asked you what time you ate breakfast this morning you might give me an answer of 6:20, about 6:20, somewhere between 6:15 and 6:30, etc. If you were on the witness stand and I pressed you to either give me backing details why you knew it was 6:20 when you had breakfast or pressed you to run through your morning from what time you woke up, how you knew you woke up at X time, etc., you might well come up with a solid reason why you knew you had eaten at 6:20, continue to tell me you only knew it was between 6:15 and 6:30, or you might even come to the realization you sat down with your toast at 6:30 because you clicked on the news and they were just beginning their half hour with such and such big story of the day, etc.

If I'm simply reading what a reporter has taken down from a deposition or a report stating that you said you ate breakfast at 6:20. You very well may have stated you ate breakfast at 6:20. And you may very well have given that answer in all truthfulness and honesty. You may have been mistaken in your recollection and estimate by ten minutes and that kind of thing is impossible to track down if I'm basing my entire opinion about a timeline solely upon reading your very honest answer to that single question that someone else pulled out of a report. If I'm the one skimming a report for timeline and I only pull out your 6:20 timeline and miss your subsequent discovery that really it was 6:30 when you sat down I risk making a hash out of a timeline created because I didn't cull the information thoroughly.

It's entirely possible for people to answer things honestly and be mistaken in what they're saying.

 

[pryncess527]

Good grief no. My take that they are weird has NOTHING to do with child pageants. Nothing wrong with that at all.
For me there was just so many rumours about this that it probably just a misconception about them. I think they are innocent of her murder. But their reactions afterwards seemed little odd but then again I have no idea how I would react in the circumstance.
Just recently saw interview with John Ramsey and he seemed very nice. My viewpoint of them is probably skewed due to the surrounding weirdness of the case.

I was being mostly tongue in cheek, but I will cop to thinking people that heavily involved in child pageants are weird. I thought the beauty pagent pics of JBR were creepy and eerily doll-like, which creeped me out. She was a beautiful girl and I'll never understand the desire to cake her with makeup like that.

BUT, weird does not equal murderers. And I think you are right, that many people have a weird concept of them because of the misconceptions that swirled during the investigation.

As for the timeline posted -- 1st of all -- ditto Cabanfrau above. 2nd -- it's hard to take anything seriously when it includes lines like "Internet poster Bluecrab claims he did more than just check the window" -- three different times it cites anon internet posters like they are cops with real evidence.

 

[cabanafrau]

I was being mostly tongue in cheek, but I will cop to thinking people that heavily involved in child pageants are weird. I thought the beauty pagent pics of JBR were creepy and eerily doll-like, which creeped me out. She was a beautiful girl and I'll never understand the desire to cake her with makeup like that.

BUT, weird does not equal murderers. And I think you are right, that many people have a weird concept of them because of the misconceptions that swirled during the investigation.

As for the timeline posted -- 1st of all -- ditto Cabanfrau above. 2nd -- it's hard to take anything seriously when it includes lines like "Internet poster Bluecrab claims he did more than just check the window" -- three different times it cites anon internet posters like they are cops with real evidence.

It's not the same thing?

Does that mean I can't get up on the witness stand and testify about what I believe?

 

[goofy !]

As for the timeline posted -- 1st of all -- ditto Cabanfrau above. 2nd -- it's hard to take anything seriously when it includes lines like "Internet poster Bluecrab claims he did more than just check the window" -- three different times it cites anon internet posters like they are cops with real evidence.

Exactly. It is not that the timeline itself is completely off, but there are so many embellishments added on to it now that weren't there 20 years ago. Mainly put there by so called internet experts.

Our Barney Fife and company sleepy police force were totally not prepared for such a murder and the crime scene was bungled so badly that unless someone confesses and can give proof they did it, no one will ever know who did it. Just confessing won't be enough as someone has already done that.