Disguised Handwriting:
Unmasking The JonBenet Ramsey Ransom Note
Case Background
On December 26, 1996, six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, a child beauty queen, was found murdered in the basement of her parents’ upscale Boulder, Colorado home. According to the Boulder County Coroner, the cause of death was ‘asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma’. The crime became an instant media sensation and many believed that JonBenet’s parents – John and Patsy – were responsible for her death. A pervasive theory was that the Ramsey’s staged the crime scene to appear as if an intruder had killed JonBenet. Suspicion endures, even though the Ramsey’s were cleared as suspects by a grand jury in 1999.
A confusing ransom note discovered by Patsy appeared to be strong evidence of the Ramsey’s guilt. The three pages used for the note were torn from Patsy’s personal notebook, and her pen was used to write it. The notebook was left in plain sight, and Mr. Ramsey actually gave it to the police so that they could compare Patsy’s handwriting with the note. My opinion – the note wasn’t to obtain a ransom, because there was no kidnapping. I believe that the note was written by the true killer in order to help implicate John and Patsy Ramsey for the murder of their daughter.
The Language of the Note
The 376 word ransom note reads:
Mr. Ramsey,
Listen carefully! We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction. We respect your bussiness but not the country that it serves. At this time we have your daughter in our possession. She is safe and unharmed and if you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions to the letter.
You will withdraw $118,000.00 from your account. $100,000 will be in $100 bills and the remaining $18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size attaché to the bank. When you get home you will put the money in a brown paper bag. I will call you between 8 and 10 am tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested. If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence a earlier pick-up of your daughter.
Any deviation of my instructions will result in the immediate execution of your daughter. You will also be denied her remains for proper burial. The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you so I advise you not to provoke them. Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as Police, F.B.I., etc.. will result in your daughter being beheaded. If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. If you alert bank authorities, she dies. If the money is in any way marked or tampered with, she dies. You will be scanned for electronic devices and if any are found, she dies. You can try to deceive us but be warned that we are familiar with Law enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99% chance of killing your daughter if you try to out smart us. Follow our instructions and you stand 100% chance of getting her back. You and your family are under constant scutiny as well as the authorities. Don’t try to grow a brain John. You are not the only Fat Cat around so don’t think that killing will be difficult. Don’t underestimate us John. Use that good southern common sense of yours. It is up to you now John!
Victory!
S.B.T.C.
The purpose of the ransom note was to scatter the investigation in as many directions as possible, and it worked. The writer assumed the language of three characters when he crafted the note, and one of them was Patsy Ramsey.
The Ransom Note Cast of Characters:
- A group of foreign terrorists wanting ransom money, (but there was no kidnapping): “We are a group of individuals who represent a small Foreign Faction.” “You can try to deceive us but be warned we are familiar with law enforcement counter measures and tactics.” “Victory! S.B.T.C.”
- Furious enemy of Mr. Ramsey: “You will withdraw $118,000.00 from your account.” “You’re not the only Fat Cat around so don’t think that killing will be difficult” “Don’t try to grow a brain John.”
- “Patsy Ramsey, a dramatic southern belle: Make sure you bring an adequate size attache to the bank.” “you will also be denied her remains for proper burial.” “Use that good southern common sense of yours.” “the delivery will be exhausting, so I advise you to be rested.” “to instruct you on delivery” “and hence”.
Patsy Ramsey’s Handwriting Comparison
The grid below demonstrates why I think the note-writer used Patsy’s handwriting from her notebook as a model for the ransom note. The questioned handwriting is too similar to Mrs. Ramsey’s copybook style. When people write anonymously, they change their natural handwriting to avoid getting caught. An anonymous writer doesn’t patch up the handwriting to look more like their own.
The items designated a ‘Q’ are from the Questioned Ransom Note. The items designated as ‘K’ (as in Known) were written by Mrs. Ramsey for the Boulder Police Department in January and February of 1997. Shown here is a partial list of the requested material. Source: Boulder Police Department.
The most significant clues are the letter ‘a’s in the note. The method of construction is unnatural – the writer added the second story to the middle zone ‘a’s on the first page of the note, and used a stunted version of the cap as the note progressed.
The graphic above is color-enhanced to show how the tops of each letter are separate from the body. In the ransom note, evidence of patching can also be found on the ‘t’s (serifs added) and ‘F’s (tops added).
Patsy Ramsey used this style of ‘a’ occasionally, as seen in the handwriting comparison grid above ( see ‘advize’, ‘a.m’., ‘unharmed’, and ‘dollar’.) The overall result of adding the flourishes to the ‘a’s and ‘t’s is a feminine hint which is inconsistent with the menacing swastika-style ‘F’s, and the threat itself. This contradiction was certainly intentional. If patsy had written the note, she would have made an effort to change her handwriting – not fix it up to look more like her own. Mr. Ramsey should also be considered innocent, because the husband wouldn’t implicate his wife if he was writing the note with the purpose of supporting an intruder theory.
THE NOTE:
Additional Elements of Disguise
The length of the note provides an advantage for me. The handwriting became more natural towards the end, and two things happened simultaneously as it progressed: the intentionally altered traits became easier with practice, and the writer’s unconscious habits revealed themselves as the speed increased. It’s imperative to identify the disguised elements in anonymous handwriting cases so in order to have reliable comparison evidence to work with. In addition to the patched ‘a’s, ‘t’s, and ‘F’s mentioned earlier, I found additional disguise elements:
- Diminishing tremulous line quality as the handwriting progressed.
- The horizontal proportions of the letters expand and contract; this produced highly variable spacing between the letters, and also the words.
- Added together with the variable slant, the wavey lines and erratic spacing give the handwriting a unique and startling presentation.
Finding a Match
Anonymous letter cases are solved by finding unconscious habits and studying the line quality of the questioned material, after disregarding the disguise elements as comparable evidence. The handwriting in the ransom note contains intentional disguise, what I believe to be an imitation of Patsy’s script, and also the writer’s own unconscious traits.
What does the handwriting of the ransom note writer look like?
After a process of inclusion, elimination, and blending – I found five letters that I believe to be genuine. The letters are ‘d’, ‘u’, ‘r’, ‘g’, and ‘y’, in the order of certainty.
My drawing shows the shapes to look for. The ‘d’ will be made with one stroke, and is shaped like a closed fish hook. The ‘u’ is a singular cup without the final downstroke on the right. The ‘r’ resembles a closed check mark; short stem, long flattened top. The lower zone of the ‘g’ will slightly pull to the right of center before it heads left. The ‘y’ is a ‘v’ with a connected lateral downstroke.
I know it’s not much, but don’t be discouraged by this small amount of comparison material.
Here’s how a match could be found using volunteer citizens, even with a large group of suspects:
- Obtain new names of potential suspects. For an example, all men who attended the Ramsey family’s church in 1996.
- Find 1990’s handwriting samples of hand printing from public sources, such as the local DMV. Signatures won’t be helpful, it needs to be comparable to the note – hand printing only.
- Now, you have a stack of handwriting samples to use for comparison.
- Round One: Mark all of the samples that have a one-stroke closed fish hook letter ‘d’ with a yellow sticky note. If you find a sample with variable ‘d’s, flag it. Finish the stack, and don’t remove any of the samples from your investigation.
- Round Two: Find the matching ‘u’. Every person that has an missing downstroke on the right side of the ‘u’ in their sample is flagged with a green sticky note. Finish the stack for round Two.
- Round Three: Go through the stack, while doing the same for the ‘r’. Flag close matches, it’s better to include than exclude. All matching ‘r’s are flagged with a blue sticky note.
- Round Four: Find that ‘g’. It’s going to pull to the left as if a tugging string is attached to the end of the tail. Mark all possible matches with an orange sticky note.
- Round Five: Do the same with the ‘y’. Flag all possible matches with a purple sticky note, same as above.
Do you have any suspects with four or five colored notes? Chances are, you’ve narrowed the list down to a small group – that invites further investigation. The DNA will eventually solve this case, but the handwriting can be an extremely valuable tool.
I hope that this article can be helpful to the case in some way, someday.
Office of the Boulder County Coroner, Autopsy Report, dated 12/27/96.
Foreign Faction by A. James Kolar, ISBN 978-0-9847632-1-4; 2012.
Forensic Linguistics, Advances in Forensic Stylistics by James r. McMenamin, ISBN 0-8493-0966; 2002.
Fascinating article. The letter has several BIZARRE elements 1) Who has time for such nonsense when you are committing a crime that could lead to the death penalty and you are being slow, almost light-hearted in places.
2) Why switch from Mr Ramsey to John?
3) The person is going from uneducated (can’t spell business) to referring to a bag as an attache and even including an accent on the e, as in JonBenet).(my PC doesn’t have this).
This is someone educated but also mentally unstable. I strongly suspect the mother wrote this. She would have known the bonus was $118,000. Did he promise her this amount or did she feel she deserved it?
I think the writer was trying to make people suspect that Patsy wrote it. I do agree with you that the writer is an intelligent person.
You think someone tried to implicate Patsy? That’s only because you are an uneducated retard who should only open her mouth to perform oral sex, not to express a retarded opinion.
Well aren’t you a vile chauvinistic POS. It is clearly you who should keep your mouth shut and only open your mouth when shouting in ecstasy as you are sodomized. And who are you to tell a woman when she can or cannot speak. Do not breed and stay the fck away from women psycho.
Jesus Christ, Kurt. You and RC need some serious help. The evidence here is legit, and she made some really good points in her analysis. This case is serious, so I would try to put that colorful imagination to good use, or actually, stay out of this case and it’s entirety. Anyone who has such a lack of respect for anyone, particularly an expert in her field, needs to distance himself from this case. That kind of talk is completely uncalled for.
My honest opinion, to change the subject away from Kurt and his possy of whatever stick is up his anus, is that the Ramsey Family had something to do with it, but didn’t kill JonBenet Ramsey. The DNA on her underwear didn’t match anyone in the Ramsey family. There was a time when I believed that JonBenet was killed by her dad.
Really? Resorting to name calling not to mention crass sexual remarks when discussing such a horrendous crime. This is a discussion for those who truly seek knowledge, not for individuals seeking their 15 minutes of fame through unnessary and uncouth comments. Take your games elsewhere.
Wow ~ why so angry and gross?
RC is full of a lot of rage like JonBenet’s killer.
Interesting article and too bad the discussion became infantile name calling. I’d say “kurt” is full of more rage than the other.
I do not think that she was killed by her parents. There were lots of mistakes made by the Police and forensics team. There was lots of ignored evidence that was instead invested into trying to blame her parents. There was an easy open entrance to the back of the house, there was no snow in the back of the house, therefore, no prints. The killer could have scoped out the house before that night on Christmas. There was an unidentified print which matched the shoes of a man who committed suicide days later. The media made Patsy look like “the bad guy” for over sexualizing her daughter. That’s literally what every pageant mother does. I definitely feel that this/these killers were close to the family, and the people working on the case did not do their job.
Honestly speaking I don’t understand why we’re still wasting time with this, the Ramsey family did it….the case would’ve been solved but because Mr and Mrs Ramsey didn’t want it to be solved they failed to cooperate with the police
But Mrs Ramsey got what’s hers tho….cause she’s dead and since Jonbenét knows the truth so she’ll face her daughter (that’s the true justice she’ll be facing)
i agree. Patsy wrote it. She gave herself away with the word “bring”…. if you were truly a kidnapper you would tell a person to “take” something not bring something.
I believe patsy said – bring – to the bank -because she is part of it.
If you’re addressing a third-party with instructions you say “take” -take this to the cleaners -take your coat with you, -take a bag to put the money in. . You’re not involved you’re not going.
Majority of people only say bring when they are part of it and or asking someone to bring to them something such as bring me a drink, bring the tent! don’t forget to bring your glasses. bring implies you ,the speaker. are with them, right?
If you were not along with, you are giving instructions to do something so in the above examples you would say
– take the drink to your father, don’t forget to take a tent on your trip, – you need to take your glasses with you.
Why would the note writer ever say bring an attache to the bank? Unless it is a person who works at the bank and is saying hey bring this to me so I can put money in it, hey bring a suitcase to put your money in, or if you were going with the person such as Patsy or the lawyer going with John they would say , lets go, bring a case to put the money in.
a kidnapper would say take a case to the bank to get $$, then bring it to ME.
Dude, they didn’t want to cooperate because they were mourning their dead daughter, and the police kept trying to make them confess. Imagine your child is brutally murdered and the cops keep asking you, “Why don’t you just admit it already?” It would break my heart even more. They hired their own private investigators because the cops weren’t doing their jobs. Why would they hire private investigators to try and prove themselves guilty?
Why would you say such a thing to a stranger?
Shocking retort, uncalled for comment, no provocation whatsoever.
Thanks for the analysis. Thought provoking. My doubt is that anyone wanting to falsely implicate Patsy Ramsey by way of a written note, would have kept it very short. There was also the evidence of the family photos that had writing on them that matched the ransom note that both John and Patsy denied was Pasty’s handwriting. The said they didn’t know the handwriting on the photos.
I think we are looking at an accidental death, with a somewhat bizarre attempt at cover-up along with some very poor police work.
Seems to me that the accidental death was caused by the blow to the head. The coroner misdiagnosed it as death due to strangulation and head trauma. They spent all night constructing the cover up evidence (garrote and placement of body; the letter was probably written after “8-10am” since they had to explain the delay or were buying (building in time) time in their alibi; unknown male DNA could have been found at a 24hr health (or gentlemen’s) club and possibly transfered to underwear; the limited sexual penetration does not necessarily indicate a young or naive perp, but rather a squeamish and cringing attempt to violate one’s own daughter to make it look like rape…They were most likely doing their best to control the panic, which makes it appear the writer was “unstable” (in this case short term instability due to the terror that their pious lifestyle (religious and beauty cult) was about to come crashing down.
WTF are you on about? Patsy Ramsey did NOT harm JonBenet! Let the woman rest in peace with her baby girl.
Kimberly, unless you are the ghost of JonBenet I don’t know how you can be so sure about who did or didn’t kill that poor girl.
There was no evidence of sexual penetration. J.B. had an irritation, which is not uncommon with someone her age.
exactly as you said. They had to write the note or would have had to call in a murder. Not even a missing persons as they would have had to scour the house first before reporting it. The note was a way to get around that. 200 similarities with ransom note and Patsy thus 4 experts have said it was Very Highly Probable she wrote it. Agree it was an accident they were covering. Probably protecting Burke. He had very strange responses in his childhood interview like saying he felt safe and wasn’t thinking about her. A murderer broke into their home and he felt safe?? Think about that.
The police arrived at the home at 8:10 am, to find a crowd of friends already gathered with the Ramseys. Ransom note had to be written long before then. Patsy referenced the note in her 5:22 am 911 call.
My bad; first officers arrived on scene at 5:59.
Why is everyone so hostile here? Is there some kind of back story we new people should know about the commenters here?
Same idea i had,need more info!
Why in the world would you think she was accidentally killed by her parents, and then they proceeded to cover it up? What proof do you have? Do you have any children of your own? Because I do, and I’ll tell you right now that any loving parent will immediately call 911 and go to any measure to protect their child from harm, regardless of HOW, WHERE, or BY WHOM the harm occurs. So again, what proof do you have that anything happened to her, either at the hands of her parents, or her brother?
Some theories for the cover up have been… The brother killed her (he snuck out to “play with toys”) while everyone was still sleeping, I believe he was awake when they went in his room in the AM. He had also hit her in the past with a golf club pretty bad, enough they wanted to have plastic surgery done on her.
Another theory was the father was caught sexually assaulting her either by Patsy or John B. and said she would tell her mom so he hurt her.
Both theories I’m sure a family so well known, very materialistic, worried about how ppl view them. Although this would be extreme, but in the moment they could have felt how do we explain this, how would this look on us?
Just because they used those words does not mean they are intelligent. They did not spell a few words right as well.
I think the point the commenter above was trying to make is… Only an educated person has this type of vocabulary. Those words in the note are CERTAINLY misspelled on purpose.
To me, this person is obviously educated. I am educated and watch me write this point. Judge me.
My point is… An unintelligent criminal generally doesn’t even THINK to use 1/2 the words in this letter. ALSO, the middle to the end of the letter go in a VERY VERY feminine tone. No man would say “You arent the only fat cat “john” – “john” Use your common sense John” but; I feel like that is so obvious. Its obvious this is a feminine tone, right?
The others are words that only educated people use and they aren’t really out of place, i.e. like my nephew trying to sound smart.
“Particularity / deviation / hence / countermeasures, all are NOT words that some idiot killer wouldnt use. A psychopath? Maybe
A criminal says “dont call the cops or any one else” not… we are familiar with law enforcement countermeasures.
A criminal man says… “Bring the money” Not… “make sure “have an adequate sized attache”? Then a brown bag, etc. etc. That reeks southern lady to me.
What man talks like that? Especially in a note deMANding money to another man?
To me its glaringly feminine. Just my 2 cents.
You see how I write? I am obviously a guy. The further I go, I develop a tone.
I am also left handed and that is my exact slant angle. Just saying.
You know that’s what I was thinking because that’s how I would write the letter, and I’m female. Doesnt sound like a man at all. My dad’s also left handed and that’s exactly the way he Wright’s. Maybe a women wrote the note and then her male counterpart killed the poor little girl.
Who knows how to even tie a garrote, it’s not common knowledge. Mostly used by Spain and Cuba as a form of execution.
Hi Sean,
understand what you mean by the feminine tone. EXCEPT, that line was lifted from the movie “Speed”, and it was a man who said it in that movie. As a matter of fact, all the movies that the quotes come from (Dirty Harry, etc) are movies that guys would more likely watch. So, it’s tricky, eh?
Very good concept Sean. I agree. And p Ramsey was southern. and also as you said, it looks like a left-handed style.
The comma in “$18,000” has a distinct backward slant. That led me to consider that the writer is left-handed.
The 8’s all *appear* to be 2 separate circles although I can’t see the individual strokes. This style is used by architects and draftsmen…not exclusively, but predominantly.
I believe that the note was written prior to the murder, mainly because of the length but also because I don’t believe a parent who had accidentally killed their own child would have been calm enough to write anything beyond a few frantic words.
The same would be true of most killers. For anyone other than an experienced sociopathic or psychopath murderer, killing another person is a highly emotional event, especially when the victim is a child.
I lean toward believing that the author is an effeminate male. The language is overly dramatic. I’m no expert but I’ve observed that some pedofiles, even those who are attracted to little girls, have a flamboyantly feminine affect (like John Mark Karr, and I know he’s been ruled out; he’s just an example).
There is so much contradictory evidence. Maybe there was another participant.
So could John Ramsey have had a psycho girlfriend that finally understood that he would not leave his children for her?
You are the only one i saw who looked at the word atache. A normal man says briefcase. An uneducated perp says bag.atache is from the fashon concious. Feminine or effeminate. This was not a manly man who wrote this note. I also feel the spelling errors could just be a bad speller which does not mean uneducated. People who have ADD are often bad spellers but can be educated and posess a large vocabulary.
My father, born in 1920 in the south, a career Army officer and on Presidential staff in his second career, called his an attaché. He was not a fashionista, or feminine, it was just the word he grew up with. He also called earrings “ear bobs” and a necklace a “lavalier.” Oh, and BTW, the spell check on this comment just added the accent mark over the “e”!
Lots of smart people don’t spell that well… But I see what you mean. Or it was deliberate. \/
big words and phrases = Am I smart ?
Misspellings = Or am I dumb ?
A deliberate contradiction perhaps ?
John Ramsey couldn’t spell business if you look at his example
Tbh we don’t know 100% of who did it, we can only speculate and voice our thoughts on who did it. I still think it the parents. But let say the parents didn’t kill her themselves, but they are involved in it or got someone else to do the dirty job for them. The window was broken in the basement because John did that himself prior before the murder because he was locked out of the house, so who to say that scruff mark wasn’t from him, also why didn’t he fix the window after he broke it? Another point is that if it was an intruder, then how would they known which window was broken or the exact layout of the house, and maneuver their way around anything without walking into anything unless they have a light source. The ground outside the window wasn’t disturbed, if it was the intruder going in and out would’ve disturbed the ground, clear the spider web out along with the dirt no matter how skinny you are a full adult body would’ve clear those things out. John Ramsey didn’t even bother to check to see the doors was locked, why because he was drunk? no matter the state of a parent one of them should’ve checked the doors, they have kids and their safety is the top priority. They should’ve known that despite living in a nice community, that doesn’t keep you safe. That crime has happened in the ’90s, where a lot of bad stuff was always on the news mainly robberies. Even poor people and working-class people lock their doors and windows and check on everything before they leave the house, when they come back and when they go to bed and to go the extra mile, to even go to the distance they check on everything when they wake up. this is as much stupid as the mother and father of the two little girls on the green mile allow their daughters to sleep on the porch, why because it was hot?, right after hiring a stranger which to whom they knew nothing about, except the name he gave them and he turned out to be a pedophile killer, in which they knew nothing about in which I will admit that. But their first mistake was trusting a stranger whom they just met. That like trusting your neighbors to watch your house while you’re asleep in it. Your neighbors not going to watch your house every second of the day. They have lives too. Maybe the parents didn’t do it or maybe they did, or maybe they planned for it to happened and have someone else to kill her because maybe they want to cash the life insurance policy, or maybe they’re covering up for the killer, whatever the case is they deserved to be put in prison because they have a handshake in the deal either on purpose or inadvertently.
What an absolute worthless dunderheaded opinion. Hysterical that you probably think you’re an interesting human being.
No mention is made about the “u” looking like a v. Also, if the note was written on Christmas Day and the “kidnappers” are supposed to call with instructions between 8-10am, the earlier time would be before the bank even opened.
So you are proposing that the killer somehow obtained writing samples from Patsy to study and practice copying in months/weeks leading up to the murder? Considering the obvious lack of planning in the actual crime, this is unlikely.
I found JobBenet to be very attractive
I think it looks really sloppy, like a child’s writing. The Ramsey’s could have had Burke write it, in case they got caught. Because it does not make sense a ransom note, and the body both left in the house. They should check Burke’s handwriting. Everything in the note Burke could of heard on t.v. Or heard John say.
It’s possible the killer or killers were already in the house when the Ramsey’s came home late that night. That would’ve given them plenty of time to write the ransom note. The missing pages of the notebook could imply those were practice sheets to mimic Patsy’s handwriting.
