RDI Theories & Discussion ONLY!

[BoldBear]

Does someone have a source for the "moving lights" in the kitchen as seen by the next door neighbor? The sources I have say the that the neighbor observed "dim lights" in the kitchen and it wasn't unusual.

 

[singularity]

I definitely agree JR had plenty to do with the note, with PR being the actual writer. I've read a theory somewhere (where, I unfortunately don't remember) that said JR and PR could've typed the ransom note together on their computer as they did while writing their book The Death of Innocence, with PR later penning the note. I'll take this theory one step further: I think JR could've typed a "rough draft" of the ransom note on his computer (to be erased by JR later) for PR to copy by hand while he finished the cover-up in the basement. PR proceeded to add a lot more to the rough draft than what JR felt was appropriate. This could also explain why there was tension between them by the time police arrived.

That "theory" sounds like hogwash.

Do you seriously imagine those two surfing the net while their murdered daughter is lying downstairs and also brainstorming various pop culture references to place in a ransom note knowing the cops could possibly seize their computer literally hours after they call 911?

If you believe they were smart enough pull off this crime then how can you possibly believe they were that stupid?

OliviaG1996,
From memory there were no search engines, as such, way back in 1996. What was on offer was Yahoo Search, which was simply favorite topics linked by keywords, similarly another search engine, quite popular, was Alta-Vista, again just topics linked by keyword. Google arrived a few years later using its PageRank algorithm which was so efficient it more or less killed off the competition.

Also if the R's had access to the internet it would have been via dialup, i.e. through a modem, anyone remember that stuff, so they would have been on something like CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service)?

Infoseek was a popular search engine at the time.

Compuserve was popular but AOL and Prodigy had them beat IMO.

At the house, another peculiar scene unfolded that left police bewildered. Burke Ramsey was awakened by his father and Fleet White, dressed, and was being taken from the house. Burke was one of only three people in the house at the time of the crime and therefore a witness who needed to be closely questioned about the disappearance of his sister. Perhaps he had heard or seen something during the night that could help investigators find JonBenét. So when Officer Rick French saw him being taken away, he went over to talk to the boy. But John Ramsey intervened. Pages 22-23

Most peculiar clue involving White and Ramsey IMO is how both men apparently went down there at separate times and didn't see anything yet hours later find her. I'm still waiting for an explanation about this.

I'm a fence straddler on this case but that incident is where Fleet and John, just like Lucy, have some splainin to do.

I'd love for John Douglas and a handful of the CIA's best interrogators to have a crack at these two. Guilty or not, I think they could provide enough information to wrap this case up nice and neat.

 

[FreeSafety36]

After years of pouring over this case, RDI is still the only theory that makes any sense. Like most who've remained interested in the case, I assume, I wanted to believe IDI. I didn't want to believe a family member could commit these atrocities on this little girl. However, every time there seemed to be an IDI lead, it led quickly to another dead end.

Perhaps the over the top RDI evidence is the fact that the ransom note author never got their money, inexplicably left the Ramsey family alone since that night and never struck again. I realize IDI theorists claim maybe they did strike again, only they improved their technique. The problem with that is they didn't need to improve their technique. If IDI, then LE never even came close to solving it; so if IDI, then they already had the perfect blueprint to follow. Deviating from that blueprint would be counterproductive, as it would increase the chance of making a mistake.

Because of that, we can reasonably rule out a professional criminal. That means someone, on their first and only crime of this nature, was able to get inside the home, kidnap a child from the second floor, take her to the basement, molest, redress and kill her, return to the main floor, pen a 3 page ransom note complete with "signature", leave it on the very steps her mother would use the next morning, and exit the house- ALL without leaving a single useful clue that they'd ever been there. Also, if this were a stand alone incident between an intruder and the Ramsey family, then we conclude that if JB's death was an equal exchange for the $100,000+ dollars they were demanding, then it wasn't John Ramsey that person hated, it was JonBenet.

 

[OliviaG1996]

That "theory" sounds like hogwash.

Okay.

Do you seriously imagine those two surfing the net while their murdered daughter is lying downstairs and also brainstorming various pop culture references to place in a ransom note knowing the cops could possibly seize their computer literally hours after they call 911?

Yes. Back in 1996, the ability to surf the web was just coming to the surface. How were they to know a simple, "Clear History" wouldn't cover their bases?

