Day 12 The Ransom Note/The 12 Days of JonBenet

[YouWho]

I found this particular part of the exchange between Patsy Ramsey and Steve Thomas on Larry King Live from May 31, 2000, rather interesting:

- - - -

J. RAMSEY: When we find the right suspect and get enough samples, three pages of handwriting will allow us to make a conclusive match. That has been stated by experts in the handwriting field.

KING: That's the key to this whole thing, right?

J. RAMSEY: This is a huge key and a huge gift.

KING: It's a strange, letter, isn't it?

THOMAS: Absolutely. It is an absolutely bizarre letter, that the writer knew so much about this family, using Patsy's tablet, a pen from within the home, and...

P. RAMSEY: They did not use JonBenet's name.

THOMAS: He or she certainly did not. I don't know what your point is with that.

- - - -

Note: Apparently the video of this is not available, but you can find the transcript easily.

Does this seem like a spontaneous utterance on Patsy's part? I think she screwed up there and we got a little view into her deceit. It's not exactly a Bombshell! but I think it's damning.

Also I'd like to point out that Patsy was a journalism major with an emphasis on advertisement. When she was tired and weak from her cancer, the family watched movies together while she lay in bed.

IMO, she wrote the Ransom Note. Like a lot of other criminals, she thought she could out smart the police.

 

[DrollForeignFaction]

It's the content of the note that really sucked me into the case in the first place. It's so long and bizarre you can analyze it endlessly. One of my favorite parts of the note is the famous "and hence" portion, where the author uses the unusual construction of If A, B "and hence" C. A year later the Ramseys wrote something for the church Christmas newsletter that sounded eerily similar : If not A, not B "and hence" not C. Here's a linguist's take on that part:

(13) If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence a[n] [sic] earlier pick-up of your daughter.
The final sentence of this phase, sentence 13, is a particularly unusual sentence structure. It contains a particularly unusual sentence link, ‘and hence’. ‘Hence’ is seldom used in contemporary speech. Most people would simply say ‘and’ or if they were getting really fancy, ‘and then’. The initial italicized portion of the sentence is what is known in phasal analysis as a beta clause. It is signalled by the beta conjunction ‘if’. It is followed by the alpha clause. The two clauses, alpha and beta, are interdependent. This means if you remove one clause, the other clause loses its meaning. The final bit of italicized information is also interdependent on both the initial clauses. Alone it has no meaning. An additional unique feature is the use of the root word ‘early’ which appears in every clause. This is a particularly unusual sentence structure. Consider this sentence structure:

Had there been no birth of Christ, there would be no hope of eternal life, and, hence, no hope of ever being with our loved ones again.

This sentence appears in the second paragraph of ‘A Christmas Message from the Ramsey Family’ (Hodges, 207) which was written to commemorate the anniversary of the death of JonBenét. What is striking is the exact replication of unusual sentence structure and the exact use of an unusual archaic academic sentence link, ‘and hence’. Although ‘if’ is not present here, the same alpha-beta relationship is present. Here the same process is used to identify the structures and the link which are identical to the ransom note. And here, also, we have a similar word pattern ‘no birth/no hope’, repeated in each clause. Once again, this is a difficult sentence structure. Requests to numerous people of varied linguistic talents have not been able to provide an exact match to this sentence structure. I believe that this is indicative of someone’s speech patterns. This is a linguistic fingerprint. The probability of these linguistic fingerprints being on both letters is extremely remote. Also, Patsy’s Christmas letter the year of JonBenét’s death employs some unusual archaic phrases, such as: ‘hither and yon’ and ‘amid the throng’. These, like ‘hence’, are no longer commonly used expressions.

Just to add onto her point about the repetition of "early": let's not forget the crossed out second use of "delivery". "If get early, then earlier delivery AND HENCE earlier delivery." Compare to "If no birth, then no hope AND HENCE no hope." More repetition.

Here's the full analysis, I thought it was a pretty good read.
http://alinguistic.blogspot.com/2007/10/becker-barbara-j.html?m=1

 

[Lamima]

I can"t help but think this RN was generated by JR.

The amount of $118,000 is specifically mentioned in the RN.