Why would they be concerned with pinning it on Patsg when they are admitting to having JonBent in their possession? Makes zero sense
good point!
I think they may have had a plan to leave the house with her in that suitcase that was found by the basement window but she died and the ransom note was written after the fact. Just a theory.
Yes ! There was a scuff mark on the wall beneath it and the suitcase directly in front. So I agree with this-makes sense !
It seems to me that the letter was written by a young male, maybe 15 or 16 years old who is playing a part in the crime taking place. He is very smart, but also wrapped in his own world. I think he was in the home before the family arrived back from the Christmas party. He had the time to delve into his plans and construct the note. His reason, I believe, for planning the abduction was his attraction to JonBenet. Once the intended scenario began playing out, his emotions took over and the result was her death. There was no reason to follow through with his intentions, so he left the note on the lower step providing him with time to return to his safe haven. He is familiar with the family, but not close enough to be considered a suspect. He owned a dog. He was not, and has remained, clear of any DNA database.
I totally agree with you! I have always thought the murderer was a young male in his late teens. The ransom note appears to be written by someone intelligent and very immature emotionally and physically. I believe this to be the reason she wasn’t actually raped. I pray this case will be solved in the very near future.
@Gregg, The Ramsey’s had ALL NIGHT to right that ransom note. There is NO EVIDENCE how a so-called intruder entered the home. So why go down that road?
I totally agree. Do you think John Ramsey involved?
No one died. The police work was poor because, again, no one died. No arrest because no one died. It’s fascinating to watch complete strangers get so emotionally involved from a couple of pictures and one poorly fabricated story.
There are at least 20 people who saw the dead body of JonBenet. Are you even referring to her case? It doesn’t seem like it.
Burke killed her (prob by accident?) and the Ramsey’s covered it up clumsily.
This is fascinating indeed. Investigators and doctors use similar approaches…. eliminate possibilities. They don’t immediately try to diagnose or solve. Using elimination, I feel DNA can’t be a definitive factor as the crime scene was jeopardize. The note is perplexing. It came from the house written with a pen from the home. There are missing pages torn from the note pad. It’s incredibly doubtful those pages were torn out in advance and taken and returned later during the crime but it’s feasible. Which means of done this way, it was by someone who had access to the home at least once before the crime. Or it was written the night of the crime, before or after the murder. So who has access to the home? Family, friends, possibly people who worked in the home like a housekeeper.
The content presents clues. $118,000 is not a random figure. That amount was used and related to the bonus. So either it was family, friends, co-workers, someone from their bank, or someone who worked in the house that saw the check or deposit slip. I make good money and those of us who make good money don’t brag about bonus checks.
If one can eliminate the pages and pen being stolen in advance, only to return to premeditate the crime, you must acknowledge the note was written during the hours before or after the crime. I will eliminate the pages and pen being stolen and returned because that is ridiculous. This means it was written in the house sometime before or after the crime.
Now let’s determine who was in the house. A perpetrator could’ve entered the window but cob webs remained in the window. It’s unlikely but we’ll leave that possibility only open for now. The family is the only known people in the house during the crime and they’re not eliminated.
A bank teller clearly would not implicate themselves picking that exact amount and they’d know John had more money than $118k. So bank people are eliminated. Friends, ridiculous. Workers, all eliminated unless they had knowledge of the bonus. Co workers, possibly someone in accounting leaked the bonus to a jealous criminal, but I’m in tech and the folks that work in tech as well paid and generally wouldn’t need $18k this bad and wouldn’t know how to hide the money. I’m eliminating co-workers. And is unlikely a low level co-worker had ever been to John’s house. It’s clear the person walking through the home knew their way around.
It’s not anyone from Christmas parties. They wouldn’t know his bonus amount nor the home layout. And their friends were well of people.
This leaves us with the perpetrators knowing the house layout, knowing the bonus amount, having access to the note pad and pen, ample time to write it.
The content of the note is telling. It does appear to contain writing to deliberately point the attention in outward directions. Generally this is indicative of a meaning, to throw of the scent. The phrases used appear to be lifted and not thought out. It’s like a fiction and minds racing to express untruth. I feel certain it was written after the fact. No criminal kills a child then sticks around to write a well throughout note. They knew the child was dead and they would have left immediately. And you certainly don’t go upstairs after killing the child to leave a note. And it’s more ridiculous to think of a criminal writing that then leaving the note before getting her. And you certainly not writing that when you have her and she’s alive.
Deduction, only those in the house had the time to commit the crime and write the note. They had the knowledge of the bonus, took time to call friends, they trashed the crime scene and the biggest crime of all was refusing to cooperate and help the police. They lawyered up and it took 4 months before the parents gave the police an interview.
So who did it? It was 100% someone who lived in that house. No chance it was anyone else. Why didn’t they talk? Who was protecting who? Did the mother do it out of anger and accidentally do something and her husband covered it up? Did the father do something and his wife covered it up? Did one of the sons do something and the parents covered it up? I don’t believe the parents covered for the other. There’s not enough love between spouses to cover up a murder of your child. But there is enough love to protect another and only remaining joint child.
JB was clearly their pride and joy, and it was Christmas. 6 year olds still believe in Santa. I’m sure she was excited and her parents spoiled her. I remember Christmas was a time that my siblings could get irritated and jealous. And when one child is really happy and getting all the attention… well it can lead to disaster. And I as a parent would pretty much do anything to protect my own last child.
This case is closed my friends. We know who wrote this note. We know what happened. We know the police know. We don’t need to theorize any longer. DNA is meaningless with a crime scene in 96 which was contaminated by accident or by purpose. We don’t need all the details. She died, accidentally doubtful but we know and everything which occurred afterwards was a gruesome act of love by parents. It makes no sense, but all the sense.
I think it looks really sloppy, like a child’s writing. The Ramsey’s could have had Burke write it, in case they got caught. Because it does not make sense a ransom note, and the body both left in the house. They should check Burke’s handwriting. Everything in the note Burke could of heard on t.v. Or heard John say.
Thanks so much for a very intelligent analysis of a perplexing document. I’ve seen a great many attempts based on all sorts of assumptions, but yours is head and shoulders above the others. And you don’t jump to conclusions about who wrote it, which is refreshing.
My own feeling is that handwriting analysis in itself will never tell us who wrote that note, as it was very deliberately, and cleverly, disguised. My thinking is based largely on certain key facts of the case as a whole, albeit supplemented by my own analysis of the penmanship — and the content. If you’re curious, please look in on my blog, Solving the JonBenet Ramsey Case: http://solvingjonbenet.blogspot.com/
I hope you’ll add some comments, as your expertise would be most welcome.
Dear docg,
Thank you for the compliment, and your blog on this topic.
Thank you for writing this very interesting analysis! I believe the note was meant to deceive, that doesn’t mean the Ramseys wrote it.
Agreed. Thanks, Sally.
this is who i think wrote it
I believe home-invading serial pedophile and killer Mr. Cruel murdered Jonbenet Ramse
http://www.crimeshots.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11934
Dear neo,
Is there any proof that ‘Mr. Cruel’ was in Boulder, CO. on the night of the murder?
He is from Australia but I read he was in Colorado sking the exact time of the murder. Eerie.
Patsy wrote this letter. It’s too long, too personal and too inconsistent for a male kidnapper. I believe that John was assisting her with some of the details in the letter. By the end, she is getting increasingly aggravated with him. That’s why Mr Ramsey becomes John.
The statistics (99%, 100%) indicate a well educated business person. The french word attache indicates a sophisticated woman. They were both involved in creating this letter but Patsy actually wrote it.
The phraseology of that passage can also carry a medical connotation (it is the way treatment options and prognoses are discussed). This fits well with fingering the mother (a cancer patient) as the writer of the note.
Greg–This IMO is an eleiment of note(not the RN)
Can you point out some of these conections?
Dear Carla, thank you for your comment.
RIGHT ON …u hit it on the nail…on point….it was a bed-wetting, menopausal, x-mas exhaustive breakdown…and she was probably drunk as well when she slammed her kid in the bathroom floor area !!!!
You do not know that for sure.
No evidence of fresh urine on JonBenet’s mattress, and no evidence of head trauma on bathroom floor. Next?
Patsy was said to have a habit of wetting the bed. One of the theories was that she killed JonBenet in a fit of rage after she had an episode of such. We don’t really have a psychological profile on Patsy so I wouldn’t say she was “crazy” or “insane” like some say she is: the analysis shows that writer was mentally unstable, however, intelligent.
The skull fracture was almost directly on top of her head, not to the side.
Jon Benet wet the bed so frequently that plastic sheets were used. So, your point is no point, at all.
No one wants to entertain that scenario, but possible for sure. I wandered the same about the Alcohol ? After all, it was the holidays and some drinking would seem to have taken place. Did it dis-inhibit the mother and she did sumpthin’ ???
If so John would never have helped her with the cover-up, or WOULD HE ?
you are correct about the menopausal (side effect of cancer treatment) woman, notice the moustache patsy had recently grown, hormones out of whack, stressed out, holidays, christmas exhausted, maybe drunk, tired, pilled up, sleep deprived.
“The delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested.” What killer from a “foreign faction” says something like that? That’s something a mother would say to her son, likely that the Ramsey’s relationship had deteriorated to one more like a mother/son than husband/wife. There are many, many things in this letter that make me think a woman wrote it…#maybepatsy
The phony ramsom note was definitely written after JonBenet was killed that doesn’t mean it was Patsy.
I believe it was written by someone who knew John Ramsey very well. Why does the note start off; “Listen” very carefully instead of “Read carefully”?
This is a person who uses ‘listen’ a lot like, “listen, I have to go to the store”, “listen, I just heard about that new market”, etc. The killer wrote the note after killing JonBenet trying to buy time,it said that he would call ‘tomorrow’ which would have made it the 27th, thinking that the house would not be searched if there is a ransom note, and therefore if dogs were used his scent would be gone by then.
I agree with you completely. Desperate times call for desperate measures. A tkidnapper with sole intentions of kid napping for ransom would have come prepared in a short concise TYPED ransom note. A pedophiler wouldn’t bother with the note. The intruder Henry doesn’t make sense. It would have made more sense if there was no note.
I agree 100 %!
Carla, I agree 100 %!
Thank you for posting this fascinating hand-writing analysis!
While reading a copy of the fake ransom note in a a book, I noticed that some of the ‘d’s resemble musical notes (as in “rested”. Also, “pick-up” should not have had a ‘-‘, as it should in musical pick-up notes, pick-up games and (optional here) pick-up trucks. I thought the writer was educated. “Deviation of” is a math term (standard deviation of) – in the letter’s context it should be “deviation from”. Also had suspected that the lower case a’s were altered to the more formal (manuscript) form.
To everyone – Please remember the DNA found did NOT match the Ramseys. Also, there was a pedophile in Britain about 20 years ago who was breaking into homes, kidnapping young girls, harming them, then returning them the same might. One young girl’s father was imprisoned for years; authorities didn’t believe his younng daughter’s account that some stranger had kidnapped her during the night, taken her away, then returned her to her bed before everyone else awakened. They knew no one would risk being caught a second time – at best they’d drop her off somewhere. They kept the daughter away from her family for a year, telling her over and over again they knew her father had done this, and fianlly, that nothing bad would happen to him if she said he did it – she’d be able to return to her family and he’d just have to take a class. Fortunately DNA analysis finally cleared him. Once they started to look outside the family, they found the pervert had been doing this to others – at least one within 50 miles of that girl’s – but no one ever believed the children. They thought they were protecting their fathers – or afraid.
Dear Jamie, It is true that the DNA does not match the Ramsys, and they have since been exonerated.
The Ramseys were NEVER exonerated. The case is still open. Read the only accurate book on the case, written by the primary detective, Steve Thomas. “JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder”. It reveals all the coruption of the Boulder PD, the Media, and mostly The Ramseys themselves, and how they used their wealth to derail the case. Every honest cop and detective on that case agreed who murdered JonBenet from day one to this very day. It wasn’t John, nor his Sons. It wasn’t a friend or neighbor. It wasn’t a vengeful associate, and it certainly was NOT ‘a small foreign faction’ – what nonsense. Nope – it was Patsy who did it. And the cover up was to protect the powerful democrats who ran the DAs office, because of John’s powerful position within the Colorado Democrat Party.
Honestly, where is one shred of evidence that Ramsey is/was involved in the Democratic Party? Remember when you say the Democratic Party you are talking about 1/3 of the U.S. Thanks.
John Ramsey and Patsy both were registered Republicans. When John ran for office, he ran under the republican seat.Know your facts before you post such non-sense!
Republicans don’t know their a**hole from an eggroll
The police department and the DAs office both said the Ramseys were exonerated and apologized for hounding them all these years!
HOW could there be no Ramsey DNA on a child the father picked up, and the mother lay across?? There were also no finger prints found on a note handled by both Ramsey’s. The DNA and finger print detection in this case was either mishandled, not done, or done incorrectly. This case will never be solved by DNA. One cannot prosecute either Patsy or John Ramsey as long as they stick together, it would be an endless battle of trying to prove which one did which thing. So, IMO, there will never be justice for this child. I can only imagine John Ramsey as the murderer because the note is only written for one reason; to scare someone away from alerting police. I believe the “someone” who was to be scared was Patsy, therefore the writer was John. It was interesting to me in Steve Thomas’ book, he wrote that young Burke remembered his mom running through the house turning on lights, while his dad followed her turning them off, trying to calm her. Odd behavior from a man whose child was just “kidnapped”
John did not write the ransom note. They compared his hand writing and it did not match, however Patsy’s handwriting was extremely similar.
The DNA you refer to is “touch” DNA. “Touch” DNA could have come from anywhere and anyone who touched the clothing from fabric cutter, to anyone in manufacturing, to store sales, to clothing wearer, it isn’t necessarily from the killer.
The crooked DA was looking for any reason to excuse the Ramsey’s, so was the new police chief. This “exoneration” happened before the news came out, in 2013 or 14, that the grand jury had voted to indict the Ramseys’ back in 1997. The DA from back then fed us lies about the grand jury because he didn’t want to take on the Ramseys’ lawyers in court. He had no court experience.
The Ramseys’ can’t be counted out.
Just read Foreign Faction….read it if you can. It’s an inside job.
Hi Nancy. I have read Foreign Faction by James Kolar. Excellent book for those who are interested.
Has anyone ever investigated the son of John Ramsey, he was a college student and was in their home the night of the murder?
According to all published sources that I’m familiar with, the older son of John Ramsey was not in Boulder on the night of the murder.
What is even STRANGER in this case, in the basement where her body was found, there was a suitcase with 2 things in it; a blanket with John Andrews,(Mr. Ramsey’s son from a previous marriage), semen on it and a Dr. Suess book.
Some speculate that JonBenet was put in the luggage but the luggage could not for through the window so they killed her. There were luggage fibers found on her.
Really? Even if the window thing is true… thats interesting.
And on the top of the suitcase, near the handle, was a footprint from a hiking boot that said Hi-Tek on it, and no one in the house had a Hi-Tek boot. Also, police said no one could fit through the window, but there is a video showing an investigator sliding right through into the basement.
I believe Pasty physically wrote it with John guiding her on some of the verbiage. The question is, if they, or one of them, didn’t kill JonBenet, then who are they protecting by creating this note? Apparently JonBenet was molested. Could John have been molesting her, Patsy caught him, and, in a rage, threw or slung a heavy object at him attempting to hit him, but accidentally hit JonBenet in the head? Or, could the brother have been molesting her, and possibly he did it? The DNA found is unknown. Maybe the killer is someone known to the family that they felt the need to protect for some reason. A cousin, uncle, or…? Patsy and John seemed the type to be perfectionists, especially Patsy. She wouldn’t have wanted a murder committed by a family member to tarnish the family’s reputation; therefore, the elaborate note was written as a cover-up. Was her actual handwriting compared to the note? I see that John provided a sample of her handwriting. How convenient. Did she directly provide a sample herself to the police department?
If the Ramseys were trying to cover up a molestation or an accident, why would they strangle their own daughter with a garotte for 90 minutes, and then molest her with a broken paintbrush handle that belonged to Patsy?
I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about. “Strangled for 90 minutes?” Where did you get that notion? As for the rest of it, how else were they going to cover it up? Jeez.
Liz–I have came to that same question– Did Patsy catch John at it with JB and hit at him with the flashlight only to strike JB? This fits in all areas that I have studied right up to the wording of the JG inditment. John convenced Patsy that she killed JB, took her to the basement and done the electric train test on JB to prove to Patsy JB was dead. John done the rest of the morbid stuff without Patsy present.
Now there is John to lie for Patsy and Patsy to lie for John. Burke knows nothing.
As for the RN IMO its a joint venture
Robert- If your assumption was correct and the head injury occured first then there would have been blood everywhere. Also forensics said head injury was POST mordem. My problems with this case are as follows: IMO it is obvious a woman wrote the note. I do not believe a woman was inside the home writing on Patsys notepad while a male was stun gunning, garroting and molesting JBR. So I have a hard time with the note. However the 911 call was very realistic. I have heard plenty of 911 calls from known murderers who tried to blame intruders (Darlie Routier) (Susan Smith) and were very noticeably fake.
No, the forensics show that it was anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes BEFORE she was killed. And there would not have been blood everywhere because the skin didn’t break.
How were there defensive scratch marks on her neck if she was unconscience during the garote attack? The poor little girl was tugging at her neck and scratched herself. She tried to defend herself. The scrathes wre only on the front of her neck. Nect came the fatal blow to the head.
This is my exact thoughts on what happened
She wasn’t molested prior to her murder. She had a bacterial infection that is common amongst females, especially young ones.
Yes, she was. Several doctors who specialize in the physical evidence of child sex abuse all said she had been abused prior to her murder. Only her pediatrician said there was no prior history and that is because he NEVER examined her for it! Plus, he wasn’t a specialist in the physical evidence of child sex abuse.
Police on the case did an AMA and believe the Ramsey’s did it: http://extras.denverpost.com/jonbenetAMA.html
Very interesting. I too, would like to see what the grand jury had access to. Perhaps it would change my mind that the Ramseys were not involved in the murder.
What evidence is there that they didn’t do it?
118,000. Specific. It was the parents.
Many people could have heard about the bonus amount.
I’m sorry, but anyone who thinks that the Ramseys did not write this note is being ridiculous. The idea that someone would sit and carefully write a ransom note in the house of their victim while 2 adults slept very nearby is patently absurd. If JenBenet were still alive when it was written, the kidnapper would not have risked being discovered by taking the time in writing such a note, and if she were dead already, there’s no reason for the note. To postulate that someone who knew them well and was in their house earlier, stole the paper and pen to write the note when they came back later, and then tried to implicate them by leaving a note refeing to a foreign group is also idiotic. Also, if they wanted to implicate the Ramsey’s the note would have been written in an open ended manner, and not created a third party that hated “John”. If not the Ramseys, this would have to have been someone that knows them well enough to call them by their first name and know his bonus amount, which would not be common knowledge by any means. The thought that this was a friend or business associate who snuck in, abducted their child to their basement, stole some paper and pen from another part of the house, then wrote a ransom note, and then accidentally killed her is even more ludicrous, given the nature of her injuries. Everything about the note is a fabrication, including the idiotic reference to a group of foreigners that are stiking a blow for their cause by extorting a $118,000 bonus. No one else who had killed JenBenet, either accidentally or on purpose, would need to try to cover their tracks with such a note. They would have just left. Unless you want to suggest that they forgot that they wrote the note and then killed her and left, which is about the only absurd suggestiong that hasn’t been offered on this.
(reply to)
That the letter was written in order to:
“try to cover their tracks with such a note.”
It seems to me that:
(although, “cover their tracks” may have been ‘part’ of the reason it was written), I don’t see that as, all, of the reason.
It is obvious that whoever wrote that,
was trying to “get at John”.
[The person knew that John was going to eventually find out, his daughter was DEAD, in the wine cellar.]
(I don’t know how the person knew the exact amount of his “Christmas” bonus),
but stating that in the letter, was to “get at” John.
Killing John’s daughter,
was to “get at John”.
The person made reference to:
John’s Christmas bonus. (stated the exact amount)
AND,
killed John’s daughter, on “Christmas”.
This “male” who killed John’s daughter,
seems to have had a personal vendetta against John Ramsey.
(This person may have even been at the “Christmas” party.)
(This person may have also been “jealous” of John Ramsey.)
By stating the amount of John Ramsey’s Christmas bonus,
this person was letting HIM know:
This was someone who knew him/knew who he was.
[The letter was, obviously, NOT a ransom note.]
It was: an act of “cruelty”
(to “get at” – John Ramsey)
Stated: the amount of “John’s” Christmas bonus
AND
killed “John’s daughter” – on Christmas.
Think about it …(give it some ‘deep thought’)
I agree with this assessment 100%
No need for ‘deep thought’ The possibility that it was a vendetta against John Ramsey occurred to me almost immediately. Wealthy men often make many enemies.
Whomever wrote the ransoms note was involved. Who new the amount of Johns bonus?
John,Patsy and who else? Probably some family members and colleagues. That is where they should’ve started. Was his bonus amount available to be easily found in the house?
By John and Patsy lawyering up and refusing to interviewed by police, they ruined any chance of anyone finding out what really happened.
The amount was chosen so the police would focus on the employees of Access Graphics. It’s obvious!
Your comment makes a lot of common sense. A stranger would have just left. Only a member of the family would have felt the need to write a note expressing a motive. I feel the murderer was john or patsy and both collaborated on the note.
4 years after you wrote this and I have to say it makes the most sense.
No reason to leave a ransom note for a person left behind who’s dead.
No reason to not bring the note along assuming it’s planned which this would have been.
No reason to sit and write a note and waste time.
If it was someone who knew how much the father’s bonus was, why use that amount exactly which would narrow the suspects? Why not demand 100k, 150k, 200k?
I think the use of the $118K was possibly the parents attempt to make it look one way however when combined with everything else points to them. The number of people who had the knowledge of the bonus is very limited. The only people who knew of the bonus PLUS who would have the time and reason to write a note from inside would be the parents. And their reason for the note – deception.
As for the DNA and boot print, I have no idea.
And who could be so cruel to kill their daughter in such a way? Or even do some of those things postmortem to cover up an accident??
The bonus was from 1995. It was paid at the beginning of 1996. It showed up on every pay stub all year. It was not an even $118k. It was $118,117.50.
