JonBenet Recent Online Q&A

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Thu Apr 09, 2015 1:47 am

This link came in my email from Irena...it's fascinating and balanced discussion with former Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner about another infamous unsolved and likely never-to-be-solved murder:

http://extras.denverpost.com/jonbenetAMA.html

Curryong · Post by **Curryong** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 3:42 pm

Whoah, Debbie it is very interesting, and a little back-pedalling I notice there, in the latter part after the initial interview.

It's a great shame that this case wasn't investigated properly at the beginning, as the former Police Chief admits. Interesting too, that, without saying so directly, he places little emphasis on the intruder theory, and seemingly still holds grave suspicions of the parents, especially John Ramsay, with Patsy as accessory after the fact and enabler.

I have to say that perhaps a bit too much emphasis was placed by the police on the Ramsays' reactions in the days following this terrible murder. Not everyone, as we know, collapses into each other's arms, displaying hysterical grief.
Hopefully the transcripts of the Grand Jury deliberations will be released one day.

Irina and I still cross, like ships in the night, on the Jack the Ripper Forum. She is deep in research I think, but gee I wish she would come back here!

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Sun Apr 12, 2015 10:51 pm

Interesting find there, Debbie.

Here are a few follow-up links that I found interesting:

JonBenet Ramsey case: Former Boulder police chief Mark Beckner says police botched initial handling.
Here are some of Beckner's comments that were posted on the Reddit website before they were deleted.
http://tinyurl.com/lozlb4j

Ex-police chief reveals new details on JonBenet Ramsey murder
http://tinyurl.com/qjajbur

A Look Inside the Mistakes in JonBenet Ramsey Investigation Noted by Former Police Chief
http://tinyurl.com/ofbyhnr

Ex-police chief inadvertently reveals misgivings about JonBenet Ramsey investigation
http://tinyurl.com/mtkdg55

Police chief speaks out on JonBenet Ramsey case, regrets it
Former Boulder, Colorado police Chief Mark Beckner participated in an "Ask Me Anything" session on the social-networking/news site Reddit where he spoke about the JonBenet Ramsey case, but now the former law enforcement head says he regrets it and that he didn't realize his comments would filter out to the rest of the world.
http://tinyurl.com/mcq3u4d

MysteryReader · Post by **MysteryReader** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 3:39 pm

I saw an article on one of those newspapers by the register (I didn't want to buy it so I don't know what it said) but I turned to my husband and said, I don't believe the parents had anything to do with it. I don't think they'd kill off their cash cow. Then I apologized for saying it that way. He said, no, it's right. Sad to say that a lot of parents who depend on their children's money can be called the cash cows.

I do agree with all of the mistakes made and it's a sad thing that it probably won't be solved unless there is a copy-cat. Most copy-cats I've read about, will eventually say who they are copying- a need for importance.

Curryong · Post by **Curryong** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 5:04 pm

In the old days in Britain if a case (usually murder) was too much for the local police to cope with the Chief Constable of the County used to call in Scotland Yard. It's a great pity the Boulder police didn't call in the FBI right from the beginning on this one instead of blundering about as they did, not searching properly, not making the Ramsay family move out directly, etc.

I don't know whether John and/or Patsy Ramsay were involved in their daughter's murder or not. There are a great many contradictory signs and pointers.

I have to say though, that if the ex Police Chief thought that his talking about the case on social media wouldn't be seized on by other media, like newspapers, he displayed a naivety that doesn't bode very well for any serious cases that happened under HIS watch! The Jonbonet Ramsay murder was the biggest thing Boulder's ever seen, in modern times anyway, I'd bet.

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 5:14 pm

I think the parents either did it or were complicit...much the same way I view Lizzie. JonBenet has so much in common with Lizzie in that three other people were present in the home when she was murdered. There's extremely minimal evidence to support an intruder was there, and everything points to a member of the family except there's probably not enough evidence to convict anyone. I do not think JonBenet was the family's cash cow; John Ramsey's company made over a billion dollars the year she was killed. The expenditures on pageantry never came close to breaking even with what was earned. Patsy wanted her daughter to become Miss America, the title both she and her younger sister (both were Miss West Virginia) failed to win. Initially the FBI was called in until the kidnapping became a murder; then they bowed out while telling the Boulder Police to look at the parents. What help the Boulder Police did have was ignored, plus the Ramseys hired profiler John Douglas who did a slipshod job in exonerating them. For a fact, the Boulder Police made many more blunders than the Fall River Police. 104 years later the crime scene is equally contaminated by people tromping through, moving the body, failing to carefully search, leaving fingerprints everywhere and then immediately cleaning up after the CSI techs....

MysteryReader · Post by **MysteryReader** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 5:53 pm

But what was the motive? I don't know anything about the company or it's name that John Ramsey worked at/for/owned.

I can't remember the age of the brother but you never know- jealousy? hate? I don't think it was an intruder.

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 11:58 am

I had always assumed that someone from the household was the killer, because as originally reported it seemed that whoever killed the child wanted her to know she was being killed. That is, that someone actively hated the little girl.

The new-to-me-anyway-fact that she was unconscious and dying for an hour or so before she was garotted seems to pull the hate for Jon Benet out of the equation; but it still required someone who was familiar with the house and knew John Ramsey's bonus.

I suppose the ex-housekeeper/nanny is the first place to look if one gives up the idea that the Ramseys did it... but the case is so weird that I can't help but wonder if it might be a "Crawl Space" type of story-- if someone might have been living in their house without them knowing about it...

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 1:26 pm

I noticed that Beckner didn't answer to this question: °Also how might the "kidnapper" have known how much john ramseys bonus was."

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 1:33 pm

Franz wrote:I noticed that Beckner didn't answer to this question: °Also how might the "kidnapper" have known how much john ramseys bonus was."

Sorry. He actually answered the question in another occasion: "Whoever it was had to have intimate knowledge of the family."

I don't very much agree. One might have known the sum of the bonus of John Ramsey without having necessarily intimate knowledge of the family. For example, some collegues of John.

Motive? Because of his / her jealousy towards Mr. Ramsey: to kill your so beautiful daughter to make you suffer, in addition, to make you suspected by the police by figuring your bonus sum in the ramson note.

MysteryReader · Post by **MysteryReader** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 3:01 pm

Can someone please (nicely) tell me what or where John Ramsey worked? I know that Mrs. Ramsey died not that long ago due to cancer. It's intriguing but it upsets me greatly to study these types of cases so I'm not sure I'm going to look into it again.

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 6:49 pm

John Ramsey created the company Access Graphics and was President and CEO when he sold it to Lockheed. Lockheed kept him on in these positions. Interesting that handwriting analysts could not rule out Patsy Ramsey as the writer on the ransom note. 24 of 26 letters of the alphabet matched hers. Later on, several forensic linguists used the note for textual analysis against Patsy's unrehearsed writing, including the guy who identified Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors and Ted Kaczynski as the Unabomber. The forensic linguists agreed unanimously that Patsy wrote the ransom note. There is no readily identifiable motive, not even for someone outside the family. Kidnappers don't ask for $118,000 when the father has millions...and they don't leave behind the body of their victim.

MysteryReader · Post by **MysteryReader** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 7:50 pm

Thanks for the information, Debbie!

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 11:56 am

Has the intruder possibility been excluded with absolute certainty?

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 7:57 pm

MysteryReader wrote:... I can't remember the age of the brother but you never know- jealousy? hate? I don't think it was an intruder.

Bruke was 9 years old at the time of his sister’s murder.

I found the following web sites in which the authors believe Bruke is the killer.

http://tinyurl.com/m86gyk5

http://tinyurl.com/n534uzr

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 8:53 pm

Franz wrote:Has the intruder possibility been excluded with absolute certainty?