In "Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: The Uncensored Story of the JonBenet Murder" by Lawrence Schiller, Schiller writes about a long time business associate of JR's who had been given an option of a big pay cut, or he could leave the company by April, 30, 1996. Merrick left the company but later claimed the company owed him close to $118,000.

Would PR have known about that? Did JR confide in her about work troubles? Would she have remembered that or the amount Merrick told JR he was owed?

I am thinking maybe JR dictated it while BR wrote it? I had very decent handwriting (printing) in 2nd grade.

Could BR and JBR have had a fatal encounter? Started as play but descended into anger and jealousy?

Who would BR go to to get help that night. Mom? No, he'd go to Dad.

He takes JR down to the basement to show him that JBR was dead. But it was just a game, Dad! I didn't mean to.

What to do? Clean her up but leave the garrot on her.

They go upstairs and JR decides to make it look like a kidnapping.
(He's not good at this kind of thing but he can't let his son go to prison for this...."accident".)

He dictates the letter to BR including the reference of $118,000. Surely someone would believe this man capable of abducting his daughter. After all, he was owed $118,000.

I think PR was totally unaware. I don't think she had the wherewithal to plan on contaminating the scene by inviting friends over or to print a RD.

I am probably way off on this.

But did they ever take handwriting samples from BR or would LE have been reluctant to do so or would they have ever thought to because of his age.

This is way out there speculation.
Well, maybe not way out there but speculation. nonetheless.



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Hmmm, interesting! Plausible.

 

[YouWho]

I am thinking maybe JR dictated it while BR wrote it? I had very decent handwriting (printing) in 2nd grade.

Could BR and JBR have had a fatal encounter?

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Snipped by me for space...

While I think it's entirely possible that BR MAY have been the one who accidentally delivered the soon-to-be-fatal blow, I have a LOT of trouble pinning the ransom note on him. When my son was that age, I couldn't get him to stop peeing on the toilet seat, let alone be seated still for what would have taken a very long time in my opinion, to write that very long, nicely printed, proper salutation, indentations, etc., ransom note. Telling him how to spell the words attache', foreign, particularly, faction, individuals (just to name a few). There probably would have been a lot of cross-outs and many re-writes. It would have taken a kid hours. IMO.

Either PR composed and wrote it in it's entirety, or PR and JR did it together. IMO.

 

[PositiveLight]

when I look at the ransom note and compare it to Patsy's writing sample it strikes me how they both show the capital letter "I" written with the top and bottom horizontal lines, not just a plain vertical line. I never write it like this, and rarely see it written by other like this - really curious to how many websleuthers write their capital I's like patsy??

View attachment 101595

I actually do write my I's with the horizontal lines. I feel like if I don't, they could be mixed up with lower case L's. I was taught that way by my teachers.

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[PositiveLight]

It's the content of the note that really sucked me into the case in the first place. It's so long and bizarre you can analyze it endlessly. One of my favorite parts of the note is the famous "and hence" portion, where the author uses the unusual construction of If A, B "and hence" C. A year later the Ramseys wrote something for the church Christmas newsletter that sounded eerily similar : If not A, not B "and hence" not C. Here's a linguist's take on that part:

Just to add onto her point about the repetition of "early": let's not forget the crossed out second use of "delivery". "If get early, then earlier delivery AND HENCE earlier delivery." Compare to "If no birth, then no hope AND HENCE no hope." More repetition.

Here's the full analysis, I thought it was a pretty good read.
http://alinguistic.blogspot.com/2007/10/becker-barbara-j.html?m=1

Super interesting read! Thank you!

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[PositiveLight]

I want to add a few thoughts of my own here. First of all I think it can't be completely ruled out that BR wrote the letter.
My son had excellent penmanship at BR's age. He was very OCD about his handwriting. He often threw away almost completed homework because it wasn't neat enough. Drove me insane! I couldn't see the errors he saw. My daughter however still writes extremely messy and couldn't be bothered to write neater. So they are apples and oranges when it comes to handwriting.
I can see the initial letter that was thrown away being used for BR to copy it word for word.
He seems to have enough detachment from the whole crime even back then, to write it without crying or worry. Whether he understood half the words would be pointless. Especially if he was merely copying it or having it dictated. Just a thought and moo.

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[just the facts pls]

Is there any possible way that BR could have written the note w/ PR dictating it?

