If you look at it logically it's very clear who did it!

[CloudedTruth]

That’s as i remember it, too. This was common by the late 1970s in my age group, as part of the Feminist Movement, of which I’m pretty sure Patsy didn’t consider herself a part. Had it seeped into Southern Baptist culture by the early-to-mid ‘90s? I think it’s likely, if not as a matter of feminist bodily autonomy, then for the more conventional reason of protecting female purity.

It’s Dr. Beuf, by the way.

It's interesting to note however, that given JBR's ongoing toileting issues, she had to have help wiping herself. I cannot recall the source, but have read more than once that JBR had no issues asking whoever was around to wipe her after using the restroom. Supposedly Fleet White was someone who had done this for her. Just an observation with regard to the "talks" about no one touching her where the bathing suit touches.

 

[GoBuckeyes]

If the Ramsey's found the ransom note when they woke up, as they claim, it seems so weird that there was no concern that the kidnappers weren't still in the house. The kidnappers could have just finished that note and ducked into another room when they heard someone getting up. I know not everyone reacts the same, but I just can't imagine people finding evidence of intruders in their house and having no concern the intruders might still be there.

I agree with you. I could see a situation where the finder of the RN grabs a phone and is reporting in a hushed tone to 911 as she goes to alert John and check on Burke.

 

[GoBuckeyes]

I made a comment earlier, which was deleted cause my link did not work.
So I will try again! (hopefully it works this time mods!)

Back in September 1997, a little less than 9 months after Jonbenet's murder another girl in boulder was sexually assaulted in her home.
They had gone to the same dance-school, and lived about 2 miles from the Ramsey home.

"There's a Dance West school where the victim of the assault in our case, the one that we investigated, and the Ramsey girl, both attended," says Peterson, who now believes Jon Benet was first targeted at that dance studio because of what happened to his client, just nine months after JonBenet was murdered.

Like JonBenet, she took lessons at Dance West. And like JonBenet, another girl, who is identified as "Amy," was attacked and sexually assaulted at night in her own bedroom on Sept. 14, 1997.

That night, Amy's father was out of town. After catching a movie, Amy and her mother returned home late. What they didn't know when they entered the house was that there was already an intruder inside.

Amy's father, who asked that his identity be obscured, agreed to talk about what happened that night: "My feeling is he got into the house while they were out and hid inside the house, so he would have been in there for perhaps four to six hours, hiding."

Before going to bed, Amy's mother turned on the burglar alarm. Around midnight, Amy woke up to find a man standing over her bed, his hand over her mouth. "She remembered the intruder addressing her by her name," says Peterson. "He said, 'I know who you are.' He repeated those things a few times, apparently. 'I'll knock you out. Shut up.'"

Peterson says Amy's mother heard whispering, and proceeded through the doorway, and saw a person, who just brushed her aside and quickly made his escape by jumping out a second-floor window.

"He was like a ghost," recalls Amy's father. "We couldn't figure out where he came from, or where he went."

By the time the Boulder police arrived, the man was long gone. Because the intruder had gotten in and out of the house so easily, Amy's father began to think this wasn't the first time he had done something like this.

JonBenet: DNA Rules Out Parents
JonBenet: DNA Rules Out Parents

Someone broke into their home before they got home that night. Stayed in the home for hours, waited, before eventually deciding to do the crime around midnight. Had he not been interrupted there is no telling what could have happened to the girl.

If this is how he worked, it is likely he did it before, and after as well. It sounds like something someone who had experience would do.

Someone like this person sounds like they value expediency. How does the ransome note fit into that?

 

[Rain on my Parade]

That’s as i remember it, too. This was common by the late 1970s in my age group, as part of the Feminist Movement, of which I’m pretty sure Patsy didn’t consider herself a part. Had it seeped into Southern Baptist culture by the early-to-mid ‘90s? I think it’s likely, if not as a matter of feminist bodily autonomy, then for the more conventional reason of protecting female purity.

It’s Dr. Beuf, by the way.

887sMteme,
If PR had wanted to protect JB‘s female purity then why did she enter her into the pageant circuit at 4? Actually it was her mother NP that started the whole thing when PR was recovering from treatment. Here falls the “all kids are a little abused”, comment? Makes one wonder how deep it ran in the Paugh family. PR just followed her mother’s suit. As JB said herself, “the trophies, ribbons and tiaras were really her mom’s.

 

[Rain on my Parade]

So we agree that the note-on-the-stairs story is bogus. However, I'm not following your train of thought entirely. If the spiral stairs story was meant to direct suspicion towards LHP, why not leave it on the stairs for the police to see? What do you think was the motive for moving it to the floor outside the study?

