Ransom note analysis

[CircuitGuy]

I've always taken the '8am and 10am' tomorrow to be a rushed mistake by the author. The note was written at night and subconsciously you think of daylight as tomorrow even if you are writing something at 1 or 2am.

That makes sense, but I how did the writer expected the parents to find the note and get the money together by 10am? Banks usually open at 9am, and they might be slow moving the morning after Christmas. I would not expect to be able to get $169k cash ($118k in 1996 dollars) from them immediately. They might have to get some of the money from another branch's vault, and I expect I would have to fill out some forms documenting the large withdrawal. They mentioned him possibly getting the money early (before 10am?), and that seems impossible. It certainly leaves no time to get rested.

The whole note seems like a rushed mistake in many ways.

 

[singularity]

CircuitGuy you are overthinking this, you are way smarter than PR! She was too busy writing an over dramatic, unbelievable short story; there was no time to think sensibly. I personally think PR and JR forgot what was in the RN.

And you're not giving her enough credit. She wrote a paradoxical ransom note that baffled the world's experts for 20 years and counting. It will be analzyed for centuries.


I always thought way too much emphasis was placed on the RN because its not genuine no matter who killed her but I give her credit where it's due. They lucked into the crime scene and investigation being bungled to such a degree but that ransom note was a get out of jail free card.

If John had been involved in the details and had even a few minutes to think about them calmly, he would have said, "you'd better make it one million."

Hmm..I don't know about that. Maybe, maybe not. John was smart enough to see the brilliance of the note overall. A kidnapping with the body in the house. Denying her remains for burial when they are one floor above those remains. A note that points away from the family but also points towards them.

They couldn't have asked for a better note IMO.

The whole note seems like a rushed mistake in many ways.

Rushed? Maybe. Mistake? Past 20 years might disagree with that.

Given how weird this is, could this be some kind of sick prank organized by JBR and Burke?

This is why its inexcusable that Burke was not interviewed immediately after LE arrives. I'm sure when the FBI read the note they knew a kid wasn't involved but he still needed to be interviewed.


What I always found most interesting about the note is its change in tone midway. I've never seen a thorough explanation of this but I never sought one out either. Like I said, I always thought the note got more attention than it deserved. Yes it is brilliant but it exists to simply create confusion and by studying it, they gave its writer(s) what they wanted.

IMO the tone is more interesting than the actual details contained within it. By the time Jonbenet gets discussed in this novella, it changes. It becomes cold, distant, and she's clearly dead when the note was being written. When it veers away from Jonbenet(who they never refer to by name), once again it starts mocking John to the point of bordering on arrogant, twisted comedy.

One line always stuck out to me(and others) as very bizarre.

"You are not the only fat cat around so don't think that killing will be difficult."

This makes no sense. Whether the writer of the note is a fat cat or not has nothing to do with the level of difficulty in killing a six year old girl who in fact is already dead anyways. However, the writer is simply wanting to wrap up the note at that point and it probably just came off the top of their head. Had it been said earlier, it might be of more significance.

It is also odd how the note insinuates the potential for an earlier pickup of the money. If this was a legitimate ransom note it would be a very important clue.

 

[CircuitGuy]

I love reading this post.

Hmm..I don't know about that. Maybe, maybe not. John was smart enough to see the brilliance of the note overall. A kidnapping with the body in the house. Denying her remains for burial when they are one floor above those remains. A note that points away from the family but also points towards them.

They couldn't have asked for a better note IMO.

How is that good? Wouldn't it be better if it effectively pointed away from the family?

 

[singularity]

I love reading this post.

How is that good? Wouldn't it be better if it effectively pointed away from the family?

Considering the clock is at 20 years and counting I think there being confusion in which direction it points isn't just good for the killer, it's great!

How much better can that note possibly get? Where do you see room for improvement?

 

[InstantProof]

I don't think the R's wanted to be suspects at all (and the #1 suspects at that) so I'm not sure they considered the note and staging a huge success even if they got away with it.

