questfortrue
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Questfortrue:
Yours is one of the more fascinating examples of Ramsey doublespeak and obfuscation. Actually, John and Patsy carefully claim in their book that an "urban legend floated by the media" is John's call to his pilot early in the morning on 12/26. This is false. No one perceived anything suspicious or newsworthy about that call, in which he informed pilot Mike Archuleta of the kidnapping and presumably postponed/cancelled their flight to Michigan. No news outlet I know of claimed that the early AM call was made to schedule a flight to Atlanta. There was no legend, no interest in THAT call. That call made complete sense, and one would suppose that the Ramseys knew that, which is why they could use THAT call to imply there was no call made to the pilot to travel to Atlanta.
From DOI:
"Patsy and I heard that Mike Archuleta was subpoenaed to testify, and I knew he would clarify one of the urban legends that had been floated by the media, if he were asked. They had reported that I had called Mike early on the morning of December 26, 1996, to arrange a hasty trip to Atlanta. Of course, that wasn't true. I had called Mike to tell him what had happened. (p. 324)"
The real news story, the one people still talk about, is that John called his pilot to go to Atlanta less than an hour after his daughter's body was found, while she lay cold on his living room floor. And that story, the real news story, John Ramsey does admit is true. Not in their book, where they very intentionally throw out the red herring of the early morning call, but on television, in an interview with Barbara Walters on 3/17/2000:
BARBARA WALTERS It was reported also Mr. Ramsey that shortly after you found your daughter's body, that you called the pilot of your plane to arrange a flight to Atlanta. Is that true?
JOHN RAMSEY I did. We had um been asked to leave the house. Within minutes of that happening the police took the house over. We had no where to go. Atlanta was our home. Uh, we lived in Atlanta for 25 years. That's where our family was. We wanted to go home.
That information, that call, will forever be a salient point for amateur detectives. We can't help ourselves; it is just too weird. Because when you are a multi-millionaire and, surrounded by your best friends and your minister you have just discovered the dead body of your precious little daughter, you don't quick get on a plane, leave her body all alone and fly across the country. If you are told you cannot stay in your house, you go to the Boulder equivalent of the Ritz. You fly your Atlanta relatives to you. You have options.
The fact that the Ramseys took the trouble to obfuscate the call by deliberately confusing it with the early morning call in their book makes it all the more important.
I don't usually care for Barbara Walters' softball interviews, but once in awhile she lands one.
Thank you, Fides, for this thorough dissection of the obfuscation which confuses so many people and drives those of us in the RDI camp crazy. There are so many instances of camouflage, some minor, some brazenly jarring. But the bid to leave the state was not just weird for me. When I read up on this case and learned about their attempted action to fly away, I was both saddened and angered by it. I doubt Im alone in that reaction.