OliviaG1996
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Ransom note analysis
- Thread starter Omega
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Muy Curioso
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tweezybird
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eagerly awaiting your theory.
http://images.ibsys.com/2006/0818/9699449.jpg
Heyya MC
re: o letter pdf
o # 105, o #106 are incomplete characters within the image I reference, from the Denver channel, yet are complete characters within the image you have C&P'd.
********************************
what's your source image?
Heyya MC
re: o letter pdf
o # 105, o #106 are incomplete characters within the image I reference, from the Denver channel, yet are complete characters within the image you have C&P'd.
********************************
what's your source image?
Re: variation in 'line width'
http://solvingjonbenet.blogspot.ca/2014/09/a-new-wrinkle.html#comment-form
DocGSeptember 25, 2014 at 3:15 PMInteresting observations. But not what I had in mind. It's far from obvious, but . . .
If you look carefully you'll see that the lines on the third page are slightly thicker than those on the first two pages. Feel free to speculate on why that might be. But it's a very interesting clue, imo.
__________________________________________________
DocG
September 25, 2014 at 7:51 PM
On closer examination, it looks to me like the letters are thicker in the first six lines only of the third page. From the seventh line to the end of the last paragraph the thickness seems consistent with the first two pages. Also, in the word "Victory," the letters look less thick, and also somewhat smaller than any of the others, as though he used a third pen just for that one word.
So I don't think this could have anything to do with how the xerox was made. And according to reports I've read, there was a palm print on the note that was too smudged to be identified. That could be the smudge visible on the third page. I doubt it was smudged during xeroxing or they'd have tried again.
What this suggests is that a different pen was used for those first six lines on p. 3, and that the writer reverted to the original pen for the rest of the note -- except for the word "Victory" which seems to have been printed with an even thinner point. Very strange!
What this tells me is that the document was not simply written out from beginning to end in one go, but assembled over time. There's no sign that the first pen ran out of ink and he needed to replace it. Nor is it likely that he'd have needed to start using a different pen at the exact moment of continuation onto the third page. I have a feeling this note was assembled, with different segments printed at different times. Very possibly there was more than one attempt to print each page -- i.e., he probably made some mistakes and each time decided to start over at the beginning of the page. Which makes sense if he was tracing it from a computer display, which would not have been easy.
Consistent with the note having been prepared in advance, it seems to me. I don't get the impression this was printed in a huge rush, at the last minute.
http://solvingjonbenet.blogspot.ca/2014/09/a-new-wrinkle.html#comment-form
DocGSeptember 25, 2014 at 3:15 PMInteresting observations. But not what I had in mind. It's far from obvious, but . . .
If you look carefully you'll see that the lines on the third page are slightly thicker than those on the first two pages. Feel free to speculate on why that might be. But it's a very interesting clue, imo.
__________________________________________________
DocG
September 25, 2014 at 7:51 PM
On closer examination, it looks to me like the letters are thicker in the first six lines only of the third page. From the seventh line to the end of the last paragraph the thickness seems consistent with the first two pages. Also, in the word "Victory," the letters look less thick, and also somewhat smaller than any of the others, as though he used a third pen just for that one word.
So I don't think this could have anything to do with how the xerox was made. And according to reports I've read, there was a palm print on the note that was too smudged to be identified. That could be the smudge visible on the third page. I doubt it was smudged during xeroxing or they'd have tried again.
What this suggests is that a different pen was used for those first six lines on p. 3, and that the writer reverted to the original pen for the rest of the note -- except for the word "Victory" which seems to have been printed with an even thinner point. Very strange!
What this tells me is that the document was not simply written out from beginning to end in one go, but assembled over time. There's no sign that the first pen ran out of ink and he needed to replace it. Nor is it likely that he'd have needed to start using a different pen at the exact moment of continuation onto the third page. I have a feeling this note was assembled, with different segments printed at different times. Very possibly there was more than one attempt to print each page -- i.e., he probably made some mistakes and each time decided to start over at the beginning of the page. Which makes sense if he was tracing it from a computer display, which would not have been easy.
Consistent with the note having been prepared in advance, it seems to me. I don't get the impression this was printed in a huge rush, at the last minute.
Muy Curioso
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icedtea4me
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The third t looks like a headless hangman character. Perhaps an indication that the beheading/strangulation had already taken place.
This is my first ever post here, and it's a long one, so I apologize in advance for the length. If there's anything I've done wrong, please let me know!