 

[Tadpole12]

?How could JR dictate the rn, and the v/c ratio still be consistent with the 'known writings' of PR?

 

[Foreign Faction]

?How could JR dictate the rn, and the v/c ratio still be consistent with the 'known writings' of PR?

Maybe not verbatim, but in general terms. I have to admit, however, that through this interesting thread, I may be re-thinking my own belief that JR had something to do with the RN, I have to do some more reading/research on this!

 

[CircuitGuy]

Considering the clock is at 20 years and counting I think there being confusion in which direction it points isn't just good for the killer, it's great!

How much better can that note possibly get? Where do you see room for improvement?

If they're guilty, the note worked perfectly. That doesn't mean it was perfect. They may have gotten extraordinarily lucky. I think they would have been better off saying they heard an intruder in the night and the intruder fled out a door. They would call 911 and claim to find their daughter's body minutes after the call was placed. The police would wonder how an intruder managed to get her out of bed, kill her, put her in the basement, but that would be less suspicious as the same narrative plus leaving a bizarre ransom note. To me the RN, written with pen and paper found in their house, makes it harder to believe it was an intruder.

OTOH you're right that this scenario worked out for them, assuming they're guilty. Maybe the RN gave police something to spin on, which made the basic facts stand out less. Maybe it made them not declare the whole place a crime scene and kick everyone out. Maybe it gave the Ramsey's a plausible reason to invite friends over, making it a little harder for the police to oust them from the house. I don't think so though. The Ramsey's could have invited friends over anyway. The police are certainly capable of and experienced in ordering people to leave a crime scene, RN or no RN. Assuming one of them did, they got very lucky.

All the scenarios I read say something like "without the RN, the police would have removed everyone and protected the crime scene, immediately separated everyone and questioned them all, and so on." I don't know why they didn't do that anyway. The only argument I can think of is the RN was so out in left field it confused the police for a few hours, long enough for the crime scene to be contaminated.

Someone wrote a RN that makes the Ramsey's look guilty. I don't see how that helps them.

If you think it does and someone in the house wrote it, do you think they were smart in writing it or just very lucky?

 

[MURDERER_SERVANT]

In some real or movie kidnappings which occur from out of the victim's houses ,i.e school , on the way home etc , the ransom notes are sent after the kidnappings. The victim is usually trapped in a house by then.. My English is very limited but doesn't this ransom note sound like that saying the two gentlemen watching over your daughter .... The kidnapper wrote the letter in the house and noone is watching JB at the time .. This was a bad copycat fabrication of the R's sick mind imo.

 

[singularity]

If they're guilty, the note worked perfectly. That doesn't mean it was perfect. They may have gotten extraordinarily lucky. I think they would have been better off saying they heard an intruder in the night and the intruder fled out a door. They would call 911 and claim to find their daughter's body minutes after the call was placed. The police would wonder how an intruder managed to get her out of bed, kill her, put her in the basement, but that would be less suspicious as the same narrative plus leaving a bizarre ransom note. To me the RN, written with pen and paper found in their house, makes it harder to believe it was an intruder.

OTOH you're right that this scenario worked out for them, assuming they're guilty. Maybe the RN gave police something to spin on, which made the basic facts stand out less. Maybe it made them not declare the whole place a crime scene and kick everyone out. Maybe it gave the Ramsey's a plausible reason to invite friends over, making it a little harder for the police to oust them from the house. I don't think so though. The Ramsey's could have invited friends over anyway. The police are certainly capable of and experienced in ordering people to leave a crime scene, RN or no RN. Assuming one of them did, they got very lucky.

All the scenarios I read say something like "without the RN, the police would have removed everyone and protected the crime scene, immediately separated everyone and questioned them all, and so on." I don't know why they didn't do that anyway. The only argument I can think of is the RN was so out in left field it confused the police for a few hours, long enough for the crime scene to be contaminated.

