Yesterday would have been JonBenet's 17th birthday. May you rest in peace, embraced in God's eternal love, JonBenet. :rose:
Before posting my theory, some general remarks:
A theory should include and explain the forensic evidence found at the crime scene. It should also exclude impossible scenarios. For example, it makes no sense to place a John Doe at the crime scene if this John Doe had an ironclad alibi which shows he was hundreds of miles away from Boulder at the time of the crime.
The most complicated issue in the JBR case for me is whether she had been the victim of chronic sexual abuse or not. For if yes, many questions will arise:
Who was her chronic sexual abuser?
Was the abuser also the killer? (not necessarily)
Was JonBenet's death connected to the chronic abuse? (not necessarily)
One gets many variables in such a scenario, and another big problem is that that even the experts seem to disagree with each other whether there was chronic sexual abuse or not. I've been wavering back and forth on this issue ever since I've been studying this case (and in a way probably always will), and although I do have a second theory where sexual abuse is taken into account, unless this has been definitely cleared up (I don't think it ever will), the most plausible theory imo is Patsy snapping and losing it in a short moment of rage because JonBenet, by whatever she did, made her mother fly off the handle.
My time line of events:
On the way home from the Whites' party, JonBenet falls asleep for a short time in the car but when the family arrives home, she wakes up again. The short sleep has recharged her "energy" batteries, and therefore she is in no mood go to bed on that night. In addition, it is Christmas, which provides additonal excitement for JonBenet.
When they get home, there is some milling around by all. Patsy goes upstairs to do some packing, but JonBenet,after going to the toilet to pee, goes downstairs again, looks at her presents in the living room and also goes into the kitchen where she sees a bowl of pineapple on the table. She grabs some with her fingers and eats it.
Some time passes, John and Burke are already in bed, but Patsy is still busy preparing for tomorrow's trip. JonBenet finally goes into her room, and although Patsy tells her quite a few times to get ready for bed, JonBenet doesn't really listen to her mother. Athough she has started undressing herself and slipped out of her back velvet pants, she runs arond in her size 4-6 underwear without putting on her pajamas.
Patsy is not in a good mood today. She feels tired, exhausted and stressed-out from always juggling too many balls at once. She has had some glasses of wine at the Whites' party, not much, but her tolerance to alcohol has decreased since the heavy chemo which she said did a number on her liver. Two trips to prepare and a pageant immediately afterward, her approaching 40th birthday, the alcohol, all are stress-factors.
Pineapple stimulates digestion, and when Patsy, increasingly exasperated because JonBenet is still not in bed, enters her room, she sees that the child has soiled her underwear. And this triggers Patsy's rage. It is the last straw which pushes her over the edge. The blood alcohol level in her body is just high enough to unleash her aggression. She furiously drags JonBenet into the bathroom, and her rough handling leaves marks on the child's body. She vigorously cleans Jon Benet, and when the child protests vehemently, maybe also hitting and kicking back at her mother, Patsy loses it completely: she either hits JonBenet with an object (I don't believe it was the flashlight), or slams her head against the bathroom sink. One brief moment where Patsy lost control, and irreparable damage was done. Patsy, in total shock over what happened, feels JonBent's head and realizes there is an indentation in the skull. JonBenet has fallen into a deep coma instantly and Patsy is convinced that she is dead.
She runs to John, and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, tells him what happened. She is absolutely hysterical about not wanting to turn herself in to the police, and John, in a mixture of pity and own self-interest, promises to cover up for her. The damage is already done, nothing will bring their daughter back to life they think, and they decide to stage a scene to save what is left from the rest of the family. After all, there is Burke to think of, and they want to spare him the horrific experience of having his mother exposed in public and go to jail because she killed his little sister in a rage.
But John doesn't want to get too involved in the staging. For he is not at all sure Patsy will get away with it, and so the less he gets involved, the better for himself should the police arrest Patsy after all.
He agrees to carry JonBenet down into the basement though. JonBenet is to be removed as far as possible from Burke who might wake up. When going downstairs, John sees a chair standing in front of the train room/hobby room door, so he goes through the adjacent door into the boiler room. He later used the chair as an element in his concocted story, suggesting an intruder put it there. Patsy tries to stage a bizarre sexual predator scenario intended to point away from the parents. She takes a paintbrush from the tote, leaving some of her jacket fibers there.
But as soon as she has inflicted a jab in JB's vagina with the pointed end, she breaks off immediately. She can't go on. She just can't do it. She also panicks because the wound bleeds, but I don't think at that moment she realizes that the child can't yet have been dead.