I've been reading posts in this forum and I see that people here know that the ransom note has movie quotes in it, but no one has listed the quotes or seemed to give them much thought. I believe the quotes are important, because it's practically impossible to discern anything about the writer of the ransom note because so much of it was authored by Hollywood script writers. I checked imdb and wikiquotes and these are the quotes I found:
"Mr. Stone, listen very carefully. We have kidnapped your wife. We have no qualms about killing her and we'll do so at the slightest provocation ... You are to obtain a new, black, American Tourister briefcase, Model Number 8-1-0-4 ... In it, you will place $500,000 in unmarked, non-sequentially numbered $100 bills ... You will be watched at all phases of execution. If you fail to appear at the designated time, or if any phase is not carried out to our complete satisfaction, it will be considered an infraction of the rules, and your wife will be killed ... If you notify the police, your wife will be killed. If you notify the media, she will be killed. If you deviate from our instructions in any way whatsoever, she will be killed." - Ruthless People, 1986
"You will transfer one hundred million dollars from Grand Cayman Red Sea Trading Company to an account I designate ... You alert the media, I launch the gas. You refuse payment, I launch the gas. You've got forty hours, until noon, day after tomorrow, to arrange transfer of the money. I am aware of your countermeasure." - The Rock, 1996
"If I even think you're being followed, the girl dies. If you talk to anyone, I don't care if it's a Pekinese pissing against a lamppost, the girl dies ..." and "All right, now listen and listen very carefully." and "It sounds like you had a good rest. You'll need it." - Dirty Harry, 1971
"Do not attempt to grow a brain." - Speed, 1994
"It's up to you." and "Do not involve the police or the FBI. If you do, I will kill him." and "Do not inform the media or I will kill him." and "No tracking devices in the money or the cases or I will kill him." - Ransom, 1996
There are a lot of quotes here. They're located in the beginning, middle, and end of the ransom note. Based on this, I think there are probably other quotes in there but they haven't been listed at places like imdb so I haven't been able to find them.
All of these quotes have something important in common: they are all ransom demands from movies.
Because the movies are part of pop culture, I wondered if there were any other pop culture references in the note, so I started looking around. My first thought was that beheading/execution/remains for proper burial pointed to the book "A Game of Thrones" which was first published in 1996. A character in the book is executed by beheading and that person's remains still haven't made it home for proper burial. I also considered video games. In the 1990s there was a series of video games called Mortal Kombat, where one of the ways you could defeat your opponent was by beheading, and if you did well, the word "Victory" would pop up on the screen. Many games have the player join a faction at the start of the game, so I checked Wikipedia to see if older versions of games like Warcraft had factions. They did, but what I found interesting was that when I clicked on the word "faction" it took me to a definition for the word. This is what it said: "A political faction is a group of individuals ..."
There is only a slight fit with the rest of the pop culture references though, so I doubt if they're valid. I think almost all of the note is probably movie quotes. That's what I find so strange.
It looks like it took quite a bit of research to find and memorize all these quotes. The person who wrote the note is obsessed with fitting in every movie quote that has a ransom demand, even when it doesn't make any sense to do so. "Listen carefully" makes no sense in this context because this is a note, not a phone call. All those quotes made the note unnecessarily long. The writer doesn't seem to have the skill to edit the note so that it seems more realistic. I think the writer was determined to use the word "faction" in the note, but didn't know what it meant and looked it up in a dictionary or encyclopedia, and the definition made its way into the note. It's possible that the word "Pekinese" was replaced with "stray dog" because the writer didn't know how to spell Pekinese. I find it odd that the words business and possession were spelled incorrectly, but the word attache' is correct. There may be an explanation for this though. Perhaps the writer looked up information about the American Tourister briefcase and saw the word attache' used in the description and remembered how it was spelled, but only heard the words "business" and "possession" and knew what they meant, so didn't look those up.
We already know that the writer had an excellent memory for things that had been heard, so maybe s/he also had a great memory for things seen. Yet the letter writer is obsessed with fitting in so many movie quotes and can't figure out how to write an actual ransom note. The whole note, with all the corrections, looks like a rough draft for a school assignment by someone who doesn't have any idea how to write but who is still being a perfectionist about it. Maybe it's just me, but does anyone else think this could point to the writer being on the autism spectrum?