Someone wrote a RN that makes the Ramsey's look guilty. I don't see how that helps them.

If you think it does and someone in the house wrote it, do you think they were smart in writing it or just very lucky?

Luck played a huge role in how it played out for them. All the cards played out perfectly to the point that it feels like Satan himself had shuffled the deck beforehand.

Incompetence entered the case the moment the police walked through the door. It just got worse from there. The FBI claims that by first reading the ransom note that morning they knew it would end in homicide. I agree but....really? Then why are John and Patsy being handled with kid gloves all day? How about taking John aside and saying, "Mr. Ramsey, this note is not an authentic ransom note. We believe your daughter has already been murdered. We're going to need to speak with you and your wife separately right now, and Burke willl be taken down to the police station for his own protection.We are clearing the house now. Do you have anything to say before we proceed?"

This same thing should have been said to Patsy in a different room. This isolates them and paints both of them into a very small corner. If they refuse to allow Burke to go to BPD, its a huge red flag. If John and/or Patsy have a negative reaction to this statement and/or request an attorney, it's a huge red flag. The FBI/BPD would know they were involved and it would impact how they proceed from that moment forward. Instead, people leave the scene, people arrive, John goes missing throughout the day and Patsy sits down like she's on enough xanax to down an elephant.

None of the key personnel involved that day followed their own supposed instincts and I find many of their later statements(not just Arndt's) to be disingenuous. It's *advertiser censored* covering. In hindsight they say this, they say that, but why weren't they saying it that day? Even an amateur should have realized how suspicuous it was that the Ramseys would not touch that ransom note. This note is violating the laws of physics by moving from place to place on the floor yet neither will actually place it on a table/counter. Why? The only reasoning is that both knew what the note said because one of them had written it. John turning himself into a contortionist to read a note he supposedly didn't know the details of when his six year old daughter is missing instead of doing the simple, logical thing and just pick it up with your hands and read it is enough reason to take him down to the station right then and there. Same with Patsy. She does cartwheels down the stairs like a gymnast to avoid stepping on pieces of paper that could have been scribblings for all she knew.....but she already knew what it was. Its why she wouldn't step on it.

The note did its job. The note is needed to accentuate the crime's parodoxical layers. To make matters worse(better for the killer), the note itself is a paradox. It also provides no method to the evening's madness.

 

[InstantProof]

In some real or movie kidnappings which occur from out of the victim's houses ,i.e school , on the way home etc , the ransom notes are sent after the kidnappings. The victim is usually trapped in a house by then.. My English is very limited but doesn't this ransom note sound like that saying the two gentlemen watching over your daughter .... The kidnapper wrote the letter in the house and noone is watching JB at the time .. This was a bad copycat fabrication of the R's sick mind imo.

In the Lindbergh kidnapping, the child was taken and a note was left at the same time. The letter in this case was short and to the point but made the same requests for money and not to notify anyone. Even says the child is in good care. The child was eventually found in the woods not far from the home with a fractured skull. A movie about the Lindbergh kidnapping had aired on HBO shortly before JB's murder and I've speculated here that this kidnapping set up was inspired by it. There are other similarities like the housekeeper being a suspect, "inside job", the father being a pilot...

 

[CircuitGuy]

In some real or movie kidnappings which occur from out of the victim's houses ,i.e school , on the way home etc , the ransom notes are sent after the kidnappings. The victim is usually trapped in a house by then.. My English is very limited but doesn't this ransom note sound like that saying the two gentlemen watching over your daughter .... The kidnapper wrote the letter in the house and noone is watching JB at the time .. This was a bad copycat fabrication of the R's sick mind imo.

I almost never use "to watch over".
To me, "to watch over" means to take responsibility for something or protect something without necessarily watching it directly. "Watch over my house while I'm out of town." or "Watch over the factory operation to make sure there are no problems."