She frantically gets some cloth and wipes her down, and, as if to undo her deed in her own mind, decides to redress JonBenet. She runs upstairs and begs John, who has remained upstairs in case Burke wakes up, to help her. She can't put JonBenet's soiled size 4-6 Wednesday Bloomies on her again, but gets an idea: she will replace this pair with a Wednesday pair of the set which she bought for JonBenet's cousin Jenny, and hide the rest of the set somewhere. At that moment she is not aware that those other panties are far too large, she takes the Wednesday pair and the longjohns and begs her husband to put it on JonBenet because at that stage she is on the verge of dissolving into a total mess. While John is putting on the size 12-14 Bloomies on JonBenet, fibers from his shirt get transferred to the underwear.
No doubt John with his knowledge of knots would have been able to stage a better scene with the ligatures than Pasty, but John does not want to get involved in this. Part of his refusal to get more involved may also have been aggressive feelings toward Patsy - after all, it was she who killed his daughter. Imo this was also the reason why he later didn't go over to Patsy to comfort her. He was unable to fake the grieving husband convincingly, and his true feelings shone through.
Once JonBenet's body is redressed, Patsy pulls herself together a little. She realizes John won't help her further, so she has to finish this. Her eye catches the paintbrush which is still on the floor. She breaks off both the pointed and the bristled end. The pointed end was never found - I believe she crushed it with her foot and later flushed the shards down the toilet.
She ties a clumsy slip knot around the neck, tying an additional loop into the knot which serves no purpose at all. The ligature fabric is soft flat nylon, therefore the double-loop slip knot locks quite easily. With a knot already locked, one doesn't need a handle with cord around a stick. The remaining cord wrapped around the stick is done for mere staging purposes to suggest a scenario as bizarre as possible.
While she is fumbling with the cord, more fibers from her jacket end up in the wrappigs of the garrote handle.
The cord around the neck cuts off JonBenet's last oyxygen supply, and while she is lying face-down in front of the wine cellar, she finally dies, shedding post-mortem urine afterward. But Patsy is not aware of this. She thinks JonBenet died right after the head blow.
She then fashions wrist ligatures which are so loosely done that later one had already come off JonBenet's wrists when John "found" her in the basement. She also leaves a far too big space of cord between the ligatures. Maybe it was because she wanted to create a scenario suggesting sexual bondage, but maybe it was just because she had no idea how restraining ligatures are effectively tied (with the hands close together).
She puts a piece duct tape on JonBenets mouth - another element of staging.
She gets a blanket from the dryer, wraps it around the body and carries it into the wine cellar. As she carries JonBenet's body, again fibers from her jacket get transferred to the blanket. One of JonBenet's nightgowns was adhering to the blanket through static cling, but Patsy does not see this.
She goes upstairs and tells John where she put JonBenet's body.
A faked ransom note is concocted intended to later 'explain' the dead body in the basement to investigators. It should look like a 'kidnapping gone wrong'. Patsy also writes the note as a cathartic act to undo the crime in her own mind (like the CASKU experts said) - to remove herself from her deed so to speak. The ransom note is written in the kitchen which they illuminate only with the flashlight. Patsy writes the note without any help from John. Maybe he thinks she with her journalistic training would do a better job than he, but maybe he also conveys to her "you have made your bed, you must lie in it. I won't turn you in to the police but you can't expect me to do too much for you either."
Patsy's mind does not function in an analytical manner as she is writing the note. She throws everything into the mix in the frantic hope that at least something will be swallowed.
It is also Patsy who calls the police. John thinks she will make a good drama queen performance on the phone so he lets her make the call.
Patsy calls her friends over to use them as a shield between herself and the police. The more confusion there is in that house, the better. The more friends will attend to her, throwing up, breaking down, the fewer questions the police will be able to ask. Patsy knows she has nothing to fear from the threats in the note because she wrote it herself.
But Patsy has forgotten one important thing: to stage a point of entry. Hence John'a later attempt at damage control, claiming he had see the basement window open. He also tried to suggest an 'inside job' by someone who had a key to the Ramsey home (LHP for example).
John claiming that JonBenet's wrists were 'tightly bound' was damage control too. He, when 'finding' JonBent's body at 1 p.m. on Dec 26th, probably got a shock when he saw what a lousy job Patsy had done, so he claimed having tried to undo the 'tight' ligatures.
Imo nothing in this crime was premeditated. It was a rage attack followed by obstruction of justice.
JMO
I agree this is my favourite theory too. I do think PR just snapped that night due to all the pressure mentioned already by rashomon. 