The parents DID cooperate with the police initially. The Police were with them all that day and the next.. The Ramsey’s were staying with friends. The Police kept asking them to come to the station. Patsy was prostrate with grief and heavily sedated. John asked the Police to do it there rather than go downtown, because of their grief, Patsy’s condition, and the media. The Police refused. A family friend who was a former Denver DA, heard the Police questioning the Ramsey’s. He began to feel a change in the way Police were asking questions. They were becoming hostile. He asked John for permission to make some decisions for them. John agreed. This friend then hired separate lawyers for The Ramsey’s and because of the continuing escalation of media interest, he also recommended a media spokesperson.
The Ramsey’s voluntarily gave DNA, fingerprints, hair, and multiple handwriting samples. How is this not Police cooperation. You people believe everything the media says. The Police had an agenda to blame the parents because 1. Parents are usually responsible, 2. The Police, who botched the crime scene, and had little experience in solving murders, [but turned down help from the FBI], had intense pressure to solve the case.
Look, if you are going to be an armchair detective you should at least do enough reading to get the facts straight.
Not to say that rich people don’t kill, but it takes a psychopath to kill a child in this manner. The Ramsey’s had no previous incidents of any kind, and none after. It was clear that JonBenet was doted on. If the Parents had accidentally killed her, they would have called for help, or just take the body and dump it. Not this mess. There is no evidence at all that Burke had anything to do with it. Police questioned him the day of the murder without his parents knowledge or permission. Plus he was questioned by a police rep on camera. Nothing to indicate involvement.
Here’s another thought, A Hi-Tec boot print was found downstairs where the body was and the family did not own those boots. Foreign male DNA was found in her underwear And on the waistband of her long John’s.
Further, if you want to believe the Ramsey’s were involved, why didn’t they “find” the body sooner??? John and another man had already been downstairs at least once. Police had supposedly searched. Why would you sit there for all those HOURS? Why not “find” the body the first time? Who wants to sit around all day in the living room knowing your child is laying dead downstairs???
You would want to get the show on the road. You wouldn’t be sitting around. Remember too it was the Policewoman who suggested John and friend go back downstairs to look.
Yeah, Maybe that was a red herring, to make it look like someone from his work who’d know about that exact amount.
If I wanted to disguise my writing, I’d use my left hand.
I would use cut out letters with a glove on LOL because the cops would want samples of the left hand and right hand writing samples. DUH!
Very Hollywood.
They tested Patsy’s “left hand” sample. Still inconclusive.
If I wanted to disguise my writing, I’d use my left hand. Did anyone check for that?
It could have been written with the opposite hand, but the writing towards the end of the note smooths out and is much faster than the beginning.
I don’t recall reading about this, or whether it might apply to either of the Ramseys, but isn’t it possible that it was written by someone who is ambidextrous? I can write quite well with either hand (I had to learn after breaking several fingers on my right hand while I was in high school), but with my left hand my writing is rather different and I seem to write various letters in a few different ways.
I’m also curious how you account for people who are purposely being deceptive. I know there are probably still telltale similarities that’d stand out, but it seems like a person could probably make their handwriting look all but unrecognizable if they put in the effort. Is that not the case?
Yes, Patsy could write left-handed.
I had a feeling it was written with the left hand . naturally or forced it looks left handed
Oddly, I am left handed and my slant is that of a right handed person. And when I write with my right hand, I still have the slant of a right handed person.
I can remember this case very well that is all that was on, on all the news channels. I tried to follow it as much as my husband would allow me to. (when he was at work) It was shameful what they did to this baby girl. I do fill that the mom was response able for Jonbens death. If you ever watched any of the interviews with her, she was always looking down or away from the camera when answering a question.
As for the handwritten note, I am afraid I would fail on ALL accounts that they mentioned. I have a really bad habit of NEVER writing the same way twice. So like if I had to write my name twice it NEVER looked the same way. I was told to do that by an officer back in the 1990’s when I had my purse stolen (ID) but now that I think/look back on it I think he told me the wrong thing to do. My a’s, t’s, etc… are always different even in the same sentence. Any-way I do know for a fact that there are two humans and a spiritual being that know what happened. That is GOD, Jonbene’ and the murderer. And I know the murder may have gotten away with it here on earth but will NOT get away with it with GOD. GOD BLESS ALL AND R.I.P. LITTLE ANGEL YOUR WITH GOD NOW. Some-one who loves and will protect her forever.
Her name is spelled JonBenet.
Interesting how the note is addressed to Mr. Ramsey, not to Mr. and Mrs. If Pasty did write it then that would make sense that she wouldn’t include herself in the greeting part of the note. And attache? Really? Who uses that word?
Great observation.
Word Attaché = John Bennett Ramsey’s language
Name JonBenét = John Bennett Ramsey’s will
John Bennett Ramsey born 1943 (Dec. 07)
Mr. Ramsey is the multi-millionaire, why would it include Mrs. Ramsey? Someone from the south, like the Ramseys from Atlanta, would use attache.
i thank you for this article! I found your comments on handwriting helpful, and a jog for my memory. While I don’t believe the case is only soluble from the standpoint of finding someone with matching handwriting, it might help!
It looks like, to me, the author of that letter was left handed.
http://marciamountshoop.com/2011/04/21/left-handed-writing/lefthanded-writing-1-4/
Are any of the Ramsey’s left handed?
It’s my opinion, that the author of the note was nervous at first, and that’s what caused the trimmers.
I don’t believe they were actively attempting to mask their style of writing.
Also, my gut tells me it was a premeditated assault.
It was Christmas night. Everyone goes to sleep early and the streets are empty and everyone’s guard is down. It wasn’t an accident, or a molestation gone bad.
It had to be planned.
I agree that it was planned.
Brenda, as a professional document examiner perhaps you can answer the following question:
What sort of standards would a professional in your field use to rule out a suspect based on his or her handwriting? Has this problem actually been researched and have hard and fast guidelines been established for coming to such a drastic decision? How can anyone be completely sure that someone like John could not have penned that note?
This to me was THE central blunder in the case, the overly hasty decision to rule John out, despite the fact that he was the leading suspect at the time. And that has become the basis for my own interpretation of this case, based on him being ruled back IN, and how that would change the entire tenor of the case. for details I urge you to read the first three posts on my blog: http://solvingjonbenet.blogspot.com/
Also this blog post, which contains some handwriting analysis of my own: http://solvingjonbenet.blogspot.com/2012/07/some-handwriting-evidence.html
Maybe if we put our heads together, we can solve this.
Yes, John was ruled out. But on what basis? What standards of comparison enable document examiners to rule someone out where the motive for deception is so clear, and the means of deception unknown?
Also:
JonBenet was not tortured with the “garotte” for 90 minutes or for any time at all, according to the majority of med. examiners who reviewed the autopsy. The consensus is that she was initially struck on the head with a very powerful blow that would certainly have knocked her unconscious. When the “garotte” was applied some time later she would still have been unconscious. This device was used either to finish her off or as staging, to imply a sadistic intruder.
JonBenet was not killed by accident, as Steve Thomas believed. The forensic evidence points to chronic sexual abuse prior to the night of the attack, and the most likely abuser would, of course, be her father. It looks like she was killed to prevent her from revealing his secret.
Finally, there is no evidence of penetration with a paintbrush handle. That’s a myth. The autopsy refers to “digital penetration.” Fragments from the paint on that handle were found in the victim’s vagina, suggesting transfer from the paintbrush via the attacker’s finger.
You have your facts wrong. Detective Lou Smit pointed out the scratch marks on the victim’s neck made by her own fingernails, meaning that she was awake during strangulation. The heavy blow to her head followed almost immediately, according to the coroner’s report. The Ramsey case is one of the most lied about events in the history of journalism.
According to Foreign Faction by James Kolar, you are correct in that the scratch marks were made by the victim, but it states that the blow to the head was first.
The “scratch marks” were figments of Lou Smit’s imagination. Just one of many.
Nah, dude, they were photographed at the autopsy…
I read in previous articles John took many trips to Amsterdam, where there is a lot of child pornography there. That Jon Benet used to call John the, “Hampster” nickname. I think the theory of John molesting his own daughter during that evening and Patsy using a flashlight after hearing noises came in her bedroom catching John doing sexual things. Patsy took the flashlight and swung to hit John and missed and hit her daughter. So John convinced Patsy she was dead. So then they had to work together to keep everything hush, hush. Otherwise Johns reputation would be ruined. Also doctor reports for Jon Benet having urinary infections, when examined by the doctor, reported scarring damage internally when examined. Patsy could not even protect her own daughter because Patsy was jealous of her beauty. They were both guilty of her death. When they flew to their other home they did not even sit together on the flight. When are people going to wake up.
EXACTLY! There were defensive scratch marks on her neck. The little girl was trying to defend herself! She was then hit in the head.
“The forensic evidence points to chronic sexual abuse prior to the night of the attack”
Absolutely not true. What they found was minor and could be explained by other normal causes for a child her age with tissue as young as hers. There was not evidence of ongoing (chronic) sexual abuse. Simply not true. Patsy viewed her daughter (“that little girl”) more as an object than a child or certainly her precious daughter. People throw dolls (and other objects) when they are angry. People drink a lot during the Holidays and there’s a lot of pressure to look “just right.” JonBenet may not have behaved or remained dressed appropriately (one of many possible causes), Patsy became angry, JonBenet was defiant & she was struck, rendering her unconscious.
At some point when they realized she was no longer alive, panic set in and the setup began. The “defensive marks” on JB’s neck were made using her own hands (nails) by one of the parents to make it look plausible and to get (which they did at first) a determination that asphyxiation was the cause of death.
Appreciate the interesting analysis but your conclusion that the author was attempting to mimic Patsy’s handwriting makes the least sense. I can only assume you’re logically extending from the more recent developments pertaining to DNA analysis and the subsequent public exonerations. Unfortunately, these are not conclusive facts nor truths.
Outside of any circumstantial evidence, the absurd ransom note is of course the key piece of evidence in this case. Considering the key facts of the investigation, the note’s mere existence is damning enough in itself and I would suggest almost completely incongruent with any theory of an intruder. It is, as you point out, certainly not a ‘true’ ransom note left behind from a botched kid-knapping and there are many reasons for this. But a deranged anonymous third party would also have little need to misdirect suspicion onto another in such a convoluted manner when purely removing any trace of themselves from the crime scene would be both sufficient and paramount.
And if someone in fact did this shocking act solely so they might implicate the Ramseys? Well I can imagine there are far more realistic and effective ways to achieve such a goal than the overly-elaborate and ill-conceived idea of faking a fake ransom note to appear as if another may or may not have faked a fake ransom note. Before you even consider anything else in the case, It’s a complicated conclusion that makes the least sense.. particularly when there are simpler and far more plausible alternatives.
The author definitely does attempt to conceal their writing as a signature of their identity, as you would expect. They also attempt to conceal their motive. As you say, the note is pure obfuscation. So ask yourself.. who of those considered possible suspects in this case would feel it necessary to do such a thing? Bearing in mind, that those never considered as suspects will ultimately never have anything to hide.
Exactly. I know I’m probably far too late for anyone to read this, but the logic seems quite clear to me. I doubt anyone actually believes the “ransom” note to be legitimate, so we can immediately eliminate any sort of kidnapping/ransom ploy as motivation.
We can’t entirely eliminate some sort of sexual motivation, but (excuse the graphic description) considering there was “only” evidence of digital penetration, that seems kind of unusual for someone who not only was motivated by sexual assault/pedophilia, but was indeed so motivated by it that they allegedly broke into this family’s house, quietly absconded with their daughter and ultimately brutally murdered her. That does not seem very likely to me.
Likewise, some sort of robbery-gone-bad scenario appears equally improbable. Nothing was taken from the home, and surely there must have been valuable things that a would-be burglar could’ve easily made off with even had something gone terribly wrong. Any alleged burglar would necessarily have had to spend a great deal of time in the home (considering the murder timeline, the careful staging and undressing/dressing, the length of the note, the fact that it was written with supplies from within the home and that there was at least one first draft, etc.), so it’s not as if the intruder would have been rushed.
And, there being no obvious point of entry, the only other realistic possibility is that this alleged intruder – regardless of their purpose – actually gained entry into the home before the Ramsey family arrived and hid out for quite some time until everyone had gone to bed. Aside from the obvious issue that this seems like a rather foolish way to commit a crime, it also leads into another problem: this supposed intruder must have been familiar with the home. By all accounts, it was a rather labyrinthine and confusing place, and even friends of the family related occasionally getting confused trying to navigate the home.
This doesn’t even touch on a whole host of other issues with the intruder theories, but considering their implausibility it kind of narrows down the possibilities. The consensus (among those not associated with the Ramseys, at least) seems to be that a female probably wrote the letter, the letter was not a genuine ransom attempt, and Patsy cannot be conclusively eliminated as the note’s author.
Given this, along with a great deal of other evidence, I think the very LEAST we can say is that Patsy knew about, and participated in, the coverup following the murder. Clearly the grand jury felt the same given their vote to indict the parents. There’s also plenty of circumstantial evidence that hints at the possibility that she actively participated in the murder and/or staging of the body in some capacity. Whether John and/or Burke were also present and involved in some aspect of the murder/coverup is less clear, but I think we can make some reasonable assumptions.
It really is a shame that this innocent young girl will almost certainly never have justice, and it’s even more disappointing that this came about in large part due to the initial incompetence of the police and the undue influence that the Ramseys’ money and power afforded them with the Boulder justice system. It’s also disconcerting to think that both John and Burke are still walking free, both at the very least having knowledge of what happened that night, if not participating themselves.
who ever killed this 6 year old girl, doesn’t have a soul. Jon Benet Ramsey’s parents suspects? could be. if it’s them they are monsters, and I hope they rot in hell for killing this little girl, if she was alive she will be 25 this year.
Great analysis! I just wanted to add that I don’t believe the lowercase letter “f” is natural either. I’ve never seen anyone write it to look virtually the same as a capital “F”. Notice that the first “f” in the letter (in the word carefully) and maybe the second one look natural and then subsequent ones don’t.
Brenda: I’m pretty confused by your inclusion of Federal Agent Mark McClish’s analysis of the case as published in his book about detecting lies. Your use of his name might lead an uninformed reader of this forum to conclude that Mr. McClish somehow corroborates your opinions. Far from it.
I’ve read his book, his analysis, and his opinions regarding this case. I’m very impressed by his logic as well as his credentials and credibility. For those who might have been misled to believe that he is somehow corroborating the opinion that the Ramsey’s are innocent, thats not the case. To the contrary, he delivers a very compelling (to me at least) case which points to the Ramsey’s as the most likely suspects. I invite any readers of these forums (as well as Ms. Anderson) to read his impressive analysis.
I noticed a link to his published findings in his book is provided after his name is mentioned in the thread.
Frankly I’m shocked at the proclamations by Ms Anderson that the Ramsey’s are innocent. This is followed by a statement telling me that if I believe the Ramsey’s are responsible for their daughter’s death, then I must also believe in list of absurd conclusions – including that everything written in the National Enquirer is true!? Holy cow. I don’t know how readers could regard anyone as a professional after reading conclusions and statements like this. In my view, it’s very disappointing and unprofessional.
Agreed. I’ve read a lot of questionable things about this case, but this is in the top five.
Jonbenet Case
By Brenda Anderson
Posted on February 28, 2015
Listen Carefully!!
Someone other than a family member killed JonBenet Ramsey.
If you still believe that the Ramsey’s murdered their little girl to cover up an accident or molestation, you must also believe the following:
1- The unknown DNA found in the child’s underwear belongs to a factory worker that handled the garment prior to purchase, and it stayed intact after washing and wearing.
2- One or both of the parents strangled their six-year-old daughter with a garrote for ninety minutes.
3- One or both of the parents inserted Patsy’s broken paintbrush handle into the vagina of their six-year-old daughter, causing internal trauma.
4- The Ramsey’s spent the whole night trying to make it look like a kidnapping, but they forgot to stage forced entry into their home.
5- The Ramsey’s are guilty because statistics tell us that a family member is responsible if a child is found dead in a home: usually.
6- The Ramsey’s are guilty because they acted strangely on Larry King.
7- With John’s help, Patsy wrote the lengthy ransom note because some of it sounds like it could have been written by a woman, and the handwriting sort of looks like hers. They decided it was a good idea to include the exact amount of Mr. Ramsey’s Christmas bonus, because they couldn’t think of a round number.
8- After the murder, they disposed of the duct tape, but they forgot to destroy the notebook and pen that they wrote the note with. Mr. Ramsey offered the notebook to the police when they asked for Patsy’s handwriting: because he was flustered.
9- The Police officer asked Mr. Ramsey to search the house again, so he decided it wouldn’t look suspicious if he was the one to discover the body in the wine cellar.
10- The Ramsey’s are guilty, because they forced their little girl parade around in sexy beauty pageant costumes.
If all of the above is true for you, then you must also believe — everything that has ever been published in the National Enquirer.
~Brenda Anderson, Forensic Handwriting Expert
February 28, 2015.
Ms. Anderson, I don’t know where to start. The bias in the above headline and the following list of statements is so apparent, it’s very hard for me (as a law enforcement officer) to believe that this was written by a professional – in spite of the impressive credentials that appear on your website.
I must say, it’s rather insulting as well. It’s as if to say, “I’m a professional. I think the Ramsey’s are innocent. If you don’t agree with me then that means you must believe that the moon is made of green cheese and “you must also believe – everything that has ever been published in the National Enquirer.”
Really? I beg to differ. Here’s a few reasons why:
I’ll briefly comment on the 10 points you make above.
1- The unknown DNA found in the child’s underwear belongs to a factory worker that handled the garment prior to purchase, and it stayed intact after washing and wearing.
(Point 1: I would defer to the opinion of DocG that is also supported by many law enforcement professionals regarding the interpretation of this very important piece of evidence. (See his excellent book “Ruled in. Solving the Jonbenet Case” for the Doc’s full opinion). Here’s his summary below:
“In sum, the DNA evidence — all of it — means nothing. A real intruder would have left all sorts of signs of his presence, including gobs of DNA (unless he was wearing gloves), and a real intruder, as I’ve already argued, would not have done all the things this intruder is supposed to have done. This DNA, like all the other “intruder evidence,” is simply one more red herring to be added to all the rest in a long story of obfuscation, delusion and denial.”)
2- One or both of the parents strangled their six-year-old daughter with a garrote for ninety minutes.
3- One or both of the parents inserted Patsy’s broken paintbrush handle into the vagina of their six-year-old daughter, causing internal trauma.
(Point 2 and 3: The “expert handwriting analyst” is apparently trying to put forth the naïve position that parents could not possibly hurt, torture, or murder their own children. In their everyday world this is unthinkable! Experienced law enforcement investigators know differently. They know that these things do happen more commonly than the general public imagines.
Furthermore, why in the world would you make such an irresponsible and unprofessional statement such as “the strangulation of Jonbenet occurred for ninety minutes?” Where do you get that information? The reality is that no one could say for certainty exactly how the murder occurred but the consensus among most of the investigators that I’ve read is that the death was likely an accident resulting from blunt trauma to the child’s head. Thereafter a staging occurred that involved the garrote, the note that was written with paper from inside the house, etc. I think what you are doing here is offering up a theory (without identifying the source) and then brazenly telling the reader that if they think the Ramsey’s are guilty they must also believe in your list of 10 erroneous theories and conclusions. Frankly, I find it offensive, arrogant, and silly.)
4- The Ramsey’s spent the whole night trying to make it look like a kidnapping, but they forgot to stage forced entry into their home.
(Point#4: Again, law enforcement investigators know that in supercharged circumstances like this one, the perpetrators are quite often functioning in a high state of anxiety or panic – especially if the perpetrators are not hardened, experienced criminals. So they forget to stage every detail accurately, or leave a bloody glove at the scene of the crime, or you name it – mistakes are commonly committed by perpetrators under the stress they must be experiencing from fear of discovery, etc.)
5- The Ramsey’s are guilty because statistics tell us that a family member is responsible if a child is found dead in a home: usually.
6- The Ramsey’s are guilty because they acted strangely on Larry King.
7- With John’s help, Patsy wrote the lengthy ransom note because some of it sounds like it could have been written by a woman, and the handwriting sort of looks like hers. They decided it was a good idea to include the exact amount of Mr. Ramsey’s Christmas bonus, because they couldn’t think of a round number.
(As to the points 5, 6, 7. Here it seems the writer is attempting to trivialize some important statistical criminal data, the strange behavior of the Ramsey’s, and the findings of more than a few experienced and prominent investigators and criminal handwriting experts. Needless to say, evasive, deceptive behavior and circumstantial evidence doesn’t necessary prove guilt. Yet here we have a case where a mountain of circumstantial evidence and guilty behavior could only be ignored by someone who is either very naïve or by those who likely have some sort of agenda or bias.)
8- After the murder, they disposed of the duct tape, but they forgot to destroy the notebook and pen that they wrote the note with. Mr. Ramsey offered the notebook to the police when they asked for Patsy’s handwriting: because he was flustered.
9- The Police officer asked Mr. Ramsey to search the house again, so he decided it wouldn’t look suspicious if he was the one to discover the body in the wine cellar.
(Points 8 and 9. Same comment as to point 4.)
10- The Ramsey’s are guilty, because they forced their little girl parade around in sexy beauty pageant costumes.
(Point 10: Deserves no comment. Simply unprofessional and offensive.)
If all of the above is true for you, then you must also believe — everything that has ever been published in the National Enquirer.
~Brenda Anderson, Forensic Handwriting Expert
(Well, what can one say? You actually attach your name and title to these statements as an expert and a professional?)
Dear Robert, You’re stirring up a nice debate here, and I appreciate that.
#1- The source of the DNA found in JonBenet’s underwear has never been determined, and it doesn’t belong to a family member. Correct? To whom does it belong?
#2 & #3: If you think the Ramsey’s did it, what was the motive? If they were trying to cover up an accidental blow to the head (8.5 inches in length, according to Foreign Faction by James Kolar), or an in-house molestation, why didn’t they remove the body from the home and dispose of it? As far as I know, there was no record of drug/alcohol abuse or violence in the Ramsey household. Doesn’t this make you pause to consider them to be less than guilty? There doesn’t appear to be any risk factors that would lead to parent/child torture, molestation, and murder. I used the word “appear” because I can only rely on public information. I acknowledge that the evidence which was presented to the grand jury has not been made public.