The most common use I hear for the phrase is to watch and protect from a distance: "I like to think that although my parents are dead, they are watching over me from heaven." I estimate half the time I heard the phrase it's in someway referencing the afterlife.

I have never heard it used in watching in a way that's not protective. I would never say "my boss is watching over me to make sure I don't leave work early."

It is simply the incorrect phrase to use. To my ear it sounds like someone adding words to make it longer, someone thinking about the afterlife, or someone thinking the person "watching" JBR is protecting her.

 

[Tadpole12]

Interesting CG,

word association, 'watch over', Gershwin; 'Ol Blue Eyes, 'Someone to watch over me'

 

[Foreign Faction]

I almost never use "to watch over".
To me, "to watch over" means to take responsibility for something or protect something without necessarily watching it directly. "Watch over my house while I'm out of town." or "Watch over the factory operation to make sure there are no problems."

The most common use I hear for the phrase is to watch and protect from a distance: "I like to think that although my parents are dead, they are watching over me from heaven." I estimate half the time I heard the phrase it's in someway referencing the afterlife.

I have never heard it used in watching in a way that's not protective. I would never say "my boss is watching over me to make sure I don't leave work early."

It is simply the incorrect phrase to use. To my ear it sounds like someone adding words to make it longer, someone thinking about the afterlife, or someone thinking the person "watching" JBR is protecting her.

I might suggest the "watch over" part of the RN maybe one of the most important aspects of it, in terms of figuring you who could have possibly written it, and why.

 

[BBB167893]

If they're guilty, the note worked perfectly. That doesn't mean it was perfect. They may have gotten extraordinarily lucky. I think they would have been better off saying they heard an intruder in the night and the intruder fled out a door. They would call 911 and claim to find their daughter's body minutes after the call was placed. The police would wonder how an intruder managed to get her out of bed, kill her, put her in the basement, but that would be less suspicious as the same narrative plus leaving a bizarre ransom note. To me the RN, written with pen and paper found in their house, makes it harder to believe it was an intruder.

OTOH you're right that this scenario worked out for them, assuming they're guilty. Maybe the RN gave police something to spin on, which made the basic facts stand out less. Maybe it made them not declare the whole place a crime scene and kick everyone out. Maybe it gave the Ramsey's a plausible reason to invite friends over, making it a little harder for the police to oust them from the house. I don't think so though. The Ramsey's could have invited friends over anyway. The police are certainly capable of and experienced in ordering people to leave a crime scene, RN or no RN. Assuming one of them did, they got very lucky.

All the scenarios I read say something like "without the RN, the police would have removed everyone and protected the crime scene, immediately separated everyone and questioned them all, and so on." I don't know why they didn't do that anyway. The only argument I can think of is the RN was so out in left field it confused the police for a few hours, long enough for the crime scene to be contaminated.

Someone wrote a RN that makes the Ramsey's look guilty. I don't see how that helps them.

You're forgetting a very crucial thing, CircuitGuy: they didn't have to fool the police, or the FBI or the DA's office, or the experts, or the lawyers. They had to fool ONE PERSON OUT OF TWELVE.

If you think it does and someone in the house wrote it, do you think they were smart in writing it or just very lucky?

I actually started a thread some time ago centered around that very question, CircuitGuy. I've always said that they were the poster people for dumb luck.

 

[BBB167893]

Luck played a huge role in how it played out for them. All the cards played out perfectly to the point that it feels like Satan himself had shuffled the deck beforehand.

Incompetence entered the case the moment the police walked through the door. It just got worse from there. The FBI claims that by first reading the ransom note that morning they knew it would end in homicide. I agree but....really? Then why are John and Patsy being handled with kid gloves all day? How about taking John aside and saying, "Mr. Ramsey, this note is not an authentic ransom note. We believe your daughter has already been murdered. We're going to need to speak with you and your wife separately right now, and Burke willl be taken down to the police station for his own protection.We are clearing the house now. Do you have anything to say before we proceed?"

