I’ve heard so many refer to the “brutality” or the “viciousness” of what was done to JonBenet. In fact, it’s often given as the reason one person or another couldn’t have possibly committed this crime. After all (the reasoning goes) it would take a “monster” -- a "psychopath" -- to inflict all the injuries to her body that she suffered. Right?
But what if most (or all) of the injuries could be explained by a single, ill-considered act? What if everything that happened and was done by others could be understood by what that one impulsive act caused?
I wrote the following scenario several years ago about a
completely fictional crime to illustrate this point about interpreting the “viciousness” of JonBenet’s death based on what we know. If you recall it, you don’t have to read it again. But if you don’t remember it, I think it shows that, unless we know exactly what happened, we can’t speak to the motivation of the person who caused her death.
A 911 call is made by an obviously distraught mother at 5:45 pm. She tells the 911 operator she just got home from work and found her daughter lying on the living room floor not breathing and unresponsive. There is blood on the body. “Hurry, hurry, hurry!”
Police arrive, pictures are taken of the crime scene, and statements are taken from the mother and her other, 10 year old daughter who says she got home from school at about 4:30 pm after stopping briefly at a friend’s house on the way home. She says that after getting home, she went straight to her bedroom on the second floor where she and her sister both slept, and she didn’t see her sister lying on the floor in the living room. Police find a pair of scissors in some bushes in the backyard, wiped clean of fingerprints but with trace evidence of blood which is later determined to belong to the victim.
The medical examiner’s autopsy reveals the following:
The 14 year old female victim’s cause of death is from an
atlanto-occipital dislocation (
internal decapitation) associated with
craniocerebral trauma.
External Exam:
The victim has two stab wounds in the upper abdomen (possibly from the scissors found in the bushes). These wounds are 5-inches deep (indicating the full depth of the scissors found). Damage to the surrounding tissue indicates the stabbing was done with a tremendous amount of force.
- The victim’s right humerus bone (upper arm) appears to be fractured (confirmed by radiography).
- Her right shoulder is also dislocated (discovered on the X-rays).
- There are multiple recent contusions on her legs, arms, and upper torso.
- Her hymen is torn in two locations, and additional acute vaginal trauma is also found.
- Semen is present in her vagina (swabs are taken for DNA testing).
Internal Exam:
- The skull has a linear fracture 6-inches in length running through the parietal bone and into the occipital bone.
- There is hemorrhaging in the subdural and the subarachnoid layers of the cerebrum.
Police detectives question the girl’s known friends and associates and take DNA swabs. Soon a DNA match is found to the semen with a male (not really necessary to point that out, I hope) friend in a grade higher than the victim. Witnesses at the school say they had seen the two talking to one another between classes. Suspicion naturally falls on him and he is eventually accused of the vicious, brutal attack that killed the girl. He denies any involvement and denies ever even being in the victim’s house. But the DNA from the semen found in the victim's vagina is conclusive; and the only other DNA or fiber evidence found in the home is excluded from being associated with the crime because it all belongs to the victim and/or her family members.
Investigators theorize that the boy was allowed into the home by the victim before the younger sister got home from school. They believe that once inside, he brutally attacked the girl. He beat her, raped her, stabbed her, and then hit her over the head with some undetermined object. Then he was able to leave the house before the younger sister got home and went straight up the stairs to her room -- not noticing her sister’s body lying lifeless in the living room.
So in this
fictional scenario, can anyone
not say that this was a vicious, brutal, heinous, psychopathic attack on the 14 year old girl -- probably committed by the victim’s friend? If not, read the list again of all the injuries that were inflicted on her body.
After arresting the victim’s friend, charges are brought against him for the rape and the vicious, brutal murder of the 14 year old girl. Just before the case is set to go to trial, the victim’s sister tells her mother what she knows happened and didn’t admit to before. They go to the police who, after hearing her story and further questioning of the arrested boy, put together what happened.
The 14 year old girl (the victim in this case) had gotten close to the boy at school, and after school, she had started going to his house before going home, knowing that her mother wouldn’t be home for a couple more hours. On the day she died, their “friendship” had reached the point that she decided to let him “go all the way.” This was the first time in her life she let something like that happen.
When she got home, she and her sister had an argument over using a pair of scissors. She grabbed the scissors trying to pull them away from her sister. When the younger sister lost her grip of the scissors, the older sister lost her balance at the top of the stairs as she stabbed herself with the scissors. She fell down the entire flight of wood stairs, tumbling several times on the way down and pushing the scissors deep into her abdomen. Her sister ran to the bottom of the stairs and watched hopelessly as her sister died. Distraught, worried, panicked, and fearful of the consequences of having caused her older sister’s death, she pulled the scissors from the lifeless body, wiped them of prints and blood, and hid them in the bushes outside. Then she dragged her sister’s dead body into the living room and waited in her room for their mother to return from work to find the body.
All the injuries listed in the autopsy were sustained accidentally as the result of one small careless act. Everything that happened to her body was the result of an unfortunate set of circumstances that had tragic consequences appearing to be a brutal rape and vicious attack.
One point in this tale is that the DNA that linked the friend had nothing to do with the actual crime. Another point is that, without the sister’s confession, investigators would probably have never figured out what actually happened. What if the girl had never spoken out about what happened? What if her mother had never told the police after she found out? But the main point in this is that we can’t judge how “vicious” or “brutal” a death is simply by the injuries sustained on the body. Those descriptions are of the
manner in which the injuries were
inflicted. Until the circumstances that caused the death are known, we can’t judge how “brutal,” “vicious,” or “psychopathic” it was because those adjectives speak to
motive. And if we don’t know the exact circumstances that caused it or the motives behind it, we can’t say who was or was not capable of doing it.
Yes, JonBenet’s injuries are numerous and appear to be the result of a brutal attack. But are there circumstances that would explain all of the injuries and all of the bazaar behaviors of those connected with this? I believe there are.
[Disclaimer: Events and characters are completely fictitious and bear no resemblance to actual events or persons. Any similarities are completely coincidental. No animals were harmed in the making of this story.]