#4 It doesn’t make sense that they would “stage” the crime scene, but not create a forced entry. They could have crawled in and out of the broken window to disturb the area around the basement window.
#5 The statistics are a tool, not a rule.
#6 I’m not sure why so many people thought that the Ramsey’s looked guilty on Larry King. Watch the interview online and let me know what you think. All people react differently during stressful circumstances; it’s not proof on guilt.
#7 & #8. THE NOTE: Four pages of Patsy’s notebook were never found. (Also not found was the duct tape roll, etc.) Why didn’t they dispose of the entire notebook instead of handing it over to the police? Why leave the one practice page with the all-too-obvious “Mr. and Mrs. R”? Why was the handwriting patched up to resemble Patsy’s handwriting? Patsy’s genuine handwriting was present in the front of the notebook (see the manuscript ‘a’ section in ‘Part 1: Unmasking the JonBenet Ramsey Note’.) Please think about this. It does not make sense that Mr. or Mrs. Ramsey would write the note using a heavy disguise, and then patch some of the letters to form a trait that was, at the time in 1996, unique to a small percentage of the female population – and one that she herself possessed intermittently. The use of the manuscript-style ‘a’ is female trait. If you look closely at the ‘a’s in the note, the letter is created with a loop and a terminal post and then the cap is added lastly. This is evidence that the letters were patched, or altered by the writer as an afterthought. Also, if the Ramsey’s collaborated on the note, why not make it short and to the point? I think the note was so lengthy because the writer wanted to point the finger in as many directions as possible. Do you agree? Why would they sprinkle it with language that “sounded” like Patsy? Anonymous writers usually try to direct the blame away from themselves by mimicking someone else.
#9 Why wouldn’t Mr. Ramsey wait for someone else to find the body if he was responsible for the death? Many believe that he knew where the body was, but I don’t see how finding the body is an indication of guilt.
#10 If you were young enough at the time of the murder, I’m sure you also remember the criticisms about child beauty pageants; much of the media focus was on the pageantry and I think it biased the public against the Ramsey’s. I also wonder if the public had an unconscious bias against the Ramsey’s because of their wealth. Headlines are just like advertisements in that the repetition of an idea can soak in and become fact; even if the idea is false.
Brenda, my dear, you are one of the most logical and intelligent people to have ever analyzed and commented about that ransom note. Consequently, you have moved closer to the truth than any of the Occam’s Razor proponents that have collectively stalled and impeded the investigation from its beginning. I have been working on this case all year and I am in contact with a person who adamantly insists that they wrote that note. This individual made many, many attempts to contact law enforcement back in the early 2000’s but was continually rebuffed. They did produce a writing sample. I see many similarities, but I am not a credentialed handwriting expert. I could very much use your help. Are you up for it? If yes, let me know and I will call you (with your permission).
Did you ever tell the police about this person saying they wrote the note? If not you are withholding crucial evidence!
I’ll buttress Robert with some calls of my own:
“#1- The source of the DNA found in JonBenet’s underwear has never been determined, and it doesn’t belong to a family member. Correct? To whom does it belong?”
Well, you named the factory worker. And since the underwear was out of the package, had never been washed and was not, as you say, intact, it could belong to anyone from anywhere.
“#2 & #3: If you think the Ramsey’s did it, what was the motive?”
Who says there was one? I’m not suggesting this was premeditated.
“If they were trying to cover up an accidental blow to the head (8.5 inches in length, according to Foreign Faction by James Kolar), or an in-house molestation, why didn’t they remove the body from the home and dispose of it?”
Too much risk of being seen, as they saw it. Plus, I don’t think Patsy Ramsey could have stood to have her beautiful pageant princess out in the elements. Then she couldn’t gush over how lovely JonBenet was in her coffin.
“As far as I know, there was no record of drug/alcohol abuse or violence in the Ramsey household. Doesn’t this make you pause to consider them to be less than guilty?”
One, no record means just that: nobody else knows about it. Number two, if it wasn’t premeditated murder, it might give me pause.
“#4 It doesn’t make sense that they would ‘stage’ the crime scene, but not create a forced entry. They could have crawled in and out of the broken window to disturb the area around the basement window.”
I think Robert addressed that quite well. I would add that we don’t know that they didn’t try, and that even if they didn’t, the original idea may have been to point at someone who had a key.
“#7 & #8. THE NOTE: Four pages of Patsy’s notebook were never found. (Also not found was the duct tape roll, etc.) Why didn’t they dispose of the entire notebook instead of handing it over to the police?”
What would be the point of that?
“Why leave the one practice page with the all-too-obvious “Mr. and Mrs. R”?”
A mistake. If criminals never made them, they’d never get caught.
“Please think about this. It does not make sense that Mr. or Mrs. Ramsey would write the note using a heavy disguise, and then patch some of the letters to form a trait that was, at the time in 1996, unique to a small percentage of the female population – and one that she herself possessed intermittently.”
Again, a mistake. People in a highly agitated state DO make them, you know.
“Also, if the Ramsey’s collaborated on the note, why not make it short and to the point? I think the note was so lengthy because the writer wanted to point the finger in as many directions as possible.”
You just answered your own question! I liken it to the rough cut of a film: there wasn’t time (or stamina, I’d imagine) to edit it.
“Why would they sprinkle it with language that ‘sounded’ like Patsy?”
Again, habit.
“#9 Why wouldn’t Mr. Ramsey wait for someone else to find the body if he was responsible for the death?”
He tried. Besides, he probably realized that finding the body himself would give him a chance to leave his forensics at the scene. Plan B, as it were.
Hi Brenda,
Here’s my take on the DNA. In 1996, the term DNA had become common knowledge. Most people could not provide the specifics, but none-the-less… knew the term, and had a basic view of the science involved.
I am in the RDI (Ramsey’s did it) camp. I believe that JonBenet, most likely, had an accident in her bed (we know she had regressed back into bed-wetting), called Patsy for help, and a very tired Patsy lost her temper and slapped JonBenet, who fell and struck her head. Patsy called for John’s help, and the coverup began.
John believed that they needed to steer the police away from them, and on to an outside party. AND… an outside party required outside DNA. So John made a quick journey to his office, where he found a few empty water bottles. He brought them home, and using a Qtip or small cloth, transferred DNA from the edge of the water bottles onto JonBenet’s clothing. The people whom had consumed the water were all solid citizens, and your bookish, computer-geek type of folk: people whose biggest crime is an occasional parking ticket every ten years, or so. Hence, the reason their DNA is not, and will not be, identifiable anytime soon.
The underwear was from a new package..not washed. At least that’s what I’ve read in a few books.
EXACTLY!
The underwear JonBonet was wearing were brand new and were not even her’s. Patsy bought them for her 12 year old neice from Macey’s. Patsy told the police she did not recognize them and then remembered she bought them for her neice. So they may have never been washed.
The larger undies were purchased because oversized undies will fit over a diaper, as opposed to JBR’s regular sized undies. ALSO: they provided an extra layer of protection during the daytime, in the event of an accident… holding back potential embarrassment that might result because of an accident such as this.
Robert Mitchell you really are some sort of knuckle dragging idiot just taking up oxygen. You went to that much trouble to critique someone else’s analysis and you brought absolutely nothing to the table? Bravo Mr. Mitchell. In the military we used to call guys like you ‘do-nothings’. Guys who stand around bitching because they can’t do anything. Why don’t you try to be less hateful and more constructive? If you can’t do that then keep your stupid mouth shut and stay in your hole.
Hi Brenda. Your analysis is fascinating. I believe in the principle of Occam’s Razor, so – even though Patsy was never, by any means, proven to be the writer – if not she, who? What person in this world broke in the house undetected, committed the crimes of molestation and murder, mimicked Patsy’s style and grammar BUT had the foresight to lay “false” clues (in effect, disguising the fact they are disguising their disguise!), had fairly intimate knowledge of the Ramsey’s lives ($118,000 exactly)…the list goes on. Of course, there could be an incredibly convoluted explanation involving strangers, coincidences, et cetera. Most likely, however – Patsy knew the killer’s identity, regardless of who it was or is, had a motivation to protect that person, and concocted the letter.
Thank you for your post and being a voice or reason!…..absolutely to the point! As someone who is involved has been involved in this case for years I am absolutely SHOCKED at all the purported “evidence” that is being stated in all these posts on this site as facts that people think they know to be facts in this case that are false….Astonished is all I can say after reading the posts on this site. Everyone should to familiarize themselves with the principle of Occam’s Razor!
Without it detectives would never find a likely suspect. Doctors would never find a illness behind a set of symptoms. We wouldn’t have computer programming language or the internet or our approaches to scientific investigation. Even nature follows it…..viruses for example. As Aristotle said “The more perfect a nature is, the fewer means it requires for its operation”.
Yes, but with all things being equal, the most logical explanation in this case is anything but logical. So many things stand out as odd. There can be a case for or against the Ramsey’s involvement. That’s why no one has been arrested yet. One thing most everyone has overlooked is the DNA on JonBenet that is said to be that of an unknown Hispanic male. That DNA is in the national registry and when/if that person commits a crime there will be a match. The question, why hasn’t there been a DNA match in 20 years? My conclusion, the DNA isn’t from the murderer but from someone else. The panties are said to be from a relative and that JonBenet like them and they were sent to her. Were they washed, who had contact with those panties? Maybe that’s why there has never been a DNA match in the national registry, cause the DNA is not that of a killer. How many killers like that only do it once??
Your analysis makes more sense than anything I’ve read , to date. I have always believed it was a planned murder, committed by someone with access to a key. I think the murder was committed to destroy this family.
The viscous and brutal overkill murder of JonBenet involved a lot of planning and probably a dossier to be made on the Ramsey’s. The phoney ransom note has several encrypted messages built into the “structure” of the writing. Page two, note the intersection of ‘watching’ over ‘like’, it forms the Zodiac killer cross-hairs symbol, keywords and key phrases support the linkage to the Zodiac killer as well as handwriting matching. The crime is exactly what he threatened to do. Google: The Brutal Murder of JonBenet Ramsey and the Zodiac killer. BTW, the structure of the ransom note also reveals that the letters JT practically saturate the entire thing. There are 23ea primary JT’s that renders a coherent message.
Zodiac Killer is 1996 Cowboy Sweet Heart 😀
The reason I was looking at this page, is because I had noticed the use of the word ‘bring’ for the attaché case, whereas I feel ‘take’ would be more usual. That, to me, indicates that this letter comes in some way from his bank, the people concerned with his money.
What stands very much against that is the amount of money demanded. Surely any banker would be asking much much more.
German say bring
Amazing case. Very hard to tell who did it. I go back and forth between intruder and family, not sure who did it.
There are new DNa tests that can match DNa to relatives. Put the DNa into system see if it matches a relative.
I agree!
Every time I look at the $18,000 in the ransom note I see a £ underneath the $. Probably imagining it, but there seems to be a bit of a loop at the top,different from the way other “s” are written and a line bottom right.
It’s possible that this murder was committed by a young person who knew the family. A person who fantasized about sexually assaulting Jon Benet for a long time, and hid in the house while the Ramsey’s were out that night. Possibly a friend of the older son, who may have taken a key from the house and had a duplicate made. Hiding in the house would have given him plenty of time to write the long rambling ransom note, and to read paperwork that indicated the amount of John’s bonus. It would also explain why the DNA was not in the criminal database.
The ransom note sounds like it was written by an educated person who is fairly young, and who made a great effort to make it appear that the note was written by a seasoned criminal. It just looks juvenile to me! I think that this person reads a lot of books, or watches a lot of crime shows. I do not think that the Ramseys had anything to do with Jon Benet’s murder! I truly believe it was a very young friend of the family who knew the house, and the Ramsey’s very well!
Diana,
I have always thought this as well. It strikes me as something a young teen would write — the phrases lifted from action films; the odd word choices. It could easily be a teen from the neighborhood who had visited the house — friend, paperboy, etc. Also, I read that there had been a series of late night break-ins before her murder, in which nothing was taken, but an intruder had clearly been in the house. That sort of crime also seems like something a disturbed teen might do.
Burke Ramsey
I was going to post the exact same thing but you beat me to it. This is someone born around 1980 – plus or minus about 8 years – judging by the movie references, who had routine access to the house and felt comfortable there. I note the fluidity with which the word ‘John’ is written. Part of his name perhaps? Reasonably well educated, judging by the way ‘receive’ is spelled correctly, when I can’t even manage that half the time – and did I see an accute accent on ‘attache’? Also the correct use of an exclamation mark for the imperative. This kid went to a good school.
One thing I have never seen mentioned is the extreme precision this character possesses. The dot on the ‘i’ is generally precisely in line with the somewhat erratic slant of the letter. So you have there a precise person somewhat erratic in character, cool enough to pinch a notebook and copy handwriting either before or after an assault on a little girl. This is someone who doesn’t panic so it’s a psychopath who might well have been misdiagnosed with Asperger’s or high functioning Autism. Few emotional reactions – though sometimes psychopaths display a mawkish sentimentality that can be mistaken for emotion. Likely on antidepressants. Prozac has often been linked to this kind of abberrant behavior.
Quietly obsessed with a little girl or obsessed with hurting this family (if this is a Narcissistic psychopath they won’t even need a reason beyond their own sense of collossal entitlement) so obsessive in nature. Probably quiet, keeps his head down and collects things if the obsessive type, displays a superficial charm while alienating everyone who gets to know him if the Narcissist type).
High functioning, seemingly helpful, unexpectedly prickly at times, obsessive interests that seem a little random, and an all-pervading secret feeling that society, or this family specifically, has failed to recognise his Specialness.
He would have been in the house helping with the search too, to make sure nothing went wrong with the Masterplan.
If someone from the family reads this – you KNOW this dude. You can recognise him here. One of you bonded with him over a shared interest. Could have been computing, model trains – something that requires precision.
Hang on…
Did I hear mention of a train room? That wouldn’t be for model trains, would it? If so, which of the neighbor kids made it their second home? That’s probably your killer.
Good theories. I just can’t see a mom doing this. Sure, Susan Smith drowned her kids and other cases. But JonBenet wasn’t just bashed in the head, she was strangled in such a sadisitc and aggressive way. Sounds like someone with a deep sexual fantasy that wants to watch someone squirm and be in pain. The investigator Smit said whomever did this had a fantasy in their head about strangling her. OK, a mom losing it and hitting her too hard could be possible but strangling her so much that the garrote was so tight the dad said he couldn’t even see when carrying her out, that’s beyond a “losing it” moment. That’s the sign of a psychopath.
It sounds very logical and plausible. That would fit in perfectly and compare that with the ethnicity found on the pantie’s DNA. I don’t think instead that a worker sneezed on her drawers at the factory. Hopefully the crime will be solved one day if the offender appears in CODIS. That would clinch the case probably.
Why no finger prints on the ransom note? Didn’t the parents read the note? Of course they did. Patsy said she read it while it was still on the steps. Seems far fetched to believe neither parent touched it. Also someone gave the girl pineapple before they hurt her…neither parent said they fed her that and no pineapple at the party. Yet there it was in a bowl on the kitchen counter. I’ve read so many of the books re this case, recently Ruled In. I’m still not sure what happened in that house. Wonder if Burke will have anything new to say in the upcoming Dr. Phil interview. Doubt it tho. Lawyers probably told him what not to say…just a guess. I hope justice is served for that sweet girl. Sigh..:(
He was 9 YEARS old when she was murdered. I have read alot about children that age murdering, so it is possible. I read he hit her in the head with a golf club a few months prior to her murder and and would smear his feces all over the home. He had issues. I am not saying he did it though, but during the 911 call you can hear Patsy say ” Burkie” at the very end and then you can hear a little boys voice ask if they are coming for him. He even admitted it sounded like him but Oatsy and Jogn said he was in his bedroom the entire time. EERIE!
Burke was 1996 Dec. 9 years old, but Jan. 1997 10 years old (born Jan.27 1987)
Susan,
Patsy’s fingerprints/palmprints are on the letter, multiple times, I have read. We know John handled it, yet, only Patsy’s were found. Of course, given the many blunderings of the Boulder PD, who knows what to think?
Even the second two dollar signs were an artistic contrivance. The second one is that of a ‘fat cat’ standing up, with it’s arms crossed. This is right near the ‘joo’ clue. The structure of the ransom note holds the key evidence. “At this time” is actually “Art this time”, small is smay, there are many of these types of modified words. The L’s in the word ‘will’ are animated.Oh yeah, the third dollar sign is a rabbit on a unicycle. I know what I’m talking about, God dammit!
Try looking at John Ramsey’s handwriting.
They did. Not a match at all.
Your copy of the ransom note has been tampered with. Most of the copies have the ‘t’ in the word ‘it’ wielding an axe that just lopped off the head of the ‘i’. Your copy is also missing the lines that would have been on the original. The verbiage of the ransom note is one big sick and highly cryptic joke, so statement analysis of it nonsense. I’ve noticed that there seems to be several copies of the ransom note out there that have somewhat subtle variations to them. The first paragraph has far too many added on structural details, which taken alone, should have told any honest investigator that there was no way that Mrs. Ramsey wrote the damn thing. It took Zodiac Jack a long time to fully assemble the so-called ransom note. The day that your recognize and realize the shear number of JT inclusions on that note, will be the day that you will begin to realize just how far off track you’ve been all along.
“You” recognize, type O
The CBS news copy of the ransom note has the word ‘it’ wielding an axe. I’m talking about the first page and sixth line of the so-called ransom note.
I hate when uneducated people have such strong opinions and theories and they dont know anything on the case and have obviously read 1 article to form these ludicrous and strong opinions as per this post . The Ramsies are probably the most guilty ppl in the history of the world to not be convicted . Every expert says Patsy wrote the ransom note …why do that if your not guilty ? Almost everything that came out of their mouth was a proven lie …changing stories ..pubic hair on Jonbenet ends up not a pubic hair but Patsy Ramseys hair …didnt have time to stage ? Its all staged hello ! Every investigator on the caee wanted the Ramseys indicted but were stonewalled by the POS crooked DA . I could get into almost every word that either said as a proven lie and you can test me on that …I dont know if the DNA came from a factory worker or who knows maybe they planted it but there is a boatload of evidence against them and the only fact for them is trace DNA …6 ppls trace DNA with more belonging to Patsy Ramsey than anyone else . This is such a huge travesty of justice that the DAs office oughta be indicted on charges . Anyone who thinks these POS are innocent needs to quit smoking the magic dust .
This is the sort of post that I’d expect from the people involved in and behind the Ramsey murder.The Ramsey’s were cleared a long time ago. In fact, the Ramsey murder was highly planned out in advance. The main target was the highly successful John Ramsey. The crime scene evidence was vastly over-done as was the phony ransom note. The people that were behind this crime have been involved in many similar crimes for several years. The OCCK case being just one of them. What we as citizens have witnessed is these same people testing their control over dirty operatives in the Ramsey and many other cases.
No. They were not targeting john. If the motive is purely sexual, then why write a ransome note? Also, leave said ransom note if she is already deceased?
Brenda: I am so impressed with your site and analysis!
As I went through your work on the individual letters I got a couple impressions. The lower case ‘b’ and ‘d’ look like they are written by someone used to writing music. The ‘b’ is very much like the flat symbol and the ‘d’ is written like a quarter note. The odd ‘q’ also somewhat resembles another music symbol for a rest or something though if I remember correctly it is usually written horizontally. Or not.
The ‘g’ are written so differently from the other letters with similar lower case tails…or legs…your post is my first experience with handwriting terminology, please forgive my mistakes.
At a point in my life I was Mrs. G_____ and when I married I decided to make my capital G a larger version of the cursive non-capital g. This emphasis of the g carries over into me regular writing to some extent. So I am wondering, between the odd g and f, if the writer’s initials could be F.G. or G.F.?
Also, have you considered if the writer may have also had experience writing a non-English alphabet? A couple of your observations made me think of the Cyrillic alphabet.
Finally, considering the b and d written like musical notations, I note for the first time in comments here that the tape over Jon Benet’s mouth was gaffer’s tape. I have long suspected the perpetrator was an obsessed pervert in some way involved with the pageants. If he was not involved I would think he was in the audience. He became obsessed with JB and stalked her until be felt very comfortable in her home environment.
I very much look forward to your future posts.
After I left the comment above I followed a link to another document examiner (McLish?) who analysed the RN. He said S.B.T.C indicated the C was an unfinished thought since there was no period. If one is ending a letter at that point, what would be the unfinished thought? A PS to follow? It seems to me S.B.T. could be initials, either personal or of the “foreign faction” or whatever, and the C is a title or something similar. For example, if we read B.H.O.P would it not be reasonable if we learned that stood for Barack Hussein Obama President? We don’t put periods after titles. If one wanted to add to B.H.O.President one could add [comma] Nobel Prize Winner, but actually the identification and thought ends with President. (I am not trying to interject politics, but we probably all know who is the U.S.President).~~~~~Applying this to the RN, could the C stand for Chairman, Choreographer, Controller…, etc. Could it mean Colorado, considering where the crime happened? There are many possibilities.
I was an adult without internet in 1996. Within my small town world and view at that time, the note made a kind of sense I have never seen anyone else suggest. I lived in a poor area where those who had little were very envious and antagonistic against those who had even so much as a new car. It was almost like a sort of Marxism was born into these people, that poverty was good and succeeding was bad, and those who had anything should be forced to give to the poor.~~~~~So when I read the note I picture a semi-intelligent, unemployed or under-employed person who watches a lot of movies and TV and thinks he deserves more from life. He has some connexion to the Ramseys, maybe a relative of someone the Ramseys hired at some time. Perhaps he had been around the family enough, for example working on the house, to pick up other information to use in the RN. He had knowledge of the $118k bonus and he was jealous, not only of the money but of the mansion, beautiful family life AND the beautiful daughter. I see a lot of jealousy in the note and I see that as a possible, even likely, element of the crime. I picture this person and his family or friends griping about “fat cat” John getting a bonus of that amount, while maybe their food stamps just ran out or their power was about to be shut off. Perhaps this person saw JBR performing at Christmas celebrations. Her beauty and talent would further stir feelings of jealousy and revenge about the perceived unfairness of life.Obviously the killer/perpetrator was a sadist, so there is more to the whole picture, but what I believe I observe is very valid. That is the fascinating thing about forums; we all bring slightly different personal experiences and knowledge into unsolved cases involving unknown perpetrators.