I don’t believe it has, Franz. The JonBenet Ramsey murder case is just as intriguing and mysterious as the Andrew and Abby Borden murder case is.

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 8:55 pm

Here is an interview with Linda Arndt, who was the first detective on the scene of the Ramsey house the morning of December 26, 1996:

http://tinyurl.com/m527bq5

MysteryReader · Post by **MysteryReader** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 10:18 pm

twinsrwe wrote:Here is an interview with Linda Arndt, who was the first detective on the scene of the Ramsey house the morning of December 26, 1996:

http://tinyurl.com/m527bq5

I couldn't bring myself to watch it but did you notice the eyes of the detective!?

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Thu Apr 16, 2015 7:05 pm

twinsrwe wrote:
Franz wrote:Has the intruder possibility been excluded with absolute certainty?
I don’t believe it has, Franz. The JonBenet Ramsey murder case is just as intriguing and mysterious as the Andrew and Abby Borden murder case is?

Thank you for all these links. Very, very, interesting. I am reading them.

Curryong · Post by **Curryong** » Thu Apr 16, 2015 7:17 pm

Thanks for posting this, Mystery. Yeah, this detective's light coloured eyes are a bit unfortunate!

But what a bungled investigation, is the message I get from this and the other interview. The patrolmen were after all just there to provide reassurance to the Ramsays and call in detectives if needed, but the next level, the investigative crew, just performed no search,were seemingly unobservant as far as the family dynamics were concerned and left one of their colleagues alone with two males and a female, who for all they knew might have already committed murder.

There is a cold case here that has just resulted in an arrest 23 years later. It was the first murder ever in a small coastal town. A hairdresser and her client were murdered at the salon at 3pm on a busy Friday afternoon.

Because it was not usual in 1991 to pack computers with data and in a small town the local police were swamped with people trying to give information, some people weren't interviewed that should have been, and the husband of one of the victims did not have his DNA or fingerprints taken until this year!

So it happens everywhere!

It just shows that small provincial cities/towns often aren't up to standard.

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 7:00 am

Yes, twinsrwe: many people think the killer was an intruder.

mbhenty · Post by **mbhenty** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 11:34 am

Let's get to the crux to why this crime happened in the first place.

I always found human behavior fascinating, and the behavior of the Ramsays fascinating in a freakish, surreal, and bizarre way.

I don't understand why people dress their infant children like Betty Boop, or some cheap floozy, then parade them on stage for over sexed men to salivate over. What's wrong with this picture. If I had children, and I know what some will say, 'you don't', but if I did, I wouldn't even post a picture of them on the Web let alone what Mrs Ramsay did with her daughter. Dressing a baby that way and putting her out there is almost child abuse. I find the entire ritual illicit and just plain wrong. A mother should allow a child to be a child, not try to live through her child. To place them in a talent contest, a musical performance, an acting part, is one thing, but to dress them like adults and sell them on stage is another. We are custodians and protectors of our children. To parade them in a public exhibition is most unfortunate, and for little JonBenet, a tragic and predictable misfortune.

And again FRANZ. This is what you can cover up or escape if you have money. There are two justice systems in this country. (not only this country but in the world, though this country prides itself on equality) One for those with money, and one for those without. You can be sure of that.

mbhenty · Post by **mbhenty** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 11:56 am

Makeup and a four year old. Why do those two things not go together.

Provocative poses and babies. Why don't those two go together.

The face on the first kid says it all.

It just leaves me speechless!

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 1:57 pm

After Irena sent the above link I read two JonBenet books, Foreign Faction by James Kolar (excellent account of the facts) and Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation by Steve Thomas. Then over to YouTube to watch several Toddlers and Tiaras to see for myself what all this pageant nonsense is about. SamiJo is 18 mos old. Her mother's entire purpose in having a female child is to make the girl into Miss America. SamiJo is spray tanned and has a fake French manicure after which she competes in talent, beauty and fancy wear. MB is sooooooo right...this is beyond insanity...bearing in mind that the show features the craziest of the crazy. A cupcake dress can cost over $5,000.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIQAjLLDArg

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 2:12 pm

It's possible that all was a staged coverup, but I can't understand why, if they wanted others to believe there was a kidnapping, didn't they move the body out of the house before calling the Police, they had all the time they needed, didn't they? (Assuming that it was an inside job, of course.)

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 3:46 pm

JonBenet's death indicates an act of undoing on the part of her murderer(s) or those who tried to cover it up. Kidnappers kill and dump the body. Parents do not. Instead, JonBenet's body was wrapped in her favorite blanket along with her favorite Barbie nightgown and placed next to a favorite Barbie doll in the most distant room of a basement that was labyrinthine.

Acts of undoing are common in domestic homicides and usually bring family members under immediate suspicion. Acts of undoing include covering the body with a blanket or placing a pillow under the head, redressing or cleaning the body, leaving the body in place where it's sure to be found. JonBenet's body was partially cleaned, too, and she may have been redressed in overly large undies.

At age six she still wet the bed on an almost nightly basis and occasionally soiled herself. Both of these are huge red flags for mental health professionals to further look for sexual abuse; the child subconsciously attempts to make herself less desirable.

I still think placing Andrew's coat under his head was an act of undoing, whether or not Lizzie was the actual killer; however, there was no act of undoing for Abby!

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 5:14 pm

Mbhenty, Patsy was a woman of vanity, wasn't she? She, when young, participted beauty competition and won state miss title but never the national one, and she wished her daughter one day would.

There are even mothers to encourage their daughters to prostitute, aren't there?

mbhenty · Post by **mbhenty** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 8:46 pm

Yes Franz.

Not in prostitution. No. Most of these mothers are not bad people, just misguided if not deluded.

They try to live through their children. You are right about Patsy.

Like money, beauty does not alway come with happiness and education often lacks common sense or wisdom

That being said, I would give my right arm to look like George Clooney or Tom Selleck.

This is probably all I have to say on the subject.

To tell you the truth, the entire affair sickens me. I find the behavior of these parents highly distasteful and revolting.

Curryong · Post by **Curryong** » Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:03 am

Beauty pageant contestants of that age (and older, of course) can earn big money, I suppose. I expect that's the rationale that hooks some of the bemused fathers in, (though how much profit these parents would actually see after they've paid for costumes, shoes, makeup, travel expenses and the rest, may not be much.)

Child beauty pageants aren't big here at all, but I have seen the TV show Debbie talks about. The mothers and sometimes grandmothers are so enthusiastic about it all it is obvious that they live vicariously through these little girls and don't quite realise that they are sexualising their little darlings. The excuse often seems to be that the child enjoys it so much. Of course some children do like to sing, dance and perform, but the beauty pageant ritual seems to take over family life.

Did Patsy ever talk about the rationale behind Jonbonet's appearances in these shows, I wonder? There seem to have been some very strange tensions and undercurrents between Patsy and John, and probably in the overall family life.

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:40 am

mbhenty wrote:...
That being said, I would give my right arm to look like George Clooney or Tom Selleck...

, Marlon Brando is much better, IMO.

mbhenty · Post by **mbhenty** » Sat Apr 18, 2015 9:42 am

I assume you mean Brando when he was young, Franz...

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Sat Apr 18, 2015 2:24 pm

Franz wrote:
mbhenty wrote:...
That being said, I would give my right arm to look like George Clooney or Tom Selleck...
, Marlon Brando is much better, IMO.

Oh MB and Franz, George Clooney, Tom Selleck and Marlon Brando have nothing over on the two of you. You guys are unique in your own ways. Besides, looks are only skin deep; it’s what is on the inside of a person that is the most beautiful.

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:09 pm

Ahahah, you are so sweet, twinsrwe.

No, MB, I mean him being old as well: a charming senior, wasn't he?

Please enlighten me for one thing: if there were no foot prints on the snow (is this a fact, please?), why do many people believe there was an intruder?

