Since the pink, Barbie nightgown came up on another thread, I thought it would be better discussed here if anyone is still interested. The discussion there was about how it got to the basement and whether or not it was deliberate or an oversight by whoever staged the WC. It might be helpful first to review what the Ramseys have said about it in interviews:
John Ramsey, BDA Interview - June 23, 1998:9 LOU SMIT: Can I touch just
10 a little bit before you move on. It's the
11 nightgown. JonBenet, did she own a life-
12 sized Barbie nightgown -- life-sized
13 Barbie doll?
14 JOHN RAMSEY: Yeah.
15 LOU SMIT: She did, big one?
16 JOHN RAMSEY: It was about that
17 tall maybe.
18 LOU SMIT: Did she used to
19 dress this Barbie nightgown in any type of
20 -- I keep saying nightgown, Barbie doll in
21 any type of clothing?
22 JOHN RAMSEY: She probably did
23 when she first got it. I don't remember that
24 she played with it much. I mean I can remember
25 the thing just sitting in the corner or
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1 something.
2 LOU SMIT: Where is the
3 Barbie doll kept normally, if you could
4 show us?
5 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, my memory of
6 is that -- oh, man, I can't find where we are at
7 here. Where is the second floor? I remember it
8 kind of sitting against the wall back here in
9 her room.
10 LOU SMIT: In her bedroom?
11 JOHN RAMSEY: In her bedroom.
12 I think that's the last time I remember seeing
13 it, which might have been, you know, months
14 before. I don't know.
15 LOU SMIT: We have heard
16 that a Barbie nightgown was one of her
17 favorite nightgowns. What can you tell us
18 about that?
19 JOHN RAMSEY: I think she had a
20 Barbie nightgown, yeah, as I recall. Pink,
21 maybe.
22 LOU SMIT: The night you put
23 her in bed, do you remember anything about
24 a Barbie nightgown?
25 JOHN RAMSEY: When I put
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1 her to bed she had on, when I laid her
2 down in the bed, she had on what she had
3 worn to the Whites. She had that same
4 shirt on when I found her.
5 LOU SMIT: What I am trying
6 to say, John, is where would that Barbie
7 nightgown have been?
8 JOHN RAMSEY: It would have either
9 been in her bathroom drawer here, which a lot of
10 them were kept.
11 LOU SMIT: Under the sink?
12 JOHN RAMSEY: By the sink, I
13 believe. It could have been on the floor or it
14 would have been in the washing machine. That's
15 probably only three places it would have been.
16 LOU SMIT: I would like to
17 show you photograph number 145, and this
18 is a photograph of the wine cellar and it
19 was taken at after the body was found.
20 But John, I would like you just to take
21 look at this, and again difficult
22 photograph, but tell us what you see.
23 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, that's looking
24 in the room from the door, I see the blanket
25 that looks like the one that was around her.
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1 There is a pink something, pink -- I think
2 that's the nightgown or.
3 LOU SMIT: That's what I was
4 going to inquire about. It is a
5 nightgown, it is a pink one, it is a
6 Barbie nightgown?
7 JOHN RAMSEY: It looks like
8 it's a shinier material than I remember.
9 (INAUDIBLE). That looks more like what I
10 kind of remember was on the Barbie doll
11 itself.
12 LOU SMIT: That one does?
13 JOHN RAMSEY: Right. If I had to
14 speculate, that looks too shiny, the material,
15 but it seems to me I remember that Barbie doll
16 had a shiny pink nightgown thing on it.
17 LOU SMIT: Why do you think,
18 John, that that's down here? I mean --
19 JOHN RAMSEY: Yeah, I don't.
20 It certainly should not be. I don't
21 remember seeing it. But I was pretty
22 focused, I guess, at that time.
23 LOU SMIT: Again, you had mentioned
24 the fact that the blanket had been wrapped
25 around her almost like, what did you describe it
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1 as?
2 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, she looked
3 very, like someone had very carefully placed her
4 on the blanket, wrapped the blanket around her
5 to keep her warm.
6 LOU SMIT: And then we have a
7 Barbie or a nightgown. There is just
8 suggestions that are made to that, and
9 what's your opinion of that, and what's
10 your impression?
11 JOHN RAMSEY: God, I can only
12 imagine it. That that was something very
13 perverted.
14 LOU SMIT: That's good
15 enough. Unless you have other thoughts or
16 comments on that, John?