Yes, there is a deep envy running through the note. I come from a place where this exact attitude was common. It is considered a class betrayal if you leave for something better, and your peers will call you out on it.
I had pictured a family friend. Now I am wondering if the child of an employee – housekeeper or gardener might be as likely. Perhaps the child of an enployee who became a family friend, played trains with them etc. and got a little upset at seeing the money thrown in the direction of the children, when for all his intelligence, this kid couldn’t afford a decent university or car and the family didn’t think to help.
Yeah. That would upset me too. Specially if I was led to believe I was part of the family. I might end up on Prozac then decide to start dishing it out for a change – there’s a real obsessive class hatred going on here. Depriving the family of what one might assume is its most cherished member might look like justice, if you were unbalanced enough.
Here are some things to take note of in the “structure” of the ransom note: The author integrated his initials JT in two basic ways 1) primary JT’s are made by direct letter intersection of one word over the other and by close proximity, there are approx 23ea of these and the easily decode to a message. 2) The secondary or tertiary JT’s were made several different ways. The primary ones decodes this message: (It)exhausting…daughter watching…Speaking daughter being…(any) money killing family think killing. Two of the dollar signs are actually made to resemble certain characters: One is of a fat cat standing up with it’s arms crossed near the joo clue. The other is of a floppy eared rabbit riding a tricycle or a unicycle. On the lower left hand corner of the first page is a partitioned cascade of words that says: I We early, arrange. A close examination of the word ‘We’ reveals that it’s structured as an anagram of the word Jew. The percent signs are not only part of a reference to the 60’s TV comedy ‘Get Smart’, they’re shaped like a face with a large nose. The crossed out word ‘don’t’ was crossed out with the word ‘Do’. The crossed out word ‘delivery’ was covered with a drawing of an old time “boat tailed” speedster, imply a speedy deliver, which is part of the ransom note author’s sick humor. The last example of the word ‘Don’t’ has the letter ‘D’ shaped like the hands of a clock, this is part of this guys time/date stamp that he liked to add, 1997 on the first page is part of that same stamp. The first example of the word ‘that’ has the ‘t’ underline so as to resemble a tombstone. The first example of the word “She” is not only made to look ominous but also has the ‘S’ and ‘h’ serving as a secondary JT clue. Notice that the double ll’s in the word implied word “carefully” are actually closed off, then notice that the ‘r’ is shaped like an ‘s’. Now read the first paragraph like you’re a Chinese detective, like perhaps Charlie Chan and you’ll get another one of his sick jokes, syntax and all! The ransom note has approx 30ea improperly placed capital F’s and W’s, which probably implies ‘Fleet White’, which is probably part of why he went into orbit. At this time(time…a Zodiac killer keyword)…etc. The word ‘At’ is structured as the word ‘Art”, as in Artist, which this guy considered himself to be. The only ‘cursive’ writing on the note are the implied words: “deceive” and “enforcement”. Implying, “you can try to divas” and “cement’ as in the basement where her body was staged. The intentionally misspelled word posession(another Zodiac killer missive), probably impies: “pose and session”, the line actually reads in ‘my’ posession(sic). The c and t in Victory are another prime example of a secondary JT hint. The cryptic acronym S.B.T.C (another Zodiac killer type of game) might imply: “Saved By (the Zodiac), see.” However, we’ve carefully studied the Karr/Daxis/Tracey emails and they contain strong evidence of a second under-educated author in the Karr camp, we have several pieces of evidence that say the second author was Jack Tarrance (JT,see). Tarrance was the only named suspect in the Zodiac killer murder of Paul Stine that was a dead on match to this same person. Tarrance was featured by the very popular yet cancelled TV show “America’s Most Wanted. Jack’s mother’s name was Flova, the misspelled word Follaw(sic) is an anagram of her name. The Zodiac 340 cipher has no less than 4ea Flova hints. The infamous Black Dahlia case has at least one Flo hint. It also has Tarrance’s name phonetically hinted at on the January Turning post card. There’s more… a lot’s more that I’ve discovered by having first become a student of the Zodiac killer crimes, then the Ramsey crime. you can’t make this stuff up, it’s all hidden in plain view.BTW, the letter T in S.B.T.C has been tampered with on several copies on the net, it was probably originally shaped like a cross. I know what I’m talking about because I’ve done my homework and I continue to review the ransom note and case information.
Why am I so tenacious about the Ramsey case? Because within the first day of studying about it, I knew it was the work of some highly influential and insidious criminals. It was structured a PSYOP from the get-go and stands as an act of domestic terrorism with respect to every aspect of the crime, especially in terms of the aftermath. Western media sources are “dirty” with regard to the Ramsey case and many other controversial cases as well. Who has such power and control? Keep asking that question and don’t let the answers frighten you, demand the truth and “tune out” all of their dirty operatives, because there’s far more at stake than most people realize.
Thank you, Brenda.
Let me clarify a few things: When you realize that the word “carefully”, structurally and phonetically is saying: Listen case fooey, Art this time we have your daughter in my posession (sic, pose session)etc. Read the whole statement with a cheesy Asian accent and you’ll see that the syntax also supports this line of reasoning. The phony Zodiac killer persona was fashioned after the villain in the old movie “Charlie Chan at Treasure Island. Almost every deliberate letter intersection results in the letters ‘JT’. Also, the ransom note has far too many added structural details and artifacts that were not part of his attempt to disguise. There’s even an animation of the words “will”. The whole ransom note has far too many added details to it. The backwards stemmed letter “t” was also a signatory element of the document and it’s use traces back to 1946. A stuffed toy “jack” rabbit was found on the victims grave, this was also the killers calling card and it’s mentioned in former detective (thank God) Steve Thomas’ book. The people behind the Ramsey hit, because that’s what it truly was, a hit, will not be able to contain and control the facts from coming to light forever. If I have any “theories” about the murder, the main one is that I suspect that the pineapple evidence was “pumped” into the victim postmortem. Most of what I claim about the Ramsey murder is based on the documents. As detective Lou Smit said, the pineapple evidence is the main bugaboo. The bowl of pineapple that was left on the downstairs table was a very obvious bit of staging. The overall crime scene had far too much evidence and most of it was simply screwy. Not only was Zodiac Jack, as I like to refer to him, setting up the parents, he was also setting up the people that initiated the hit. He’s been lacing his crime documents with subtle details and hints ever since at least 1946 for this eventuality. The actual names of the persons involved may even be encrypted within the ransom note.
Terrance Battcher…..please spew your propaganda in another comment section and up the dosage on your daily meds.
This is exactly the kind of remark that I’ve come to expect from the people that initiated the “hit” on the Ramsey girl.
Terrence 😀 😀 😀
Again, Brenda, your site has copies of the ransom note the have been tampered with. The original has the word “it” on the sixth line wielding a machete that just lopped off the head on letter ‘i’. Look around the internet and you’ll find copies that haven’t been tampered with. Another thing that they tampered with was the protrusion of the stem through the crossbar on the letter “T” in S.B.T.C, it’s missing on the copies posted here. I’ve discovered many irrefutable things about the Ramsey ransom note. BTW, the parents were NOT actively involved in the murder.
Brenda,Thanks for the analysis. There are too many points about this case to cover here, but a very important one is that a bogus ransom note (and I agree that it is bogus) does not entail a concocted kipnapping (and therefore implication of the parents),as seems to be so often assumed. I hypothesize that the killer intended to kipnap Jonbenet and wrote the bogus note in order to try to disguise the sexual motive for the kidnapping. To think that the parents tried to concoct a kipnapping seems impossible to square with Patsi’s calling the police at the earliest opportunity and while the body was in the house waiting to be discovered. The first thing you do with a bogus kidnapping is get rid of the person who’s supposed to be kidnapped!
Best wishes
Michael Sheppard
Brenda, I notice in the ransom note that the comma on the dollar amount of $118,000 is backwards like a small “c”, where a comma should look like a backwards “c”.
I tried writing some things backwards and upside down on a paper and I found that it did disguise my writing, and I didn’t mess up on my commas. But when I tried to turn the paper upside down and write from right to left, from bottom towards top AND with my left hand, I did wind up with a backwards comma.
You might like to pay some people who are narcissists and borderline to write things upside down and backwards and with the left hand and see how their writing changes. Specifically the Joan Crawford Borderline PD “m” character (which I suspect is the writers natural “m” characteristic).
In the book Ruled In, the theory is the note was first typed on a computer with a specific Font..then traced or copied onto the note pad to disguise the hand writing. The paragraph was indented like using a tab button and the “a”s were like a typed font. Also the margined seemed to be copied as if one didn’t used the space bar when typing. Just food for thought!
The ransom note is the strangest aspect of the whole awful case. I cannot see an individual who had just committed such crimes sitting down in an occupied house to write a note this detailed. Similarly, I cannot see someone writing such a note while the victim was tied up in the basement, still alive. My most confident thought – the ransom note was written in advance of the murder, most likely by Patsy (more on that later).
The second issue that strikes me – how did the intruder(s) get JB out of her room, and down several sets of stairs without that poor child or the intruder(s) making some kind of noise that someone else in the house would hear? My best answer – she was coaxed from her room by someone she knew. Another possibility – she quietly snuck downstairs downstairs because she had been told, in advance, to do so by an adult she trusted, and that there would be a surprise for her.
Putting these two thoughts together, I came up with this theory. Patsy wrote the note as part of a misguided joke that she wanted to play on John, perhaps with JB’s knowledge – maybe JB was told to come downstairs and hide in the basement until the morning. Patsy, of course, never thought that any harm would come to her daughter. It even looks as though she might have served a late-night snack to the child. So who actually killed this child?
While I don’t have a name to offer, I did have two further thoughts – perhaps when the child did go down into the basement, an intruder (who had planned burglary until he heard the Ramseys come home) was hiding in the basement until he could make his getaway from the now-occupied house. The child encountered the intruder, who silenced her.
The other admittedly far-out possibility that I see is that somehow, in a moment of recklessness, Patsy had hired some as-yet-unnamed individual to “kidnap” her daughter as part of the joke (maybe even someone dressed like Santa?). That person would entertain the child in the basement until the morning; of course he committed these crimes instead and then fled. The problem with this far-out theory is that Patsy would have known with almost complete certainty who had killed her child, and at some point would have told the police, even with her own questionable involvement.
I agree with many others that it is very unlikely that it will ever be known who killed this child, especially with Patsy’s death. I don’t think that it was a member of JB’s family, however.
I’ve always found the ransom note to be the strangest part of the case. It just doesn’t fit with everything else. Now this is just my own wild theory – but is possible that Patsy wrote the note to convince the police and authorities to take the disappearance more seriously? Afraid that they would treat JB as a runaway not a kidnap victim, she wrote a note under the mistaken impression it would force the police to mobilize quickly.
She was only 6 years old. What 6 year old runs away?
This is silly.
I think it’s interesting that, on page 2 of the letter, the writer switches from plural self-reference to singular–“we” to “my.” Makes me think the author forgot about the fiction of the “foreign faction” at this point.
Very good observation.
Very good point.
It’s probably hard to keep things straight when full of adrenaline and freaking out after killing/or knowing about the killing of your daughter.
SBTC. – Stunned, Bound, Tortured, Cut?
Sexually Bound Tortured Child
I’ve never heard an explanation of what these initials stood for. TBK serial killer imitation?
S.B.T.C. – In this Charismatic subculture, acronyms are quite common and used frequently as teaching tools and on banners [In church icons]. S.B.T.C. is a well-used acronym that represents the words “SAVED BY THE CROSS”. In our extensive database of terroristic groups, we find no use of this phrase with White Supremacy or International Organizations. The author of the ransom note uses this acronym along with the word “victory”. The word “victory” is used in this subculture as a verb. It is seen as the result of actions taken by believers to bind and overcome Satan’s power primarily in the areas of physical health
Religious zealots cannot help themselves. They somehow find a way to infuse Jesus into everything that they do. I wonder if their was a religious zealot living in the Ramsey home. Hmmmmmmmmmm
This is the goofiest and least credible theory on this entire thread, which is saying a lot. Anti-religionism brings out some sick tortured “logic.”
One thing that has been a puzzle to me is why during an interview while in Europe did John Ramsey make the statement ” it’s a heckava thing when you wake up and find out you daughter has been killed” According to media reports he never found that out until her body was found several hours after he woke up, supposedly when he was awaken by Patsy he was informed of the note stating the child had been taken and no mention that she was already dead. John Ramsey made that statement while being interviewed on a European TV broadcast anyone can check his European interviews and hear it for themselves if they wish. Check it out I believe Patsy was the guilty party and John became involved after the child was killed.
it can be well uttered that way describing the days after.
Waking up and reckonizing your daughter has been killed.
Some words that have stood out to me is the word “home” nobody would use the word “home” except the person who “home” it is.
The sentence that included we (don’t) particularly like you. First of all anyone doing this who hates John Ramsey would automatically write “we don’t particularly like you” for the author to go back and ADD the word “don’t” does not ring true to me.
Why would the writer talk about 1997 – Patsy’s letters to her friends at the end of the year was around what was coming up in the new year etc. I think that new years day was the day she was meant to magically appear.
Kidnapped Christmas Night- Found New Years Day. Makes for a BIG story don’t you think.
This fake kidnapping was a desperate attempt to spring board JonBenet’s FAME. Except it all went wrong and she became famous for all the wrong reasons.
Far fetched!
May be the son killed her and the parents had to cover it up? She got all the attention after all…
There is no proof.
Ask yourself this question; If this was the case and they were YOUR kids, would you cover it up if you fairly sure you could get away with it ? Maybe facing the fact that their one precious kid was “gone” they protected Burke so he would not have had to been taken away from them to go to reform school, etc., never mind the ruined reputation and stigma and negative publicity. That would stain their standing in the community, John’s business, etc. Its just something that occurred to me, and the note–yeah–THAT DAMNED NOTE- Some kinda weird…
Brenda – My compliments on a well-constructed analysis of the handwriting in the ransom note. I’ve studied handwriting and I agree with every single one of your observations, the implications and your analysis. It’s difficult to determine without examining the actual document, but I think the writing looks somewhat pastose, heavy and thick. It’s not a common trait and has implications of a person that is indulgent of his senses. The precise i-dots also catch my attention: a person who pays attention to details. I haven’t seen a “flattened middle zone” and not sure what is implied by it. I’d be interested in your thoughts regarding these traits. Again, nice analysis & well-done write-up.
Thank you!
By flattened middle zone, I meant that many of the middle zone letter ovals are wider than than they are tall. Thanks
did the Ramsay’s have a security alarm system , was it deactivated by someone? a person would need to know the (code)some one asked a question ,’why would her family want her dead”? perhaps she refused to participate in the pageant? who knows , I do not believe her family wanted her dead , I believe it was a parent of one of the participants of the pageant, possibly a very jealous parent , the fact JonBenet won the crowning of the Queen contest made the others furious OR I believe there was someone hiding in the house and I believe it was someone familiar with the house,I believe it was someone from that “Community” who committed this crime , the ransom note was written, which in my opinion was written by someone who knows the family, why would anyone mention the exact amount John received as a bonus , and how would a stranger? especially a kidnapper write such a stupid note which didn’t make any sense, someone knew the house and the family quite well. why would someone kill this innocent child? someone who hated Patsy, that’s my theory and opinion. A very small person man or woman, could have easily climbed through the basement window.and they certainly weren’t planing on carrying the body of a child ,this was not meant to be a kidnapping someone wanted this innocent child dead , Rest In Peace little Angel JonBenet
I think you are right. And i think the murder were waiting in the house when the family came home, and that he wrote the note while he was waiting, before they came home.
He may very well have tried to copy Patsy’s handwriting to make her the suspect, he had her handwrite to learn from in the notebook. And he probably were hand gloves to not set fingerprints. And anyone who tries to write with hand gloves, will see that it’s hard to write and the handwriting will be bad, and besides – he did that on purpose too.
This note was written by a woman. That woman is Patsy Ramsey. She killed her daughter? I don’t think the son did. Just a gut feeling I have. The rope around her neck seems kind of complicated for a little boy to figure out.
Why would Patsy use a homeade garote on her own daughter when there are so many easier ways of murdering?
I am very Impressed with many of the observations, and the theories here, but I must say, as a Forensics Specialist (I am educated and work in four different areas of Forensics, including Forensic Psychology and Forensic Science) I don’t believe, based on the science of the case, that the Ramsey’s had anything to do with their precious child’s death, and have suffered more than any parent should have to following the horrific murder of their child. There are PLENTY of murderers who go into homes, spend time in the homes, do crazy things like eat out of their victims refrigerators, hide in attics for days, etc etc. This is what I do for a living, and I could tell you stories that would keep you from EVER sleeping again. It just makes no sense (besides the very important science that ruled them out) that these people would love this child like they did, then suddenly snap because she wet the bed! Didn’t happen. Boulder police dept compromised this case from minute one by violating investigation 101. They destroyed the crime scene, and continued to hyper focus on the Ramsey’s while other suspects had time to cover their tracks. There are some very logical suspects for this crime, and unfortunately….as happens more times than we would like to admit….they got really lucky. They weren’t smart. They were lucky. The right set of circumstances fell to their favor and they got away with it. But they won’t forever. I truly believe this case will be solved eventually, but we have to open our minds to other possibilities instead of trying to make the evidence fit our opinions. Sorry if I’ve offended anyone, I just feel horrible for these people that weren’t even allowed time to grieve their child because they had to defend themselves. I only hope it will be solved in her fathers lifetime. Thanks for letting me say my piece. Blessings to all, and as I tell everyone….listen to your inner voice when it tells you something or someone is “off”. Those that do, tend to live longer!
Heather Green – I agree with you 100% !!
It doesn’t matter what you believe. They can’t be ruled out. A grand jury voted to indict them. The BPD did compromise the case and so did the Ramseys by lawyering up and not cooperating fully with police.
Has anyone ever looked into the idea of her mom either having an affair or wanting to leave John? Reason I ask is it appears to me that she wrote the note but I don’t feel he knew about it. Could she have been looking to leave him and take his bonus money? Did she hire someone to help kidnap her daughter for a day and that kidnapping went the wrong way? Clearly if she was involved she could never say a thing about it. Not saying this happened but wondering if it’s ever been looked into?
Thanks
They barely spoke to each other. If she really wanted to leave him a divorce and a money settlement would of been alot easier. 118,000 is not alot of money.
The $118,000 was very weird. A man of his wealth could have afforded much more and experts say that that is a low amount of ransom.
In an interview, Patsy Ramsey denied being able to recognize her own hand writing on photos found in her family photo album. This denial makes clear that she was well aware of the fact her handwriting was very similar to the fake ransom note.
There is no doubt in anyones mind that Patsy Ramsey was the author of the note. But, being the author of the note doesn’t mean she killed the child, only covered it up.
Patsy Ramsey could have killed JBR, or the killer could have been “Mr. Ramsey” himself. We may never know.
I really don’t think it was the dad. He may have figured it out over time that it was either Patsy or Burke, or did know from the beginning but I don’t think he did it. The person who did kill her strangled her in such a sadistic and aggressive way that they had to have some psychopathic tendencies (thoughts of investigator Smit). The way Burke eerily smiles is creepy, he may have some deep unhealthy tendencies.
He has Asbergers. They are highly intelligent, but lack impulse control at an early age.
If you have already watched the movie, “American Psycho,” it was the great big company he worked for who didn’t want their reputation destroyed, which did all of the clean up jobs, payed off the cops and judges to not point fingers at the killer. In the Ramsey’s case, the late evidence withheld by the police, the charlatans who were highly paid to obfuscate the story, even made a documentary to further smoke screen the facts. The Ramsey monsters couldn’t possibly pay for all this, although they were very rich.
So, I think the Ramsy bitch killed the girl by mistake because jonbennet had peed and the bitch all drunk and arrogant, didn’t want to deal with her crying, pushed her and she hit her head, busted cranium, bleeding and still alive, didnt want to deal with the expense of keeping her alive with hospital bills in the millions, decided to make it seem like a rape murder scene with the rope and suffocated her (notice the rope has no stains on it) and to further throw off the investigation, she wrote a note, and at the end of the note, she wanted to make sure that it was JOHN who withdrew the money, leaving her bank account alone. That’s how ruthless and money oriented their minds were. When she told him that it is much cheaper to kill her than keep her alive, he agreed and decided to cover it up pathetically, but the company JOHN worked for tried their best to make sure there are no blames pointed at the Ramsey family.
She never bled out from the head. Horrible theory.
Agree, do more research. This theory is so stupid.
I’m not a handwriting analysis expert but it’s easy to see the person(I believe Patsy)tried to disguise their handwriting(maybe using their non dominate hand) and after looking it over went back and added to the letters to further disguise the writing. I can remember doing this one time, although I don’t remember why. My natural printing and writing is very simple, no caps or fancy tails; just straight lines. To disguise my writing I just went back over the letters and added caps to a’s and longer, fancier tails on p’s, y’s and g’s. Try it for yourself and what you end up with is something similar to the ransom note document. I don’t think I fooled anyone, but at the time I thought I did. The letter q clearly appears to be written over after the initial q was made. Patsy admitted,(in her deposition for the 2006 libel suit brought against her and her husband)that she can write with her left hand although not as well as with her right hand. I believe John took his sleeping pill and was out while Patsy did all this. I don’t believe her intention was to kill her child, but she couldn’t, in the world she lived in, in her mind, deal with the consequences of whatever injury occurred to JBR in the bathroom. Easier for Patsy to try make herself the sad victim of a horrific child killer. One thing that always struck me about Patsy is when she said, I did not kill JonBenet, “I loved THAT child”. The word “that”. Wouldn’t you say, “my daughter” “my child” or “JonBenet”. Come on, you psychiatrists out there, you must have ideas about Patsy’s use of the word, “that” for her daughter and what it signifies. Also Patsy staged and meticulously prepped for glitz beauty pageants for her daughter. Staging what happened that Dec. night would be something Patsy could think she could pull off. Bottom line; Patsy’s reputation in the community and her legacy was on the line. She couldn’t be known as the wealthy, prominent woman/mother who severely hurt her own child. So she had to work hard that night and stage a lie that she thought would bring her sympathy and concern and keep her precious image untarnished. Remember this was her life. Remember, she herself was in pageants and sought to be Miss America. I wonder if other pageant mothers, at all the pageants Patsy took her daughter to, remember any aggressive behavior from Patsy toward her daughter. Years ago my daughter did 4 different pageants and she and I witnessed some brutal mothers! Were any of those other pageant mothers every interviewed? About the DNA on the underwear. Remember, the underwear was originally her cousin’s who lived in another state. JBR wanted them and even though there were too big for JBR the family sent them to JBR. They may not have been laundered. I hope Patsy made a death bed confession, but all her lies cost people their jobs and reputations. I don’t think John had anything to do with it. His demeanor in all the interviews I’ve seen seems that of a innocent man. But after reading that ransom note, at some point the truth had to dawn on him and he played along to protect is business and families reputation; to hell with all the other people hurt. Collateral damage. Finally I just can’t help saying, my opinion of Brenda Johnson’s abilities as a document examiner is quite low. My opinion is based on what Brenda presented here and her conclusions.