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 12:14 am

MysteryReader wrote:
twinsrwe wrote:Here is an interview with Linda Arndt, who was the first detective on the scene of the Ramsey house the morning of December 26, 1996:

http://tinyurl.com/m527bq5

I couldn't bring myself to watch it but did you notice the eyes of the detective!?

It's OK, Mystery, I understand. Yes, I agree, Linda's eyes are enough to freak anyone out. When she 'bugs' her eyes out like that, it appears as though she could kill, doesn't it? Let me see if I can find this interview in written form so that you don't have to deal with her eyes.

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 12:18 am

mbhenty wrote:I assume you mean Brando when he was young, Franz...

I'll take Sean Connery...past, present, future

or dumb as a box of rocks...but if he's going to talk then he has to retain the brogue.

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 12:25 am

Franz wrote:Ahahah, you are so sweet, twinsrwe.

No, MB, I mean him being old as well: a charming senior, wasn't he?

Please enlighten me for one thing: if there were no foot prints on the snow (is this a fact, please?), why do many people believe there was an intruder?

First, because the Ramseys hired a team a lawyers from across the country to represent every member of their family AND a public relations from New York firm to handle (many would say manipulate) the press. And because some people cannot believe that parents could be involved in such a heinous crime and/or cover-up involving their own child. Plus the City of Boulder had a touchy-feely police chief and district attorney who were not accustomed to dealing with a lot of violent crime much less such a complex and horrifying case.

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 12:56 am

Mystery, here is the part of Linda Arndt’s Sept. 1999 interview on the Today Show that I wanted everyone to see:

LINDA ARNDT, FORMER BOULDER DETECTIVE: I see John Ramsey carrying JonBenet up the last three steps from the basement. And my mind exploded. And everything that I had noted that morning that stuck out instantly made sense. And JonBenet was clearly dead, and she's been dead for a while. I ordered him to put JonBenet down. I knelt next to her and I leaned down to her face. And John leaned down opposite me, and his face was just inches from mine. And we had a nonverbal exchange that I will never forget. And he asked if she was dead. And I said, yes, she's dead. And I told him to go back to the room and to dial 911. And as we looked at each other, I remember -- and I wore a shoulder holster --
hugging my gun right next to me and consciously counting out, I've got 18 bullets.

VARGAS: Why did you do that?

ARNDT: Because I didn't know if we'd all be alive when people showed up. I decided everything made sense in that instance, and I knew what happened.

VARGAS: Do you think your fear was well-founded?

ARNDT: You bet I do. There's no doubt in my mind.

VARGAS: To this day?

ARNDT: Never wavered.

VARGAS: You were afraid because you thought the killer was still in the house.

ARNDT: I knew it.

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 1:05 am

debbiediablo wrote:JonBenet's death indicates an act of undoing on the part of her murderer(s) or those who tried to cover it up. Kidnappers kill and dump the body. Parents do not. Instead, JonBenet's body was wrapped in her favorite blanket along with her favorite Barbie nightgown and placed next to a favorite Barbie doll in the most distant room of a basement that was labyrinthine.

Acts of undoing are common in domestic homicides and usually bring family members under immediate suspicion. Acts of undoing include covering the body with a blanket or placing a pillow under the head, redressing or cleaning the body, leaving the body in place where it's sure to be found. JonBenet's body was partially cleaned, too, and she may have been redressed in overly large undies.

At age six she still wet the bed on an almost nightly basis and occasionally soiled herself. Both of these are huge red flags for mental health professionals to further look for sexual abuse; the child subconsciously attempts to make herself less desirable.

I still think placing Andrew's coat under his head was an act of undoing, whether or not Lizzie was the actual killer; however, there was no act of undoing for Abby!

I agree, Debbie. There are several red flags of abuse!

(12) JonBenet had expressed discomfort to her mother Patsy Ramsey concerning her 'private place' about two months before her death. Beginning app. two weeks before her murder, JonBenet began to talk - talk about scary people in long, black robes who gathered around her and stuck 'things' into her private place - things that hurt her. She also spoke vaguely of darkness around her and the possible use of candles. Several of the Ramsey's friends; friends from their Church, the Whites and the Fernies as well as others, heard this along with several of her teachers and questioned her about it. After JonBenet's murder they went to the Police with the information but apparently due to the DA, nothing ever came of it. The friends from the Church abruptly ended their relationship(s) with the Ramsey's and several of them openly stated they thought them guilty of murdering their daughter:
(A) The housekeeper said that she occasionally saw JonBenet's panties "soaking" in the sink. All women know that soaking is used to remove blood stains.

(17) JonBenet was not the only child in the family who had a history of bed wetting...Burke also had the same problem past the age when most children start sleeping through the night without a bed wetting incident. A definite indicator of emotional trauma caused by abuse, and possible sexual abuse as well as abandonment.

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/ramsey.htm

JonBenet was taken to her pediatrician exactly 33 times in the time period less than 3 years before her death. The ostensible reason was for yeast infections. Starting from before she was 4 and lasting up until she’s 6, a little girl is taken to a pediatrician 33 times for gynecological exams. Think about that. The pediatrician, by the way, saw nothing out of the ordinary in this rate of examination. Remember that at the autopsy upon her death, the coroner found her vaginal opening was twice the size of a normal 6-year-old’s, as well as evidence of repeated sexual trauma. This pediatrician was at the house the morning JonBenet was “missing,” and was one of the first people the Ramseys called over.

http://mcmmadnessnews.blogspot.com/2013 ... chive.html

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 1:09 am

Franz wrote:Ahahah, you are so sweet, twinsrwe.

Just telling it like it is, Franz!!!

Franz wrote:Please enlighten me for one thing: if there were no foot prints on the snow (is this a fact, please?), why do many people believe there was an intruder?

Franz, there is a lot of controversy about there being no footprints in the snow.

There were no new footprints in the fresh dusting of snow and frost on the family's lawn or in a crusty accumulation of old snow, according to police who first arrived on the scene. But some walkways might have been free of snow - making such preliminary evidence non-conclusive.

http://tinyurl.com/p8lcsgw

The Killing of JonBenet (2001)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOa4b8lp-Js

Real Crime: Who Killed the Pageant Queen?
http://tinyurl.com/njouwqk

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 1:30 am

The house had been locked the night of the murder, and there was no sign of forced entry. Patsy Ramsey pointed out pry marks on one of the back doors, but a number of friends testified that those pry marks had been there for a long time. The only window in the basement that could possibly have been breached had an intact spider web still clinging to it. Boulder Police went so far as to contact entymology experts to learn that spiders were dormant at that time of year in Colorado and would not have rewoven the web had it been destroyed. Nonetheless, the intruder theorists believe this is where the killer or killers entered and exited.

taosjohn · Post by **taosjohn** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 11:26 am

debbiediablo wrote:JonBenet's death indicates an act of undoing on the part of her murderer(s) or those who tried to cover it up. Kidnappers kill and dump the body. Parents do not. Instead, JonBenet's body was wrapped in her favorite blanket along with her favorite Barbie nightgown and placed next to a favorite Barbie doll in the most distant room of a basement that was labyrinthine.

Acts of undoing are common in domestic homicides and usually bring family members under immediate suspicion. Acts of undoing include covering the body with a blanket or placing a pillow under the head, redressing or cleaning the body, leaving the body in place where it's sure to be found. JonBenet's body was partially cleaned, too, and she may have been redressed in overly large undies.

At age six she still wet the bed on an almost nightly basis and occasionally soiled herself. Both of these are huge red flags for mental health professionals to further look for sexual abuse; the child subconsciously attempts to make herself less desirable.

I still think placing Andrew's coat under his head was an act of undoing, whether or not Lizzie was the actual killer; however, there was no act of undoing for Abby!

