Greetings,
Carmelita, and welcome to WS.
I understand your point about statistics, and I agree that statistics dont necessarily mean that any single case is going to fall within that statistical likelihood. But the statistic I believe we are talking about here relates to how many times a child homicide is the result of parental involvement as opposed to that from an outsider. That statistic didnt come from a TV show or from anywhere in the medical field. It came from cases documented and compiled by the FBI. It is a
fact that in child homicides committed in the childs home, there is only a 1 in 12 (I think that's the statistic that's so often quoted) chance that it was
not committed by a parent. But that is a very general statistic. There are other statistics that have it broken down between age groups, victim gender, and race -- and there are even trends that fluctuate over time giving a different percentage depending on the year of any particular study.
To further illustrate this statistical misconception, we could say that out of every 100 child homicides in the U.S., there is only a 1.6 out of 100 (1.6 %) chance that it will happen in Colorado. But that statistic doesnt change the fact that JonBenet died there instead of in some other state. JonBenets homicide was less likely to have happened within her age group (5 to 8) than at any other time in her life according to
FBI statistics. Statistically, she is almost 5 times more likely to have died before the age of 5, and 28 times more likely to have died between the ages of 9 and 19. But she did die at the age of 6 while in the state of Colorado regardless of the statistical expectation.
The statistical likelihood of her death being caused by someone in her home is simply a guide for investigators to follow in finding the person(s) responsible in the most expeditious manner. Once parental/family involvement can be eliminated, investigators can concentrate more on eliminating family acquaintances before having to consider the much larger pool of complete strangers. Unfortunately, the Team Ramsey roadblocks created almost immediately after the body was discovered, the denial of certain records, the Ramsey family behavior, and the delay in being able to freely question them in order to eliminate them from suspicion caused investigators to never be able to completely remove them from the suspect pool. Had they been allowed to finish the task of eliminating them, they could have spent more time investigating other leads. And Im not in any way trying to diminish the many mistakes that were made by LE from the beginning -- the first of which was assuming she had actually been kidnapped.
But then, this is all statistical likelihood -- which weve determined means nothing here (
meaningless to the individual). Right? (BTW, have you ever heard of
Marilyn Van Derbur Atler? She would have something to say about outward family appearances -- and she was consulted about this case. )
(bbm) This depends on your definition of long term sexual abuse. You might try to dispute it, but there were definite signs of
previous sexual abuse found at the autopsy. The problem is in determining how much, how often, and for what period of time before her death.
First, her hymen was not torn. Secondly, the determination of prior sexual abuse did not happen later, but instead was found by the medical examiner during the autopsy. He (Dr. Meyer) then had his finding confirmed by another doctor (Dr. Sirontak). In the
days afterwards (as
bettybaby has pointed out), numerous other experts (including Dr. John McCann) were consulted. While the exact time period and the number of incidents preceding her death could not be accurately determined, there
was general agreement that prior sexual intrusion had occurred. So the idea that she was sexually abused prior to her death was not something that came up
later when it was trendy and hip to hate and convict the Ramseys in the court of public opinion, as you suggest. It was a medical consensus from doctors (expert in that area of medical forensics) days after her autopsy -- doctors with much more than a
rudimentary knowledge of anatomy and abuse whose opinions were
not
ignorant and ludicrous at best.
Your opinion, not shared by all.
Wrote with self-interest and extremely biased minds... And is there any other book that you feel was not written with self-interest and an extremely biased mind? Surely not either of the two written by someone with the name Ramsey. How about the one co-authored by Lou Smit? Dont you think it might have been a little self-serving? I wont try to defend the intentions of either Thomas or Kolar. Others have. Obviously neither of us knows what was in either of their minds when they wrote their books. But considering where the profits go from Kolars book, Id say the old adage about knowing someone by their deeds, rather than their words, applies here. (And thank you for telling us where you are coming from, although I think most here had already figured that out.)
Same here.
:seeya:
