Who Killed Jon Benet Ramsey? Poll

[otg]

No footprints in the snow, right? That would seem to preclude someone coming in from outside.

I don't put much stock in the lack of footprints. There was only a light dusting of snow that morning with relatively mild temperatures. As the sun came up any of that light snow, especially on paved surfaces would have quickly melted. Ramsey friends were among the first at the scene and John said he made a trip to the garage before LE arrived, if there was snow, there had to be at least some prints. Also, what time did that snow fall? If an intruder was out of the house by 2:00 and it snowed at 4:00 there would be no prints either.

IF John made a trip to the garage , he would have most likely gone through the entrance leading from within the house. There would be no need to go outside and leave footprints.

I (like you, andreww) don’t put much stock (one way or another) in the footprints in the snow speculation. Here is what is written in the Bonita Papers that was taken from police reports (emphasis mine):

Patrol Sgt. Reichenbach, responding to the call to go to the 15[SUP]th[/SUP] Street address, passed a time and temperature sign in a mall parking lot on his way to the Ramsey home. The temperature in Boulder that morning was 9 degrees. A light dusting of snow lay sprinkled on the ground, mostly visible on the neighborhood lawns. Upon his arrival at the residence Reichenbach conducted a brief inspection of the outside of the premises. In addition to the newly fallen snow, portions of the yard were covered with one or two inches of crusty snow from a prior snowfall. He noted that no footprints were visible in the new snow that adhered to the grass and pavement areas surrounding the house nor in the old snow still remaining.
​

It seems that what snow that was remaining was too patchy and scattered to make a positive determination that no one had walked around outside the house. But over the years, this idea has stuck that "no footprints in the snow" meant there was proof of no intruder. This just isn't that.

 

[otg]

Patsy said she didn't read the whole letter before calling 911. She got the gist of it from the first few lines and went to check JB and then called 911. She looked at the end for a signature. That sounds reasonable to me, even though I don't believe her story. John was supposedly reading the letter while she called 911 so I think by the time she was calling all the neighbors over he should have stopped her. My theory a while back was that the letter is 3 pages so they can do what the letter says not to, but say that they didn't see that part because it's buried in the middle.

If you look at Patsy's second interview, she talks about standing at the front door waiting for LE to arrive, wondering if she's made a mistake by ignoring the demands of the note. How she wondered that when she supposedly didn't read the note is beyond me!

But let's be realistic here. That note can be read in less than a minute. I find it very hard to believe that neither of them would have read that threat before calling LE.

If either of the Ramseys were to have read the threats in the RN, it wouldn’t be called “reading”. The correct word would be PROOFREADING.

:floorlaugh:

 

[questfortrue]

If either of the Ramseys were to have read the threats in the RN, it wouldn’t be called “reading”. The correct word would be PROOFREADING.

:floorlaugh:

Proofreading?!! :hilarious:

From the JR depo with Darnay Hoffman:
16 Q. When you were looking at the ransom
17 note, was there anything in the language of the
18 ransom note that struck you as peculiar?
19 A. The whole thing was peculiar. We
20 were addressed as "Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey," and then
21 they switched to "John" personally.
. . .
Oh, so much misremembering. . . . JR sometimes had a hard time getting Patsy to stick to the script. It was the practice note which started out “Mr. and Mrs. R”. The ‘real’ RN (if one can call it that :biggrin was just addressed to him.

 

[Detective Pinkie]

This has always been the most absurd question asked since this murder happened.

If your child was kidnapped, I don't care what a ransom note says, you and every single person who has asked this question would call 911 a nanosecond after reading the note.

Or are you going to twiddle your thumbs for god knows how long while your child is in danger or already dead?

I understand people believing they had something to do with it but faulting them for calling 911 makes no sense at all.

I don't think many people fault the Ramsey's for calling 911, more that they didn't mention that part to the operator so the police could be discreet, as andreww said. Also that they then called friends and church people and invited them around. Let's get as many people to the house as possible, that doesn't look strange at all......

 

[OliviaG1996]

I don't think many people fault the Ramsey's for calling 911, more that they didn't mention that part to the operator so the police could be discreet, as andreww said. Also that they then called friends and church people and invited them around. Let's get as many people to the house as possible, that doesn't look strange at all......

I am on the fence on whether or not I fault the Rs for calling 9-1-1. If the intruder theory is correct, I cannot say for certain what I would've done had I been put in their position when it came to the decision of making the call or not. That being said, I can imagine PR thinking with her emotions, not fully reading the note, and running to the phone to call the police. JR, however, I cannot see doing this. Some officers at the scene had described JR as calm, so why would someone so collected be the one telling PR to call the police while still in the process of reading the note, not yet knowing what could happen to his daughter if they do? Why would someone more in control of their emotions read only a small portion of the note before quickly making a decision that could cost his daughter her life? I'm not really buying it.

The small get-together the Rs threw after LE was called also suggests they weren't concerned in the least about a "foreign faction" potentially monitoring their every move. For all the faction knew, their visitors could've been the cops in unmarked cars.