Meara,
As the story goes the retelling of the story was the rn was first discovered on the staircase. It was one of BPD officer’s that put it back on the spiral staircase. It was PR story misdirecting the rn from herself, story.
Perhaps PR wanted to see JR bow down; hence the floor? The rn was after all (full of nasties) directed at JR. Oh, that Miss Jean Brodie!

It’s always informative to see where PR gets most rattled in the police interviews. While writing my post at #109, I reread the “finding the note” portions. As long as PR has some control of the narrative, she's okay; but the harder she's pressed for details of who did what and the exact sequence of events, the more her language unravels. The "I mean, you know"s, incomplete thoughts, vagueness, and self-interruptions multiply until she's approaching incoherence. From the 1997 interview:

TT: Okay. Patsy, do you recall who moved the note from the bottom of the stairs down to where John could read it with the good lighting.
PR: I think he did. I, I (inaudible) . . .
TT: Okay.
PR: . . .don’t remember exactly, but, I mean it was just, I was just, I was just nuts I (inaudible)

The 1998 interview has this bizarre reply :

9 TOM HANEY: Where does John, and we
10 will use a red marker now for John, where does
11 he first appear in there, at least in this
12 diagram, if you can start there?
13 PATSY RAMSEY: He comes down those
14 stairs there. (Indicating) and so we are both
15 like standing here, I am pacing, I said oh, my
16 God, you know there is a note, she's been
17 kidnapped. She is not in her bed, you know.
18 You know, then everything gets really you know,
19 who's on first kind of thing.

Excellent points. Her tv interviews are worse I.e. The Killing of JonBenet: Her Father Speaks (2016). It’s laughable! If you can get a copy of it; well worth watching.

What? PR is referencing the famous comedy routine by Abbott and Costello. In it, two characters are trying to talk about baseball but can't understand each other because they're using words that sound alike to refer to two different things; e.g., Who's on first? = Which player is on first base? and = The player on first base is named Who. The wordplay is so clever and witty, it's a comedy classic - and therefore sickeningly out of place in the interview. The first time I read it, I gasped. Saying "then everything gets really you know who's on first kind of thing" is also shockingly arrogant and dismissive, like saying, 'I know you want to solve my daughter's murder, but I can't be bothered to go over all these details [especially since John and I only rehearsed the outline. Stick to the script!]. But why the reference to "Who's on first?" of all things? Why not just say 'everything gets chaotic?' I think this is PR’s unconscious confession that she’s lying to mislead investigators - holding two different versions of events in her mind - and, more twistedly, that, to her, deceiving them is a game. Could this also signal a deep split in PR’s psyche, with different parts having different experiences of the same events and being unable to communicate with each other? Either way, it's a plus for Steve Thomas’s assessment of PR’s psychotic potential.

Oh, this is so very, very good! Life is but a play to some! Put’s a whole different slant on viewing the inside of this family and its dysfunction!

 

[Rain on my Parade]

It's interesting to note however, that given JBR's ongoing toileting issues, she had to have help wiping herself. I cannot recall the source, but have read more than once that JBR had no issues asking whoever was around to wipe her after using the restroom. Supposedly Fleet White was someone who had done this for her. Just an observation with regard to the "talks" about no one touching her where the bathing suit touches.

CloudedTruth,
This is correct, FW did wipe JB as well as babysit them. It was JB habit of asking others to wipe her. She learned this behavior somehow?

The increase in bed wetting was said to be caused by perhaps the on going/increase in SA. JB had to deal with it somehow. Who knows how her little mind was trying to cope?

Makes one wonder about PR interview: It was to only be her or Dr. Beuf with her presence that touched her where her bathing suit touches. IMOO, this is a significant admission. So, here we go again with the PR spin. Knowingly, with grown men wiping her? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

 

[887sMtreme]

887sMteme,
If PR had wanted to protect JB‘s female purity then why did she enter her into the pageant circuit at 4? Actually it was her mother NP that started the whole thing when PR was recovering from treatment. Here falls the “all kids are a little abused”, comment? Makes one wonder how deep it ran in the Paugh family. PR just followed her mother’s suit. As JB said herself, “the trophies, ribbons and tiaras were really her mom’s.

I was simply addressing the question of whether conversations between mothers and daughters about inappropriate touching were “a thing” in the late 1990s, not commenting at all about pageants.

 

[CloudedTruth]

Someone like this person sounds like they value expediency. How does the ransome note fit into that?

Exactly. Whoever this guy was, he was smart. Evidenced by the fact that he was not caught. We of course will never know how that scenario would have played out had the whispering not been heard by the mother who then interrupted whatever plan this guy had for the girl. But I very much doubt his plan would have included assaulting her in the home with family present who could find him at any moment committing his crime(s). It also seems likely that he had been watching and knew that the father was not home. Surely he would have done the same with the R's if we are to believe this is the infamous "intruder". JR was away on business fairly frequently, why take the chance of committing this crime with the entire family present?

