Was Burke Involved? # 4

[Heymom]

Or her hands were tied.

There were also no marks on her wrists to suggest that she was forcibly restrained. The cord on her wrist was tied on the outside of her long-sleeved shirt and was not tight. I think there was about 17" of cording between her wrists, so it wasn't a restraint.

 

[akh]

I see what you mean, but those "experts" would be wrong, so what is the point of entertaining their theories? It's like giving Smit credit for something when he was SO WRONG about the stun gun marks. No point in doing so. Just spreads misinformation.

I hear you but some people are swayed by those statements which then causes them to instantly to change directions which their thoughts. And the fact is, even if someone wants to believe those alternate looks at the evidence, they still don't necessarily change who could've done it. It can fit without a stretch either way. Put one of those experts on a stand trying to create reasonable doubt and if someone believes them it could change their mind. But point out it really fits either way no matter how you construct the theory of the crime and it can bring that person back to the prosecution. Of course that is in a theoretical sense. There's really little to no chance this case gets anywhere near criminal court at this point.

 

[Mumma2thr33]

To briefly touch on the beheading and ligature discussions, I had always hypothesized that the ligature was created because of the mention of beheading within the randsom note.

My original idea was that during the supposed time frame that JR was "missing" (prior to finding JR'S body) JR fashioned the ligature to try to validate the randsom note. I hypothosised that when the 10am timeframe for the kidnappers to have called passed, JR realized he should make the random note more of a reality by fashioning a ligature for beheading.

This was my mistake as the autopsy reports would indicate I am incorrect due to calculated injury time frames.

Still, I am still left with the lingering thought that the ligature was created and tightened, actually causing JR'S death after writing the random note OR in anticipation of writing the random note. Perhaps discussion of what to write in the random note was discussed or created mentally as staging occurred.

I have done a lot of research on this case but by no means am I an expert. This is all my personal ideas or opinions. Please feel free to kindly direct me where I may be wrong. What a boring life it would be if we did not strive to further educate ourselves!

((I would like to add however, and this is slightly off topic of my above paragraphs, that 9 year old children are very capable of manipulation and abuse to others. As a brief example, I am adopted and when I was 6 years old I started getting sexual abused and manipulated by my brothers who were 9 and 13 at the time. I feel it should be noted that there was no prior sexual abuse history within our family either. As much as we would like to give children the benefit of the doubt, every human, adult or child is capable of afflicting harm upon others.))

I am sorry for the long post, I just wanted to get some thoughts of mine out there.

 

[Meara]

If I may add a word....

There is forgiveness as we know it in faith, a participation in God's ongoing and eternal forgiveness, and there's forgiveness as a human experience. So often the intention and desire to forgive are present, but the heart does not, cannot, line up behind them right away. It needs time to work through the shock, the anger,the helplessness, the pain, the grief, whatever it is it must come to terms with. Forgiveness as we know it in faith is what anchors us until the storms of the heart subside. When Jesus teaches that we must forgive not seven times but "seventy times seven", He is speaking metaphorically. He means we must forgive without limit, as God forgives. But I think He is also telling us how well He understands our human hearts and the long effort it can take to reconcile faith with experience. He is commanding us to forgive seventy times seven and, at the same time, saying He understands it may take us that long.

It's hard to generalize about the Ramseys because they're so weird, but when they said the killer deserved forgiveness, and they weren't angry with the person, it was a good guess right then that it was a family member or friend. While it's not impossible to immediately forgive a murderous stranger who bashed your daughter's head in, strangled her with a cord, and molested her with a paintbrush, what are the chances of that kind of virtue growing unseen on the pageant circuit, in a life of conspicuous consumption, only to flower in the light of TV studios?

 

[TexMex]

It's very true. Forgiveness is a process. It can happen fast or take years. I have no clue what JAR's theory of this case is. Does he think a stranger broke in? His step mother and his father killed their little girl? Or perhaps he knew Burke was a strange kid and suspected what most of us have come to conclude. Whatever his thoughts, he chose to forgive.

About 10 years ago a teenager from an abusive home in Missouri was kicked out of the house by his dad. He stole a gun. Killed two people in town and stole their truck. Drove to Texas. Found a house randomly in Pampa, Texas. Crept in late night. The family sound asleep. Shot the 31 year old homeowner. Then killed the 35 year old wife who was 6 months pregnant. Down the hall he found the 10 year old daughters room. Shot. Then to the 14 year old son, killed him. The little girl survived, the bullet missed. She played dead and waited til daylight terrified and called 911.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-girl-who-saw-too-much/


At the trial of the man who destroyed her family:


After a week of testimony, Switzer called Robin’s name. She came into the courtroom, which was packed with Pampa residents. They leaned forward as she took the stand. No one had any idea what she would say—or if she would say anything at all.