Debbie, it is important to remember that the body was not recorded in situ, isn't it?

At least two of the people brought in as consultants-- former FBI people thoroughly familiar with the concept-- who interviewed or examined the interviews of those with John Ramsey when he found the body concluded that there was no "act of undoing." They concluded that the body lay where it had been thrown down, that the blanket was not "wrapping the child" but was thrown carelessly over her as though to hide, not comfort, and that the doll was not "beside her" in any meaningful way, but was just in the room on the floor-- and further that no one who would know seemed to be willing to state that it was a favorite doll, or even that it had been anywhere but the basement in the recent past...

In the absence of proper photos and investigation, we'll never know for sure.

The footprints thingy is, IMO, the inverse of a red herring; I live in a very similar climate, and can walk on the pavement or frozen ground on a frosty morning in my moccasins and not leave prints, as long as I am wearing wool socks and the sun isn't very up. And a number of those familiar with the morning have said there was no fresh snow, only frost and some old crusty patches...

It is a lot easier to get into most houses than people think. As the chief says somewhere in the interview, the fact that they didn't find a way for somebody to get in doesn't mean there wasn't one.

The cops concluded that it must have been the Ramseys for cynical, but logical, reasons. The DA resisted that conclusion for reasons of his own, and the two sides fought about the realities; and the facts are odd enough that both sides had plenty of material to support their version, if they only ignored the facts that supported the other.

pld0128 · Post by **pld0128** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 3:26 pm

Thanks all for those reference links. Gave me more to think about with this case. It's hard not to lean toward the parents' involvement. I've read most of the books. I don't want to think that in my lifetime, they'll be no solution to her murder.

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:08 pm

Yes TJ, we do not know exactly how the crime scene looked although there is general agreement that JonBenet was killed while lying face down on the carpet at the entry to the wine cellar and then moved into the room and laid on her back. Fleet White consistently stated that her body was partially wrapped with feet and arms sticking out. White was directly behind John Ramsey when John turned on the wine cellar light.

John Ramsey stated in an interview with CNN one week following the murder that the family wasn't "angry," but they had to know "why" in order to move on. JonBenet was killed December 26, 1996. This CNN interview took place January 1, 1997. The family was finally interviewed by Boulder Police at the Boulder County Justice Center on April 30, 1997. This was their first police interview other than on the morning when the body was discovered. Not being angry doesn't ring true to me...one week is damn rapid movement through the grief cycle when a 6 year-old child is murdered unless there's a compelling reason not to be angry .

Nor does the fact ring true that the ransom note had no fingerprints other than those of the police sergeant and CBI tech who handled it, even though Patsy admitted to moving it from the spiral stairs to the kitchen floor where John read it after which it ended up on the kitchen table. Seems to me that parent fingerprints would also be evident.

Also interesting is the duck tape on JonBenet's mouth had a perfect impression of her lips with zero smudging. This would indicate staging. Why duck tape the child's mouth if she is already unconscious or dead? Plus the sticky side of the duck tape (which was removed in the wine cellar and touched by both John Ramsey and Fleet White) had fibers 100% consistent with the red and black jacket Patsy had worn for dinner the night before at the White's. This ensemble (jacket, slacks) were removed from the house by Patsy's sister and flown to Atlanta rather than being turned over to police for testing until many months later.

Lou Smit was convinced that the perpetrator used an Air Taser to immobilize JonBenet and then took her to the basement to sexually molest her before leaving the house with her wrapped in a blanket via a first floor door. The stun gun doesn't quite fit the marks on her body, and the coroner termed them abrasions rather than burns. Of course, the coroner also reused the nail clippers not just from nail to nail but also from corpse to corpse! James Kolar cites an absolute match between the abrasions and the connectors on the rails of Burke's train set. John Douglas writes about JonBent in The Cases That Haunt Us; he gets so many facts wrong that it's difficult to take his analysis seriously. Neither of them entertain Kolar's theory that Burke molested her, accidentally killed her, and the parents protected him as opposed to each other. Burke's Swiss Army knife was found in wine cellar along with the blanket, doll and nightgown.

Regardless of who did it, I will always remain incredulous that Burke remained upstairs in his bedroom on the second floor from where JonBenet was supposedly kidnapped until Fleet White took him to the White house. Had this happened to me, my remaining child would've been handcuffed to my left hand and then to my husband's right one. Especially since the parents were convinced that someone had breached the house in some unknown manner.

This compares elements of the ransom note with the handwriting sample from Patsy:

Cina Wong JBR Exhibit Charts 1.pdf

EarlyPrime
Interview With Parents of Slain Child Beauty Queen
Aired January 1, 1997 - 4:34 p.m. ET

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: And Brian is here, he conducted an exclusive interview today with the child's parents, John and Patricia Ramsey.

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: First of all, from a newsstand point, a couple of item's came out, the Ramsey are going to be putting together their own investigative team, they say, private investigates. This is not meant as any disrespect, they say, for the Colorado authorities. They just want the best mind possible, they say, looking into this crime.

Secondly, they will be offering a reward perhaps as much as $50,000 starting next week. It has been a very difficult week as you might expect for the Ramsey family, a very difficult interview as well, we talked to them for about 45 minutes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL (off-camera): Why did you decide you wanted to talk now?

JOHN B. RAMSEY, JONBENET'S FATHER: Well we have been pretty isolated -- totally isolated -- for the last five days, but we've sensed from our friends that this tragedy has touched not just ourselves and our friends but many people. And we know that there's many people that are praying for us, that are grieving with us. And we want to thank them, to let them know that we are healing, and that we know in our hearts that JonBenet is safe and with God and that the grieving that we all have to do is for ourselves and for our loss, but we want to thank those people that care about us.

PATRICIA RAMSEY, JONBENET'S MOTHER: We have just been overwhelmed by the cards and letters and visits and people we haven't seen for years have come to call and be supportive in their -- many of them are parents, and they know and can feel our grief.

RAMSEY, J: But the other -- the other reason is that -- for our grief to resolve itself we now have to find out why this happened.

CABELL: There has been some question as to why you hired a defense attorney.

RAMSEY, J: I know. Well, we were fortunate from almost the moment that we found the note to be surrounded by friends, our minister, our family doctor, a personal friend of mine who is also an attorney, and we relied on their guidance almost from that moment on and my friend suggested that it would be foolish not to have knowledgeable counsel to help both us and with the investigation.

RAMSEY, P: And if anyone knows anything, please, please help us. For the safety of all of the children, we have to find out who did this.

RAMSEY, J: Not because we're angry, but because we have got to go on.

RAMSEY, P: We can't -- we can't --

RAMSEY, J: This -- we cannot go on until we know why. There's no answer as to why our daughter died.

CABELL: Are you fully convinced that your daughter was kidnapped by some outsiders outside your family or circle of friends?

RAMSEY, J: Yes. I -- we don't -- you know, it's just so hard to know, but we are -- our family is a loving family. It's a gentle family. We have lost one child. We know how precious their lives are .

CABELL: Mrs. Ramsey -- you found the note. Was it a handwritten note, three pages?

RAMSEY, P: I didn't -- I couldn't read the whole thing I -- I just gotten up. We were on our -- it was the day after Christmas, and we were going to go visiting, and it was quite early in the morning, and I had got dressed and was on my way to the kitchen to make some coffee, and we have a back staircase from the bedroom areas, and I always come down that staircase, and I am usually the first one down. And the note was lying across the -- three pages -- across the run of one of the stair treads, and it was kind of dimly lit.

It was just very early in the morning, and I started to read it, and it was addressed to John. It said "Mr. Ramsey," And it said, "we have your daughter." And I -- you know, it just was -- it just wasn't registering, and I -- I may have gotten through another sentence. I can't -- "we have your daughter." and I don't know if I got any further than that. And I immediately ran back upstairs and pushed open her door, and she was not in her bed, and I screamed for John.