 

[Rain on my Parade]

I was simply addressing the question of whether conversations between mothers and daughters about inappropriate touching were “a thing” in the late 1990s, not commenting at all about pageants.

887sMtreme,
I understood that completely. My apologies for sounding off putting. I was merely pointing out what else JB went through during those time periods. How everything ties in together.
What I found highly unusual is that PR would have that talk about no one touching JB where her bathing suit touches but knowingly allow adult men to wipe her.

 

[fridaybaker]

It's interesting to note however, that given JBR's ongoing toileting issues, she had to have help wiping herself. I cannot recall the source, but have read more than once that JBR had no issues asking whoever was around to wipe her after using the restroom. Supposedly Fleet White was someone who had done this for her. Just an observation with regard to the "talks" about no one touching her where the bathing suit touches.

Well good pick up there, Cloudedtruth. "Don't let anyone touch you except for a grown man friend of your parents, and pretty much anyone else around the house who happens by"...

 

[fridaybaker]

I know of no grown man who would consent to wiping a little girl. He would (rather embarrassadly) immediately look away and summon one of her parents. Nowhere in my life is there a man who would do this.

 

[CloudedTruth]

I know of no grown man who would consent to wiping a little girl. He would (rather embarrassadly) immediately look away and summon one of her parents. Nowhere in my life is there a man who would do this.

It is quite odd, isn't it? From both sides of the coin. Most little girls would be embarrassed to ask anyone other than a parent or a close relative for something so personal. I get that the Whites were close friends, but it just feels rather off to me. And JBR's apparent lack of modesty and nonchalantness about this seems to me to be in direct opposition to a child who has supposedly been repeatedly spoken to about inappropriate touching.

 

[fridaybaker]

I don’t know who, specifically, actually did this crime. However, I’m just stunned by the massive parenting fail here: What would anyone have expected as an outcome? If not abused and murdered in her home, surely she was likely to be the object of scam, or abuse outside the home at some point. These parents did nothing to prevent it, and virtually everything to ensure her abuse.

Parading her around, dressed and made-up like a grown woman; whether or not they promoted it, they certainly knew about JB asking brown men to wipe her; to having strangers go through your home, even the bedrooms, to not fixing broken windows. (Wasn’t there an alarm that wasn’t working or wasn’t set or something as well?) Seriously, these folks did noth8ng to protect their children.

 

[GoBuckeyes]

I know of no grown man who would consent to wiping a little girl. He would (rather embarrassadly) immediately look away and summon one of her parents. Nowhere in my life is there a man who would do this.

Do we know the circumstances under which FW accommodated the request? Perhaps he was the only one there with JBR and BR?? In that case, I could see him doing that.

 

[Meara]

Okay, I will give you that, but being 4 isn’t grade school yet. I remember the tampon in the boat commercials and thinking (if I had a little girl) how would I explain that commercial to her if she asked? JB was still in her formative years when her mom chose to sit her down and have a talk with her about her privates and then to continue to advise her is honestly beyond me. I have to say that the beauty pageants sexualize little girls and big girls as well. Sort of like the truth behind Playboy/Miss America and what was really going on.

I was replying mostly to CloudedTruth's curiosity about what the '90s cultural norm was for discussing safe touching. As mentioned, my girls were a little older than JBR, so no direct parallel was intended. What I'd add now, replying to your point about JBR's being only four, is that by the mid-'90s most of the parents I knew were very aware of SA and had "the talk" with any of their children who were outside the home for any significant period of time (e.g., preschool, daycare). I remember having conversations about what was age- appropriate, how much/how little to say, and so on. There was a lot of concern about how to help our children be safe without robbing them of their innocence in the process. Talking in terms of the bathing suit was widely adopted as the best approach since it avoided naming body parts, was non-threatening, and was associated with positive things. I could be misremembering, but I seem to recall that I first heard about the bathing suit idea from a friend who had seen it in an article in a women's magazine, and it was considered a kind of breakthrough at the time.

 

[Meara]

Meara,
As the story goes the retelling of the story was the rn was first discovered on the staircase. It was one of BPD officer’s that put it back on the spiral staircase. It was PR story misdirecting the rn from herself, story.
Perhaps PR wanted to see JR bow down; hence the floor? The rn was after all (full of nasties) directed at JR. Oh, that Miss Jean Brodie!


Excellent points. Her tv interviews are worse I.e. The Killing of JonBenet: Her Father Speaks (2016). It’s laughable! If you can get a copy of it; well worth watching.


Oh, this is so very, very good! Life is but a play to some! Put’s a whole different slant on viewing the inside of this family and its dysfunction!