I absolutely agree with you, I would say I loved my daughter, I loved my child but not “that child”.
Perhaps little Jonbenét took her own life with a rope, accidently or not. She could have been under pressure by the pageants. Her mom found her and put her on the bed. Wrapped in her sheets her mam took her in her arms to go downwards the stairs and she felt over the train tracks. It would be a dishonor for the family and they covered it up? I think Mr. Ramsay told his spouse what to write in the ransom letter, the same way he acted with his assistant. This is only a feeling I had today. Anne.
I am not a parent but I was also taken aback when I heard Patsy refer to her daughter in this manner. And I think your theory is plausible; however I’ve read a number of other plausible theories on this siet and others and find myself constantly changing my opinion.
COMPARING the ransom with the deposition, what I find clear is that on the deposition not every ‘I’ is dotted. THE INSTALLER WAS NOTIFIED as an example. But in the ransom, every i is dotted, every t is crossed and every sentence has a period. They are from two different writers.
Someone with is so careful about writing, that doesn’t write very big or very small, is likely a woman with a fair intelligence. Most men are quite careless in writing a note.
The beginning of the ransom is nervously written while the later section is not.
Another point. When people appreciate something or respect something, they tend to write it bigger. In the ransom, almost everything is the same size. The signature, the VICTORY, JOHN, but RAMSEY appears biggest. If someone hated JOHN, it would have been smaller. This person is a RAMSEY and didn’t hate John, not especially love him. My guess is the ransom was written by the mother. Maybe the husband started writing it and she took over after a few lines. This is a give away: UN HARMED. Its separated by a space. Likely she was already dead.
I have a feeling that John and Ramsey written with big letters means it’s personal, the writer tells he knows John well.
And what he actually says, shows that too: “It’s up to you now, John.. ” You are not the only fat cat around.. ” Use that good southern common sense of yours…
Patsy wrote the letter. And all the wobbly lines in the writing was so it could not be analyzed as hers. On Dateline they said he person was intelligent by using the word “attache’ but I believe they are correct but i am more convinced of the intelligence due to the word ‘faction’! I have never heard of that word and had to look up the meaning. Writing squiggly as she did, I know, cause I have done that before.(re an old boyfriend who was still married and she got involved and a lo happened happened, and in notes I didn’t want her to know I wrote , I did that. So I believe she did as the guy above said, that she wrote it while John told her what to say. My intuition is so good about the guilty: The first TV airing of the Susan Smith case, I said, “She did it.” Same with another case I cant remember, I said the same thing and it was true and of course with O.J. I said it right away. With a parent though, I know everyone mourns differently , but they act somewhat devistated and I know if it was me, I would be dileriousa. and crying so much and s hard, I couldn’t care who it was in front of,I would not be able!to stop!!!
I have with fraction no problem.
RAF = Rote Armee Fraktion. In Germany great political thing ca. 1970 – 1990.
Hello was the handwriting analysis taken with the suspects using the opposite hands, this letter was clearly written with the opposite hand of the actual hand writer…if they were left they used their right and if they were right they used their left!!! It’s plain as day!!! Retake the the hand writing analysis of the suspects using the opposite of their actual hand that is used!!!
Can’t, Patsy is dead.
She submitted samples from both hands.
I thought there was a military style boot print found at the crime seen. No one seems to be interested in analyzing this. I doubt if Patsy was stomping around in military style boots that night. Just a thought….
I mean at the crime scene. Sorry
Reply to Linda, Sept 10, 2016. Linda, before the crime scene could be secured many people, police and others had stepped all over and around that house. I’m like Sue(reply from Sue, Sept 9th 2016). I’ve followed true crime for 40 some years and like Sue, I too, intuitively exclaimed Susan Smith guilty when I first heard her claim. Before that, I did the same while watching TV at work and first saw the case of the Boston husband supposedly attacked while driving his pregnant wife. He was shot but the wife and unborn child killed. My reaction was immediate and I intuitively yelled, the husband did it!Later when it turned out the husband did do it, people at work, remembering my outburst, which they thought was bizarre at the time, asked, how’d you know? At work we discussed breaking news of a local priest who claimed black men broke in to his parish house and injured him. Everyone was saying what a terrible thing, a priest attacked in his home. I shocked my coworkers(and myself)by saying, it didn’t happen that way. Turned out the priest’s wounds were self inflicted and the story he told of black men torturing him was pure fabrication. I won’t bore you, with other examples except to say the same thing happened while at work that Dec. 1996. As the JBR story first broke, I yelled out, “the mother did it!” And that was early on, before the evidence of the ransom note etc. was revealed. It was intuition paired with the experiences and encounters at beauty pageants with my daughter, 5 years prior. Coworkers asked how I could say such an outrageous thing about a grieving mother. But all these years later, I agree with the Colorado secret grand jury, Patsy Ramsey should have been indicted. Don’t know if it’s intuition as much as just years of addiction to true crime teaches one that humans are capable of what you least expect. To all of those who believe the intruder theory, how do you explain the idiosyncrasies of the ransom note?
Another thing really bugging me: I just watched the “Trailer” for the upcoming 3 part series, you know the one with Henry Lee in it. The experts wrote a copy of the letter by hand, to time how long it took. (It took approximately 20 min). From this, the “experts” wondered, “How could a stranger be in the house long enough to write this, and then commit the murder.” Now I am no where near their expertise, but, I do know: The family had been out that evening. So I’m thinking, does it not occur to the “experts” that the murderer went into the house earlier, while the family was away, and took the time to write the note? Then could have left and came back later, or hid in the house? And the murderer could have kept the prewritten note on their person? Why are we so locked into just one way of thinking? Please tell me what I’m missing.
Yes. And couldn’t an intruder while waiting for hours in the house, have used some “sample” letters with Patsy’s handwriting on them as a template?
OK I’ll accept that the crime scene was contaminated (regarding the boot print) but then, let’s find out who’s boot print is it, at least. I’ll accept that it was the print of someone doing the investigation, but I can’t accept that we did nothing to prove/identify the person.
You must remember that the Boulder PD had one suspect in mind from the beginning…the Ramseys. A few detectives/investigators resigned due to this fact. They were disgusted. So the PD never entertained the intruder theory.
whose boot print it is
One finds the ransom “note” while the other finds the body?
The mother had been awake as the father slept. Wouldn’t she become frantic and immediately start searching for her daughter just as soon as she realized that she was missing?
Why would the mother read the ‘ransom note’ through it’s entirety? Couldn’t you figure out within the first few lines that her daughter had been taken from the home, become frantic, drop the note, and either wake her husband or begin to look for her daughter?
What is the point of the ending last 4 letters of the note? If no one could never figure out the meaning of it, wouldn’t it be easy to figure out that it was a diversion? I could go on and on. Someone in that house killed that little girl!
Odds of being the last person to see the victim alive and also the person who discovers the deceased body…..hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I don’t understand why people are so dead set on accusing Patsy Ramsey. Ask any mother that loves her child if she thinks she has the “potential” to snap and murder her own kid. As a mother it is absolutely impossible.
Think about the death of Caylee Anthony. Casey snapped.
happens way more often than you think
To Ryan, S.B.T.C; it’s been said, stands for Saved By the Cross, a fairly common Christian slogan in some church communities. To Linda and everyone else, please Goggle and read Mark McLish’s very smart and revealing analysis of the ransom note. It will answer pretty much all of your questions. Although I don’t think he explains the, “use that good southern common sense of yours” ending in the ransom note to John. But that has been explained else where. Patsy was a southern girl, John was a northerner. The inside family joke was to call John a southern gentleman, something like that. That’s just one more arrow pointing to Patsy.
To Ryan again. Sorry I meant to say I agree with you about SBTC being a diversion. I think Patsy was the author of the note and was using things from movies but also she probably meant to promote or evoke thoughts of her daughters kidnapping to Patty Hearst’s kidnapping. Someone Patsy’s age would remember the 19 year old Hearst heiress being kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army(SLA). The S.L.A was referred to as a small faction by the media. Patsy would well remember that famous case. It was a huge case at the time.
John and Patsy Ramsey did not use a stun gun to control their children. The fact is, a high-tech shoe or boot print was found, by the detectives, near JonBenet. No one is pursuing the high-tech print. There could have been more than one murderer, one wrote the note and the other(s)committed the crime. Where is the sample of Patsy’s handwriting as a comparison to this note.
Pam Griffin states that Patsy admitted writing the practice note “for an innocent purpose”. An innocent purpose???? No one does such a thing unless they intend to carry out a crime of this nature? DOES ANYONE KNOW MORE TO THIS?
What do you all think about the drawing on JonBenet’s hand? It looked like a heart. It is very similar to the sacrificial sign” for child sacrifice to KALI and is in the exact colour required.
This symbol looks a lot like a close up 3 with a longer bottom coming up and a tail off the back.
Generally most of the analysis has been if someone is writing the note normally but as someone eluded to in an earlier reply they could have written it with the non-dominant writing hand. My thought is that it was written with the person’s non-dominant hand and/or backwards (opposite) of the person’s normal writing style. Purposely trying to write the letters in reverse. I tried this recently…the text was shaky, not perfectly linear without a lot of concentration and it gets better the more you write the letters/words. They did a handwriting analysis of Patsey but not using alternative methods…that I am aware of.
A handwriting expert says she found 200 similarities between Patsy’s writing and the ransom note, yet it is reported that Patsy’s analysis is inconclusive…huh? It could have been written with the non-dominant hand or by someone who was so nervous and an emotional wreck at the time. The expert says the “normal” way of the person’s writing style became clearer the longer the letter got. Meaning one could fake it for awhile but your natural tendencies will eventually come out.
Place the pen across the palm of your right hand with the writing point to the left. Now close your hand around the pen like a fist. Now turn your pen holding fist upright and write this ransom note.
That’s how she held the pen or something very close to that. That was her method of trying to disguise her writing.
I always thought that finding the author of the ransom note would lead to the killer. But that may not be the case. If Burke killed her then Patsy wrote the letter.
I think it was Burke who wrote the letter.
I think it was Burke who wrote the letter.
Brenda,
After so many years, this story emerges again, and captivates for so many reasons. Unfortunately, emotions and lack of understanding of the facts blur the full meaning of your analysis.
There was an intruder, and detective Smit provided enough evidence of this fact. The DNA from the blood stain and the fibers match.
Let’s look more in details.
If we agree on the intruder avenue, we have to ask ourselves many questions. This is large house in a neighborhood where houses are away from each other, and with ample vegetation.
Who would have the knowledge of the metal grid, the window underneath, and its location in the house?
No force entry.
This is horrible crime, and we cannot explain this type of cruelty. The type of knowledge and patience to fabricate the garot. This is not a prefabricated tool, as a paintbrush from the basement was used.
The child does not live in the basement. It had to be extracted from another room, and brought down. Somewhere, somehow, unless preliminary violence occurred to silence the kid, would the intruder be a familiar acquaintance able to convince that an extra Christmas gift was hidden down below? But let’s not extrapolate too much!
DNA results point to a non-Caucasian origin, and perhaps Hispanic. This is steering this investigation away from the family.
But the letter remains a dangerous element. First, let’s eliminate any faction, group or even the intruder. With the nature of this crime, its sexual and violent aspect, who would take time to ask for a ridiculous sum of money and leave a 3 pages note? This does not make sense unless we go back on the speculation trail.
Imagine a depressed mother, an absent father. Add a good friend or an employee, someone familiar with the house, familiar with the family. There is a connection with the mother, and this person uses its familiarity to molest and kill the child. As the mother is involved with this person, she will try to disguise the whole story, with the negative effect that this will be flipped back in her face. The father has to stick with the wife as she is now an accessory to a crime.
Unless this intruder commits another crime, we will never know.
One thing puzzles me since the star, even today, the father is smiling, not stressed, available for interview, and loves to talk about how he is so away from this after the family was exonerated. Did he ever put a penny into researching the intruder? Don’t you think a man of his wealth would not start his own web site, spend countless hours reviewing clues, hire private investigators like most people do? And raise money if his kitty goes empty/ No, nothing! The mother and father are not the perpetrators but they seem to both have a hand in the bag. Sometimes, reality surpasses our comprehension, this is why we extrapolate and will continue to search for the truth.
The letter does not point to the killer, it points to someone who knows!
The DNA was in NANO grams. Such a small trace amount they can’t exclude that it could have even been from the garments manufacturing process. Any Hispanic workers in clothing factories you think?
The paintbrush was in the basement already there is footage of where it was in a tray within arms reach of the body.
How can the father not remember if he might have smashed that window one day. Who’s writing is it usually in the family baby pictures album. Yet they both say they don’t know. Lol. End of story there both covering everybody knows that.
I have given some thought to the affair/3rd person theory. If we begin to play along with parts of the note> “i advise you to be rested” in other words take a sleeping pill and go to bed so we can come out of the basement. We will be monitoring if you get the money early etc etc…yes we’ll know because we’re here in the house!
did she ever put forward a valid reason to be still dressed in yesterdays clothes and wearing make up? She obviously had not been to bed some say.
Another motive for the cover up. She was already diagnosed with cancer. They knew her time was probably going to be short. And it was.
Temper rage disaster? Publicity stunt gone wrong?
the least likely is an outside intruder however, if you were a burglar, Christmas would be a time of plenty of rich pickings. But a dead of night sneaky burglar doesn’t leave that note.
We’ll never know now and John Ramsey will carry it to his grave but people’s conscience has a way of tormenting them into self punishment.
Understand, alot points to the Ramseys. But the district attorney brought in the best investigator in the country to look into the case. Someone who is much more knowledgeable than you or I in investigations and he says evidence shows there was an intruder. Plus theyhad between 1500 and 2000 people through their house the days before showing the house off decorated for Christmas. Anyone could have snuck off and hid in the basement until the time was right.
He is no longer wealthy, his wealth went to attorneys. Today he co-runs a small airport to survive. I agree that he & Burke seem to smile/grin a whole lot. I would be in tears talking about the loss even 20 years later. I know people handle stress/mourning/pain differently but still. If I had to bet I would put my money on the Patsy or Burke. Either Patsy snapped and killed her or Burke did and Patsy handled the cover up and went to the dad and convinced him it was a kidnapping.I think the dad may or may not know the truth.
ORANGE – NO INTRUDER. NEVER, NEVER!
This note was written by a right handed person using their left hand. It was written by an adult who is well educated.
Essentially I believe it is a smoke screen.
Totally agree. No one can disguise such a lengthy note effectively using their dominant hand. I tried it myself. My attempt showed very similar characteristics to the note.
I watched Dr. Phil today interviewing Burke and was totally shocked by his demeanor. He grinned through the whole interview. He said he stayed in his bed all covered up and did not come out after hearing his sister was dead. His voice was heard when Patsy was calling 011 and she called out his name. I don’t know why but Burke killed his sister, at some point Patsy found out and wrote the kidnap note to protect her son. I think after his parents went to bed he and Jon Benet quietly sneaked ? to the kitchen, ate pineapple then Burke lured her to the train room in the basement where he hit her on the head with the rock and molested her. Patsy was trying to save her son and the family’s reputation. I don’t think John knew about any of it. If he did find out, he too wanted to protect his son from prosecution. There is something wrong with Burke. You ask why was there a rock? It could have been there and used as a door stopper.
Agree, Burke is strange. Dr Phil explained why he seems odd though. I have always thought it could be him. Like they were playing doctor or something, possibly on a regular basis and he panicked that night for fear of being found out. Maybe JonBenet said something about tattling and Burke lost it. She was at the doctor alot for inflamation in the vagina, which could be simply vaginitis and not abuse.
He has Asbergers. He lacked impulse control as a child.
While Patsy was calling 911 Burke was heard saying “are they coming for me?” She probably told him to go to his room and stay there. He told Dr. Phil he stayed in his bed and was hoping Joh Benet would be o.k. He grinned the whole time he was talking about it to Dr. Phil. Very strange. It was said John and Patsy never spoke on the plane afterward. I think they were carrying a terrible burden.
Never heard that before, what Burke was heard saying. If so that’s interesting. I agree he was told to go to his room and stay. And they forbid the police from talking to Burke until sometime later. The ransom note is probably the most interesting thing, it reeks of planted. It’s way longer & detailed than most ransom notes, it names the exact amount of money the dad got for a bonus (who knew that but him & Patsy?), it was found on the back stairs not a more obvious place (the person had to know they used those stairs over others and why not place on the kitchen table?). Strange! I really think the parents know what happened but may have been faced with losing both kids, one due to murder and the other due to committing the murder. They may have circled the wagons around Burke and I don’t know if I would blame them as a parent myself.
In this scenario is it possible that recognizing that Jonbenet was beyond saving (because of a blow to the head with the flashlight) , the family called someone to aid them in the final deed? What happened to the tape? What happened to the rope?
I think it was Burke, the bother, and the Ramsey’s covered it up.
The girl was not raped, but there is some evidence of a history of sexual abuse…so that excludes a Predator.
I also doubt a Predator…
1)sat with the lights on for over 20 minutes to write the ransom letter
2)Bothered to feed Fed JonBenet pineapple
3)Was able to break in and break out of the house with no evidence
I have long thought it could be Burke. But the sexual abuse allegations have also been explained away. JonBenet was said to have vaginitis, which can explain swelling in the vagina according to pathologists. Her doctor also said he examined her many times and never saws signs. She had gone to the doctor around 27 times in the previous 2 years and that could be due to the swelling/pain. I think Burke and her were playing around (like playing doctor or something) and it went wrong or he was afraid he would get caught. There was undigested pineapple in JonBenet’s stomach and there was a bowl pf pineapple on the kitchen table with Burke’s fingerprints on (and Patsy’s too). Burke never left his room during the entire time police were there or even stuck his head out to see what was going on. He recently said on Dr. Phil that he was scared and that’s why he didn’t come out of his room. He may have been scared about what he did. However, the special investigator brought in who thinks it was an intruder said that whomever strangled her was a psychopath and a very sadistic kind of person and said the blow to the head was fierce and hinted that it was a man (not a 9 yr old boy). There are so many variables to this case and several arguments can be made for or against the Ramseys guilt. One thing is for sure, Burke is a very peculiar person, watching him on Dr. Phil is creepy. He seems to be very emotionally stunted and that could simply be all he’s been through.
I have been watching several shows recently about the murder, since it coming up on 20 years this December. I have also researched the murder quite a bit on my own. One thing that confuses me that I saw in one TV special was a handwriting expert who states that she found 200 similarities in the ransom note and Patsy’s writings. Yet Patsy’s writing analysis results have also been reported as inconclusive. If 200 similarities were found how could it also be inconclusive? It’s also very clear that the Boulder PD had it out for the Ramsey’s from day one. That fact that the PD was upset when the special investigator (who concluded there was an intruder) asked the new district attorney to use the most DNA advancement to test the DNA found on JonBenet. The PD should have been excited at the possibility of finding the murderer but they had no doubt it was the Ramseys.
It amazes me the stupidity of the people who actually think the family had anything to do with this murder.They have absolutely no knowledge of any objective evidence yet continue to rattle off their expert opinions. Not even the Denver police were smart enough to evaluate objective evidence. The stupid lady detective proved the father’s guilt that very morning just by looking at his eyes at the moment JonBenet was determined to be dead. It is incomprehensible that any police investigator would say that and I find it hard to believe the vast number of people with absolutely no knowledge related to this case in any way make accusations based on nothing. Whats even more scary is these people are our jurors in our so called justice system and would convict people for murder with no proof what so ever. So the prosecutors only care about their winning record and the jurors think they have a PhD in psychology which leaves the jails filled with God only knows who.
It’s stupid to believe that the Ramseys couldn’t have been involved. The first sentence of the post is stupid and ignorant.
Whoa Barb, it’s not necessary to call people who have a different opinion than you, stupid. Read more, become more familiar with the facts of this case; your opinion will change. For starters,I recommend that you read Mark McLish’s analysis of the ransom letter. And consider this, 25 yr FBI veteran, Gregg McCrary said, “In this case you have elaborate ‘staging’-the ransom note, placement of the child’s body and I never in my career have seen or heard about a staging where it was not a family member or someone very close to the family. Just the note alone told me the killer was in the family or close to it.” Are you really calling this FBI agent’s opinion,amazingly stupid? What do you mean, “no objective evidence”? Duh, the RANSOM note for one example, is a huge piece of evidence! And the list of evidence convinced the secret grand jury to recommend indictments against the Ramsey’s. The truth of that decision was not revealed by the DA. White man’s privilege? Wealthy white man’s privilege? It took a courageous journalist to uncover the truth and sue for the records to be made public about the secret grand jury’s decision. And in our courts, circumstantial evidence is still evidence. By the way, how many people realize Patsy had little 6 year JonBenet’s hair dyed Marilyn Monroe blond. The child’s natural hair color was light brown. Not sure just how young JBR was when that started. I know it’s not relevant info to the murder. But just saying, poor JBR RIP.
According to Steve Thomas, Boulder detective and author, Patsy was wearing the same outfit in the early morning when cops arrived as she had worn at their friends Christmas party the night before. Also hair and makeup were complete in the morning.
Yes read that too. I read fibers from her sweater(red) and her black jacket were found on the duck tape.
“It’s up to you now John!”
IMHO, this is Patsy Ramsey speaking directly to her husband.
I believe this little girl was accidentally killed by a very jealous and socially awkward older brother and the parents protected him from being institutionalized.
In the parent’s minds… they were being virtuous.