JMO.

 

[arizona sunshine]

After the recent truths discovered in the Vallejo kidnapping (see link below) the ransom note left for the Ramseys seems completely plausible to me! The Vallejo kidnapping demonstrated the calculated unimaginable mind of a sociopath in all its warped glory.

Ramsey murder; I think the combination of poor detective work, poor policing of the crime scene and the apparent lack of inter-agancy collaboration between DA and police……..the perp still walks today.

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...A-DH-30-Vallejo-23-March-2015-*ARREST*/page28

 

[Teresa]

If an intruder kidnapped Jon Benet wouldn't have John and Patsy wanted to limit the people in their house? Seems to me that they would want any possible evidence untainted. Invited a ton of friends instead...

 

[arizona sunshine]

If an intruder kidnapped Jon Benet wouldn't have John and Patsy wanted to limit the people in their house? Seems to me that they would want any possible evidence untainted. Invited a ton of friends instead...

Absolutely with hindsight. I would have thought the police should have had the same want. The police should have controlled the scene, officers did not clear the house of friends and the local preacher, until after the body was discovered some 7 hours after the 911 call was made by PR. How often are parents in this situation capable of managing their own kidnapping investigation?

I think I can rationalise the ramseys lack of forensic foresight by sheer panic. The police I have little excuse for albeit perhaps their lack of experience.

I do find it incredulous that such a crime can occur whist the other family members slept on. But the house was huge.

 

[andreww]

Absolutely with hindsight. I would have thought the police should have had the same want. The police should have controlled the scene, officers did not clear the house of friends and the local preacher, until after the body was discovered some 7 hours after the 911 call was made by PR. How often are parents in this situation capable of managing their own kidnapping investigation?

I think I can rationalise the ramseys lack of forensic foresight by sheer panic. The police I have little excuse for albeit perhaps their lack of experience.

I do find it incredulous that such a crime can occur whist the other family members slept on. But the house was huge.

Yes the house was huge but it is amazing what you can hear in the middle of the night. If I can clearly hear a mouse walking around in my large home, I have a hard time believing the Ramsey's couldn't hear a little girls scream in theirs.


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[DeeDee249]

Absolutely with hindsight. I would have thought the police should have had the same want. The police should have controlled the scene, officers did not clear the house of friends and the local preacher, until after the body was discovered some 7 hours after the 911 call was made by PR. How often are parents in this situation capable of managing their own kidnapping investigation?

I think I can rationalise the ramseys lack of forensic foresight by sheer panic. The police I have little excuse for albeit perhaps their lack of experience.

I do find it incredulous that such a crime can occur whist the other family members slept on. But the house was huge.

So do I and so do most members who are RDI. Of course I feel that NO one slept through it because they were participants to varying degrees, so it never really happened that someone in the house slept through it. I agree that police mismanaged this case from the very first moments, when Officer French, the first officer at the house, shortly after 6 am, allowed R friends and clergy to remain in the house, wander around freely, and wipe down surfaces (like kitchen counters) that may have contained valuable forensic evidence. Remember that large flashlight found on the kitchen counter? These "friends" may have been the very ones responsible. It was found completely wiped, including the batteries! There is no way to prove who did the wiping, except that NO intruder would have reason to wipe batteries. In fact, leaving the family's prints on the batteries would prove it belonged to the Rs. So the only people with an interest in wiping the batteries were people who wanted to distance themselves from that flashlight- which is exactly what the Rs tried to do. It wasn't until Arndt arrived hours later that she attempted to contain the crowd, but she too went against protocol by suggesting JR and FW "take a look around". They went straight to the basement, which Arndt claimed she though thought "odd" yet did not stop them. If she was overwhelmed and alone without backup, why not corral every person in one room and stand guard with your gun drawn until backup arrived? She was armed- they were (allegedly) not. Her mistake. I also wonder why Officer French did not remain in place at the house after Arndt arrived. I have never seen a good reason for his departure from an active crime scene (even though it was not yet known to be a murder). It was still a kidnapping- a federal crime. The FBI- also on the scene early that day- was sent away by the BPD. WHY? The FBI's CASKU should have been kept there. Once JB's body was found, and it became a murder instead of a kidnapping, the local police had jurisdiction. They blew it. But they still could have asked for FBI help. Later, the Rs squawked that the FBI should have investigated. Of course, they knew the FBI had been there and were sent away.

 

[DeeDee249]

Yes the house was huge but it is amazing what you can hear in the middle of the night. If I can clearly hear a mouse walking around in my large home, I have a hard time believing the Ramsey's couldn't hear a little girls scream in theirs.


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They could. Later tests right in the house by police confirmed that a vent in the basement allowed a scream to be heard across the street in front of neighbor Melanie Stanton (who later told police she heard a child's scream around midnight). An officer upstairs in the Rs third-floor master bedroom could also hear the scream.

