John Ramsey Fabricated Open Basement Window "Evidence"

[tumble]

He got up and asked John "what did you find?"

Toltec:
Interesting. I have read this before but I don't know where this info is coming from. Is it from Burke?
Is it here JR answers "We were not talking to you"?

 

[UKGuy]

The painttray was found outside the wine cellar door. Together with the wooden fragments from the brush.

Are there any photographs of the doorway leadning to the train room?

tumble,

Patsy asked LHP to tidy the painting materials away, and I doubt LHP would have placed the paint-tote on the floor outside the wine-cellar.

It was likely re-located there as was JonBenet's corpse?


.

 

[Cypros]

The painttray was found outside the wine cellar door. Together with the wooden fragments from the brush.

Are there any photographs of the doorway leadning to the train room?

This webpage has all of the basement photos that have been made public (as far as I know)
http://www.acandyrose.com/crimescene-basement.htm

 

[tumble]

tumble,

Patsy asked LHP to tidy the painting materials away, and I doubt LHP would have placed the paint-tote on the floor outside the wine-cellar.

It was likely re-located there as was JonBenet's corpse?


.

Yes, my thought was that it was relocated there by the perp.
But where did the perp get if from. Maybe it was stored on one of the art shelves in the trainroom doorway and the perp needed to step on a chair to reach them?
It could also be the case that the perp could not find the tray first and used a chair to look for it on a top shelf.
Trying to explain the chair here...

LHP? was that the cleaning lady?

 

[Nuisanceposter]

Yes, LHP is Linda Hoffman-Pugh, the cleaning lady.

 

[UKGuy]

Yes, my thought was that it was relocated there by the perp.
But where did the perp get if from.

Well its likely the paint-tote was on a table-top or shelve somewhere else in the basement, locate the other painting materials, and my guess is that is where the paint-tote would have been.

JonBenet wrapped in a blanket was moved down to the basement, then the paint-tote was found and a paintbrush used to create a garote, but this could all have taken place outside the wine-cellar door, then she may have been placed in the wine-cellar.

Whats curious is that nobody remarks about the paint-tote or notes the shards of wood outside of the wine-cellar door during the basement searches after the 911 call, but they do notice bits of glass, beads of polystyrene, and other items.

So although one Officer notes the wine-cellar door was latched, he fails to note the evidence of recent activity, supposedly lying on the floor, and whilst Fleet White looks inside the wine-cellar and fails to see any sign of JonBenet, he similarly neglects to note or report the paint-tote and shards of wood?


.

 

[tumble]

locate the other painting materials, and my guess is that is where the paint-tote would have been

This pic 'http://www.acandyrose.com/12261996b' places the painting materials in the train room. I havn't seen any picture of the actual train room so maybe there were more shelves closer to the door.
In this pic http://www.acandyrose.com/basement-doors.jpg, is it the door to the right that was blocked by a chair? This area seems very clean in this pic.

this could all have taken place outside the wine-cellar door

Ie the creating of the garrote. Yes, that seems logical.

Edit: This pic show the spot were the painting material would be, http://www.acandyrose.com/trainroom-window.jpg. Probably the things on the right, but where there more closer to the door?

 

[aussiesheila]

But Officer Rick French had searched the basement at about 6:05 AM looking for a point of entry and making sure an intruder wasn't hiding down there. He found neither. French did not report anything about an open basement window, even though that's the very thing he was looking for, and there are only three windows in the basement.


BlueCrab

BlueCrab, you are relying on this fact to determine that John was lying when he said the window was ajar when he went down to the basement at 10 am. I don't think this is adequate to decide for certain such a crucial point.

No member of the public has seen Rick French's statement. The fact that he did not mention that there was a window open a mere 1/8 inches when he went down there, means only that he did not mention it, indeed he may not have even noticed it, and it most certainly does not mean it was definitely closed. There was, after all, the supposition at 6:05 am that a kidnapper had entered the home and taken JonBenet. Obviously from French's point of view, the kidnapper had to have gotten in somehow and why would it have been so important at that time to know exactly how he got in?