I've been reading posts in this forum and I see that people here know that the ransom note has movie quotes in it, but no one has listed the quotes or seemed to give them much thought. I believe the quotes are important, because it's practically impossible to discern anything about the writer of the ransom note because so much of it was authored by Hollywood script writers. I checked imdb and wikiquotes and these are the quotes I found:
"Mr. Stone, listen very carefully. We have kidnapped your wife. We have no qualms about killing her and we'll do so at the slightest provocation ... You are to obtain a new, black, American Tourister briefcase, Model Number 8-1-0-4 ... In it, you will place $500,000 in unmarked, non-sequentially numbered $100 bills ... You will be watched at all phases of execution. If you fail to appear at the designated time, or if any phase is not carried out to our complete satisfaction, it will be considered an infraction of the rules, and your wife will be killed ... If you notify the police, your wife will be killed. If you notify the media, she will be killed. If you deviate from our instructions in any way whatsoever, she will be killed." - Ruthless People, 1986
"You will transfer one hundred million dollars from Grand Cayman Red Sea Trading Company to an account I designate ... You alert the media, I launch the gas. You refuse payment, I launch the gas. You've got forty hours, until noon, day after tomorrow, to arrange transfer of the money. I am aware of your countermeasure." - The Rock, 1996
"If I even think you're being followed, the girl dies. If you talk to anyone, I don't care if it's a Pekinese pissing against a lamppost, the girl dies ..." and "All right, now listen and listen very carefully." and "It sounds like you had a good rest. You'll need it." - Dirty Harry, 1971
"Do not attempt to grow a brain." - Speed, 1994
"It's up to you." and "Do not involve the police or the FBI. If you do, I will kill him." and "Do not inform the media or I will kill him." and "No tracking devices in the money or the cases or I will kill him." - Ransom, 1996
There are a lot of quotes here. They're located in the beginning, middle, and end of the ransom note. Based on this, I think there are probably other quotes in there but they haven't been listed at places like imdb so I haven't been able to find them.
All of these quotes have something important in common: they are all ransom demands from movies.
Because the movies are part of pop culture, I wondered if there were any other pop culture references in the note, so I started looking around. My first thought was that beheading/execution/remains for proper burial pointed to the book "A Game of Thrones" which was first published in 1996. A character in the book is executed by beheading and that person's remains still haven't made it home for proper burial. I also considered video games. In the 1990s there was a series of video games called Mortal Kombat, where one of the ways you could defeat your opponent was by beheading, and if you did well, the word "Victory" would pop up on the screen. Many games have the player join a faction at the start of the game, so I checked Wikipedia to see if older versions of games like Warcraft had factions. They did, but what I found interesting was that when I clicked on the word "faction" it took me to a definition for the word. This is what it said: "A political faction is a group of individuals ..."
There is only a slight fit with the rest of the pop culture references though, so I doubt if they're valid. I think almost all of the note is probably movie quotes. That's what I find so strange.
It looks like it took quite a bit of research to find and memorize all these quotes. The person who wrote the note is obsessed with fitting in every movie quote that has a ransom demand, even when it doesn't make any sense to do so. "Listen carefully" makes no sense in this context because this is a note, not a phone call. All those quotes made the note unnecessarily long. The writer doesn't seem to have the skill to edit the note so that it seems more realistic. I think the writer was determined to use the word "faction" in the note, but didn't know what it meant and looked it up in a dictionary or encyclopedia, and the definition made its way into the note. It's possible that the word "Pekinese" was replaced with "stray dog" because the writer didn't know how to spell Pekinese. I find it odd that the words business and possession were spelled incorrectly, but the word attache' is correct. There may be an explanation for this though. Perhaps the writer looked up information about the American Tourister briefcase and saw the word attache' used in the description and remembered how it was spelled, but only heard the words "business" and "possession" and knew what they meant, so didn't look those up.
We already know that the writer had an excellent memory for things that had been heard, so maybe s/he also had a great memory for things seen. Yet the letter writer is obsessed with fitting in so many movie quotes and can't figure out how to write an actual ransom note. The whole note, with all the corrections, looks like a rough draft for a school assignment by someone who doesn't have any idea how to write but who is still being a perfectionist about it. Maybe it's just me, but does anyone else think this could point to the writer being on the autism spectrum?
Yes, any opinion on why?
Which variation of the ransom note are you cutting and pasting your compiltation of letters from? What image are you using?
Can/did you provide a link?
I often reference the Denver channel ransom note
http://images.ibsys.com/2006/0818/9699449.jpg
and the Smoking gun ransom note
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/jonbenet-ramsey-case-documents-0#lightbox-popup-1I
I just wondered why there is a variation in
the 'o' letter between your 'source' of the rn and the other versions posted online?
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OliviaG1996
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I don't know if this has been posted before, but something that strikes me unusual about the ransom note (everything about it does, but I have this one in mind at the moment) is when the writer states this:
"You can try to deceive us but be warned that we are familiar with Law enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99% chance of killing your daughter if you try to out smart us. Follow our instructions and you stand a 100% chance of getting her back."
What does the 1% entail? Why not, if this "small foreign faction" is so confident in their kidnapping/killing abilities, just add on that small 1% to make an even 100% and terrify "Mr. Ramsey" even more? Just another detail that makes me think this note is a fake, written by someone who is mimicking what they've heard in movies.
"You can try to deceive us but be warned that we are familiar with Law enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99% chance of killing your daughter if you try to out smart us. Follow our instructions and you stand a 100% chance of getting her back."