 

[arizona sunshine]

Numerous articles mention that the R's were never officially interviewed by LE or FBI. Is this right? If it is right I'm interested to hear theories as to why not. Were the R's so well connected or simply more LE blundering?

Surely they must have made a formal statement?

 

[Nosecrets]

There is only one theory that makes sense to me and that is alluded to in James Kolar's, Foreign Faction. I live in the UK and watched many documentaries about the case. They were very pro Ramsey and the 'intruder theory'. It never made sense to me why these indulgent parents would destroy what they prized the most. When they stated their innocence I saw sincerity in that declaration. I had also followed cases in the U.S were innocent parents had been charged with very similar crimes and later proved innocent, so I was prone to agree. I studied forensic linguistic for a year. One of the documents we were given to study was the infamous ransom note. My tutor pointed out certain similarities to Patsy Ramsey but I disagreed. The letter made me think of some teenage boy's attempt to sound like a terrorist, it was written by someone politically ignorant and prone to sensationalism, however, I began to change my mind. I was also aware of the outlandish theories people put forth and that also put me off studying the case in depth. Reading Kolar's book finally put the pieces together, here, finally was a reason for the cover up, for the ransom note. What a tragedy! But how well the ill formed plan worked. It must have been hell to hear all those rudiculous accusations, part of me admires them for that, however, the trouble and grief caused to many by this 'plan' to say nothing of the resources wasted, was the most grievous sin.
If this had been faced up to and dealt with, has it should have been, it would have afforded the family the privacy and grieving they needed. And the person who needed the help most would have received it. Then, perhaps, the lunatics and conspiracy nutters would have fed elsewhere .

 

[webweaved]

Yes the house was huge but it is amazing what you can hear in the middle of the night. If I can clearly hear a mouse walking around in my large home, I have a hard time believing the Ramsey's couldn't hear a little girls scream in theirs.


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Hi everyone. New to the thread. Ive been reading since it began. Speaking of hearing things...so the neighbor across the way said she heard the sound of metal dragging? What would they have been doing to cause that sound? Someone mentioned a bat....why would they need to drag a bat? Club someone, sure...but drag? It's not heavy to an adult. Were they moving furniture or anything? This paired with the strange lights in the house is odd. (Going on the NON=INTRUDER theory) Why use a flashlight in your own home? They could have just turned a light on. It's not like someone was peeping through their blinds. If all of that was going on in a house..paired all together, I'm thinking they would have know! IMO.

 

[OliviaG1996]

Hi everyone. New to the thread. Ive been reading since it began. Speaking of hearing things...so the neighbor across the way said she heard the sound of metal dragging? What would they have been doing to cause that sound? Someone mentioned a bat....why would they need to drag a bat? Club someone, sure...but drag? It's not heavy to an adult. Were they moving furniture or anything? This paired with the strange lights in the house is odd. (Going on the NON=INTRUDER theory) Why use a flashlight in your own home? They could have just turned a light on. It's not like someone was peeping through their blinds. If all of that was going on in a house..paired all together, I'm thinking they would have know! IMO.

Hi, webweaved! I agree with you about the metal bat; there would be no need to drag the bat across the ground, especially if this "intruder" wanted to escape the scene silently.

I think the Rs used a flashlight instead of turning the lights on because they knew they had to sell the idea of JBR being kidnapped to police. With that, they had to have thought the neighborhood may have been not only notified of the kidnapping, but interviewed about anything they may have seen or heard. They couldn't take a chance of having the lights on during the middle of the night just in case any of the neighbors saw it and later told police, which would discount the possibility of an intruder (unless the intruder was insane enough to turn the lights on in the house, risking awakening the Rs).

All JMO.

 

[observation]

Since this is a poll- my vote goes to BR. Hence the cover-up and GJ indictment stating JR and PR were negligent in protecting JBR (from BR).

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/10/2...ys-parents-documents-show.html?_r=0&referrer=


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[Kingston]

None of the above? A hired goon who filmed the a Christmas snuff film for a powerful player?

 

[SapphireSteel]

I believe John was responsible for the garrote, so I voted him.

 

[ravenwitch]

For those mentioning footprints, here is a crime scene photo. Notice, in a close up, there is no snow around the house or under the trees.

 

[singularity]

PR simply regarded the contents of the RN as mere dramatic rhetoric, with the death threat added as a convincing flourish.

Convincing flourish? The use of words such as "beheaded", "execution", "burial", and "she dies" multiple times minutes/hours after a homicide isn't a mere flourish. It is rage being conveyed by the writer of the note that is directed towards the already dead victim. If it was a flourish we'd see one brief 'bang for the buck' and not the repetition of such language.

Even if her body had never been found, you can easily tell by the use of such language that she is already dead and the person who wrote the note wasn't too fond of the victim while writing it.

Fishy RN + dead body outside the house can still mean a family member killed her, since all the same questions arise

I certainly agree a family member can be involved under either circumstance but its obvious that a can of worms the size of the Andromeda galaxy was opened by the body being so close to the note.

No use in pretending "the same questions arise".