17 JOHN RAMSEY: No. The only
18 thought I had, normally the winter, JonBenet's
19 nightgowns were cloth and they weren't those
20 silky, because they weren't very warm. And they
21 were always a cloth or a flannel kind of
22 material. That looks like a silky kind of
23 nightgown, and -- I don't even know she had --
24 see, my recollection is Barbie nightgown, she
25 had a lot of these little nightgowns with faces
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1 on them and stuff, and I kind of remember a
2 Barbie one, but it was like a cloth nightgown
3 that had printed, a printed Barbie face on it or
4 something.
5 LOU SMIT: And this was more
6 like the one on the doll?
7 JOHN RAMSEY: That looks more
8 dressy. That looks like something that might
9 have been on the doll.
10 LOU SMIT: Mike, do you have
11 anything?
12 MIKE KANE: No.
...and in a Barbara Walters interview - March 17, 2000:BARBARA WALTERS: When Jon Benet's body was found there was one of her favorite nightgown's next to her. Her so-called Barbie nightgown.
PATSY RAMSEY: Um hum.
BARBARA WALTERS: And so there was the impression that whoever did this cared about this child. Left the nightgown. Left the blanket.
PATSY RAMSEY: Um hum.
BARBARA WALTERS: Again. Oh her parents did it but they, they loved her so they tried to comfort her even in death.
JOHN RAMSEY: That's a very strange
that nightgown should not have been there. It's it's a clue of some type. We don't know what. Look, we know several very positive facts about this killer we believe. It's a male. (PAUSE) It's a pedophile that looks at young
female children much differently than you and I do. They look at 'em with sexual uh eyes. I thought about it every day for 3 years. I've talked to experts. I've talked to experienced homicide detectives. (LONG PAUSE) It's the best profile we can come up with.
Besides Johns telling us that the nightgown should not have been there (in the basement WC), notice that Patsy confirms that it was one of her favorite nightgowns in the interview with Walters. Yet in both her 1997 and her 1998 interviews, she denied that there was even such a garment (a favorite):
Patsy Ramsey BPD Interview - April 30, 1997:TT: OK. Nedra talked about JonBenets pageant nightgown a little bit.
PR: Her what?
ST: May have described this as her Barbie nightgown or her traveling pageant nightgown.
PR: She had a Barbie nightgown, but I dont know if we had a specific pageant nightgown.
TT: Was that special to her in any way, or just a nightgown like all the other little nightgowns?
PR: Well, she had this little kind of Genie kind of, little ink
ST: Maybe thats it?
PR: That might be what it was. Genie, Barbie. Ah it was this little, grandma got it for her, it was little pants like, that nylon kind of stuff, you know. Just a little (inaudible) white piece.
TT: OK. Maybe thats what Nedra was talking about.
PR: It might be what shes talking about.
TT: Did she have a favorite nightgown that she took to all these pageants or anything like that or?
PR: I dont remember that.
TT: OK. Something Nedra came up with.
PR: She remembered that.
...and in 1998:
Patsy Ramsey BDA interview - June 23, 1998:19 TOM HANEY: 145.
20 PATSY RAMSEY: What is the pink thing?
21 TOM HANEY: We have next up, we have some
22 close-ups of the two items in 145, which is the white
23 blanket and the paint can. So if we take -- and if we
24 skip to the other numbered one and go to -- there is a
25 black and white dated 11 February of '97, and this is a
0382
1 photo in, I believe, a plastic container still, would
2 that be the blanket that was on the bed?
3 PATSY RAMSEY: Yeah.
4 TRIP DEMUTH: That is JonBenet's blanket on
5 her bed in her bedroom?
6 PATSY RAMSEY: I could say that, yes.
7 TRIP DEMUTH: Looking at picture 145.
8 PATSY RAMSEY: Okay. What is this pink --
9 what is that?
10 TOM HANEY: We will show you a photo of that
11 in just a second. Just want to get through some of
12 these first of the blanket itself.
13 PATSY RAMSEY: This looks a little --
14 (inaudible).
15 TRIP DEMUTH: This was sent to CES, so every
16 piece of trace evidence that was ever collected by a
17 lab, so all of that is going to be documented. Our
18 main concern is that you believe this is JonBenet's
19 blanket on her bed.
20 PATSY RAMSEY: Yeah.
21 TOM HANEY: This is the pink -- excuse me --
22 the pink item that again is in a plastic bag where the
23 photo was taken.
24 PATSY RAMSEY: That is her (inaudible). Why
25 was that there?
0383
1 TOM HANEY: What is it?
2 PATSY RAMSEY: It is her Barbie nightgown.
3 TOM HANEY: Is that hers or her Barbie
4 doll's? When would she have worn that last, do you
5 know?