I think the layout of the house proves it was a family member. The house had a strange layout. The basement light was located in a strange place, not easily seen or known, except to someone who lived in the house. Also, they could have gone out back door to the yard with the body, which they had to pass that door to get to the basement door. The wine door where she was found, was hard to see and know about.
Why did kidnapper leave note on the back staircase leading upstairs when they could have left it in the front one? Patsy had on same clothes from night before and still had make up on. Friends and family said Patsy was meticulous and would never worn same outfit next day nor left make up on from previous night.
I read after body was found, Patsy was in living room being consoled by friends and family. John was in the den opening his mail. Who does this after finding their daughter dead in their house?
The note says we are watching you and if we see anyone at the house, she dies. Ok, so after calling 911 Patsy calls neighbors, friends, family who immediately come to the house. Again, who would do this? Maybe call Police, but I would never call my neighbors and friends to the house and take the chance it would cause my child’s death.
John making a call to get out of town, fly to Atlanta just after her body was found. Again, what parent would do this. I would stay in town and help the police find the killer.
Someone in the family killed her, in a fit of rage, and they covered it up. I believe it was Patsy.
I am a lawyer. I paid no attention to this case when it was originally in the news and found out about it only when there was the false confession and started to look into it at that point.
These are my thoughts.
First of all, I don’t think it has ever been mentioned how odd it was that the note was allegedly placed on the rear spiral staircase rather than in the front of the house.
Patsy had a habit of coming down that rear staircase early every morning to make coffee in the kitchen. Only someone intimately familiar with the family would know that.
The second oddity is that Patsy wore the same clothes as the day before. For someone who was so fashion and decorator conscious as evidenced by her obsession with the pagents and having such lavish decorations for Christmas with a tree in every room of the house, she would never put on the same clothes as she wore the day before unless she never changed out of them.
The handwriting contains some peculiar similarities to Patsy’s writing that could not be coincidental.
Then you have the ransom amount and obvious knowledge of John personality traits.
Also no one who was trying to do a kidnapping would take the time to write such a long note, and no one who wanted to just molest the child and kill her would have done that in the home and risk detection. Also the leaving of the note is obviously inconsistent with having already killed the child and left the body in the home where it would likely have been discovered prior to the time of the phone call to set up the delivery arrangements (which never came).
Therefore I have to conclude that Patsy at least wrote the note.
Also, she is a nut case.
I can’t imagine that John was involved in the killing so it is either Patsy or the boy.
Given the scrape marks on the child’s back, she was dragged rather than carried into the basement so I favor the idea that the brother did it in a fit of rage provoked by jealousy of all the attention that the later born sister received.
He probably didn’t intend to kill her but things got out of hand. Then, thinking she was dead, he dragged her to the basement.
He may have fed her the pineapple in the kitchen before he hit her.
This must have happened before Patsy went to bed as she had the same clothes on.
Then she thought up the ransom idea to try to protect him but, with her goofy mind, it didn’t occur to her that there was an inherent contradiction.
With the fresh snow outside, she would not have been able to remove the body from the house without leaving tracks.
The whole ransom note idea was nuts, as she would have been better just leaving it as intruder.
It would be awfully elaborate for an intruder to come into the house, take the girl downstairs, feed her pineapple, take her to the basement and do all of that to her, and then go up and hang around and leave an elaborate ransom note taking time to try and mimic Patsy’s handwriting.
Why?
@Michael, agreed 100%. It would have been too much for an intruder to do all these. I watched an interview, Patsy said she did know who wrote the captions under the family photos.I find that hard to believe.
The way in which the letter “a” is drawn suggests someone with an engineering or graphics background. I also think the ransom note was written by someone whose first language was not English. “Beheading” and “attaché” also suggest foreign born.
I agree that it was possible that the author was not a native speaker of English. Surrounding the question surrounding, “Watch over” as opposed to “Watch”, for example, in French, watching someone is “Veiller sur…” Word for word it means “Watch on”. It would be impossible to just say “Watch” in French. It would have to be followed by a preposition. I am not saying that the author is French, necessarily, but the author could be using structures and syntax from his/her native language. Another example of this is “groupe”. In French, which could be the case for another language, we wouldn’t say, “We are a group.” We would have to say a group of something. It just sounds weird to end with group and nothing else. Also, “And hence” in French “et donc” would be correct syntax. It might also be correct syntax in other languages.
The choice of verb tense, “She dies” has been questioned. Again, the present tense would be the tense used in French. To use the future tense would be quite awkward. It is possible that the writer’s first language is not English and is using syntax and tense choices appropriate for their native language.
This ties into another thought about language and culture. Some cultures keep messages brief. Others do not! This could explain why this note was so long.
I happen to spend a lot of time reviewing translations. Sometimes people who have clumsy structures come up with sophisticated vocabulary by using a dictionary and choosing whatever word is suggested, even though the word is not commonly used by native speakers in everyday language. For example, if I didn’t know how to translate “Donc”, I look it up in the dictionary and find “Hence”. I don’t know that most people would likely say, “So”, so I just pick the first word suggested by the dictionary. Same goes for the word “Attache”.
Also, there are culturally awkward phrases in the letter, such as, “Make sure you are well rested.” This might be a common thing to say in another language. In French, for example, we often say, “Bonne chance!” when we say goodbye. “Bonne chance” means “Good luck”. When I say that to native English speakers, they ask me, “Good luck with what?” Culturally, it doesn’t jive in English.
Another major linguistic difference is writing negative phrases. In English there is one word, in French two. The negative structure of the author’s first language might be quite different than that of the English language. This could explain why in a couple spots, it seems like they want to say don’t, but say do.
On the flip side, the writer uses idiomatic expressions, which would be hard for a non-native English speaker, and the dollar signs are in the appropriate spot and the ones do not look European, but there are enough other little oddities in the letter to at least consider the possibility that the writer is not a native English speaker.
I would be more inclined to look at the Mom’s and other girls in the pagent arena. They can be pretty vicious.
Very simple breakdown.
Killers don’t leave ransom notes. Kidnappers don’t leave dead bodies.
Where there’s smoke there’s fire. The end
AMEN
Interesting that its a “letter” and so not just a ransom “note.” The style is accurate for formal letter-writing, indented paragraphs, salutation on the right side. Paragraphs! The writer obsessive-compulsive about neatness and accuracy but of course purposely misspelled two words. Writer has secretarial office skills? The “letter” could have at first been intended for the write to recite from a phone call to the Ramsey’s had they gotten Jonbenet out of the house? It starts off with “listen carefully!” – something you would say to someone and not write?
“If we catch you talking to a stray dog she dies”. And then what does John and Patsy do? Call friends and neighbors to come over right a way. Guess they didn’t take the note seriously. Excellent point, MH! I wonder if they were ever questioned about that behavior. Also does the family explain why the flashlight was on the kitchen table? It was usually kept in a drawer in the kitchen. Were the kids playing with it? Did someone want to go to the basement and not turn on the lights?
Just finished watching the 4hr CBS special. They’ve convinced me, I’m now with the BDI people. At 9 years old he wasn’t going to go to prison. But all the lies, lies, lies so a wealthy prominent couple’s reputation wouldn’t be tarnished by the actions of their 9 year old son. I hope sometime before JR dies he will admit they staged it all to cover up for their son. JR is a business man, he has to realize how much of the tax payers money he and PR wasted with this charade. What a tangled web we weave when we first practice to deceive. Thanks to CBS, well done, I’ve got closure now.
If ever there were a tangled web woven to deceive, surely none could exceed what this note achieves. Despite the advancement in forensic science and, of course, the tangled web of the internet itself, the note has held us ransom for twenty years. We’re intrigued, fascinated, and perplexed by it. And I, like all but one or two of us still alive in this world, don’t know who wrote it. But when we practice to deceive, if the original Scottish poem about this is correct, we ultimately meet an untimely fate. Just ask Lord Marmion, whose own lies and deception eventually did him in.
Have the detectives never considered that Patsy, like some other very competitive other pageant queens, may have been somehow ‘pimping’ favors from JonBenét (without John’s knowledge) to some of the (pederast-spectrum) pageant judges in exchange for awarding high scores in competition to JonBenét? It’s certainly not unknown in the world of child beauty pageants that some parents have done that! It might also explain the unresolved bed-wetting and vaginitis. If so, Patsy would certainly have known who had access and would also have known that if she ever told law enforcement who had access (with her blessing), her world would collapse. The ‘intruder’, then, might simply have left by the front door, leaving a confused and frantic Patsy to spin stories and write the note. By protecting her remaining family and its reputation and life-style, she ended up protecting the murderer. However things happened that night, I agree that Patsy never went to bed that night, she was much too busy.
I have always thought the mom is in some way culpable that the dad is not because he insisted they have separate lawyers. To me he was protecting himself from whatever she may end up being caught in.
John Ramsey had his own attorney so he could ask questions and perhaps divulge information he didn’t want Patsy to hear.
After all is said and done on here, the killer or killers have not been found and never will. It’s a shame how the family reacted in all areas of this case. If my child were murdered at 6 years old. I would have torn this world apart until my dying days. Just like OJ, he was going to find the killer. Never gonna happen!!!!
CBS show Sept 2016 seemed based on a lot of clues from Foreign Faction, including taking for granted (as most investigators seem to) that Patsy wrote the note – and pointing at Burke due to his psych issues, previous violence against sister, etc. as the possible though accidental killer.
However the show was cut short and didn’t address the big question, not how did foreign dna get on brand new panties just removed from the package, but rather, how did matching dna get on the outside of her NOT new long johns. That is highly coincidental unless it was transfer dna from the lab, the cops, the numerous visitors traipsing through the house where her body was laid on the floor.
Because that matching dna was treated as an exonerating clue by the DA, it should have been explained by the forensics experts Dr lee and the other one. Most of them though didn’t find that to be a clue that would rule someone in or out. I found that odd.
If Patsy wrote that note there are really only 3 people to look at as killer and all are in that house. She wouldn’t be protecting a random pedophile. The grand jury returned a true bill against both parents not for murder but for child abuse, neglecting to get the child help after the head injury. That points to Burke as the one who smacked her in the head which is consistent with what the FBI and Scotland Yard and trained forensic experts seemed to agree did happen.
JB came down stairs, Burke had pineapple, she took some, shortly after wards he hit her in the head with the flashlight and that snack was forgotten on the table as the emergency situation took over. HENCE Patsy not wanting to admit giving Burke the pineapple, Burke feigning ignorance of what was in the bowl when shown the picture of it by the interviewer, etc. Something happened around the time that snack was being eaten, with JB dying with the pineapple digested for 2 hrs after a head injury that bled for 90 minutes (internally).
At some point mom finds out JB is injured, when it is too late to call an ambulance and save her daughter – she doesn’t want to lose her son as some kind of child psycho and destroy their family reputation with the important society people that are so important to her, growing up in a West Virginia town of 450 people and John’s all important business contacts – so she and John stage the sex crime, to make it seem impossible that anyone other than a vicious sex criminal did this – and stage the note.
John ropes his friend into “finding” JB with him and then messes up the crime scene as much as possible moving her, taking the rope and tape off so his prints and dna are on it, his sweater fabric etc, lays her on the floor where people have been in and out of the house dropping dna for days, there goes the crime scene and a possible explanation for why foreign dna is on her longjohns.
They hustle Burke off and don’t talk to cops for 4 months, lawyered up.
In Foreign Faction (although cut from the CBS show which was meant to be 6 hrs not 4) he discusses Burke’s psych issues and sexual behavior which may have included molesting his little sister. The threat of law suit may have prompted CBS cutting that section because the experts on CBS segment sure arrived at the conclusion that Burke killed JonBenet – unanimously – doubt they did that based on the golf club incident alone, as that could have been an accident. They had a lot of information that wasn’t shared that made them like Burke for the head injury and I presume some was from family friends and or the therapist that was treating both kids. In a normal household if the daughter was being molested you would think to accuse the father not the fourth grader.
Something must have been going on with Burke for the detectives to arrive at that conclusion that it was him most likely who broke her skull with flashlight. Then dad or both parents freak out, they do not want the information revealed that the child had been a victim of molestation by anyone in that house nor that their 9 year old has fatally injured his sister through temper outburst.
They had to try to cover that over and make it look like an outside job.
In any case Patsy is no more, Burke was too young to be prosecuted and it seems highly unlikely anyone could get a confession now from him or John if this is what happened.
Whoever put that garrote on JonBenet’s neck actually killed her, although they might have thought she was already dead or dying – it’s very hard to imagine a mother coming downstairs to find her unconscious six year old on the floor who rather than calling 911 drums up this horrific crime. But parents kill their children and stage kidnappings far more frequently than kidnap/murders by strangers actually occur.
Their money and contacts helped them seem innocent and avoid the long arm of the law.
Thanks – my accurate thought.
Ransom note was written by person using their un-natural hand, ie a left handed person waiting with their right hand or more probably a right handed person writing with their left hand. Try it, your note will have many similar characteristics to the ransom note.
So sad that people will use over active imaginations to convict people in such ridiculous scenarios. Bad things happen that do not have reasons logical to a normal human mind. There are psychopaths and stalkers out there. A mentally ill person is not going to think or do things in any logical way. I feel really bad for all of the Ramsey’s. This prosecution in the court of public opinion is tragic. I do not believe the Ramsey’s were involved at all. Patsy Ramsey did not die of cancer, she died of a broken heart. I don’t believe the brother will ever be able to live a normal life. In a way, he was also killed. John Ramsey believes this was all his fault so he lives in his own hell everyday. Why is it people refuse to believe this was a horrible thing that happened to a good family and that we simply cannot conceive of why it happened or why? It is simply unknown.
I think you mention some interesting points. I disagree, however, that a mentally ill person cannot think or do things in any logical way. I don’t believe that the Ramseys are “directly” responsible for the murder of JonBenet. The 6 year-old beauty queen is dead because she was placed into a potentially dangerous situation by the people who should have nurtured and protected her – her parents.
It is possible that this is a horrible thing that happened to a good family. It is also possible that they were involved. Innocent until proven guilty!
Don’t ne naive and believe your version is the right one. It “is” simply unknown.
I believe Burke hit Jon Benet on head with flash light not intending to kill her but angry because she did something to irritate him like take a bite of his pineapple that he made for himself. I doubt Patsey made his snack as she was probably busy packing for their trip. Burke probably panicked after hurting her and went upstairs to tell his parents that she did something and they sent him to his room and he fell asleep. They didn’t come upon her body until later to find her already clearly dead. By then Burke was asleep. The parents (knowing Burke didn’t realize what he did resulted in her death ) decided to protect him from a lifetime of knowing that he killed his sister. They decided to stage it as an attempted kidnapping that lead to murder because they knew it would need to be outrageous to alleviate his fears that he may have killed her when he lost his temper and hit her. Patsy wanted to protect her only living child. The ransom note, garrote,marks from train track were all to stage the scene by the parents. Patsy wrote the note but she and John both together decided what to write. Im not sure when mag light flashlights were first introduced to the market but I think they are more deadly as a weapon than a child realizes.I believe the duct tape and other things were disposed of in the middle of the night at a gas station or something by Jon. Burke woke up the next morning when they decided it was time to call 911. Patsy almost said I need an ambulance on 911 call at first and then caught herself. She was clearly still distraught on 911 call though as she was still a grieving mom.
I couldn’t read all the comments to see if anyone else caught two salient details of the ransom note.
The left margin of the note has a completely straight margin. Moreover, the paragraphs were indented.
I have an undergraduate degree in criminal justice and a masters degree. I am well-aquatinted with criminals. I know this note was written by someone with an education.
Why would ANY killer of this little girl take the time to write anything? There wasn’t any need to; she was dead. Furthermore, why would this child killer construct the note to deflect attention away from the parents?
This note was written by an educated adult, in a state of panic, AFTER JonBenet was dead. If the note been written prior to her death it would have been placed on her bed, at the time the killer removed her from it, not on the bottom of the staircase.
It’s just a horrible case and none of us will probably ever know the truth now.
This particular thread on the Ramsey case is more interesting than usual because it has attracted a balance of posts from believers in each of the different theories. The Ramsey case represents one of the earliest examples of large-scale internet collaboration, which is a research area of mine. Consequently, I have studied it extensively over the years, and read almost all of the books about it. When I have looked at the online threads I have mostly been taking a researcher’s view, watching for evidence of collaborative behavior, such as spontaneous curation of the case data, sharing of methods to analyze and judge the various pieces of evidence, negotiation of group norms for respectful communication, etc. However, I notice it seems unusually easy to get swept up in the debate.
As I recall, the people of Bolder have also noticed this, wondering why the case still generates so much unwelcome media attention for their city, even after all these years. It has been variously proposed that the sexual aspects of the child beauty pageant clips, or the symbolism of Colorado’s Little Miss Christmas being murdered on Christmas Day, might be driving the continued interest. While these are undoubtedly factors, it is clearly the differing interpretations of the evidence that drives every conversation about the case that I have ever read. The reason for this appears to involve basic differences in our approaches to defining reality that seem to parallel the sort of differences driving the global warming debate. Given this comparison, perhaps it isn’t surprising that the Republican-leaning police department ended up on a different side of the debate than the Democratic-leaning DA’s office.
In reading through the threads, I see that the various Ramsey theorists believe the Intruder Theory was debunked long ago, while the Intruder theorists believe the Ramsey Theories were debunked long ago. Personally, I think all the theories are still in play, though I have to admit I lean strongly toward the Intruder Theory after studying all of the publicly-available evidence.
So disturbing to think that JB family members were considered as primary suspects in her death. I have read over the details of the murder case, studied the horrific pictures and it was reported that the DNA was a composition of 2 males or more. The picture of JB bedroom showed a disturbed bed skirt at one corner, could a perpetrator hide under the bed waiting to kidnap the girl? Could there have been 2 ‘strangers’ and one of them came out from under the bed and forced Patsy to write the note while the other stunned the child and hid in the basement in wait for John to deliver the ransom money to his partner, but later ended torturing and killing the child in retaliation when Patsy called 911. Could then the perpetrators have escaped leaving the kidnapping scene and letter of death threats?
Since so much of this note consists of statements from movies, I wonder if there were any movies that had a garrote as a murder weapon. It’s the garrote that bugs me the most. Where did that idea come from, as most of this note is mimicry.
Why would someone take the time to write such a long, drawn out ransom note? If they were holding their daughter for ransom, why not just make a phone call?
Why would anyone holding someone’s daughter for ransom write a ransom letter in the 1st place? Why not get to the point and make a telephone call?
It looks to me that the criminal was a petty con, who could break and enter etc, but tried to go up a notch to bigger payoff and botched it. Also i got the distinct impression that person watched a lot of popular movies, spy, murder… the words come out of Tv series and movies… Also the use of John familiarity….it shows a jealous person of lower status speaking in a familiar way to a person considered above him in status… A put down….Dont try to be a brain…You arent the only FAT CAT,,,, a lower class payback…obviously someone who coveted the wealth…. I think this may have been botched crime. The perp was very familiar with cruel methods, duct tape, shock , sex and a garrot.. and possibly the same suspect who killed animals for fun..I dont think these ideas would be first come to mind for upper class parents trying to cover a murder. I think this person entered the house at will more than once…and knew there was time to write a note…. The writing is wobbly,,, like some substance abuse was going on….also seems very unstable with left and right leaning slants….the “throw them off the trail” use of a foreign faction is a decoy… This person probably did a lot of surveillance on this family and some of the familiarity is due to the sense of superiority and familiarity with his prey….the letter is toying with all kinds of emotion , but is in effect a bluff, because i dont think for all the bravado, the con could pull this off…. Also… there is an emotional manipulative aspect,(perhaps perceived as the “feminine aspect,” but i dont get the impression its a woman) in the use of a lot of language, multiple threats and the first name. It is not the direct way of speaking, one would expect of a more confident and experienced criminal at this level…. the word die used so often shows a morbid interest in killing perhaps overcomes the discipline needed in pulling off a ransom…
I don’t know, “Listen Carefully” is something you say- not something you write. I believe when transferred to print the command would be “Pay attention”- always seemed to me like the note was dictated- indicating that there were two participants,not one.
My two cents. I think it is someone who was able to move through the house, became familiar with it, new when they could be nosy and go through things and not get caught. I think the note was wrote outside of the house when they had plenty of time to write and they wrote as if they were another person/character way off the map so they wouldn’t be discovered. They carried the notebook back in the night he/she killed JonBenet. The garrote from broken paint brush was probably even planned before hand. They were familiar with everything in house. Staged because it was well thought thought out. This person hated John or Patsy or both and was very jealous of John/Patsy/Jonbenet. Someone close. (I had someone sneaking in my house while I wasn’t there (exwife), writing notes quite similar and was very familiar with house, planned and planted objects in house)
That is really too bad
several things look odd in the letter. First, there is no consistent manner of writing nor does this person appear to be of any significant age, The writer seems to be immature. And not yet skilled in extortion matters. I believe the writer was the one who made the garrote and had probably used the the same method on small innocent even animals such as birds, rats or ducks and/or small children .I believe he found that John was to get a sizable amount of money and he found out by looking in his financial records, computer, bankstubs or checkbook. It appears he knew the Ramsey’s and may have been tailing them for quite sometime. The writer
knew John was a Southern Man. This writer as a big ego considering he speaks of killing JonBenet even if the Ramsey’s look at a “Stray Dog” Does the writer have reason to not like animals, possibly if he is a serial killer. I also believe the killer’s intent was to keep Jonbenet alive for the money but the asphyxiation turned into a perverted way of reaching a climax and killing the little girl in the process. The writer of the letter just wanted to buy time.
