So, if we want to entertain a PDI situation, we must also assume she was trying to frame John? There's no reason an intruder would bother redressing the body or hiding it in the wine cellar. Even if an intruder would do this what are the odds he knows where the package of size 12s is located?
In a PDI situation, Patsy could just redress the body in any of the normal size panties in JBR's dresser drawer. She could then claim that the normal size panties were what JBR had on at bed time, and that she knows nothing about the events of the night.
So, it would seem either that Patsy is attempting to frame JR, a male who might make the mistake, or that Patsy never put the size 12s on JBR's body.
But any attempt to frame JR would have to include a sensible reason for JR to redress her in panties, and then make the mistake of using the wrong size. I see no reason for JR to redress the body in any size panties (nor any reason for Patsy to do so either). I favor the explanation that Patsy gives to the police; that JBR asked for Jenny's panties and they were in the drawer for JBR to wear. Why make up such a fantastic story when she already knows the police have searched and knows whether or not the police found a package of size 12s in the drawer?
Dynamic, I addressed some of these points in a prior post on this thread, and for me the answer is that PR was just looking for clean panties and those were the only ones in the house other than her own (JBR's were urine and fecal-stained).
We have to remember that LE did not initially and was later barred from doing a thorough search of the house (search warrant requests that were denied or stalled), that evidence was allowed to be removed from the house by family while it was still an active crime scene, and that the interviews in which PR cagily avoids saying with any confidence that the panties could have been in JBR's drawer was conducted with the benefit of PR and her legal counsel reviewing evidence and the interview questions beforehand. Frankly, I don't buy PR's interviews for a second. Like you said, why wouldn't she just say that those were in JBR's drawer and JBR might have picked them out to wear? If it wasn't pertinent to what went on that night and PR didn't know the significance, why would she be so evasive or forgetful about them?
What we know for certain is that when the package of panties was mailed to BPD months later it was intact as if new except for the Wednesday pair that had been used. There is debate about whether the package of panties was ever in JBR's drawer or were collected from the basement with the other wrapped and partially unwrapped Christmas presents. There always will be debate about that and everything else that follows with the panties because we are unable to know some things for certain.
If there was staging, then it was done to point away from the person who committed this crime (otherwise, why bother?). IMO, everything that happened in that basement points further and further away from something that PR, the doting mother, would do. PR is even absent in the RN (interesting that the practice RN included them both, but the final version was addressed only to JR - potentially another clue that PR was distancing herself in every conceivable way). Following that, if you believe that the panties were part of the staging (I do), then you have to question the motive for using those panties in particular.
I have toyed with the idea that JR was complicit in the cover up because PR blackmailed him. IMO it is easier to fathom a father molesting his daughter than a mother abusing her daughter over toileting issues. The way everything was staged, PR may have threatened JR that she would turn on him if he didn't go along with her plan, and she was much more likely to be believed. This is a purely speculative line of thinking and I'm not tied to it, and if it's correct I still don't think the oversized panties are part of the blackmail.
If the package was in JBR's underwear drawer, why would JR open the package and pick that day of the week instead of grabbing any other available pair? All of the panties in that set, including the Wednesday ones, were previously unworn and unlaundered...even to someone who doesn't normally dress JBR, that would be obvious and certainly raise more suspicion. And if JR picked an incorrectly sized pair of panties because he's the dad and doesn't know any better, why would he take care to pick out the correct day of the week? Further, as posters have proven with experiments and photographs, there is no way that someone put JBR in those panties and didn't realize they were HUGE. To me, all of that points to the Wednesday panties being essential because they were clean, and the only reason the panties' cleanliness would matter is if the urine and fecal stained ones were also unacceptable because the toileting issues provide some insight into the crime.
Also, If the panties were changed for the purpose of blackmailing JR, why not leave her original ones on if they had evidence of sexual abuse? Changing the panties means hiding evidence of what was in the original panties, so you're left with wanting to cover up sexual abuse or a toileting accident. If it's sexual abuse, then why remove that and then stage the crime scene to look like she died from sexual assault and torture anyway? If it's a toileting accident, then why would you want to hide evidence of that unless it was the trigger point for the murder?
As you can tell, I've spent a lot of time thinking about these panties! When I try to find a logical way to explain them that doesn't contradict other evidence, I keep coming back to PDI over a toileting accident that night.