I do not agree that looking for open windows was one of the main reasons French went to the basement. If it was so important to look for open windows you would have thought he would have done the ground floor first, those windows were all there right in front of him. Why go down to the basement first to check windows that may not even have existed? Bearing in mind that French was just a patrol officer, not a detective, I would have thought what he went to the basement for was to look for anything unsusal that might have required immediate attention, such as a hiding intruder, as you mention. French was only one of two officers there at the time and his most pressing need, I would have thought, was to set some kind of victim retrieval process in place as well as trying to control the milling crowd upstairs.

 

[aussiesheila]

Then, around 6:20 AM Fleet White searched the basement looking for JonBenet and calling out her name as he searched. Fleet found the broken basement window and inspected it, but did not report anything about the window being open.

IOW, Rick French and Fleet White had both inspected the window prior to John Ramsey and neither reported the window open. In fact, it seemed to have surprised John to find out that Fleet had also been in the basement early that morning -- thus putting Fleet in a position to refute John's open basement window story.

Therefore, it appears that John was lying about finding the window open at 10 AM (or at any other time) and had fabricated a fictional open window to accomodate a fictional intruder.

BlueCrab

IMO anything FW says cannot be proclaimed as gospel, he was after all, a central player in the whole affair and he might very well have a vested interest in keeping the real truth hidden.

You cannot use your above logic to conclude that John was lying BlueCrab.

 

[Cranberry]

The first search warrant (thank you ACandyRose site) states Officer's French & Veitch searched the home and found no forced entry, so specifically they were looking at windows and doors, etc.

 

[aussiesheila]

Someone refresh my memory here -- I wasn't able to find this in a cursory search of PMPT. Who was down in the basement with Officer French that morning? Was it JR? Someone had told him that there wasn't an exit from the wine cellar, so neither of them bothered to look. Book and page # would be helpful.

French went down there alone shiloh. I don't know what he was told before he went down there. Not much that would have made any sense I would have thought, it was sheer bedlam in the house at the time wasn't it?

Be fair, BC. FW said he was down there in the basement early that morning. FW said he found the window closed and unlatched. JR said that he went down there later, he found it open only 1/8 inch, and he closed it and latched it. The stories are not inconsistent.

Thanks for refreshing my memory on these points shiloh.

 

[aussiesheila]

The evidence supporting this is the chair that John says was blocking the trainroom doorway, and hence blocking the way to the window in the trainroom. He said he had to move the chair, and some boxes, to get into the room. But Rick French and Fleet White had entered the trainroom BEFORE John Ramsey claims he had entered it, at 6:05 and 6:20 respectively, and they didn't report any chair, or boxes, blocking the door.

BlueCrab

It is also possible and quite likely IMO, that FW did a bit of chair and box moving when he went down after French and before John. He would, of course have done this surreptitiously IMO, to conceal evidence of the previous night's activities and therefore is not going to tell police what he did.

So I don't agree with your conclusion that the disparity in statements points to John as having lied.

 

[aussiesheila]

Now you be fair Shiloh. You know good and well John Ramsey was asked to stay with the group and he did not do that. He was not free to go into any room he wanted to. He was asked not to anyway. Obviously he must have thought the rules didn't apply to him. However, I do agree it with you that it doesn't indicate guilt on his part.

It was Detective Fred Patterson who ordered everyone to stay upstairs just before he left the house at 11 am, AFTER John had gone down to the basement.

 

[aussiesheila]

Fleet White made a lot of handwritten notes that morning, so he too may have documentation about the window.

BlueCrab

Oh boy, wouldn't I just love to have seen those notes.