This same thing should have been said to Patsy in a different room. This isolates them and paints both of them into a very small corner. If they refuse to allow Burke to go to BPD, its a huge red flag. If John and/or Patsy have a negative reaction to this statement and/or request an attorney, it's a huge red flag. The FBI/BPD would know they were involved and it would impact how they proceed from that moment forward. Instead, people leave the scene, people arrive, John goes missing throughout the day and Patsy sits down like she's on enough xanax to down an elephant.

None of the key personnel involved that day followed their own supposed instincts and I find many of their later statements(not just Arndt's) to be disingenuous. It's *advertiser censored* covering. In hindsight they say this, they say that, but why weren't they saying it that day? Even an amateur should have realized how suspicuous it was that the Ramseys would not touch that ransom note. This note is violating the laws of physics by moving from place to place on the floor yet neither will actually place it on a table/counter. Why? The only reasoning is that both knew what the note said because one of them had written it. John turning himself into a contortionist to read a note he supposedly didn't know the details of when his six year old daughter is missing instead of doing the simple, logical thing and just pick it up with your hands and read it is enough reason to take him down to the station right then and there. Same with Patsy. She does cartwheels down the stairs like a gymnast to avoid stepping on pieces of paper that could have been scribblings for all she knew.....but she already knew what it was. Its why she wouldn't step on it.

The note did its job. The note is needed to accentuate the crime's parodoxical layers. To make matters worse(better for the killer), the note itself is a paradox. It also provides no method to the evening's madness.

"Singularly" brilliant!

 

[singularity]

There's an interesting moment in John's 1998 interview....

MIKE KANE: Okay. I think it's, and this may put things into perspective. I think you were saying that you were expecting a phone call between ten and 12. The note said between eight and ten.

JOHN RAMSEY: Oh, really?


MIKE KANE: So does that note, does that put into context, between eight and ten, where were you?


JOHN RAMSEY: (INAUDIBLE) yeah. Really it does. When we were ready for the phone call and I was prepped about what I was going to say and I was getting the family ready. And so between that period of time we were just waiting for the phone call and I was near the phone. And I was either in the study or on the first floor. I just waiting for it.


MIKE KANE: So it would have been before that?


JOHN RAMSEY: It would have been before that time period.


MIKE KANE: But would if have been before the time that you said Linda prepped you? I believe she arrived later on; she arrived around eight o'clock or so?


JOHN RAMSEY: No, it was before that.


MIKE KANE: It was before that?


JOHN RAMSEY: (INAUDIBLE) my time --


MIKE KANE: No, I understand. That's why trying to (INAUDIBLE).


JOHN RAMSEY: But if the note said, eight to ten, which I don't remember.


1MIKE KANE: Yes, it said that, eight.

-----

Is it possible that John is mixing up his story and remembering an alternate note(obviously destroyed) that said 10 to 12 and not 8 to 10 until they get him back on track? This is something he should easily remember and there be no confusion whatsoever. The father of a kidnapping victim should know the exact timetable mentioned.

 

[InstantProof]

Is it possible that John is mixing up his story and remembering an alternate note(obviously destroyed) that said 10 to 12 and not 8 to 10 until they get him back on track? This is something he should easily remember and there be no confusion whatsoever. The father of a kidnapping victim should know the exact timetable mentioned.

It's strange but the RN and its details seemed to be more or less dismissed or ignored by J&P pretty much immediately. IMO by Patsy because she wrote it and by John because he thought it was a huge mistake. If he is confused on times I think it's because nothing in the letter is of any real importance.

 

[CircuitGuy]

Is it possible that John is mixing up his story and remembering an alternate note(obviously destroyed) that said 10 to 12 and not 8 to 10 until they get him back on track? This is something he should easily remember and there be no confusion whatsoever. The father of a kidnapping victim should know the exact timetable mentioned.