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Hi Razz, I think it's very possible that BR could have written the note.

1. BR tells Dr Phil he has never read the ransom note. He says he has a theory about who killed his sister but hasn't even read the note??
2. BR's first reaction to the note was to tell Dr Phil that his mother was always on his case about his penmanship.
3. There were practice ransom notes found on the writing pad used to write the ransom note.
4. Much of the ransom note used quotes from movies. Kids are known to imitate movies.
5. Handwriting between parents and children can be very similar. One study I found up to 97% similarity between mothers and sons handwriting samples.

http://www.irjes.com/Papers/vol4-issue4/A440105.pdf

6. The ransom amount could be much higher, since the news reported JR raked in 10 billion dollars worth of sales. Burke could have over heard his parents talking about JR's Christmas bonus of 118,000 and put it in there.
7. BR grew up in a wealthy household where words like "attache" would be heard and familiar.

I am not an expert about this case. I consider myself an outsider looking in. However, when I read the ransom note I see a session of pretend play between two kids going terribly wrong.

 

[Lamima]

Snipped by me for space...

While I think it's entirely possible that BR MAY have been the one who accidentally delivered the soon-to-be-fatal blow, I have a LOT of trouble pinning the ransom note on him. When my son was that age, I couldn't get him to stop peeing on the toilet seat, let alone be seated still for what would have taken a very long time in my opinion, to write that very long, nicely printed, proper salutation, indentations, etc., ransom note. Telling him how to spell the words attache', foreign, particularly, faction, individuals (just to name a few). There probably would have been a lot of cross-outs and many re-writes. It would have taken a kid hours. IMO.

Either PR composed and wrote it in it's entirety, or PR and JR did it together. IMO.

I'm with you. I think back to myself, and then my 3 kids, having to write sentences for homework in elementary school. I, and they, hated to write even one sentence. It was almost painful. to do that homework and took me, and my kids, way longer then necessary to get it done. I can't imagine any elementary aged kid drafting a 3 page letter like that.

 

[Airasae]

We call it the ransom note but it's really the explanation letter. It explains why we have a dead body in the basement. Obviously there's been no kidnapping. The author wants us to believe someone is mad at John's company for doing business with a country they don't respect. They've taken the kid, if anyone is contacted the kid dies. EVERYONE is contacted so of course the kid is dead and returned. Totally believable. Not. Who benefits from this explanation? Only the people in the house. An intruder does not need an explanation or a letter, an intruder only has to leave. If you were writing the explanation you would not address yourself, the ransom note only addresses John. In the Larry King Live Interview with Steve Thomas, Patsy noted the author of the ransom note did not use Jonbenet's name, something she herself fails to do on many occasions when speaking about Jonbenet. The author even cared so much about getting the note perfect that he/she wrote a practice note out before the final draft. But why would an intruder care about imperfections? This indicates anxiety on the part of the author. The author is afraid they will let something slip that will show who they are. Only someone who will be around when police come would be worried that they might show through, or else they would have not written the note at all and been long gone. John was ruled out as the author. Patsy was not. What are the chances that an intruder who needed no explanation to murder a child, would make up such an elaborate 3 page explanation in the mother's handwriting, for no purpose whatsoever because no one even ever tried to collect on the ransom?

*The truth is out there*

The RN has just confused me, until I read your post. Your explanation really made it click for me. It's pure bizarreness was a smidge of doubt for me. For JonBenet I was holding out hope that her family didn't commit these brutal acts on her. I just fell of the fence. 😔

 

[Airasae]

when I look at the ransom note and compare it to Patsy's writing sample it strikes me how they both show the capital letter "I" written with the top and bottom horizontal lines, not just a plain vertical line. I never write it like this, and rarely see it written by other like this - really curious to how many websleuthers write their capital I's like patsy??

View attachment 101595

Sometime during my primary (elementary) schooling (late 1980's) I remember being taught that we were no longer required to put the horizontal bars on our I's. Up to that point we had been taught to use the bars. I would imagine anyone schooled prior to the 1980's was taught to use the bars.