CABELL: John, you subsequently read the note. Was there anything in there that struck you in any sense?

RAMSEY, J: Well, no. I mean, I read it very fast. I was out of my mind. And it said "Don't call the police." You know, that type of thing. And I told Patsy, call the police immediately. And I think I ran through the house a bit.

RAMSEY, P: We went to check our son.

RAMSEY, J: Checked our son's room. Sometimes she sleeps in there. And we just were --

RAMSEY, P: We were just frantic.

CABELL: How did you happen later to look in the basement?

RAMSEY, J: Well, we'd waited until after the time that the call was supposed to have been made to us, and one of the detectives asked me and my friend who was there to go through every inch of the house to see if there was anything unusual or abnormal that looked out of place.

RAMSEY, P: Look for clues I guess.

RAMSEY, J: Look for clues, asking us to do that, give us something more to do to occupy our mind, and so we started in the basement, and -- and we were just looking, and we -- one room in the basement that -- when I opened the door -- there were no windows in that room, and I turned the light on, and I -- that was her.

RAMSEY, P: She was --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL (on camera): Mr. Ramsey did confirm that duct tape was found on his daughter's mouth. I asked him about a cord found around her neck, that was a report out of Colorado today, he said he didn't see, it could have been there but he was panicked at that point. He picked up the body, ran screaming upstairs, hoping she was still alive, of course she was not.

There was also a reference to another child that was lost. They lost his daughter -- his adult daughter -- about four years ago in an auto accident. This is the second child they have lost.

Coming up in just a few minutes, we address the question -- I address the question -- to them of their being suspects themselves. That's natural in a case like this and we'll ask them about that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR: At this hour we're concentrating on the murder of JonBenet Ramsey which has shocked and saddened many in her home town of Boulder, Colorado.

ALLEN: CNN's Brian Cabell this afternoon had exclusive interview with her parents and he's here again with more of the emotional interview after the killing.

CABELL: As you know in cases like this it's very normal police procedure to look at the family first of all as possible suspects in this case. The Ramsey's say they understand this, they're well aware of the Susan Smith case of a couple of years ago, they understand that possibly they would be looked at suspiciously and they say they accept this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL (off camera): You were asked shortly thereafter for a hair sample and writing sample, blood sample. Who else was asked for this?

RAMSEY, J: Well, Patsy and I, Burke, our son, who is nine, every family member.

CABELL: Including your two elder children?

RAMSEY, J: Uh-huh.

CABELL: Any friends?

RAMSEY, J: I don't know.

CABELL: Now, did you give the samples?

RAMSEY, J: Uh-huh.

CABELL: Oh, really? Because the word was that they thought you were too grief stricken. So both of you, you gave samples?

RAMSEY, J: Yes.

CABELL: Were you offended by that?

RAMSEY, J: No.

RAMSEY, P: It was difficult. But, you know, they need to know -- I mean our hand prints are all over our home, so they need to know if there's -- if there are other ones --

CABELL: The police said a couple of days ago, to assure other residents of Boulder there is no killer on the loose here, you can be assured everything is under control. You believe it's someone outside your home.

RAMSEY, P: There is a killer on the loose.

RAMSEY, J: Absolutely.

RAMSEY, P: I don't know who it is. I don't know if it's a he or a she. But if I were a resident of Boulder, I would tell my friends to keep -- keep your babies close to you, there's someone out there.

CABELL: An FBI spokesman was quoted as saying at this point they don't regard it necessarily as a kidnapping. You think that's a wrong assumption?

RAMSEY, J: I don't know. I mean, there is a -- a note that said -- your daughter has been kidnapped. We have your daughter. We want money. You give us the money; she'll be safely returned.

RAMSEY, P: It seemed like kidnapping to me.

RAMSEY, J: I guess that's what concerns me because if we don't have the full resources of all the law enforcement community on this case, I am going to be very upset.

CABELL: Inevitably, speculation on talk shows will focus on you. It's got to be a sickening --

RAMSEY, J: It's nauseating beyond belief.

RAMSEY, P: You know, America has just been hurt so deeply with the -- this -- the tragic things that have happened. The young woman who drove her children into the water, and we don't know what happened with the O.J. Simpson -- and I mean, America is suffering because have lost faith in the American family.

We are a Christian, God-fearing family. We love our children. We would do anything for our children.

CABELL: Do you truly think the perpetrator will be found?

RAMSEY, J: Yes. Yes. Has to be found.

CABELL: Do you think it's a single individual?

RAMSEY, J: Yes. In my heart I do.

CABELL: Do you take some comfort in believing that JonBenet Ramsey is in a better place.

RAMSEY, J: Yes. That's the one thing we want people dealing with us to know, to believe that, we know that in our heart.

RAMSEY, P: She'll never have to know the loss of a child . She will never have to know cancer or death of a child.

RAMSEY, J: We learned when we lost our first child that people would come forward to us, that sooner or later everyone carries a very heavy burden in this life. And JonBenet didn't carry any burdens.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL: The Ramseys are staying here in the Atlanta area with family right now. They say they intend to go back to Boulder within a few days, precisely when they're not quite sure. They say when they go back they will sit down with the Boulder police. They will talk. They will tell them anything they want to know.

ALLEN: Brian, are police saying anymore about the investigation? Leads or evidence from the home?

CABELL: Police have not been particularly forthcoming about leads perhaps deliberately so, but they have said very little as to forced entry, anything like that we simply do not know. The police are keeping that to themselves at this point.

WATERS: What's intriguing to me is the Boulder cop said -- assured the public -- there was no killer on the loose. Now, that suggests they may have a line on who did this. Isn't that what --

CABELL: You start to question that, but keep in mind this was the first and only murder in Boulder this year so there was a bit of panic, a bit of alarm in the community. I think the police were simply trying to tell them: Don't worry we have everything under control, we have police out in the streets. They did step up their surveillance, so perhaps that's the way to explain that.

ALLEN: When was the last time they saw JonBenet Ramsey?

CABELL: When they put her to bed Christmas night, as a matter of fact, and sometime between the time they put her to bed and 5:50 or so the following morning she was apparently abducted from her bed.

WATERS: Did I hear the Ramseys are putting out some money to hire private investigators?

CABELL: They will be assembling their own private investigative team, exactly how many individuals we don't know, but private investigators, attorneys, they say they want the best investigative minds in the country. They want to coordinate this with the authorities in Boulder and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. But they are hiring their own people and offer a reward starting next week.

WATERS: What kind of reward?

CABELL: Fifty-thousand dollars was the figure he tossed out there. He wasn't absolutely certain but he thought it would be at least $50,000.

ALLEN: Was there something that struck you the most from your conversation with them?

CABELL: It's just looking at two parents, myself being a parent. It's very difficult to conduct an interview, very difficult to be interviewed about losing a six-year-old child especially in such a violent way.

WATERS: Did you try hard to get them to sit down and talk? Most folks, in this kind of situation, I would think, would be very reluctant to sit in front of a television camera.

CABELL: They said that they had to get over this five of six days of grieving and burying their daughter, now they want to get on with this new stage of their life, and that is: finding the killer. They wanted to get this off their chest, they want to get this in motion.

EarlyPrime
Interview With Parents of Slain Child Beauty Queen
Aired January 1, 1997 - 4:34 p.m. ET

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: And Brian is here, he conducted an exclusive interview today with the child's parents, John and Patricia Ramsey.

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: First of all, from a newsstand point, a couple of item's came out, the Ramsey are going to be putting together their own investigative team, they say, private investigates. This is not meant as any disrespect, they say, for the Colorado authorities. They just want the best mind possible, they say, looking into this crime.