If you believe they were smart enough pull off this crime then how can you possibly believe they were that stupid?

I don't think they pulled off the murder because they were "smart". They pulled off the crime because certain people didn't do their job.

 

[singularity]

Let me get this straight...you think John Ramsey of all people in 1996 was computer illiterate? That's funny. You act like he's some pc noob who has just got their first computer and is blown away when seeing the Windows 95 screen for the first time.

That dog wont hunt.

Since some of you think some of these family, friends,etc. at the house had some involvement, even if he is illiterate he would have had one of the geeks go take a swipe but that geek would inform him it doesn't matter. Encryption at today's level did not exist then and if they wrote that note on their pc they would have immediately been in what George Bush likes to call "deep doo doo".

They didn't write anything on that pc that night.

 

[OliviaG1996]

Let me get this straight...you think John Ramsey of all people in 1996 was computer illiterate? That's funny. You act like he's some pc noob who has just got their first computer and is blown away when seeing the Windows 95 screen for the first time.

That dog wont hunt.

Since some of you think some of these family, friends,etc. at the house had some involvement, even if he is illiterate he would have had one of the geeks go take a swipe but that geek would inform him it doesn't matter. Encryption at today's level did not exist then and if they wrote that note on their pc they would have immediately been in what George Bush likes to call "deep doo doo".

What "geek" are you talking about? And, when would the Rs have contacted this "geek" to check that searches can be traced even if the history is erased? At 1:30 A.M. on December 26th?

They didn't write anything on that pc that night.

I'm glad you've cracked the case. Care to enlighten us all on exactly what happened that night?

 

[lawstudent]

With today's culture, it's weird to me that someone local or GJ member (or a family member of one) hasn't posted some detail they claim to have heard. I think the grand jury transcripts will come to light eventually, and anything else sealed, but I wonder if they will really reveal anything more than what we know. As much as people say no one would be willing to speak out, it is so common for intelligent adults to make a comment about a secret/scandal to a teenage child after making them swear not to tell. And then the teen goes and posts it on some social media, not realizing the magnitude of it or that it will get back to the parent. The parent never considers such a possibility. I would have expected that to have happened in some way by now. There was a case where a guy got a a big age discrimination settlement and the terms prohibited publicizing it. His daughter, a freshman at a relatively prestigious college, immediately wrote on Facebook about how her father had been vindicated. Idk - I feel like we'll get more info eventually, but I still wonder how much anyone actually knows about what happened.

 

[BoldBear]

In 1996 is was fairly easy to turn-off the backup feature for your word processor. Window's Notepad also didn't make backup files. I have no idea how you could prove that a computer was or wasn't used to draft the RN. The best we can hope for is that the investigators were thorough when they looked at the computers in the house. (I understand the investigators weren't thorough so you don't need to point it out.)

With John's technical background, I believe he would have had the technical expertise to erase a browser's cache in such a way that the police couldn't recover the files. (I'm a techie and could have done this on my computer in 1996.)

People here have mentioned AOL, Compuserve and other dial-up service providers. In general if companies had an internet connection at work, they would also be likely to have modem pools. They'd maintain their own dial-up services. Getting online could have been logged as a company call and wouldn't have gone through the big dial-up providers.

Also, modem pools keep logs. The user would have to supply an account and a password. The police can trace such a things if they gained access to those records.

Okay, there's my 2 cents.

 

[andreww]

Not that it matters, but I believe the Ramsey's had a mac, not a PC.


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[eileenhawkeye]

With today's culture, it's weird to me that someone local or GJ member (or a family member of one) hasn't posted some detail they claim to have heard. I think the grand jury transcripts will come to light eventually, and anything else sealed, but I wonder if they will really reveal anything more than what we know. As much as people say no one would be willing to speak out, it is so common for intelligent adults to make a comment about a secret/scandal to a teenage child after making them swear not to tell. And then the teen goes and posts it on some social media, not realizing the magnitude of it or that it will get back to the parent. The parent never considers such a possibility. I would have expected that to have happened in some way by now. There was a case where a guy got a a big age discrimination settlement and the terms prohibited publicizing it. His daughter, a freshman at a relatively prestigious college, immediately wrote on Facebook about how her father had been vindicated. Idk - I feel like we'll get more info eventually, but I still wonder how much anyone actually knows about what happened.