Robin recounted the events of the night of the murder, quickly going through the details. Then Switzer asked her if she missed her mother. Seemingly caught by surprise, Robin said she wished her mother had been around this past year for some of the bigger milestones in her life, including the eighth grade dance and her first day of high school. Suddenly, she turned and stared straight at King and told him she was constantly haunted by her mother’s screams from that night and was still sometimes scared to go to sleep.

The specatators in the courtroom assumed that that would be the last they would hear from Robin. Switzer herself had no plans to call Robin back to the courtroom. But Robin told the prosecutor that she had one more thing to say. And so, after King was sentenced to life without parole—one of the twelve jurors refused to vote for the death penalty, which requires a unanimous vote—Robin took the stand to make a victim’s impact statement. She looked at King and told him that she forgave him, and that she hoped when the day came for him to meet God, he would ask for forgiveness too. King kept his head down, unable to look at the teenager.

“I don’t know why I said what I said,” Robin told me when I asked her about the forgiveness statement. “Maybe I just wanted him to know that I wasn’t going to let my life be ruined by him—that I wasn’t going to let him take away the best of me.”

 

[Errrr]

Sorry, I will never believe that a 10 year old who had issues putting thoughts on paper in school would write a 2.5 page ransom note with the sentence structure, linguistic uses, grammar, punctuation, syntax, words and phrases with which we are all too familiar, leave no fingerprints and then return the pad and pen back to where he got them.

Authorities, exhausting, countermeasures, tactics, monitor, attache', provoke, proper burial, adequate, behead, etc., particularly, withdraw, account, law enforcement, and hence are just some of the words that I do not think a 10 year old would choose. The word choice would be more like 'get the money from your bank', 'we are watching', 'don't make us mad', 'we will cut her head off', 'don't tell police', 'it will be tiring', 'take a big enough bag'. Let's not forget the editorial carrot (is that how it is spelled? lol) or the decision to not use 'delivery' twice in the same sentence or the acronym.

But first and foremost is Cina Wong, the only handwriting expert I have seen interviewed who said she found 200 similarities between the RN and Pasty's samples in that 380 word letter. To me it is a stunning number of matches. No one else even came close.

On DP BR said he had never been to a funeral before, do you really think 'proper burial" would be in his life experiences or vocabulary?

Did your 10 year old have a school homework assignment to write a 380 word essay? Was that a pleasant experience for you? LOL

IMHO, using my own eyes, the RN screams that PR wrote it.

I noticed they had the Rs provide left and right hand writing samples. Maybe they should have tried Zanax writing samples.

 

[txsvicki]

I don't buy the forgiveness thing from the Ramseys unless they were medicated or under the influence of some pastor at the time. How could John forgive some phantom stranger that wasn''t even known or caught and could be out there hurting other children. He doesn't seem to have forgiven the media and police for loss of finances and business. I've thought that he would not be stupid enough to go along with the ransom note, but thinking more of the forgiveness statement , and not being angry makes we think maybe he is stupid enough to have written it or approved .

 

[ThinkHard]

It's very true. Forgiveness is a process. It can happen fast or take years. I have no clue what JAR's theory of this case is. Does he think a stranger broke in? His step mother and his father killed their little girl? Or perhaps he knew Burke was a strange kid and suspected what most of us have come to conclude. Whatever his thoughts, he chose to forgive.

About 10 years ago a teenager from an abusive home in Missouri was kicked out of the house by his dad. He stole a gun. Killed two people in town and stole their truck. Drove to Texas. Found a house randomly in Pampa, Texas. Crept in late night. The family sound asleep. Shot the 31 year old homeowner. Then killed the 35 year old wife who was 6 months pregnant. Down the hall he found the 10 year old daughters room. Shot. Then to the 14 year old son, killed him. The little girl survived, the bullet missed. She played dead and waited til daylight terrified and called 911.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-girl-who-saw-too-much/


At the trial of the man who destroyed her family:


After a week of testimony, Switzer called Robin’s name. She came into the courtroom, which was packed with Pampa residents. They leaned forward as she took the stand. No one had any idea what she would say—or if she would say anything at all.