Secondly, they will be offering a reward perhaps as much as $50,000 starting next week. It has been a very difficult week as you might expect for the Ramsey family, a very difficult interview as well, we talked to them for about 45 minutes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL (off-camera): Why did you decide you wanted to talk now?

JOHN B. RAMSEY, JONBENET'S FATHER: Well we have been pretty isolated -- totally isolated -- for the last five days, but we've sensed from our friends that this tragedy has touched not just ourselves and our friends but many people. And we know that there's many people that are praying for us, that are grieving with us. And we want to thank them, to let them know that we are healing, and that we know in our hearts that JonBenet is safe and with God and that the grieving that we all have to do is for ourselves and for our loss, but we want to thank those people that care about us.

PATRICIA RAMSEY, JONBENET'S MOTHER: We have just been overwhelmed by the cards and letters and visits and people we haven't seen for years have come to call and be supportive in their -- many of them are parents, and they know and can feel our grief.

RAMSEY, J: But the other -- the other reason is that -- for our grief to resolve itself we now have to find out why this happened.

CABELL: There has been some question as to why you hired a defense attorney.

RAMSEY, J: I know. Well, we were fortunate from almost the moment that we found the note to be surrounded by friends, our minister, our family doctor, a personal friend of mine who is also an attorney, and we relied on their guidance almost from that moment on and my friend suggested that it would be foolish not to have knowledgeable counsel to help both us and with the investigation.

RAMSEY, P: And if anyone knows anything, please, please help us. For the safety of all of the children, we have to find out who did this.

RAMSEY, J: Not because we're angry, but because we have got to go on.

RAMSEY, P: We can't -- we can't --

RAMSEY, J: This -- we cannot go on until we know why. There's no answer as to why our daughter died.

CABELL: Are you fully convinced that your daughter was kidnapped by some outsiders outside your family or circle of friends?

RAMSEY, J: Yes. I -- we don't -- you know, it's just so hard to know, but we are -- our family is a loving family. It's a gentle family. We have lost one child. We know how precious their lives are .

CABELL: Mrs. Ramsey -- you found the note. Was it a handwritten note, three pages?

RAMSEY, P: I didn't -- I couldn't read the whole thing I -- I just gotten up. We were on our -- it was the day after Christmas, and we were going to go visiting, and it was quite early in the morning, and I had got dressed and was on my way to the kitchen to make some coffee, and we have a back staircase from the bedroom areas, and I always come down that staircase, and I am usually the first one down. And the note was lying across the -- three pages -- across the run of one of the stair treads, and it was kind of dimly lit.

It was just very early in the morning, and I started to read it, and it was addressed to John. It said "Mr. Ramsey," And it said, "we have your daughter." And I -- you know, it just was -- it just wasn't registering, and I -- I may have gotten through another sentence. I can't -- "we have your daughter." and I don't know if I got any further than that. And I immediately ran back upstairs and pushed open her door, and she was not in her bed, and I screamed for John.

CABELL: John, you subsequently read the note. Was there anything in there that struck you in any sense?

RAMSEY, J: Well, no. I mean, I read it very fast. I was out of my mind. And it said "Don't call the police." You know, that type of thing. And I told Patsy, call the police immediately. And I think I ran through the house a bit.

RAMSEY, P: We went to check our son.

RAMSEY, J: Checked our son's room. Sometimes she sleeps in there. And we just were --

RAMSEY, P: We were just frantic.

CABELL: How did you happen later to look in the basement?

RAMSEY, J: Well, we'd waited until after the time that the call was supposed to have been made to us, and one of the detectives asked me and my friend who was there to go through every inch of the house to see if there was anything unusual or abnormal that looked out of place.

RAMSEY, P: Look for clues I guess.

RAMSEY, J: Look for clues, asking us to do that, give us something more to do to occupy our mind, and so we started in the basement, and -- and we were just looking, and we -- one room in the basement that -- when I opened the door -- there were no windows in that room, and I turned the light on, and I -- that was her.

RAMSEY, P: She was --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL (on camera): Mr. Ramsey did confirm that duct tape was found on his daughter's mouth. I asked him about a cord found around her neck, that was a report out of Colorado today, he said he didn't see, it could have been there but he was panicked at that point. He picked up the body, ran screaming upstairs, hoping she was still alive, of course she was not.

There was also a reference to another child that was lost. They lost his daughter -- his adult daughter -- about four years ago in an auto accident. This is the second child they have lost.

Coming up in just a few minutes, we address the question -- I address the question -- to them of their being suspects themselves. That's natural in a case like this and we'll ask them about that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR: At this hour we're concentrating on the murder of JonBenet Ramsey which has shocked and saddened many in her home town of Boulder, Colorado.

ALLEN: CNN's Brian Cabell this afternoon had exclusive interview with her parents and he's here again with more of the emotional interview after the killing.

CABELL: As you know in cases like this it's very normal police procedure to look at the family first of all as possible suspects in this case. The Ramsey's say they understand this, they're well aware of the Susan Smith case of a couple of years ago, they understand that possibly they would be looked at suspiciously and they say they accept this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL (off camera): You were asked shortly thereafter for a hair sample and writing sample, blood sample. Who else was asked for this?

RAMSEY, J: Well, Patsy and I, Burke, our son, who is nine, every family member.

CABELL: Including your two elder children?

RAMSEY, J: Uh-huh.

CABELL: Any friends?

RAMSEY, J: I don't know.

CABELL: Now, did you give the samples?

RAMSEY, J: Uh-huh.

CABELL: Oh, really? Because the word was that they thought you were too grief stricken. So both of you, you gave samples?

RAMSEY, J: Yes.

CABELL: Were you offended by that?

RAMSEY, J: No.

RAMSEY, P: It was difficult. But, you know, they need to know -- I mean our hand prints are all over our home, so they need to know if there's -- if there are other ones --

CABELL: The police said a couple of days ago, to assure other residents of Boulder there is no killer on the loose here, you can be assured everything is under control. You believe it's someone outside your home.

RAMSEY, P: There is a killer on the loose.

RAMSEY, J: Absolutely.

RAMSEY, P: I don't know who it is. I don't know if it's a he or a she. But if I were a resident of Boulder, I would tell my friends to keep -- keep your babies close to you, there's someone out there.

CABELL: An FBI spokesman was quoted as saying at this point they don't regard it necessarily as a kidnapping. You think that's a wrong assumption?

RAMSEY, J: I don't know. I mean, there is a -- a note that said -- your daughter has been kidnapped. We have your daughter. We want money. You give us the money; she'll be safely returned.

RAMSEY, P: It seemed like kidnapping to me.

RAMSEY, J: I guess that's what concerns me because if we don't have the full resources of all the law enforcement community on this case, I am going to be very upset.

CABELL: Inevitably, speculation on talk shows will focus on you. It's got to be a sickening --

RAMSEY, J: It's nauseating beyond belief.

RAMSEY, P: You know, America has just been hurt so deeply with the -- this -- the tragic things that have happened. The young woman who drove her children into the water, and we don't know what happened with the O.J. Simpson -- and I mean, America is suffering because have lost faith in the American family.

We are a Christian, God-fearing family. We love our children. We would do anything for our children.

CABELL: Do you truly think the perpetrator will be found?

RAMSEY, J: Yes. Yes. Has to be found.

CABELL: Do you think it's a single individual?

RAMSEY, J: Yes. In my heart I do.

CABELL: Do you take some comfort in believing that JonBenet Ramsey is in a better place.

RAMSEY, J: Yes. That's the one thing we want people dealing with us to know, to believe that, we know that in our heart.

RAMSEY, P: She'll never have to know the loss of a child . She will never have to know cancer or death of a child.