That doesn't really make sense to me. The GJ ended 16 years ago. I think it would be extremely unlikely that a teenage family member of a GJ member would be talking to their parent/grandparent about a case that happened almost two decades ago, before they were born or when they were extremely young, and then post info on FB. For the older family members, if they did know info about what happened, it's likely been 16 years since they were told it. Considering that the GJ members never told about the Ramseys being indicted, I think it's evident that they did take the secrecy vow very seriously. I would think that would be the most likely thing they would tell family members but it took almost 14 years for it to hit the media. Even the tabloids didn't even claim that. Lastly, even if someone did take about it on FB, there are billions of posts on FB, many of which can only been seen by friends of the person, so unless it somehow goes "viral", what is the chance that any of us would see it? A January 2013 article about the Ramseys being indicted quotes many GJ members, and doesn't provide any names.

 

[BoldBear]

I find this hard to believe too. People talk and information gets leaked. I have no idea what evidence was exposed, but i don't believe there was an earth shattering revelation. It would just be too tempting for someone to leak a really interesting secret.

Off topic (and I don't want the discussion to go there), but this is the same argument I use for Michael Jackson. You can't bind minors to secrecy contracts. No adults have come forward with details. All these years later, I use the silence as evidence that MJ didn't commit the crimes.

 

[lawstudent]

I doubt that there is a group of 16 such virtuous people unless we're talking about some organization that especially vets for such things. I just think the media wasn't quite as crazy, there was no social media, and they cared enough that whatever they did say was very limited during this time. I also think they did not have anything particularly juicy, so there wasn't anything that would become a crazy rumor immediately. I didn't realize they talked to the press in 2013, but if they did without hinting at much more, I don't think they have much.

I wouldn't expect a grandchild to be having an in depth chat about the case or even knowing much about it, but I would expect at least one of the members to have made a couple of comments that slowly spread around as the case gets an occasional news mention - "oh, so and so told me that she thought this...or that we don't know everything..." and someone would post that somewhere. It would actually be more likely to be an adult than a teen, because the case isn't recognizable to most of them. I can so see someone posting on a news article that their husband's aunt was on the jury and she said X...it may not be correct, and would probably be embellished, but I just think someone with a connection who knew the tiniest thing would mention it at some point, and in today's media it would go viral. Not necessarily through the mainstream media, but around these sites. the littlest, most overhyped stuff gets passed around nowadays, especially on niche sites. That nothing all that interesting has leaked strongly suggests to me that there was nothing that interesting, although of course does not prove it. The jury could have had the same info we had, mostly, and still indicted - the circumstances are suspicious even just with the confusing information we have.

Agree regarding MJ - I've never done as much research into the case as I want to, and I was a child during the trial. There's definitely some suspicious stuff, but I read about the Jacksons all the time and everything leaks eventually - the craziest stuff. They have the craziest fans/stalkers every and people go to unprecedented lengths to get secret recordings etc., especially from pre-Internet times. And when someone is dead it is even easier to expose stuff. Then add in a few trials centered around the person. The fact that nothing more damning has come out says a lot IMO.

 

[UKGuy]

I find this hard to believe too. People talk and information gets leaked. I have no idea what evidence was exposed, but i don't believe there was an earth shattering revelation. It would just be too tempting for someone to leak a really interesting secret.

Off topic (and I don't want the discussion to go there), but this is the same argument I use for Michael Jackson. You can't bind minors to secrecy contracts. No adults have come forward with details. All these years later, I use the silence as evidence that MJ didn't commit the crimes.

BoldBear,
BBM: and I use the fact that MJ paid large sums of money for the allegations to go away, to arrive at the opposite conclusion.

.

 

[lawstudent]

BoldBear,
BBM: and I use the fact that MJ paid large sums of money for the allegations to go away, to arrive at the opposite conclusion.

.

Many do arrive at that conclusion, and I get that. But I work in law - settlements are a matter of course, and done for many reasons other than outright guilt. Not saying it doesn't raise any suspicion, but there were good reasons to settle regardless of guilt, and that was only in the civil arena, not the criminal (although they obviously influence each other in many cases). You can't literally pay for allegations to go away; you can pay for people to stop talking to the media.