 

[aussiesheila]

Two things stand out to me after thinking about this interview. I'm assuming this was Lou Smit and John. First, John says he ran upstairs and got the blanket, then went back downstairs to cover JonBenet. Ok, John, when did that happen? You're right Toltec. It sure as hell didn't happen at a little after 1:00 pm when Arndt sent him on the finding JonBenet quest.

The other strange thing is saying "probably" the tv room. Didn't he know? This falls into place their fairy tale of a book the Death of Innocence. Usually, they would do this and that on Xmas morning. No details on this Christmas. They are so vague. Why didn't I pick up on this gem before? Thanks Toltec, great catch.

So John was probably referring to the children's playroom. Just because it is denoted as a playroom on the plans of the house that are published everywhere doesn't mean the Ramseys couldn't have referred to it as the TV room, they probably had the biggest TV in the house in that room and when they all watched TV together they watched it in the TV room.

OK I can just see you rushing off to look up the photos and I suppose I'll have to apologise. What the heck.



ETA: Oh I see Cypros has already covered the playroom/TV room issue in post 72

PS: Cypros, I like the quotation you attach to your posts

 

[aussiesheila]

That's right Sissi. The artist obviously got it wrong because the photo at the crime scene you mentioned (where she had to have been in rigor mortis!) shows Jonbenet with her elbows bent and not stretched out above her head and she looks like she is sleeping.

I agree, an artist's depiction is an artists' depiction and not necessarily accurate especially if it is prepared for a tabloid.

The actual crime scene picture is on the ACandyRose site, I don't have the link here at the moment (I believe the caption says 'Jon Benet at house').

But not with the body still there?

But I almost fell out of my chair when reading that John allegedly ran upstairs to get a blanket, for wasn't Fleet White with John when he discovered JB's body at 1 pm, and hadn't she already been wrapped in the blanket then??

I think the blanket she was wrapped in when she lay in the cellar was left there. John picked up the body, and carried only that upstairs. Both blankets were taken by police during search warrants.

 

[aussiesheila]

From the JR interview, the chair and drum table were on the outside i.e. entrance side of the door, which proves no one exited via the train room window. If I remember correctly, JR said he had to move the chair and table to open the door.

The door was never closed, it was just the doorWAY that was being discussed, Cranberry, even though John often refers to it as the 'door'.

 

[aussiesheila]

I'm not sure where the paint tray was normally stored. I remember reading it was up in the kitchen area until Thanksgiving time when it was moved to the cellar.

Yes the butler's kitchen (called Lower Hall on the plan I've got) adjacent to the kitchen itself.

I think it was found outside the door - can't remember if it was the train room door or the wine cellar door. It sounds like the chair and table were moved around a bit when the crime scene photos were taken, but that's just a wild guess.

And then moved to the basement.

Hmm, you've got me thinking. I don't think I remember where Patsy said exactly where it was stored in basement. Is this another bit of significant information she has successfully withheld? Tumble is wondering about where the paint tray was stored. Maybe she knows.

After the murder it was found in the boiler room next to the cellar and just outside of the cellar door.

I think I've got that all right. Hope so.

And I think you are right about chair and table movements prior to taking the crime scene photos. I think there were at least two instances, one between the 6 am French and 10 am John visits and another prior to the 1 pm visit when John and FW discovered the body. Do I need to tell you who I think by?

 

[Cranberry]

From the JR interview (line 280) they discuss 'open' and 'opened' so who really knows. John used the word "if" it was open also. Very confusing exchange, like so many. The doorway being blocked eliminates anyone going out the window, even a bizarrely clever intruder.

 

[Britt]

The door was never closed, it was just the doorWAY that was being discussed, Cranberry, even though John often refers to it as the 'door'.

Even so, the blocked doorway doesn't fit an intruder theory. Why would an intruder bother moving furniture in front of the doorway on his way in or out?

In any case, the blocked doorway is only a John story, just like his broken window story, neither corroborated by anyone else.

He clearly didn't want that room included in an intruder scenario. The question is WHY?