Robin recounted the events of the night of the murder, quickly going through the details. Then Switzer asked her if she missed her mother. Seemingly caught by surprise, Robin said she wished her mother had been around this past year for some of the bigger milestones in her life, including the eighth grade dance and her first day of high school. Suddenly, she turned and stared straight at King and told him she was constantly haunted by her mother’s screams from that night and was still sometimes scared to go to sleep.

The specatators in the courtroom assumed that that would be the last they would hear from Robin. Switzer herself had no plans to call Robin back to the courtroom. But Robin told the prosecutor that she had one more thing to say. And so, after King was sentenced to life without parole—one of the twelve jurors refused to vote for the death penalty, which requires a unanimous vote—Robin took the stand to make a victim’s impact statement. She looked at King and told him that she forgave him, and that she hoped when the day came for him to meet God, he would ask for forgiveness too. King kept his head down, unable to look at the teenager.

“I don’t know why I said what I said,” Robin told me when I asked her about the forgiveness statement. “Maybe I just wanted him to know that I wasn’t going to let my life be ruined by him—that I wasn’t going to let him take away the best of me.”

Forgiveness is a funny thing, sometimes I think it's how you are wired and has very little to do with what faith teaches you. I remember being 8 years old at CCD (aka Catholic "Sunday school") and reading about a man who forgave the murderer of his son. No one else in my class could understand why the man had done such a thing and they all stated they would never forgive someone who murdered someone they love.

But what I remember thinking is of course you forgive the person who murdered your son! Of course you do! To me there wasn't another choice. Even from that young age I knew not forgiving meant carrying around anger, hate, and resentment, and I knew one cannot do good in the world if the carry around that kind of weight.

But I also remember being very very much in the minority at my tender age of 8.

I have known plenty of Christians in my life, and despite the teachings of the church, it never seems to be a direct result of faith that makes someone capable of forgiveness or not....in my experience it's often more about who the person is rather then what church teaches them on wether they carry forgiveness in their heart or not.

That said, when it comes to the Ramseys,who's moral compass I have some doubts about....id be inclined to believe they are not the type to forgive a stranger.

 

[Tortoise]

I think any BDI scenario that only accounts for BR hitting her with the flashlight, or other object if the flashlight is wrong, has the problem of needing to explain why they thought they needed a cover story at all (since there was no obvious outer trauma), unless BR told them what he did or they saw it happen. Or if they did need a cover story why couldn't it have been playing it off as an accident? That seems like it would have a higher probability of success than staging a death scene complete with mutilating the body, let alone 'finishing her off', and then trying to make it out to be a kidnapping gone wrong.

A stronger motive for a parental cover up, than BDI hitting her in temper, would be if one of the parents was responsible for the head wound. That is harder to explain on any view.

As for planning to move the body from the house... I can't see that being a part of the plan. Certainly not after it was discussed because I think with any two people bouncing ideas off each other that would quickly be ruled out. So by the time the 911 call was made I have my doubts anyone was planning to somehow move the body out of the house. Personally, I think they thought the police would find the body much sooner and therefore think the kidnapper killed JBR because the parents didn't follow directions. Which would then mean there wouldn't be a call from the kidnapper for everyone to be waiting on. Of course truthfully, if an IDI then there'd be no call as well since they'd already know they'd killed her. But that leaves the problem of the parents not really reacting as the time expired with no call. Which at this point would mean the plan was falling apart which could explain JR's reported agitation.

I agree. How ironic that JR wanted the police to find the body but had placed it in a room which wouldn't be searched because it was locked from the outside.

Then you go back to the RN.... What about the RN would make someone think this was a sex crime? IOW, why stage a sexual abuse scene for that ransom note you've created?

I think there was discord between them about the sexual assault. I believe PR cleaned it up and hoped naively that it wouldn't even be looked for, if the blood was gone. There were a few spots in her underwear which could have come from the residual blood inside her when she was lifted to the place she was left in.

 

[ThinkHard]

If they were trying to sexually assault her that night with the sole purpose of hiding previous sexual assault...then why clean up the evidence that a sexual assault was done to her that night? That just doesn't make any sense.

If you believe the "sexual assault" that night was only staging....then why stage something just to clean it up?

 

[Tortoise]

If they were trying to sexually assault her that night with the sole purpose of hiding previous sexual assault...then why clean up the evidence that a sexual assault was done to her that night? That just doesn't make any sense.

If you believe the "sexual assault" that night was only staging....then why stage something just to clean it up?

Two people doing the staging?

 

[ThinkHard]

Two people doing the staging?

Perhaps. Yet still if it's purpose was ONLY staging to cover prior sexual abuse, then cleaning it up in almost everyway negates the purpose.