 

[Airasae]

I want to add a few thoughts of my own here. First of all I think it can't be completely ruled out that BR wrote the letter.
My son had excellent penmanship at BR's age. He was very OCD about his handwriting. He often threw away almost completed homework because it wasn't neat enough. Drove me insane! I couldn't see the errors he saw. My daughter however still writes extremely messy and couldn't be bothered to write neater. So they are apples and oranges when it comes to handwriting.
I can see the initial letter that was thrown away being used for BR to copy it word for word.
He seems to have enough detachment from the whole crime even back then, to write it without crying or worry. Whether he understood half the words would be pointless. Especially if he was merely copying it or having it dictated. Just a thought and moo.

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BR stated in his DP interview that PR was always on him about his handwriting, always making sure that he wrote neatly.

 

[Stripehaven]

when I look at the ransom note and compare it to Patsy's writing sample it strikes me how they both show the capital letter "I" written with the top and bottom horizontal lines, not just a plain vertical line. I never write it like this, and rarely see it written by other like this - really curious to how many websleuthers write their capital I's like patsy??

View attachment 101595

I do 🙂

 

[Sunshine4Me]

Great post.

The thing that bothers me most about this letter is....how the heck did PR manage to write a
long ransom note (under what must have been extreme duress) and have a handwriting analyst say it is highly probable?

For fun, I've tried to disguise my handwriting to see if I could make it where no one could tie it to me. I've tried printing, I've written by left hand etc. There is no way anyone could look at it and say it wasn't my handwriting.

Not only did she have to be careful making the letters so they didn"t look like hers, but she had to also come up with that "story"
about the foreign factions as well as having the letter point to one of John's ex co-workers.

How did she manage to keep her tears (from crying) off the paper? And her fingerprints? Did she write it with gloves on?

I'm not saying it was someone other than the Ramseys but wow, I could not have pulled that off.

I look forward to the show this evening. Obviously much more has been discovered and analyzed since the few years following JBR's death.

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For you Razz I will give away all my secrets. This of course means I must give up my dreams of writing fake ransom notes, but anything for the cause. I am left handed. I learned a long time ago to write with my right hand due to the awkwardness of notebooks in school. If I were to find myself in the unfortunate situation of needing to explain my daughter's dead body in my basement I would write a ransom note with my right hand. My letters would not be formed the same way as with my left hand in most instances because of the direction my hand would be going. With my experience and to the unaided eye it would appear to have been written by two different people. I don't believe Patsy had such experience. I read she did use her opposite hand for a tiny bit during an injury of her dominant hand, but that is not long enough practice to have a complete and unique handwriting style for the opposite hand, therefore using her opposite hand, characteristics of her dominant hand showed through. I believe she used her left hand. It's possible a handwriting expert could match my own non dominant handwriting to me even with my lifetime of practice and the uniqueness of the writing compared to my dominant hand. Although I would bet they would have a much harder time at it than they did with Patsy's handwriting.

I think Patsy didn't get tears on the letter because she had already cried them all out. Tears are not infinite, and I am sure she took time to get herself together as much as possible before she began, she had most of the night. I do believe she wore gloves for the entire staging process. On p72 of Steve Thomas's book, "Inside The Ramsey Murder Investigation," he said when Patsy's sister Pam Paugh raided their house for funeral clothes she was freaking out over wearing gloves, this always made me suspect she knew something more about gloves than we did.

*The truth is out there*

 

[PositiveLight]

Something that also crossed my mind. As a nurse we do a ton of writing in charts etc etc. There have been so many times where I have came across my handwriting months later and would swear it wasn't mine. Although I knew it was. Looking at the handwriting I could remember exactly what was going on at the moment. Was I exhausted? Stressed? In a rush? Sick? I think a lot plays a part in someone's writing. I do however feel that if PR was medicated enough, it's possible she checked out mentally during the staging and ransom note writing and only once the cops got there, did she really finally fall apart.