6 PATSY RAMSEY: Well, she didn't wear it that
7 night because she had her -- she had the long underwear
8 pants and her little white shirt. And the night before
9 on Christmas Eve night she wore the pink little
10 (inaudible) that was under her pillow. You saw that.
11 And before that I don't remember. But neither of those
12 two nights she wore that.
13 TOM HANEY: Where would this particular --
14 well, let me back up.
15 Does this item have some particular
16 significance?
17 PATSY RAMSEY: No. No.
18 TOM HANEY: How many nightgowns did she have?
19 PATSY RAMSEY: A lot.
20 TOM HANEY: Twenty, 30?
21 PATSY RAMSEY: Well, 10 or so.
22 TOM HANEY: Did this one have some particular
23 significance?
24 PATSY RAMSEY: No.
25 TOM HANEY: Do you remember who gave it to
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1 her?
2 PATSY RAMSEY: No.
3 TOM HANEY: Do you remember whether you got
4 it for her? Was it a gift.
5 PATSY RAMSEY: Oh, God, it might --
6 TOM HANEY: Take some time because this is --
7 PATSY RAMSEY: Yeah. Is this the only
8 picture we have of this?
9 TOM HANEY: Correct. The only one here
10 today.
11 PATSY RAMSEY: I'm thinking of a Barbie
12 nightgown that had a big face of Barbie.
13 TRIP DEMUTH: It has a plastic over it, so
14 there is some glare there. You see the plastic.
15 PATSY RAMSEY: Yeah; right. What I'm saying,
16 I'm -- I remember a Barbie nightgown with a picture,
17 big picture of the head of Barbie on it. So I am not
18 quite sure this is her -- you know, one that she had.
19 TOM HANEY: Okay. You know, it appears --
20 PATSY RAMSEY: That is a Barbie doll under
21 there.
22 TOM HANEY: It appears from the waist down
23 you can see that much, but from the waist up, because
24 of the plastic, there is a flash and the reflection
25 that is washed out.
0385
1 PATSY RAMSEY: Yeah. The nightgowns were
2 kept in the bathroom, in her bathroom in the side
3 drawer there. Her pajamas were there.
4 TOM HANEY: All of them?
5 PATSY RAMSEY: Unless they were in the dirty
6 clothes.
7 TOM HANEY: We talked earlier about a few
8 things kind of thrown here or there.
9 PATSY RAMSEY: Right. Could have been, I
10 guess.
11 TOM HANEY: Do you remember her wearing it on
12 the 23rd?
13 PATSY RAMSEY: No.
14 TRIP DEMUTH: Which drawer, looking at photo
15 18?
16 PATSY RAMSEY: These.
17 TRIP DEMUTH: This is her bathroom, her sink.
18 Which drawer would the Barbie doll nightgown have been
19 kept in?
20 PATSY RAMSEY: Probably that one or the one
21 below it.
22 TRIP DEMUTH: The one that is opened or below
23 it right there in photo 18?
24 PATSY RAMSEY: Uh-huh.
25 TRIP DEMUTH: Okay.
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1 TOM HANEY: We've heard at some point this
2 was a particularly favorite nightgown. Did she have
3 such a thing?
4 PATSY RAMSEY: Well, her favorite little
5 pajamas were like -- was this one piece sort of Jeannie
6 thing my mother had given her, kind of nylon; a little
7 one piece thing. You stepped into it and put your arms
8 out. Other than that, nothing special.
9 TRIP DEMUTH: But would your sister, Pam,
10 call this her travel nightgown for any reason? I could
11 be wrong.
12 PATSY RAMSEY: I mean, like pageants did we
13 take one?
14 TRIP DEMUTH: Is there a reason she would say
15 that?
16 PATSY RAMSEY: I just don't remember making a
17 big deal about taking one special nightgown to the
18 pageants. I think more likely we took the little
19 Jeannie pant thing because it would be -- if she had
20 her hair in curlers, you could step into it instead of
21 pulling it over your head. I don't know.
22 TRIP DEMUTH: Do you know where that was
23 before Christmas?
24 PATSY RAMSEY: No.
25 TOM HANEY: It would not have been in the
0387
1 wine cellar?
2 PATSY RAMSEY: No.
3 TOM HANEY: On the 25th when you put JonBenet
4 to bed, do you recall seeing this?
5 PATSY RAMSEY: No.
6 TOM HANEY: In the bed.
7 PATSY RAMSEY: Huh-uh.