Since banks don't usually open until 9am, and it could take some time to withdraw a large amount of cash, I would think this is crucial info, impossible to forget.
8-10: Do they mean 8am today? How do they expect to monitor me getting the cash early? Banks don't open until 9am, and I may have to go to the main branch and fill out a tax form or something for such a large cash withdrawal. Maybe I should just stay and take their call and tell them I'm getting the money as soon as the bank opens.
10-12: I have a shot of getting the money together by 10am or shortly thereafter and having it in hand when the call comes in.

I don't see how someone could confuse the time.

 

[otg]

There's an interesting moment in John's 1998 interview....

MIKE KANE: Okay. I think it's, and this may put things into perspective. I think you were saying that you were expecting a phone call between ten and 12. The note said between eight and ten.

JOHN RAMSEY: Oh, really?


MIKE KANE: So does that note, does that put into context, between eight and ten, where were you?


JOHN RAMSEY: (INAUDIBLE) yeah. Really it does. When we were ready for the phone call and I was prepped about what I was going to say and I was getting the family ready. And so between that period of time we were just waiting for the phone call and I was near the phone. And I was either in the study or on the first floor. I just waiting for it.


MIKE KANE: So it would have been before that?


JOHN RAMSEY: It would have been before that time period.


MIKE KANE: But would if have been before the time that you said Linda prepped you? I believe she arrived later on; she arrived around eight o'clock or so?


JOHN RAMSEY: No, it was before that.


MIKE KANE: It was before that?


JOHN RAMSEY: (INAUDIBLE) my time --


MIKE KANE: No, I understand. That's why trying to (INAUDIBLE).


JOHN RAMSEY: But if the note said, eight to ten, which I don't remember.


1MIKE KANE: Yes, it said that, eight.

-----

Is it possible that John is mixing up his story and remembering an alternate note(obviously destroyed) that said 10 to 12 and not 8 to 10 until they get him back on track? This is something he should easily remember and there be no confusion whatsoever. The father of a kidnapping victim should know the exact timetable mentioned.

Interesting thought on why Ramsey might have been confused over the time.

Keep in mind also what he is describing here. He’s trying to tell them what time he went down to the basement by himself. The closest he comes to relative time is that it was after police arrived at the house, but before the kidnapper’s call was expected. He’s also trying to account for things he learned from his first interview in April, 1997. It was during that interview he found out that Fleet White had gone down to the basement by himself shortly after he arrived at the Ramsey house. Ramsey doesn’t know whether Fleet went there before or after Ramsey had been down there alone. Ramsey has to figure out if Fleet might have noticed anything different between his two trips to the basement. Did Fleet notice any of those “little funny little clues” that were left by that “bizarrely clever” person who was latching and unlatching windows and moving furniture around in the basement?

[FONT=&amp]ST: Well, let me follow up on this John. John I’m very sensitive to how tough this is, and you’ll appreciate that we need to get through this. On that trip to the basement, shortly after 1 p.m. on the 26[SUP]th[/SUP], Fleet showed you the window, the broken basement window.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]JR: No, I, I think was the first one to enter the room.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]ST: OK, but . . .[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]JR: I said, you know, this window’s broken, but I think I broke it last summer. It just hasn’t been fixed. And it was opened, but I closed it earlier and we got down on the floor and looked around for some glass just to be sure that it hadn’t been broken again.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]ST: And Fleet had talked about earlier being down there, I think alone at one point, and discovering that window. When you say that you found it earlier that day and latched it, at what time of day was that?[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]JR: I don’t know. I mean it would have been probably, probably before 10 o’clock.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]ST: Was that prior to Fleet’s first trip down?[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]JR: I didn’t know he was in the basement. I didn’t know that. I mean other than that trip with me.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]ST: And on the trip that you latched the window, were you alone when you went down and latched the window?[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]JR: Yep.[/FONT]
​

http://www.forumsforjustice.org/forums/showthread.php?9932-John-Ramsey-BPD-Interview-April-30-1997