That's interesting. Why not?
Ah, but that's where you may have gone wrong, from my perspective. While I don't pretend to be able to read your mind, you seem to have fallen into the classic mistake: that someone who molests a child is by definition a pedophile with a history. That's not necessarily so. I actually write about that at some length in the book, Roy. In it, I explain how there are different types of molesters than the kind you seem to suggest here. The first kind are pedophiles. In the true sense, this applies to people who have recurring sexual attractions and urges toward children; no one really knows why they do this. I think it's just cross-wiring of the brain. The second kind are situational or surrogate molesters. These are people who are not sexually attracted to children per se, but see a child as a substitute for an adult object of attraction. For example, a woman who molests her son because her husband walked out on her. We'll skip number three because I think it's in the second category wherein lies the rub.
Follow me on this. One has to remember that Patsy's temporary victory over ovarian cancer came with a price tag: operations that rendered sexual activity difficult. Enter JonBenet, prancing around in those showgirl outfits, expertly put together by her mother. In his starved brain, he may have thought, "Patsy is saying 'here she is. She's all yours. I've prepared her for you.'" JonBenet was "safe." She wasn't old enough to get life-destroying cancer, and she wasn't old enough to get herself killed driving a car. She was easy to manipulate and control. A perfect "playmate." Situational molesters don't have to have histories. First time molesters are found in their sixties. (Please keep in mind this is my opinion. No one that I know of here on Websleuths.com shares it or put me up to it. This is an idea--not even really a conclusion--that I arrived at myself using everything I know. The puzzle pieces are there. I just put them together.)
Did you find that disturbing, Roy? If you did, I don't blame you. Every time I read that, it makes me sick to my stomach. As I write at the end of the chapter, "That's the trouble with trying to get into people's heads. Sometimes you come out feeling like there's not enough soap in the world that will get me clean again."
But if it helps expand someone's understanding of crime, then I can sleep with a clear conscience.
Moreover, who says it was a Ramsey male? Tell me something, Roy; have you ever considered a Paugh male? Patsy's father, for example? I cannot take credit for this. My ever-loving brother laid this one on me one night.
"Guv," he said, "do you think Patsy was abused herself?"
I turned and sort of stared at him. "What do you mean?"
"Guv," he said, "haven't you ever wondered why her sister Pam never got married, never had children and let her appearance go to he**?"
And I knew what he was getting at. He had me riveted, if disturbed. "Go on."
He proceeded to point out how dramatically Patsy's mood changed when the subject was brought up by Det. Haney. How her toughness just evaporated? How she became so timid and quiet? She's afraid of something." He then outlined to me how the cycle repeats. I knew what he meant.
I have to admit, that one kind of stuck with me.
I don't know. I've read since that the DNA in the panties was not a liquid base, but was turned into liquid when JB's blood came in contact with it.
You know, every time I think about how I think the cops should have handled this, I come back to the same question: WWVMD?
If Tadpole won't, I will. First of all, it's "Incest Dynamic." And like Tadpole said, it comes from Det. Linda Arndt. Here's the actual quote from Arndt's testimony:
Q: This is incest between John Ramsey and JonBenet?
A: Yes, to the whole incest dynamic in the family.
Q: But involving John Ramsey and JonBenet, any other members?
A: Well, specifically because she's the one who's dead.
Q: But when you refer again to incest, it could involve any number of
family members. I'm just trying to identify the family members when you
use that term.
A: Well, there's a whole dynamic, because everybody's got a role in the
family.
Q: The incest has an effect on family members, does it not?
A: Well, in general terms that covers it when you talk about an act, but
I'm talking about the dynamic.
Q: I understand about the dynamic, but I want to get the predicate first.
The participants in the incest, when you refer to incest, you're
referring to John Ramsey and JonBenet and no other family members?
A: I refer to every member of the family. Every member has a role.
Q: But in terms of the sexual act that's implicit in the term of
"incest," you're referring to John Ramsey and JonBenet?
A: Yes
I'll be glad to provide that, too.
Roger L. DePue is a former head of the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit. In 2006, he told reporter Ronald Kessler that Patsy Ramsey fit the profile of the person who wrote the ransom note. "The delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested," the note says. Depue called that an unusual instruction. "The statement sounds caring, motherly." "You will also be denied her remains for proper burial." Depue said. "In my opinion, proper burial is of more concern to a female than to a male," Depue said. "The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you so I advise you not to provoke them," the note says. The idea of "gentlemen watching over" has a feminine tone, Depue said. "Watching over" is also a caring concept, he said. In Depue's opinion, "The writer is a well-educated, middle-aged female. The writer used the term 'fat cat,' suggesting that the person is middle aged. 'Fat cat' is a term used in the 1960s and 1970s. The writer," Depue said, "is a close relative, friend, or business associate, in that order." Depue said that conclusion and the circumstances surrounding the note fit the profile of Patricia Ramsey.
former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt was interviewed several times over a period of days. During an interview with cable news outlet MSNBC, Van Zandt said that he and several other profilers had studied the note and concluded that the writer was either a woman or a "very genteel male." He listed ten points of interest. Here are a few of them:
- Despite threats of violence throughout the note, Van Zandt says, it has a 'softness' suggesting its author was a woman or perhaps a 'genteel man.'