Brenda you say why didn’t they stage an entry but they did with the broken window.You suggest they would have climb in and out the window to stage but Climbing in and out of the window would be detrimental as cops would have discovered clues they did this. John Ramsey is a good manipulator. John Ramsey says “perhaps” he broke the window months earlier, This is very clever. Firstly who doesn’t remember if they broke a window? That itself is fishy. I read an article recently where there is strong evidence to suggest John broke that window that night to stage an entry for the crime, the shards of glass appear fresh. Also when you break agalss you clear away all dangerous pieces but we are meant to believe John left the window with this killer shard of glass left in place. By John saying perhaps he broke it earlier makes him appear honest but what he is actually doing is covering his back. Police are very good at figuring out whether a broken window is a staged point of entry but because he claims to have broken it earlier he knew this would make it impossible for police to figure out. As for the note. To me it is very obviously Patsy’s handwriting but why would the Ramseys, write their own note, use their own tools and leave the body in the basement.. It’s called a double bluff. The very reason why we would think it’s illogical for the Ramsey’s to use their own tools, write their own note, leave the body in basement. makes it the perfect crime..ie the police wouldn’t think they are stupid enough to use our own tools, leave the body etc.. . They would have had plenty of time to dispose of the duck tape and cords. The paintbrush, note pad etc were everyday items, hence why those items could stay. By the same logic why would an intruder turn up unprepared?. He supposedly was in the house for hours, had plenty of time writing and practising notes but didn’t even bother checking to see if the suitcase would fit through the window
I have to do this for a project and i was wondering maybe the father wrote this down and the sun wrote it,
Patsy wrote the ransom note with her left hand. The slant was different and more jerky but all of the capital letters were formed the same between the ransom note and Patsy’s normal handwriting. The ransom note was a Patsy master piece. Though the police always suspected Patsy it kept the police at bay for months trying to figure the ransom note out.
one of the hugest aspects I question is the “writers” use of the words ‘delivery’ but scratched that out and replaced it with the word ‘pickup’ when describing how they could get Jon Benet back after paying the random. to me this indicates the writer felt they would be back at the house, or at least felt connected enough to the family to associate the notion that they could meet up. secondly, this word could also mean that as they were writing this note they already knew she couldn’t be brought back because she never left. the evolution of writing style from start to finish is indicative of someone feeling better about the resolute ending of what the are writing about compared to how they felt when they first started thinking about and writing about it.
could it be an extreme form of Munchhausen Syndrome by Patsy, covered by her husband. By the child growing older Patsy noticed JonBenet isn’t her very own anymore and looses control and stopped by murder the separation from her, maybe becoming more Daddys girl. John believed the good intentions like many do and couldn’t believe it’s Munchhausen syndrome
To rip out sheets out of the middle must have left strong fingerprints of the writer. John didn’t know that so he handed it over. Patsy must have written it in advance.
Yes handwriting disguised.. up until gets to ‘signing off’ ..what will he sign off with he wonders, hesitates drops his guard & reverts to his true handwriting with “Victory” –
Did anyone check Burke’s handwriting from the time? He mentions as an adult his mom made him rewrite things a lot bc of writing. It’s sloppy and things spelled wrong. He is 9 so smart enough.
Just a few points regarding the ransom note…
1. The writer/s, if truly criminals/intruders, would have no need to use pages from the middle of the notepad as they would have no need to conceal what notebook was used to compose the note.
2. The writer would have had no need to address Patsy at all in the “practice note” (Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey) if it were actually directions to John as to how he can provide the ransom (as the final version implies.) Nor would they have any reason to dispose of and/or take the practice pages with them. Further, the practice pages make no sense being there at all in a planned kidnapping.
3. As someone else mentioned earlier, the use of the word “bring” has a subtle connotation of being in the presence of the person being addressed (in this case, John)
4. The use of the word “tomorrow” strongly implies that the note was composed the morning of the 26th. This almost certainly rules out a composition prior to any intruder arriving at the house or having taken the notepad on a prior occasion. It can not possibly refer to the 26th as “tomorrow” as there would be no time for John to obtain the ransom money and be back by 8am. There would also be no reason to believe the John or Patsy would have found the note before 8am. A composition date of the 26th strongly points away from a planned out kidnapping. As mentioned above there would be no reason for the practice pages to be in that notebook prior to the 26th.
5. Placement of the note on the spiral staircase implies knowledge of the routes taken through the house by family members. It simply makes no sense to expect the note to be found there immediately.
6. The “two gentlemen” phrase appears to be an attempt to portray the killing as a result of the Ramsey’s calling 911 that morning, with the “two gentlemen” “monitoring” the Ramsey’s…from the basement. Again…this makes no sense and implies that JonBenet’s death was already known by the writer.
7. Going from the formal addressing “Mr. Ramsey” to “John” indicates a relationship with him and as someone else pointed out, is very indicative of a female writer.
Ramsey ransom note of little forensic value. In the civil suit, Wolf v. Ramsey, there were several experts that concluded Mrs. Ramsey was the ransom note writer and several experts that concluded Mrs. Ramsey was not the ransom note writer.
I know one thing for an absolute certainty. And that is that if I awoke to a note like that, I would search the whole house FIRST before I did anything else. And I mean THE WHOLE HOUSE, not just the upper floors. My God, I would be putting the dry wall through a wood chipper to find this child. But not the Ramsey’s!!! They want us to believe it is normal behavior to search only part of the house. So, they believe the note enough to go an look in her bedroom, but I guess they DON’T believe the note enough to look at the rest of the house? Consult your own instinct for one second, and you will know I’m right. There’s not a person alive–except the guilty–who would not have searched THE ENTIRE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know another thing for certain: if my daughter were considered missing or was found murdered, my first instinct would be to help the police all I could. I would practically SLEEP at the police station!!!!! It would never even occur to me to hire an attorney!!!! Why would I do that? Why would I not be cooperating with the police to my fullest potential??? My first choice would be to consult police as often as I could and to oblige them in any way they saw fit. My second choice? I would sooner have my second choice to be a consultation with my pet poodle before I would ever consult a lawyer!!! How on earth can a lawyer help find the murderer of your child. Why did they avoid the cops? Because they had something to do with that young girl’s death. Any other answer is an insult to human intelligence.
I agree. I would have ignored the note and went straight to basement (Unlock ) the wine cellar door .
Well put! It’s hard to imagine that anyone in that situation wouldn’t frantically search the entire house. John Ramsey has admitted going to the basement to see if there was a way for an intruder to gain entry, while Linda Arndt was upstairs. If that was the first time that he had went down there that day then why didn’t he search the entire basement. He states the room she was found in didn’t have a window. It’s just not believable. They are innocent until proven guilty but something stinks for sure.
You would think so. But you should never underestimate how stupid some people are.
And if the Ramseys ought to have searched the entire house, the same thing applies – in spades! – to the police, who apparently accepted the ludicrous ransom note at face value ad didn’t even have the wits to look in the basement.
A practice note was prepared from the same notepad that the final ransom note was written on. A little piece of that practice note was found. To me, the handwriting of the piece of that practice note is a woman, and it is not the same person who wrote the final note. A man cannot generally write that smoothly. The actual ransom note, however looks like a man’s handwriting to me. But as commentators above say, what it says has a lot of feminine/mother kind of angles and obvious attempts at confusing people. So my theory – Patsy killed the girl by mistake, and then wrote the practice note, and then left the house and got some young guy (who has not been found) to copy it. She came back to the house, and left it for others to find. She had the unknown guy go down and stage the murder, or help her stage the scene. What do ya’ll think of that? Any holes in that scenario?
Further to the above, a lot of wealthy housewives like that have lots of cash that nobody, including their husbands, know about. She told the guy (she could have called him over to the house) “Here is $50k in cash. Get lost. You are an accessory now, so don’t be stupid and open your mouth. Just leave this place.” I suspect it was somebody Patsy knew quite well, because the daughter’s death was an accident, and she had to turn to this guy for help in an unplanned moment of need. What do ya’ll think of that? Any holes in that scenario?
Is this note not printing as opposed to handwriting ?
I thought in handwriting the letter are connected – – – where the pen does not leave the paper
Perhaps that is what they call “cursive”
Great Article
Here is my take. I believe that the use of the word “attache” in the ransom note is important. The first thing that I asked when I saw this is whether John carried an attache case? An attache case is something that a business executive carries, which John was. The writer told him to bring an “adequate size” attache case, indicating this is a big deal. I believe that the killer knew John Ramsey and had knowledge of his bonus. I also think that the killer and John Ramsey got into a significant disagreement. Before the disagreement he was Mr. Ramsey. After the disagreement he was “John,” meaning the killer was now dealing with John Ramsey on his terms. He saw John exhibit “southern charm” that he picked up from Patsy, so this indicates that he knew John from a more informal setting. Ramsey is an experienced Commercial pilot and may have used an attache case carrying his flight charts at the FBO at the airport. I also believe that the killer was one of the 1,000+ reported guests that Patsy allowed into the home to view her massive Christmas decorations, and he could have easily hidden in the basement. I think that the killing was something that went south. Maybe JonBenet got up in the middle of the night, walked down stairs and found the guy in the kitchen eating. The killing was exceedingly violent, which I believe was directed at John Ramsey. If John Ramsey carried an attache case then check his business personnel and the FBO for a suspect.
As Detective Smit stated: An Intruder entered the basement. All evidence proves this happened. He probably hid under Jon Benet’s bed and then used the stun gun on her first as the marks on her neck prove. He then carried her down the stairs where the garland got caught in her hair that was found later. David Oliva a pedophile, was apprehended not long after the murder with a picture of Jon Benet in his back pack and with a stun gun. He is in jail now for other pedophile offenses and told his high school friend Michael, who later reported what he said right after the murder that he hurt a little girl. He used a cord also to attempt to strangle his mother earlier much like he did use on Jon Benet. She had foreign DNA under her fingernails. Patsy wrote the ransom note AFTER Jon Benet’s body was found by both parents for the express reason to not cast suspicion onto them. And no real kidnapper writes a ransom note for an already dead child as that loses leverage. Patsy is one of the only ones who knew about the $118,000 Christmas Bonus. The experts have not ruled out her handwriting. Any mother would search their own house along with any police upon a missing child report. This was not done before or right after the 911 call even by the police and the Ramsey’s refused the polygraphs. Patsy also knew about her husband’s affiliation with the Subic Base Training Center that he belonged to or S.B.T.C. John probably directed her to write this letter addressed only to him, and not to the both of them, or agreed for her to do this and then call 911. The Boulder Police were extremely negligent.
I just don’t think handwriting analysis and wild speculation about this case by uninformed internet troll detectives carries much weight. Also the fact that Jonbenet was sexually assaulted and garrotted, suggests that this wasn’t the Ramseys covering for something Burke did, or for something Patsy did in a supposed fit of rage. The lack of blood from the massive head wound suggests that Jonbenet was almost or already dead when her skull was fractured. The sexual abuse suggests a pedophile, someone who knew of Jonbenet and her family from the child pageant circuit, the ransom note being a diversion. Plenty of examples of child predators hiding out in the family home waiting to strike, Richard Allen Davis is one such predator.
New testing of the three pages using the 256 levels of gray of a pdf file will show the letter construction.
Advance crime and lab lights will be used.
Color filters (NM) and projection will allow us to view the water base ink overlaps of each letter and world.
In the lab.
Team JBI
New testing of the three pages using the 256 levels of gray of a pdf file will show the letter construction.
Advance crime and lab lights will be used.
Color filters (NM) and projection will allow us to view the water base ink overlaps of each letter and world.
In the cold case lab.
Team JBI
The amount of time spent trying to fit the parents into the guilty roll, is exactly why this crime was never solved. Just stop already, if there was any possibility they could maybe for a second be involved, the they would have been indited. Lord have mercy.
Because of how I write, when I am freewriting, and how fast off the mark i can go, with barely any writing… training, this letter appears to be written in haste. I, as a women, can see myself getting exhaustingly lengthy for no apparent reason, even while under duress (sometimes the stress of a situation would be the cause of the going on and on).
I am under the belief the note was written either while waiting for the family to arrive home, to be asleep, or while the partner was getting the child from the room. The note being found on the floor in the stairs, to me signifies that something has already gone array,I’m thinking they thought the taser would be enough to keep her quiet, but it wasn’t. And in fear of being heard poor Jonbenet was strangled. While she fought back and clawed at her own neck, the blow to her head came. Her fighting back was not something they actually thought about during the planning process, so when it occured, it was upsetting and too much force was used. The note was forgotten when they were dealing with the unforeseen “problem”. After, it was just a big shuffle to get out, hence the scuff mark on the wall. It’s almost as if George and Lenny were involved the way everything went down. But I personally think two men and possibly a women were involved. Unamerican, either witnessed the 118,000 at the party marking a billion$ made, or read it in the paper, but definitely have had run-ins with Mr. Ramsey himself.
It was the parents. Nothing else makes the slightest sense, nothing else can be backed by evidence. There is no such thing as a “small foreign faction”. A foreign group does not identify itself as such. A kidnapper or intruder does not need to identify themselves at all. The fake ransom letter was written by an educated woman. She had the right to be where she was, as if she was someone from inside the house. She could take all the time she needed to come up with what should have been regarded as an absurd cover-up attempt.
DNA is not inconclusive, I used to work as a DNA analyst. The results are solid but they can only be trusted when the sample is reliable, else it is just trash in – trash out. What could really be useful (by 2018) is some modern AI / natural language processing software that would use past handwritten samples to link the letter to an individual with infallible mathematical precision. The closest to this that I have come across was here:
http://www.elastictruth.com/2017/04/new-analysis-of-ramsey-ransom-note.html
Which, of course, points to Patsy Ramsey.
9/11 statement analysis:
http://statement-analysis.blogspot.com/2019/01/jonbenet-ramsey-911-call.html
all yall wrong idc.
In a blog posting, an expert is scientific reasoning examines the ransom note from The JonBenet Ramsey Case.
In a blog posting, an expert in scientific reasoning examines the ransom note from The JonBenet Ramsey Case. The blog posting makes an inference for who was the author of the final ransom note.
The way to solve a crime? Follow the money. In this case, the symbol for money. The current dollar sign “$” evolved from an “S” with 2 lines through it. That symbol evolved from a “U” superimposed over an “S”. Most humans have not been alive since we adopted the current $ symbol. The clarity and proficiency of the written “S” with two lines through it is not easy to write. Try it… that”s why they changed it. Whoever wrote this message is well practiced at writing an anachronistic symbol for US currency that was changed do to the difficulty of handwriting it. I would agree with an earlier contributor regarding the possibly accidental indication of a pound sign £. My opinion is the person who wrote this note is not a US citizen, but has spent time in England or an English commonwealth country. A foreign person is more likely, through reading older American literature to make mistakes regarding current American symbology. Easy Peasy, Nice and Easy.
This is clearly a case of an attempted and failed kidnaping. The kidnapper was obviously over-powered by Jonbenet after writing the essay/note before she/he could remove her from the property…and they had kill her just before escaping through the open basement room window.
NOT!: This was Patsy Ramsey, most likely, covering up an accident that happened in the house that Xmas night. I believe John was innocent did not have anything to do with this whatsoever. Due to poor and under staffed initial police work (not securing the scene….I would have removed everyone from the house that night taped off the property – called it a crime scene right away (since this was a “supposed” kidnapping with a physical note present in the house). No family members would have been allowed inside period only authorities.
The supposed ransom note was too long, had too many personal details/affects that only Patsy would know…(ie bonus amount 118K which was the ransom) “Make sure that you bring an adequate size attaché to the bank. When you get home you will put the money in a brown paper bag.” The statement “When you get home” is my giveaway…..these 2 sentences sound like a wife giving instructions to her husband.
What was the motive of a suspected kidnapper here? Why would they leave a ransom note and the subject’s dead body in the same house. They wouldn’t get their Cash! Nothing to ransom….doesn’t make sense for an intruder. Period
Hello! LOVE your show. I have been working backwards through the episodes and am currently listening to the episodes on Jonbenet Ramsey.
In the episode “We Have Your Daughter”, you discuss many possibilities surrounding the author of the ransom letter. One idea that was not discussed is that the author was not a native speaker of English. Surrounding the question surrounding, “Watch over” as opposed to “Watch”, for example, in French, watching someone is “Veiller sur…” Word for word it means “Watch on”. It would be impossible to just say “Watch” in French. It would have to be followed by a preposition. I am not saying that the author is French, necessarily, but the author could be using structures and syntax from his/her native language. Another example of this is “groupe”. In French, which could be the case for another language, we wouldn’t say, “We are a group.” We would have to say a group of something. It just sounds weird to end with group and nothing else. Also, “And hence” in French “et donc” would be correct syntax. It might also be correct syntax in other languages.
The choice of verb tense, “She dies” has been questioned. Again, the present tense would be the tense used in French. To use the future tense would be quite awkward. It is possible that the writer’s first language is not English and is using syntax and tense choices appropriate for their native language.
This ties into another thought about language and culture. Some cultures keep messages brief. Others do not! This could explain why this note was so long.
I happen to spend a lot of time reviewing translations. Sometimes people who have clumsy structures come up with sophisticated vocabulary by using a dictionary and choosing whatever word is suggested, even though the word is not commonly used by native speakers in everyday language. For example, if I didn’t know how to translate “Donc”, I look it up in the dictionary and find “Hence”. I don’t know that most people would likely say, “So”, so I just pick the first word suggested by the dictionary. Same goes for the word “Attache”.
Also, there are culturally awkward phrases in the letter, such as, “Make sure you are well rested.” This might be a common thing to say in another language. In French, for example, we often say, “Bonne chance!” when we say goodbye. “Bonne chance” means “Good luck”. When I say that to native English speakers, they ask me, “Good luck with what?” Culturally, it doesn’t jive in English.
Another major linguistic difference is writing negative phrases. In English there is one word, in French two. The negative structure of the author’s first language might be quite different than that of the English language. This could explain why in a couple spots, it seems like they want to say don’t, but say do.
On the flip side, the writer uses idiomatic expressions, which would be hard for a non-native English speaker, and the dollar signs are in the appropriate spot and the ones do not look European, but there are enough other little oddities in the letter to at least consider the possibility that the writer is not a native English speaker.
I always thought Patsy Ramsey wrote that note. Why would kidnappers go into their home and use her stationery to write a ransom note? Doesn’t make any sense. And I think John Ramsey knew and covered for her.
Another thing that struck me as odd, when they interviewed the Ramseys, Patsy didn’t look very upset. More like a robot on autopilot.
I appreciate the thoughtful analysis of the ransom note, and actually noticed all the points you made before I read the article and studied the writing style, myself.
As for the comments to this article, wow. How can any of you have the nerve to accuse these poor parents of harming or engaging in a cover up against their daughter? Firstly, they’ve shown no signs of mental illness, emotional disturbance or pathologies, or domestic violence. Neither parents are convicted criminals or associate with anyone with a criminal past, and to think anyone who is that dedicated, both in time, energy, focus, resources, money, and otherwise, would then turn around and HARM that child, makes absolutely zero logical or rational sense whatsoever. People who don’t value their children DO NOT invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in them (if you think beauty pageants can’t wrack into the six digits, you’re wrong), constantly engage in extracurricular activities with them and make a consistent effort to supplement their life with cultural enrichment and experience.
Let me put this into perspective for you: when cps investigates child abuse, there are specific things they look for, which I’ll list below.
1. Does the child show signs of physical neglect (famished, bruised, discolored, poor hygiene, etc)? In JBR’s case, no, no, no, and no.
2. Is the child’s environment clean and safe? Her home was a clean, safe environment, AND they had a security system.
3. Does the child seem happy? I have literally never seen a picture of JBR where she didn’t look like the happiest child in the world.
4. Do they have age-appropriate clothes that fit and are appropriate for the season/weather? Yes, yes, and yes. Always.
5. Does the child avoid eye contact or show uneasiness around their parents? Definitely not, and no.
6. Is the kitchen stocked with food and water? Yes.
7. Does the child have their own bedroom, with their own bed? Yes and yes.
8. Does the child’s home have running hot water, heating/cooling, and electricity? Yes, yes, yes and yes.
Those are just a few examples of what cps looks for, but you should get the point by now that there is no evidence whatsoever of abuse against JBR, let alone this outlandish, wildly irrational and offensive suggestion that her parents are somehow linked to her murder.
As for the crime scene, yes, you can slip through those little windows… Especially if you’re a poverty-stricken, famished drug addict with adrenaline and drugs in your system, which in most cases, is what hitman-for-hires are—a poor, drug-addicted criminal who will do anything for enough money. It’s not rocket science.
Someone mentioned the ground wasn’t disturbed outside of the basement window… Uhhh, yes, it was. There were scrape marks on the ground that disturbed bits of rock and dirt. The skid mark on the wall indicated movement through the window, and the metal suitcase below the window indicated that someone used it to get back up. As for it being dark… Did you not see the large commercial flashlight sitting on the basement table that the Ramsey’s CLEARLY said didn’t belong to them??? And the theory of them going to a “gentlemen’s club” (first of all, please don’t use that outdated and inaccurate term. No gentlemen goes to a strip club), are you for real? You honestly think the Ramsey’s left their son alone at home, drove to a strip club, SOMEHOW didn’t get noticed, scanned the club for semen, took a sample, again, without being noticed, went home, and put it on their daughters underwear? Jesus Christ, if that isn’t grasping for straws, I don’t know what is.
As for the son, no shit his statement didn’t make sense… HE WAS A CHILD. Not only was he an underdeveloped, prepubescent, minor child with an underdeveloped frontal lobe (which controls rational thinking, response, and personality), but he was in shock! Wtf do you expect him to do???? Give some thought-provoking statement of the fragility of human life? Please. Give him a break.
This disgusting habit of automatically suspecting the parents every time a child dies, needs to stop. Innocent UNTIL proven guilty, and absence of evidence IS NOT proof of guilt.
Oh, and to the person who made the idiotic comment that “if the parents weren’t guilty then this would be solved by now” and “why are we still talking about this”… Wow. You are a piece of work, and with such brains. The next time I lose something, I’ll just remind myself that if it ever existed, I would’ve found it by then, or the next time one of my loved ones passes away with no obvious cause, I’ll just know that they were probably just a figment of my imagination… Because if they were real, then I would know their cause of death by now. Thank God you are not a forensic investigator.
By the way, I’d like to remind everyone, for what it’s worth, that there is this thing criminals do called “causing confusion” when trying to cover up a crime, and every time you say moronic shit like “it must be a southern bell because of (fill in the blank)” or “only effiminate men use the word ____” or “they must be left-handed because of the slant in their writing,” all you’re doing is proving that their method is effective.
I have to go ahead and stop myself now, because the level of ignorance and stupidity in this comment thread is too much for my fingers to handle on this little phone I’m typing on. If I had to point out every logical fallacy here, not only would it take me hours, but I probably would’ve already developed arthritis in my hands.
“ob·fus·ca·tion
/ˌäbfəˈskāSH(ə)n/
Learn to pronounce
noun
the action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.”
It’s amazing what you can discover if you actually make an effort to use that nutty looking organ in your skull…
Really interesting post!