What does the 1% entail? Why not, if this "small foreign faction" is so confident in their kidnapping/killing abilities, just add on that small 1% to make an even 100% and terrify "Mr. Ramsey" even more? Just another detail that makes me think this note is a fake, written by someone who is mimicking what they've heard in movies.
CorallaroC
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Good post Olivia! why the 99% vs 100%? the ransom-note-writer clearly spells it out! Spells it out that the 1% can make all the difference in the world and allow the parents (no, it says this to JR) to see their daughter in 1997, otherwise they wont even get the body back for proper burial as note says.
My first impression, now thinking of it this way, is that the murderer/kidnapper is basically admitting that they have reached their limits with JR (the "terror target" named in the note. The note seems to say that JR has very little chance of achieving 100% compliance with the demands of the perpetrator. The criminal mind-set should be super-clear when 1% compliance appears to be the answer to saving the life of JR's daughter. Very interesting thought. thanks
I think it was probably more likely Patsy subconsciously wanting the odds of getting JB back to be greater than the odds of her dying (even though she knew she was already dead), even if it was only by 1%.
Muy Curioso
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Great job. It would be helpful that you continue deeper into the subject. Full citations (with minute film, version, etc ...) and marking in the ransom note each match. Hard work, but few things are achieved without hard work.
Muy Curioso
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I see. I do not remember exactly from where I downloaded it, but here are two links:
http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_national/jonbenet_ramsey/ramsey_ransom_note.pdf
http://www.bibliopedant.cc/LlwIGPtlqC20dU3FkHyd
I think these are better quality copies.
http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_national/jonbenet_ramsey/ramsey_ransom_note.pdf
http://www.bibliopedant.cc/LlwIGPtlqC20dU3FkHyd
I think these are better quality copies.
BoldBear
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About the thickness of the Sharpie marker on the ransom note:
I use sharpies every day and have them within reach at all times. A Sharpie's tip wears. The older they get, the less fine the tip is. There can also be a difference in wear on the sides of the tip. If I rotate a pen, I get a slight difference in the size of the lettering. Sometimes I rotate the tip intentionally to get a less blunt character. Sometimes I grab a newer pen if I want the writing to be sharp.
The point about the thickness of the lettering is a good one. It could indicate that the note wasn't written in one sitting.
I'll also add that I can quote lines from: Young Frankenstein, Gump, Raiders, LOTR, The Hobbit, Die Hard and many other movies. Many of those movies pick me up when I'm feeling down or help me to escape when I'm stressed. I can quote many of the lines by heart. I don't have a thing for ransom movies, but if I did, the lines would be easy to recall. I'm not dismissing premeditation, but I just want to point-out that it's not impossible for someone to watch a movie so many times that they've committed the lines to memory.
On a side note, Ruthless People was a fun movie ("I've been kidnapped by KMart."), but who would memorize those lines?
I use sharpies every day and have them within reach at all times. A Sharpie's tip wears. The older they get, the less fine the tip is. There can also be a difference in wear on the sides of the tip. If I rotate a pen, I get a slight difference in the size of the lettering. Sometimes I rotate the tip intentionally to get a less blunt character. Sometimes I grab a newer pen if I want the writing to be sharp.
The point about the thickness of the lettering is a good one. It could indicate that the note wasn't written in one sitting.
I'll also add that I can quote lines from: Young Frankenstein, Gump, Raiders, LOTR, The Hobbit, Die Hard and many other movies. Many of those movies pick me up when I'm feeling down or help me to escape when I'm stressed. I can quote many of the lines by heart. I don't have a thing for ransom movies, but if I did, the lines would be easy to recall. I'm not dismissing premeditation, but I just want to point-out that it's not impossible for someone to watch a movie so many times that they've committed the lines to memory.
On a side note, Ruthless People was a fun movie ("I've been kidnapped by KMart."), but who would memorize those lines?
I would. I memorize lines from a lot of movies. I am a true movie buff. That line from "Ruthless People" was said by Bette Midler when she found out her husband had tried to reduce the price of her ransom. She also said "You mean I'm being MARKED DOWN???"
Muy Curioso
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icedtea4me
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The w in sample #14 looks like it has three bumps as opposed to the two in all the other samples. It looks to me like the writer started to write an I, but changed their mind.
Muy Curioso
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Unable to upload files since Sunday. I have finished with the letters. Next weekend I will upload the numbers and question and exclamation marks, and the planned job will be completed. After a few weeks of rest, I'll decide if I dare with semicolons, commas, ...etc.
View attachment Y letter.pdf
View attachment Z letter.pdf
View attachment Y letter.pdf
View attachment Z letter.pdf