- The note's salutation is formal, but here the overall tone becomes more familiar and casual. Van Zandt thinks the writer may be suggesting a personal acquaintance with John Ramsey.
Robert K. Ressler is founder of the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit. He echoed many of DePue's sentiments, saying "There's an almost maternal quality to comments like, 'the delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested. A hardened criminal would never use those terms. the acronym at the bottom of the note was done with periods between each letter, as was 'FBI.' Putting periods between letters in acronyms is a grammatical touch that has not been standard since the late 1960s. Patsy was born on December 29, 1956 and would have been a kid learning her English lessons in school before then. In those turbulent times, many organizations came along with "alphabet soup" names, and none of them used periods. There was SDS--Students for Democratic Society; PLO- Palestinian Liberation Organization; NOI-- Nation of Islam; SLA-- Symbionese Liberation Army (the people who kidnapped Patty Hearst and made the term "Stockholm Syndrome" famous); and the list goes on and on. Patsy was known to sign her letters to friends with acronyms with periods in them. One that stood out was 'To B.V.F.M.F.A. from P.P.R.B.S.J.' That meant 'To Barbara V. Fernie, Master of Fine Arts from Patricia Paugh Ramsey, Bachelor of Science in Journalism.' Patsy Ramsey had graduated college as a journalism major. Ressler also pointed out the use of the word "attaché." It's a word with French origins. It is usually spelled with the accent over the "e" to denote the sound of an "a." Patsy had studied French and lived in Atlanta, which has a strong undercurrent of French heritage. JonBenet's own name is a pseudo-French version of her father's first and middle names, John Bennett. It is always spelled with the accent over the second "e." Who else would bother with something like that?
In Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Chet Ubowski, the handwriting expert from the CBI, told his boss, Peter Mang, that he believed Patsy Ramsey wrote it, but he couldn't say so with courtroom certainty. In 2002, Ubowski was reported by FOX News to say that the bleeding ink from the felt-tip pen and the disguised letters kept him from saying she wrote it 100%.
Edwin Alford said he couldn't be sure, but he said that he couldn't rule her out. Leonard Speckin said he couldn't say she wrote it either, but conceded that it was unlikely that anyone could have had as many similarities.
David Leibman, president of the National Association of Document Examiners, said he found fifty-one similarities and was 90-95% certain she wrote it.
Cina Wong, who had worked for John Grisham and Bank of America and has roughly the same experience as Ubowski said she was certain she wrote it. Donald Lacy, Richard Williams and Larry Ziegler, all of whom had instructed the FBI, also said she wrote it.
Tom Miller said she wrote it, and was targeted by Ramsey private investigators for his opinion. He even got one of them, David Miller (no relation), to admit in court that they were trying to sabotage him.
Gideon Epstein is a forensic document examiner who served as the past president of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners, is a registered member of the ABFDE, and has authored several authoritative texts in the field. Epstein has appeared in 200 cases over a thirty year period, having examined thousands of documents and has established questioned document laboratories for not only the US government, but for those of Eastern Europe and the Philippines as well, while teaching hundreds of government document examiners their professions. He retired after twenty years as the head of document examination for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, where he had been responsible for tracking down war criminals who had slipped into the United States using false names in the years following World War Two. His most notable catch was Valerian Trifa, an officer in the Iron Guard, Romanian fascists who took over the country and allied with Hitler. The Iron Guard were active participants in the Holocaust. Most people agree that Epstein is one of the world's best. His opinion was that he was, quote, "absolutely certain" (which he clarified in follow-up questioning to mean "100 percent certain") Patsy Ramsey wrote the ransom letter.
It should also be noted that the majority of opinion stands today that whoever wrote the captions in the Ramsey family photo album wrote the ransom letter. Patsy Ramsey, when deposed, claimed not to recognize her own handwriting. When she did so, Patsy used the phrase "not particularly", again straight out of the ransom note, as well as "particularly". The ransom letter phrase is "The two gentlemen looking over your daughter do (and the word "not" was inserted here with an inverted v) not particularly like your daughter.
It doesn't help that both of Patsy's sisters and her own mother couldn't tell the difference between her handwriting and the writing on the ransom letter. Even worse is that she was the only person who changed her writing after the crime.
And I'm just getting warmed up!
You never know. That would narrow it down pretty well, though, wouldn't it?
I've been there, man. I understand.
I get you.
Actually, it isn't, if you understand the problems behind the science.