RAMSEY, J: We learned when we lost our first child that people would come forward to us, that sooner or later everyone carries a very heavy burden in this life. And JonBenet didn't carry any burdens.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL: The Ramseys are staying here in the Atlanta area with family right now. They say they intend to go back to Boulder within a few days, precisely when they're not quite sure. They say when they go back they will sit down with the Boulder police. They will talk. They will tell them anything they want to know.

ALLEN: Brian, are police saying anymore about the investigation? Leads or evidence from the home?

CABELL: Police have not been particularly forthcoming about leads perhaps deliberately so, but they have said very little as to forced entry, anything like that we simply do not know. The police are keeping that to themselves at this point.

WATERS: What's intriguing to me is the Boulder cop said -- assured the public -- there was no killer on the loose. Now, that suggests they may have a line on who did this. Isn't that what --

CABELL: You start to question that, but keep in mind this was the first and only murder in Boulder this year so there was a bit of panic, a bit of alarm in the community. I think the police were simply trying to tell them: Don't worry we have everything under control, we have police out in the streets. They did step up their surveillance, so perhaps that's the way to explain that.

ALLEN: When was the last time they saw JonBenet Ramsey?

CABELL: When they put her to bed Christmas night, as a matter of fact, and sometime between the time they put her to bed and 5:50 or so the following morning she was apparently abducted from her bed.

WATERS: Did I hear the Ramseys are putting out some money to hire private investigators?

CABELL: They will be assembling their own private investigative team, exactly how many individuals we don't know, but private investigators, attorneys, they say they want the best investigative minds in the country. They want to coordinate this with the authorities in Boulder and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. But they are hiring their own people and offer a reward starting next week.

WATERS: What kind of reward?

CABELL: Fifty-thousand dollars was the figure he tossed out there. He wasn't absolutely certain but he thought it would be at least $50,000.

ALLEN: Was there something that struck you the most from your conversation with them?

CABELL: It's just looking at two parents, myself being a parent. It's very difficult to conduct an interview, very difficult to be interviewed about losing a six-year-old child especially in such a violent way.

WATERS: Did you try hard to get them to sit down and talk? Most folks, in this kind of situation, I would think, would be very reluctant to sit in front of a television camera.

CABELL: They said that they had to get over this five of six days of grieving and burying their daughter, now they want to get on with this new stage of their life, and that is: finding the killer. They wanted to get this off their chest, they want to get this in motion.

EarlyPrime
Interview With Parents of Slain Child Beauty Queen
Aired January 1, 1997 - 4:34 p.m. ET

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: And Brian is here, he conducted an exclusive interview today with the child's parents, John and Patricia Ramsey.

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: First of all, from a newsstand point, a couple of item's came out, the Ramsey are going to be putting together their own investigative team, they say, private investigates. This is not meant as any disrespect, they say, for the Colorado authorities. They just want the best mind possible, they say, looking into this crime.

Secondly, they will be offering a reward perhaps as much as $50,000 starting next week. It has been a very difficult week as you might expect for the Ramsey family, a very difficult interview as well, we talked to them for about 45 minutes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL (off-camera): Why did you decide you wanted to talk now?

JOHN B. RAMSEY, JONBENET'S FATHER: Well we have been pretty isolated -- totally isolated -- for the last five days, but we've sensed from our friends that this tragedy has touched not just ourselves and our friends but many people. And we know that there's many people that are praying for us, that are grieving with us. And we want to thank them, to let them know that we are healing, and that we know in our hearts that JonBenet is safe and with God and that the grieving that we all have to do is for ourselves and for our loss, but we want to thank those people that care about us.

PATRICIA RAMSEY, JONBENET'S MOTHER: We have just been overwhelmed by the cards and letters and visits and people we haven't seen for years have come to call and be supportive in their -- many of them are parents, and they know and can feel our grief.

RAMSEY, J: But the other -- the other reason is that -- for our grief to resolve itself we now have to find out why this happened.

CABELL: There has been some question as to why you hired a defense attorney.

RAMSEY, J: I know. Well, we were fortunate from almost the moment that we found the note to be surrounded by friends, our minister, our family doctor, a personal friend of mine who is also an attorney, and we relied on their guidance almost from that moment on and my friend suggested that it would be foolish not to have knowledgeable counsel to help both us and with the investigation.

RAMSEY, P: And if anyone knows anything, please, please help us. For the safety of all of the children, we have to find out who did this.

RAMSEY, J: Not because we're angry, but because we have got to go on.

RAMSEY, P: We can't -- we can't --

RAMSEY, J: This -- we cannot go on until we know why. There's no answer as to why our daughter died.

CABELL: Are you fully convinced that your daughter was kidnapped by some outsiders outside your family or circle of friends?

RAMSEY, J: Yes. I -- we don't -- you know, it's just so hard to know, but we are -- our family is a loving family. It's a gentle family. We have lost one child. We know how precious their lives are .

CABELL: Mrs. Ramsey -- you found the note. Was it a handwritten note, three pages?

RAMSEY, P: I didn't -- I couldn't read the whole thing I -- I just gotten up. We were on our -- it was the day after Christmas, and we were going to go visiting, and it was quite early in the morning, and I had got dressed and was on my way to the kitchen to make some coffee, and we have a back staircase from the bedroom areas, and I always come down that staircase, and I am usually the first one down. And the note was lying across the -- three pages -- across the run of one of the stair treads, and it was kind of dimly lit.

It was just very early in the morning, and I started to read it, and it was addressed to John. It said "Mr. Ramsey," And it said, "we have your daughter." And I -- you know, it just was -- it just wasn't registering, and I -- I may have gotten through another sentence. I can't -- "we have your daughter." and I don't know if I got any further than that. And I immediately ran back upstairs and pushed open her door, and she was not in her bed, and I screamed for John.

CABELL: John, you subsequently read the note. Was there anything in there that struck you in any sense?

RAMSEY, J: Well, no. I mean, I read it very fast. I was out of my mind. And it said "Don't call the police." You know, that type of thing. And I told Patsy, call the police immediately. And I think I ran through the house a bit.

RAMSEY, P: We went to check our son.

RAMSEY, J: Checked our son's room. Sometimes she sleeps in there. And we just were --

RAMSEY, P: We were just frantic.

CABELL: How did you happen later to look in the basement?

RAMSEY, J: Well, we'd waited until after the time that the call was supposed to have been made to us, and one of the detectives asked me and my friend who was there to go through every inch of the house to see if there was anything unusual or abnormal that looked out of place.

RAMSEY, P: Look for clues I guess.

RAMSEY, J: Look for clues, asking us to do that, give us something more to do to occupy our mind, and so we started in the basement, and -- and we were just looking, and we -- one room in the basement that -- when I opened the door -- there were no windows in that room, and I turned the light on, and I -- that was her.

RAMSEY, P: She was --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL (on camera): Mr. Ramsey did confirm that duct tape was found on his daughter's mouth. I asked him about a cord found around her neck, that was a report out of Colorado today, he said he didn't see, it could have been there but he was panicked at that point. He picked up the body, ran screaming upstairs, hoping she was still alive, of course she was not.

There was also a reference to another child that was lost. They lost his daughter -- his adult daughter -- about four years ago in an auto accident. This is the second child they have lost.

Coming up in just a few minutes, we address the question -- I address the question -- to them of their being suspects themselves. That's natural in a case like this and we'll ask them about that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR: At this hour we're concentrating on the murder of JonBenet Ramsey which has shocked and saddened many in her home town of Boulder, Colorado.

ALLEN: CNN's Brian Cabell this afternoon had exclusive interview with her parents and he's here again with more of the emotional interview after the killing.

CABELL: As you know in cases like this it's very normal police procedure to look at the family first of all as possible suspects in this case. The Ramsey's say they understand this, they're well aware of the Susan Smith case of a couple of years ago, they understand that possibly they would be looked at suspiciously and they say they accept this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL (off camera): You were asked shortly thereafter for a hair sample and writing sample, blood sample. Who else was asked for this?

