Moab said:
No, I think it must have been the maid, with a candlestick, in the pantry.
Well, since you mentioned it--the article below talks about the death of the daughter of Mrs. Vodicka a few weeks before JBR was murdered. Mrs. Vodicka was a former housekeeper of the Ramseys who was let go. Christmas Day that year, the Vodicka family was in mourning---the Ramseys were on top of the world. I wonder if there was someone connected to the Vodicka family, upset at Lorraine's death and the way it was investigated. Or just another strange coincidence? If Lorraine had been murdered she would have been the first murder of the year---as it is, JBR was the first murder:
A tale of two victims: questions surround handling of two deaths
By ELLIOT ZARET
Camera Staff Writer
Friday, January 10, 1997
John and Patsy Ramsey's daughter died in Boulder two weeks ago. She was found strangled and molested - with duct tape over her mouth and her skull fractured - in the basement of her parents' 15-room Tudor home. Tight-lipped police have spared nothing in t heir meticulous search for the killer or killers of the beautiful little girl - the youngest daughter of a wealthy corporate executive and a former beauty queen.
Geraldine Vodicka's daughter also died in Boulder in December. She was found nearly naked with her face bloodied and beaten, face-down in a construction ditch near the low-income housing project where she lived. The coroner ruled the death of the epil eptic grocery bagger - who was reported to have been an alcoholic - accidental. Police continue investigating, although Boulder Police Chief Tom Koby says he concurs with the coroner.
Boulder police say the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was the only homicide in 1996. Others aren't so sure.
Some neighbors and friends of 37-year-old Lorraine Florence Lawrence, who died Dec. 4, said they don't believe the assessment that she died of exposure in a hole at a construction site near a Boulder Housing Authority apartment complex. They believe L awrence was killed.
Comparing how police handled the two cases, they said, justice may be different for a poor woman like Lawrence and an affluent family like the Ramseys.
"I really believe justice will be served in the Ramsey case," said Tiffiney Johnson, a friend of Lawrence's who lives in the same housing com plex. "It's just the difference between rich and poor ... There's no doubt she was killed and everyone knows it."
Repeated attempts Thursday to contact detectives regarding the case were unsuccessful.
The neighbor who identified the
body said Lawrence had been beaten so badly she couldn't recognize her friend's face. Lawrence's teeth were broken, her eyes were bloodied and blackened. A trail of blood led from her apartment to where her body was found, and police reportedly found a broken beer bottle next to a pool of blood about 20 yards away.
But two weeks after her death, the Boulder County coroner released an autopsy report saying Lawrence fell into the hole - presumably dazed from a seizure - and died of exposure to the cold.
There has been no explanation of how she could have replaced plywood and two heavy buckets over the hole, as construction workers reportedly left it and found it the morning they discovered Lawrence's body.
"I'm not sure what happened, but it's hard for me to believe what the police say - that she died because of the cold," said the neighbor who identified Lawrence's body; she asked that her name not be used. "It's obvious that people who have more money are going to get more attention than people who are average."
The police's treatment of the Lawrence case, some say, is starkly different from how the Ramsey case has been handled so far.
While Boulder police initially dispatched 15 officers to the scene of Lawrence's death, that number declined within days.
In the Ramsey case, 30 officers from Boulder police and other local law enforcement agencies have worked virtually around the clock - even sending investigators to Georgia and Michigan - since JonBenet's death the day after Christmas. The investigatio n continues.
Police spent almost 10 days carefully scouring the Ramsey house for evidence. They finished examining the Lawrence crime scene in about two days.
And while the coroner completed and released the autopsy report on Lawrence about two weeks after her body was found, more than two weeks have passed since JonBenet's body was found, and no such report has been released. The report is not expected for "a minimum of a week," according to the coroner's office.
Police also released a detailed report about two weeks after Lawrence's death, even though they said it was still being investigated. In the Ramsey case, virtually all public records have been sealed: 911 recordings, search warrant affidavits and list s of what was seized from the family home.
When Lawrence died, police immediately questioned everyone involved, including her mother, sister and stepfather. JonBenet's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, flew to Georgia for their daughter's funeral. A week after her death, they were given a writt en list of questions; they have yet to be thoroughly interviewed in person. Police said they didn't question the Ramseys in order to give them time to grieve.
"If Lorraine's mom wanted to grieve and wanted time or wanted to leave the state, there's no way in hell they would've let her go," Johnson said.
When asked about the different handling of the two cases at Thursday's public forum, Koby said it was only perceived to be different because of media hype.
"Why has the media given so much attention to this case and literally no attention to the case you described?" Koby responded when questioned about the Lawrence case.
"The notion that we have treated them differently - any legal expert will tell you we have handled this case exactly as it should be handled ... If you go back and assess the homicides that Boulder has had, because they are infrequent events, you will find a similar response