 

[eileenhawkeye]

I doubt that there is a group of 16 such virtuous people unless we're talking about some organization that especially vets for such things. I just think the media wasn't quite as crazy, there was no social media, and they cared enough that whatever they did say was very limited during this time. I also think they did not have anything particularly juicy, so there wasn't anything that would become a crazy rumor immediately. I didn't realize they talked to the press in 2013, but if they did without hinting at much more, I don't think they have much.

I wouldn't expect a grandchild to be having an in depth chat about the case or even knowing much about it, but I would expect at least one of the members to have made a couple of comments that slowly spread around as the case gets an occasional news mention - "oh, so and so told me that she thought this...or that we don't know everything..." and someone would post that somewhere. It would actually be more likely to be an adult than a teen, because the case isn't recognizable to most of them. I can so see someone posting on a news article that their husband's aunt was on the jury and she said X...it may not be correct, and would probably be embellished, but I just think someone with a connection who knew the tiniest thing would mention it at some point, and in today's media it would go viral. Not necessarily through the mainstream media, but around these sites. the littlest, most overhyped stuff gets passed around nowadays, especially on niche sites. That nothing all that interesting has leaked strongly suggests to me that there was nothing that interesting, although of course does not prove it. The jury could have had the same info we had, mostly, and still indicted - the circumstances are suspicious even just with the confusing information we have.

Agree regarding MJ - I've never done as much research into the case as I want to, and I was a child during the trial. There's definitely some suspicious stuff, but I read about the Jacksons all the time and everything leaks eventually - the craziest stuff. They have the craziest fans/stalkers every and people go to unprecedented lengths to get secret recordings etc., especially from pre-Internet times. And when someone is dead it is even easier to expose stuff. Then add in a few trials centered around the person. The fact that nothing more damning has come out says a lot IMO.

But why did it take 13 years before we found out the Ramsey's were indicted? Why didn't it leak earlier? The indictment sounds like the grand jury thinks Burke was responsible, so it does seem like they saw info that we are not privy to. I can't agree with the idea that because nothing has leaked from the grand jury, it means nothing interesting or new was revealed. Didn't we just find out through Beckner's AMA that there was 2 hours between the head blow and the strangulation? I would assume that was mentioned during the grand jury, and that was never leaked. Or the feces on the candy..we just learned that with Kolar's book. They worked on the case for months, maybe over a year, and heard interviews with so many people. Who knows...maybe family members don't remember much from what they were told years ago or don't realize they know info that is not already public knowledge.

 

[lawstudent]

But why did it take 13 years before we found out the Ramsey's were indicted? Why didn't it leak earlier? The indictment sounds like the grand jury thinks Burke was responsible, so it does seem like they saw info that we are not privy to. I can't agree with the idea that because nothing has leaked from the grand jury, it means nothing interesting or new was revealed. Didn't we just find out through Beckner's AMA that there was 2 hours between the head blow and the strangulation? I would assume that was mentioned during the grand jury, and that was never leaked. Or the feces on the candy..we just learned that with Kolar's book. They worked on the case for months, maybe over a year, and heard interviews with so many people. Who knows...maybe family members don't remember much from what they were told years ago or don't realize they know info that is not already public knowledge.

Agree that the delay is odd. My only explanation would be that "we voted to indict" isn't especially juicy - it is a pretty low bar, and not the sort of catchy thing someone mentions and then someone repeats without thinking. A lot of people don't get what it means. A lot of people know what it means from the newspaper but don't recognize the pronunciation (I knew a top law student who read a headline to me saying in-dikt)! If people were going around saying "we voted guilty", then yeah, people would talk, but it wasn't like that. Allowing the case to go forward could be a result of them feeling "something was weird and suspicious - we thought there was enough to go forward on some of the charges." Most people here already have that opinion. Again, just speculation - I can't prove there is nothing juicy. There could be. Depending on how the process was explained to the jurors, they may not have experienced the outrage many here did at it not going forward. There confidence and expectation level may not have been what many people seem to think it is.

As I've mentioned in other threads, the indictment's charges strike me as strange and I don't know that they think it was Burke, although I certainly understand why people do. To me indicated confusion about how everything fit together, which would comport with what I said above about their confidence/expectation levels and how they would talk about their participation to others. They may have spent so long agonizing that the case looked very different to them - people are often shocked by jury decisions in cases that have gotten heavy media coverage, because they see this clear narrative with big highlighted pieces that have been prioritized. A jury has to piece it together themselves. No media distortion, which can be a good thing, but also no sleuthers/experts analyzing every detail and getting to look at transcripts repeatedly, many angles of ongoing news coverage/interviews, and things that are probably inadmissible, to pick out the best bits of info. The jury has to listen to everything as spoken in real time - it's just different. No comparing testimony with articles to find inconsistencies and whatnot. They can get a huge amount of info and probably still be less informed than sleuthers in many cases, unless they are privy to some bombshell.