Thank you for your reply and kind words. I'm very interested in PR's narcissism and the tells for when she's lying or wants to avoid something. The theatrics were there, for sure; but maybe overall life was more a kind of game where she got to make her own rules, as needed, though she didn't recognize that dynamic in herself. Where we see her covering up the truth about JonBenet's death, in her own mind she probably saw herself as rising to the occasion.

 

[proust20]

At the time of her death, JonBenet was already the victim of multiple crimes. To say that the none of the Rs had criminal backgrounds is to imply that none of them were JB's abuser(s). If not they, then who? Majority of abusers are family or caregivers.

The staging reveals knowledge of the SA, which provides the best motive. For this reason, a presumably injured, but alive, JB could not be taken to the hospital without a cover story, that grew into the RN and its FF. As the RN is a work of fiction, any tales told by the Rs surrounding it are fictive also. Besides, the family relied on a labyrinth of contradictions and misstatements to muddy the waters successfully. The disorderly mess of their residence is reflected in their mess of 'facts'.

If there had been a plan to move the body from the house, why would Patsy invite over a crowd? In fact, why then even make the 911? Once the kidnapping was reported, BPD would be on the alert, and the Rs would be under scrutiny. The body would have to be removed before reporting JB's disappearance. And where would it be deposited? John drives around Boulder on Christmas with a body in the trunk searching for the perfect dumping ground, while taking care not to be observed coming and going, and relying on a hysterical Patsy to keep it together back at the home front? It would become apparent that the body had been moved, and other incriminating evidence would accumulate unavoidably. Also, if the body were not discovered before the following day, JR would have to endure the charade of assembling the ransom money. The person who finds the corpse must always rank very high as a suspect.

When LA looked into JR's eyes, he was thinking of catching a flight out of CO.

 

[Shamrock1]

Ispywithmylittleeye,
I don’t think it is inappropriate. I find it very unusual to have such a discussion with a child so young (at least in the year of 1994) and to continue to have that discussion with her. Unless of coarse there was cause. Today’s reality with the sex trafficking; I can better understand.

The *vast* majority of sexual abuse occurs at the hands of father, brother, coach, religious leader, family friend, etc. Sex trafficking is real, of course. But it’s much easier, emotionally, to teach “stranger danger” than it is to teach that a potential abuser may reside in the home, or be a frequent and trusted visitor to it. Parents in 1994 knew this, even if they weren’t vocal about it. JMO.

 

[Meara]

This.

As the RN is a work of fiction, any tales told by the Rs surrounding it are fictive also.

Thank you. The RN in a nuthou nutshell.

 

[CloudedTruth]

At the time of her death, JonBenet was already the victim of multiple crimes. To say that the none of the Rs had criminal backgrounds is to imply that none of them were JB's abuser(s). If not they, then who? Majority of abusers are family or caregivers.

The staging reveals knowledge of the SA, which provides the best motive. For this reason, a presumably injured, but alive, JB could not be taken to the hospital without a cover story, that grew into the RN and its FF. As the RN is a work of fiction, any tales told by the Rs surrounding it are fictive also. Besides, the family relied on a labyrinth of contradictions and misstatements to muddy the waters successfully. The disorderly mess of their residence is reflected in their mess of 'facts'.

If there had been a plan to move the body from the house, why would Patsy invite over a crowd? In fact, why then even make the 911? Once the kidnapping was reported, BPD would be on the alert, and the Rs would be under scrutiny. The body would have to be removed before reporting JB's disappearance. And where would it be deposited? John drives around Boulder on Christmas with a body in the trunk searching for the perfect dumping ground, while taking care not to be observed coming and going, and relying on a hysterical Patsy to keep it together back at the home front? It would become apparent that the body had been moved, and other incriminating evidence would accumulate unavoidably. Also, if the body were not discovered before the following day, JR would have to endure the charade of assembling the ransom money. The person who finds the corpse must always rank very high as a suspect.

When LA looked into JR's eyes, he was thinking of catching a flight out of CO.

I have made the comment that none of the R's had a criminal background, but it was in reference to questions about why certain things were done or not done during the subsequent cover up after her death. The meaning of which is that someone with a criminal background would probably have done some things differently, having a better knowledge of what to do to successfully avoid detection. I would disagree that by noting they did not have criminal backgrounds, it implies that none of them could be JBR''s abuser(s). I 100% think that she was being abused by a family member. I think it's safe to say that many abusers do not have criminal backgrounds.

That said, whoever was reading the Mindhunter book effectively made use of some content to hide the truth of what happened. And while many questions were raised about how they handled some things, between the confusion that they managed to create, some ineptness of the Boulder PD and JR's connections, they managed to avoid being revealed as the perpetrators even though suspicion certainly remains.