It seems more likley to me that the sexual assault that night had ZERO to do with staging and ZERO to do with hiding previous abuse, but was sadly and more likely to have been part of what was done to JBR in the first place.

Cleaning it up, seems more of an attempt to hide sexual abuse done to her that night...which completely conflicts with the sexual abuse being staging, at least it completely conflicts to me.

Which makes me believe the sexual abuse was part of the crime not part of the cover up.

 

[mrseeker]

I did not bring up JAR's quote to start a religious discussion. I agree with everyone's take on the subject. My point was it seems the Ramsey's have moved beyond the capture of the criminal and rather quickly. I don't know all the behind the scenes activities over the years, but they have spent most of their money and efforts trying to prove they didn't do it rather than trying to capture the intruder. They have hired media relations firms, lawyers and investigators but it seems their search for the killer is much like OJ's search - all talk. I would have had an armed guard around my surviving child until he was 21 yet they let him drive off with friends while their daughter was still "missing", when for all they knew, the small foreign faction was following the white's home. Of course they knew he was perfectly safe. Maybe the Whites were in more danger. The ramsey's know what happened, and they have made peace with it. Now let us in on it and quit yanking our chains JR.

 

[madeleine]

Perhaps. Yet still if it's purpose was ONLY staging to cover prior sexual abuse, then cleaning it up in almost everyway negates the purpose.

It seems more likley to me that the sexual assault that night had ZERO to do with staging and ZERO to do with hiding previous abuse, but was sadly and more likely to have been part of what was done to JBR in the first place.

Cleaning it up, seems more of an attempt to hide sexual abuse done to her that night...which completely conflicts with the sexual abuse being staging, at least it completely conflicts to me.

Which makes me believe the sexual abuse was part of the crime not part of the cover up.

Exactly, why cover up the cover-up, made never sense to me.
The assault was part of the crime, wiping the body off and redressing her was cover-up.

 

[Tortoise]

Perhaps. Yet still if it's purpose was ONLY staging to cover prior sexual abuse, then cleaning it up in almost everyway negates the purpose.

It seems more likley to me that the sexual assault that night had ZERO to do with staging and ZERO to do with hiding previous abuse, but was sadly and more likely to have been part of what was done to JBR in the first place.

Cleaning it up, seems more of an attempt to hide sexual abuse done to her that night...which completely conflicts with the sexual abuse being staging, at least it completely conflicts to me.

Which makes me believe the sexual abuse was part of the crime not part of the cover up.

Why is it more likely to you that this was a real assault and not staging?

Yes it conflicts, that's why I said two people in discord. For example PR leaves JR to get something they need like the penknife or the tape/cord and when she returns he has already done it, she disagrees with that element of the staging and cleans it up, for her own reasons.

It's no less viable a scenario.

Staging is not necessarily about covering up prior abuse. It could be, and it could also be that one knows there has been prior abuse and the other doesn't know. With two stagers there are a myriad of possibilities, motives and personal limits. Another purpose of staging is to make this killer look as ruthless and monstrous as possible and divert suspicion from family. We do know that was their priority, that much is clear.

 

[madeleine]

If they assaulted her just for staging why not write a note that says I am e pedo, I love JB, I had to have her blah blah
The note totally contradicts this. The stager/stagers wanted it to look like a kidnapping gone wrong, not a sexual assault gone wrong. The motif was clearly money not sex.

 

[Tortoise]

If they assaulted her just for staging why not write a note that says I am e pedo, I love JB, I had to have her blah blah
The note totally contradicts this. The stager/stagers wanted it to look like a kidnapping gone wrong, not a sexual assault gone wrong. The motif was clearly money not sex.

That is exactly my point. The note writer (Patsy) did not agree!

 

[madeleine]

That is exactly my point. The note writer (Patsy) did not agree!

but how sadistic and sick do you have to be to sexually assault your dead child with a stick or even a finger only to hide what, a head bash? It is beyond cruel .

 

[madeleine]

If BDI IMO mommy probably did all the staging and by staging I mean cleaning and redressing the body and writing that STUPID note. Dunno when JR was told but if BDI I don/t think he agreed with some of the things that happened before police was called. It was probably too late though to say NO.

But, who knows, am not convinced BDI, anything is possible.

 

[Tortoise]

but how sadistic and sick do you have to be to sexually assault your dead child with a stick or even a finger only to hide what, a head bash? It is beyond cruel .

On a par with strangulation, yes.

But the ransom note gives us a window into the psychology of these people.