The latter 2 things you mentioned - I don't know that those things would have the juicy significance they have here, where a lot is read into them, especially the second one. I didn't realize the time gap was only 2 years old. I have trouble taking books like Kolar's at face value (that's not the right term but hopefully you know what I mean). Too easy to distort how things were presented or perceived, to the GJ or in general. Again, it's hard to know what the actual significance of many of these facts/theories were in context.

 

[andreww]

Agree regarding MJ - I've never done as much research into the case as I want to, and I was a child during the trial. There's definitely some suspicious stuff, but I read about the Jacksons all the time and everything leaks eventually - the craziest stuff. They have the craziest fans/stalkers every and people go to unprecedented lengths to get secret recordings etc., especially from pre-Internet times. And when someone is dead it is even easier to expose stuff. Then add in a few trials centered around the person. The fact that nothing more damning has come out says a lot IMO.

Let's not forget that Jackson paid his accusers for their silence and that those agreements would still be in place. And also remember that victims of childhood sexual abuse often repress memories or choose to remain silent.



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[andreww]

As to the GJ believing Burke was responsible, I find this to be a stretch. I believe they simply voted on the charges that they thought they could prove. There is certainly evidence that both John and Patsy participated in the coverup of this crime, and that certainly indicates that one of three people committed the actual murder, but which one? I think that the physical evidence is simply not strong enough to have any hope of successfully prosecuting any of them.

I believe that if there had been conclusive evidence that Burke had committed the crime, LE would have said as much and the case would have been closed. That case was an albatross for the DA then, and for years to come, why leave it open?

And I believe it was in Beckners AMA that he said that there were no real earth shattering pieces of evidence being kept from the public. Yes there are some details, but nothing that would make the case any clearer.

And one question. How does a GJ vote work? There is no verdict so I'm assuming it is a single vote? Could it possibly be a secret vote where the jury members don't actually know the final outcome? Anybody know for sure?


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[eileenhawkeye]

The Grand Jury members' names were made public from the start. I've read a lot about the tabloid coverage of the case, and contacting family members is definitely something I could see them doing. Is it possible that there were articles published during/after the GJ proceedings that did reveal something that was said but it just didn't say it was from the GJ? The Star Magazine article saying "Burke did it!" was published in May 1999 when the GJ was going on. Could Star have talked to a family member who told them that the GJ was leaning that way? They also published a second BDI article the same year, and The Globe published a BDI article in November 1998. These tabloids always say a "source"; they don't specify who told them.


Article from '99 about GJ "lifetime gag order": http://web.dailycamera.com/extra/ramsey/1999/04arams.html

Another article where MSM talks to friends and family of GJ: http://web.dailycamera.com/extra/ramsey/1999/15aside.html

 

[lawstudent]

If all the press could get was the idea that B and/or the parents might have done it, I take that to mean there wasn't much else. It's not like once the story got even bigger, people spoke up a bit more to explain/defend the assertion or against contradictory claims. I think it is entirely possible they thought B did it, or at least thought it was a possibility, but do not have any big details that we don't. There's nothing else to leak, or at least some of the same sources would have kept talking.

I can buy that the DA wanted to cover for the child, or at least was unsure enough as to the exact circumstances that he didn't want to just pin it on the kid, ruining his life and causing considerable backlash against the parents. But it's still a little weird the way the DA handled it. Not sure what to make of it. I just don't believe the Ramseys were so powerful that they were coddled. I could see police being very reluctant to think it was them, and therefore botching the investigation and then being embarrassed to backtrack, but only for so long. With all the pressure, I would have thought they'd change their minds eventually. Not sure what to make of it.

Re the jackson case - i do not mean just people speaking up, but rather that documents, correspondence, photos, or credible adult witnesses who weren't willing to be paid off would have surfaced. In this case, it was a brief incident so I wouldn't expect correspondence, plus it was pre-Internet domination, and there are docs but they are sealed.