I'm new to all this, but about the chokers...are you guys saying that Jon Benet wore chokers, perhaps to hide bruises from ongoing sexual abuse?
I actually wrote a long post about this topic and when I was trying to post it my computer went crazy and started unspooling and I lost it. Sigh.
Tadpole brought up some excellent points with me today that were about this very thing. So here's the gist:
Patsy Ramsey wore pageant costumes with choker neck pieces when she competed in her youth. There are photos of them. She always favored scarves at the neckline, as well, even long after JonBenet's murder.
JonBenet had some pageant costumes with the same choker neckline; we sometimes call them dog collars. There are many photos of her in those, as well, and some with long, trailing scarves from the neck.
It is sadly chilling to see those, knowing her fate.
It has been discussed many times that this could have been some deliberate cover up, but I don't believe she was being systematically abused with erotic strangulation. Of course I can't know, but she was very young and I find it hard to believe no one outside the family would ever have noticed.
Which brings me to the one question I would have loved to have asked Dr. Wecht, but he probably would have swatted me like a fly, so I guess it's good I didn't have that opportunity. If someone were playing sexual games with JonBenet, using a garrote for erotic asphyxiation, why would there have been no padding under the cord?
People who practice that stuff pad the cord or use a towel, etc., I've read. It makes sense: they're usually adults who have jobs, families, etc., and they wear turtlenecks or scarves to cover up any redness or bruising which results anyway.
So even using padding or a scarf, etc., with such a tiny, delicate neck, I have no doubt that with all the pageants, dance classes, school, travels, and many contacts with family and friends that someone would have noticed markings on the neck. Surely Patsy would have noticed, if she were not the one doing it--and if she were involved, that's so sick I can't begin to imagine what kind of hell was going on in that family. Other than the method of the murder, we have no evidence at all this ever happened to JonBenet before, so I rule that out until there is.
On the night she was strangled with that cord, there is no evidence anyone tried to pad it. The clear bruising, the petechia on the neck around the cord, the necklace rolled into the cord, the cord tied and pulled from the back, the paint chip and carpet fiber found at autopsy stuck to her chin: all that indicates to me that there was one strangulation and one only.
So how is it that any adult would have expected to get away with that, with JonBenet not meant to die, but to live and not tell, and with marks on her neck from the abuse which she surely would have been asked about when they were seen by others?
If Dr. Wecht were right, I have to assume he is implying that it was Burke, a child himself too young to consider these things. Otherwise, the elements contradict any adult intention for the child to only be sexually abused and not killed.
Since we know JonBenet's blood was on the pillowcase, found at the foot of her bed, which we know had been put on the bed within 2 to 3 days before the murder, and we know there was no scab or sore found in her nose at autopsy from the report, the blood had to come from an attack that same Christmas night, I believe.
So if Burke strangled JonBenet accidently--with a minor child it would have been legally an accident, it had to have been in her room. If the head blow was struck first or afterwards, either way, it all started in her room. She would have been limp, dead weight (no pun intended). I don't think Burke, who was almost 10 but a slight-built child himself, could have carried her down two flights of steps to the basement, so either he did that in her room, or the head blow was struck in her room and a parent carried her to the basement to complete the staging/strangulation/murder.
In that case, as far as I can think it through logically, if the strangulation happened in the bedroom, the paintbrush would have been added in the basement for staging. Also, it would have to have been inserted into the vagina there, since it makes no sense to run downstairs/upstairs/downstairs, etc., when something else from upstairs could have been used as well for that purpose. Remember slivers from the paintbrush were found in the carpet by the paint tray, so it was broken there.
But she was laid on her face in that basement at the same position as the paint tray was found, which the carpet fiber stuck to her chin and yet another piece of material from the paintbrush prove. So why do that if all you're doing is tying a piece of the broken brush on the handle? The cord was long enough to simply pull it to the side and tie the "handle" on.
Now consider why the paintbrush was used at all: it was shoved into her, logically before it was broken and tied to the cord. Why do that? That bothered me for many years, until I was finally able to comprehend Dr. Wecht's and many other experts' explanation of the autopsy report and the chronic vaginal injuries. Of course it was used in an attempt to hide the prior abuse. Someone would be going to prison for that alone.
Or someone would be stigmatized for life for having committed incest, not to mention, having been involved in a tragic death in his/her family, whomever that might have been.
So the injuries to the child's vaginal vault that night were primarily cover up for past abuse, IMO.
So she would have been carried downstairs, laid on her back for that abuse with the paintbrush, turned over where her face made contact with the carpet, the paintbrush broken at some point and tied to the cord.
I have always suspected that the original assault started in JonBenet's bedroom. The bag of large diapers hanging out of the cabinet in the laundry area outside her room; the small kitchen knife on the washing machine there as well; the drawers in JonBenet's room left open; the drawers in John Andrew's bathroom nearby open; the blood on the pillowcase; etc.
Dr. Wecht certainly makes a good argument for his theory. But I wonder if he really knows all that we do about the evidence. He works countless cases all the time. This case is so complex, with literally too much evidence; so I would like to know if he knows about all the details of evidence other than the autopsy.
At any rate, these are some of the main issues with the strangulation, head blow, prior abuse, sexual assault that night, and evidence found in the home that I have pondered for far too long--obviously. I just can't see how an adult could have unintentionally have strangled her without any attempt to protect her neck from bruising during such an activity. And I don't see how Burke could have carried her downstairs after she was unconscious.
Tadpole made this point today, and I hope won't mind me mentioning it: if it were someone using a "handle" to pull from behind, how does that fit in with erotic asphyxiation? It would appear that was done clearly to keep from looking at her face while she died, so that's absolutely intentional.
Finally, this has been asked a thousand times, more probably: did anyone investigating this case in Boulder ever have the cord tested for that "touch" DNA? If it were Burke who tied the cord in her bedroom, then pulled it hard enough to tighten and strangle her, he surely wouldn't have thought to wear gloves. Even an adult would have had difficulty tying those knots with gloves on. Repeatedly this question has been asked, as this surely would be the smoking gun.
But no one in LE ever answers that question. Trial or no, it needs to be answered, because like so many other pieces of evidence ignored, buried, withheld, or destroyed, it could solve this case once and for all.
JonBenet deserves that. The citizens of Boulder and America deserve that. The police who worked the case with all their hearts deserve that.