 

[Razz]

For you Razz I will give away all my secrets. This of course means I must give up my dreams of writing fake ransom notes, but anything for the cause. I am left handed. I learned a long time ago to write with my right hand due to the awkwardness of notebooks in school. If I were to find myself in the unfortunate situation of needing to explain my daughter's dead body in my basement I would write a ransom note with my right hand. My letters would not be formed the same way as with my left hand in most instances because of the direction my hand would be going. With my experience and to the unaided eye it would appear to have been written by two different people. I don't believe Patsy had such experience. I read she did use her opposite hand for a tiny bit during an injury of her dominant hand, but that is not long enough practice to have a complete and unique handwriting style for the opposite hand, therefore using her opposite hand, characteristics of her dominant hand showed through. I believe she used her left hand. It's possible a handwriting expert could match my own non dominant handwriting to me even with my lifetime of practice and the uniqueness of the writing compared to my dominant hand. Although I would bet they would have a much harder time at it than they did with Patsy's handwriting.

I think Patsy didn't get tears on the letter because she had already cried them all out. Tears are not infinite, and I am sure she took time to get herself together as much as possible before she began, she had most of the night. I do believe she wore gloves for the entire staging process. On p72 of Steve Thomas's book, "Inside The Ramsey Murder Investigation," he said when Patsy's sister Pam Paugh raided their house for funeral clothes she was freaking out over wearing gloves, this always made me suspect she knew something more about gloves than we did.

*The truth is out there*

IF you ever do have to write a fake ransom note, authorities will have you write (many times) with both hands. So, your jig will be up and thankfully, I won't have to tell anyone about your secrets.
[emoji15] [emoji4]

I don't know about those tears and lack thereof. But...I suspect when PR had to do something, she had steely resolve and laser focus. (and no tears).

The thing about the recreation last night on the note writing on the CBS special, all the specialists wrote the note in about 21 minutes. However, to make it more authentic, they should have worn gloves and used both hands.

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[IBsleuthin]

As I was reading the ransom note again yesterday these thoughts occurred to me;

Sado/masochists are all about role playing.

The garrote was applied while JBR was still alive, this is proven in the autopsy. This then can be said that it was not staged, it was an active part in her death and in fact the autopsy states she died as a result of asphyxiation.

Extrapolating this forward; A sadist was involved then and apparently caused the death of JBR.


The lengthy and specifically worded ransom note could certainly have been a ROLE PLAYING note. It would explain a lot.

 

[itsreenw]

the "a's" starting on the 3rd line are exactly like the a's in the "explanation letter".

 

[cattlekate]

Here is my take on Patsy Ramsey's handwriting and ransom note.

Patsy Ramsey's Handwriting

Ransom Note

(SNIP)
Looking at her handwriting, it has a consistent pressure, like in the ransom note. There is muddying of a's, e's and o's in Patsy's and ransom note. That would suggest that Patsy is secretive and repressed. They both angle to the right which indicates she is very sociable. The ransom note states the person will call, which never happened to my knowledge. Whoever wrote the ransom note was in a hurry from the way it is written. Whoever wrote the ransom note has an overactive imagination. That person who would odd thinking at times.
(SNIP)

Patsy Ramsey's handwriting suggests she has a lot of repressed anger issues. She is very negativistic and controlling person. She is very conscious about herself and prefers being liked and accepted. On that ground, Patsy Ramsey is more similar to Lori Drew than Jodi Arias. However, Arias prefers respect over being liked.

SNIPPED by me for brevity.

Patsy's sample note says the date is 1987. I assume the note was written in 1997 and it's to Burke in Atlanta. She must've been in such a fog she got the decade wrong. But she still uses her descriptive journalistic flair.

Anyway, the RN is so over the top it's hard to believe JR would've approved it. I don't think he had a clue what was going on until the morning of dec 26 after the cops came, while he and Patsy just sat there and he thought of the note.

 

[just the facts pls]

As I was reading the ransom note again yesterday these thoughts occurred to me;

Sado/masochists are all about role playing.

The garrote was applied while JBR was still alive, this is proven in the autopsy. This then can be said that it was not staged, it was an active part in her death and in fact the autopsy states she died as a result of asphyxiation.

Extrapolating this forward; A sadist was involved then and apparently caused the death of JBR.


The lengthy and specifically worded ransom note could certainly have been a ROLE PLAYING note. It would explain a lot.

A sadist would want to see someone in pain. JBR wouldn't have been able to exhibit signs of pain being unconscious or brain dead. Ligature strangulation is typical of sex crimes, but not all sex crimes are sadistic.

Dr Spitz said the garrote was make believe and it was applied after JBR was unconscious or brain dead. I agree with him.