RAMSEY, J: Well, Patsy and I, Burke, our son, who is nine, every family member.

CABELL: Including your two elder children?

RAMSEY, J: Uh-huh.

CABELL: Any friends?

RAMSEY, J: I don't know.

CABELL: Now, did you give the samples?

RAMSEY, J: Uh-huh.

CABELL: Oh, really? Because the word was that they thought you were too grief stricken. So both of you, you gave samples?

RAMSEY, J: Yes.

CABELL: Were you offended by that?

RAMSEY, J: No.

RAMSEY, P: It was difficult. But, you know, they need to know -- I mean our hand prints are all over our home, so they need to know if there's -- if there are other ones --

CABELL: The police said a couple of days ago, to assure other residents of Boulder there is no killer on the loose here, you can be assured everything is under control. You believe it's someone outside your home.

RAMSEY, P: There is a killer on the loose.

RAMSEY, J: Absolutely.

RAMSEY, P: I don't know who it is. I don't know if it's a he or a she. But if I were a resident of Boulder, I would tell my friends to keep -- keep your babies close to you, there's someone out there.

CABELL: An FBI spokesman was quoted as saying at this point they don't regard it necessarily as a kidnapping. You think that's a wrong assumption?

RAMSEY, J: I don't know. I mean, there is a -- a note that said -- your daughter has been kidnapped. We have your daughter. We want money. You give us the money; she'll be safely returned.

RAMSEY, P: It seemed like kidnapping to me.

RAMSEY, J: I guess that's what concerns me because if we don't have the full resources of all the law enforcement community on this case, I am going to be very upset.

CABELL: Inevitably, speculation on talk shows will focus on you. It's got to be a sickening --

RAMSEY, J: It's nauseating beyond belief.

RAMSEY, P: You know, America has just been hurt so deeply with the -- this -- the tragic things that have happened. The young woman who drove her children into the water, and we don't know what happened with the O.J. Simpson -- and I mean, America is suffering because have lost faith in the American family.

We are a Christian, God-fearing family. We love our children. We would do anything for our children.

CABELL: Do you truly think the perpetrator will be found?

RAMSEY, J: Yes. Yes. Has to be found.

CABELL: Do you think it's a single individual?

RAMSEY, J: Yes. In my heart I do.

CABELL: Do you take some comfort in believing that JonBenet Ramsey is in a better place.

RAMSEY, J: Yes. That's the one thing we want people dealing with us to know, to believe that, we know that in our heart.

RAMSEY, P: She'll never have to know the loss of a child . She will never have to know cancer or death of a child.

RAMSEY, J: We learned when we lost our first child that people would come forward to us, that sooner or later everyone carries a very heavy burden in this life. And JonBenet didn't carry any burdens.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL: The Ramseys are staying here in the Atlanta area with family right now. They say they intend to go back to Boulder within a few days, precisely when they're not quite sure. They say when they go back they will sit down with the Boulder police. They will talk. They will tell them anything they want to know.

ALLEN: Brian, are police saying anymore about the investigation? Leads or evidence from the home?

CABELL: Police have not been particularly forthcoming about leads perhaps deliberately so, but they have said very little as to forced entry, anything like that we simply do not know. The police are keeping that to themselves at this point.

WATERS: What's intriguing to me is the Boulder cop said -- assured the public -- there was no killer on the loose. Now, that suggests they may have a line on who did this. Isn't that what --

CABELL: You start to question that, but keep in mind this was the first and only murder in Boulder this year so there was a bit of panic, a bit of alarm in the community. I think the police were simply trying to tell them: Don't worry we have everything under control, we have police out in the streets. They did step up their surveillance, so perhaps that's the way to explain that.

ALLEN: When was the last time they saw JonBenet Ramsey?

CABELL: When they put her to bed Christmas night, as a matter of fact, and sometime between the time they put her to bed and 5:50 or so the following morning she was apparently abducted from her bed.

WATERS: Did I hear the Ramseys are putting out some money to hire private investigators?

CABELL: They will be assembling their own private investigative team, exactly how many individuals we don't know, but private investigators, attorneys, they say they want the best investigative minds in the country. They want to coordinate this with the authorities in Boulder and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. But they are hiring their own people and offer a reward starting next week.

WATERS: What kind of reward?

CABELL: Fifty-thousand dollars was the figure he tossed out there. He wasn't absolutely certain but he thought it would be at least $50,000.

ALLEN: Was there something that struck you the most from your conversation with them?

CABELL: It's just looking at two parents, myself being a parent. It's very difficult to conduct an interview, very difficult to be interviewed about losing a six-year-old child especially in such a violent way.

WATERS: Did you try hard to get them to sit down and talk? Most folks, in this kind of situation, I would think, would be very reluctant to sit in front of a television camera.

CABELL: They said that they had to get over this five of six days of grieving and burying their daughter, now they want to get on with this new stage of their life, and that is: finding the killer. They wanted to get this off their chest, they want to get this in motion.

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Tue Apr 21, 2015 5:49 pm

debbiediablo wrote:The house had been locked the night of the murder, and there was no sign of forced entry. Patsy Ramsey pointed out pry marks on one of the back doors, but a number of friends testified that those pry marks had been there for a long time. The only window in the basement that could possibly have been breached had an intact spider web still clinging to it. Boulder Police went so far as to contact entymology experts to learn that spiders were dormant at that time of year in Colorado and would not have rewoven the web had it been destroyed. Nonetheless, the intruder theorists believe this is where the killer or killers entered and exited.

And if so, why still intruder-ists?

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Tue Apr 21, 2015 9:25 pm

Excellent post, Debbie!

Franz wrote:
debbiediablo wrote:The house had been locked the night of the murder, and there was no sign of forced entry. Patsy Ramsey pointed out pry marks on one of the back doors, but a number of friends testified that those pry marks had been there for a long time. The only window in the basement that could possibly have been breached had an intact spider web still clinging to it. Boulder Police went so far as to contact entymology experts to learn that spiders were dormant at that time of year in Colorado and would not have rewoven the web had it been destroyed. Nonetheless, the intruder theorists believe this is where the killer or killers entered and exited.
And if so, why still intruder-ists?

Good question, Franz. I found the following web site which contains in depth reasons for why I believe it was an inside job.

http://tinyurl.com/lv8e4oq

debbiediablo · Post by **debbiediablo** » Tue Apr 21, 2015 9:35 pm

By all appearances prior to the murder John and Patsy Ramsey were doting parents. Even though evidence points toward someone inside the house, it is difficult to believe they committed this heinous crime against their beloved little girl. So the only other choices are intruder(s) or her brother Burke, not old enough to form intent under Colorado law.

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 7:00 pm

It is reported that in the 911 call registered tape a voice said: "We are not speaking to you."

Were the Ramsey ever questioned by the investigators who was this "you"?

Curryong · Post by **Curryong** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 7:25 pm

If John and Patsy were loving,doting parents, who was interfering with Jonbonet (IF she was being regularly sexually assaulted and not just suffering bed wetting problems.) Was it her brother? In that case why would the little girl not tell her mother?

As far as covering up the murder is concerned I would believe that Patsy would try desperately to protect her remaining child (writing a ransom note and so) more than I would Patsy going all-out to protect John. This is a very puzzling case, however. A true mystery with few real suspects.

twinsrwe · Post by **twinsrwe** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:51 pm

Franz wrote:It is reported that in the 911 call registered tape a voice said: "We are not speaking to you."

Were the Ramsey ever questioned by the investigators who was this "you"?

Here Franz, I found this very interesting web site that I think will answer your questions and then some.

http://tinyurl.com/oncbrdx

Franz · Post by **Franz** » Fri Apr 24, 2015 5:13 am

Thank you very much, twinsrwe. You are always so helpful.