Father says DNA could solve one of country’s biggest murder mysteries: Who killed JonBenét Ramsey

[Deleted member 187229]

My personal opinion is that it was a combination of both accidental and intentional. This is part of why there was no very clear conclusion.
The blow to the head could have been an accident caused by a moment of rage. It was followed by a cover up which included staging to make it look like a SA that resulted in her death by strangulation. That was intentional. And that was done instead of calling for medical assistance after the blow to the head. They denied her medical assistance and engaged in a cover up which included strangulation possibly to mimic a sex game gone wrong. IMO this explains the charges they were indicted on.

the coroner who performed the autopsy said the blow to the head happened simultaneously with the strangulation. There was only a think film of subdural haemorrhage about 7-8 cc which is 7 mls, a bit more than a teaspoon and that the 1450 gram brain has a normal overall architecture. There was no swelling. It sounds like the blow to the head couldn’t have been an accident because firstly the coroner said both injuries (blow to the head and strangulation) happened almost simultaneously) and second the brain had very little heamorrhaging and no swelling indicating JonBenet died very soon after the blow to the head via strangulation. Could it be the murder was premeditated and the garrotte was as ready and made before the blow to the head?

 

[AddieBoo]

No. Because the DA decided not to prosecute. There’s been some back and forth on that decision, the thought that it was the correct decision because they thought they wouldn’t get a conviction. Which is arguably valid. But no one ever mentions Burke having to remain in the custody of parents indicted on two counts each of responsibility for the death of their other child as a result.

That just doesn’t add up. Not the legalese, but the welfare of Burke as a child.
That the Ramsey’s faced no formal investigation from CPS. Either before or after GJ….
Literally, I am gobsmacked about this. It doesn’t square at all to me.
MOO

 

[OneLove]

I could be wrong, but I don't think the true bill would have been enough to pull the child out. I think those decisions lie with CPS.

I think CPS can remove a child just on suspicion. Now, I feel like I need to look into this further. I wonder if CPS ever looked at this case.

Ugh; knowing CPS the way i do, I would not for a minute doubt they would have shrugged off this murder as a "one off" and elected to leave the 2nd child because of the Ramsey's financial and social status. After all, those kids were fed and clothed and had nice toys too, a vacation home, and a plane. Whats one murder when a 2nd would likely never happen? . I've seen CPS leave kids in homes where the physical abuse was horrific, they didn't get basic needs met, no food in the house, daddy breeding income by his own daughters (one was 11 and in 4th grade when pregnant & how DARE despicable ppl force her to term ), momma cooking meth in the bathroom, and some kids even died after being returned to such homes. It was all so very traumatizing for this 20 something rosy lensed girl fresh outta school wanting so badly to rescue the downtrodden. I think 4 years was rhe industry norm before social workers left the profession. And many of those who stay simply become emotionally blunted and jaded.

 

[GRT]

Ugh; knowing CPS the way i do, I would not for a minute doubt they would have shrugged off this murder as a "one off" and elected to leave the 2nd child because of the Ramsey's financial and social status. After all, those kids were fed and clothed and had nice toys too, a vacation home, and a plane whats one murder when a 2nd would likely never happen? . I've seen CPS leave kids in homes where the physical abuse was horrific, they didn't get basic needs met, and some kids even died after being returned to such homes. It was all so very traumatizing for this 20 something rosy lensed girl fresh outta school wanting so badly to rescue the downtrodden. I think 4 years was rhe industry norm before social workers left the profession. And many of those who stay simply become emotionally blunted and jaded.

Thanks for that inside look at CPS. I've heard the horror stories we all hear about CPS overlooking a case and the results being a dead child, but I've never known how they work.

An average 4-year turnover says a lot. That's got to be a frustrating career!

 

[CloudedTruth]

That just doesn’t add up. Not the legalese, but the welfare of Burke as a child.
That the Ramsey’s faced no formal investigation from CPS. Either before or after GJ….
Literally, I am gobsmacked about this. It doesn’t square at all to me.
MOO

What we know is that Dr. Meyer alerted DPS of the circumstances of the murder of JonBenet. They then sought the interview with Burke. The Ramseys made some demands, namely that police not be involved, but there was the possibility of Burke being removed from the home if they did not comply. Dr. Suzanne Bernhard conducted the interview, with police and I think a Ramsey attorney watching from behind a one way mirror. Dr. Bernhard had some concerns and wanted another interview. That was apparently denied. It’s anyone’s guess as to why no further interviews happened. Despite their loud and constant claims of mistreatment, the Ramseys were treated with kid gloves.

 

[CloudedTruth]

I could be wrong, but I don't think the true bill would have been enough to pull the child out. I think those decisions lie with CPS.

I think CPS can remove a child just on suspicion. Now, I feel like I need to look into this further. I wonder if CPS ever looked at this case.

I think you’re probably right. I was speaking of the situation from an ethics point of view. That the indictments should have been a trigger for at least a more thorough investigation from DPS than the one interview they did with Burke. But this was more than a year later and the Ramseys no longer lived in Colorado. Case closed!

 

[Ponytale]

If that person can’t be tried for murder (ie, there is no ‘murder’ in a legal sense in the case of insufficient age), then the parents can’t be indicted for being accessories to that (non-) murder.

IMO, the indictments say that one (or both) parents are guilty of abuse and murder, they just weren’t sure which one did what.

But they can be indicted to an accessory of crime (not murder) (count VII). It is all the matter of correct wording for legal reasons, but does not necessarily need to change the meaning of the accusations.

This is an accessory charge and not an accomplice charge. Accessory charge indicates the party wasn't present during the crime while an accomplice would be present. Therefore, IMO, the jury possibly didn't believe that either John or Patsy was actually present in the room while JB was being killed (or when the accident happened). It does not mean, IMO, that the person who can not be tried due to his age can not have committed the act.

The more I learn and read into this law-side of the crime, I see that the Grand Jury most likely did considered Burke's part in this crime. As they knew that the murder charge on a minor will never go to trial, they just did not see it as an option. They wanted this to go to trial. The wording of the charges made, IMO, is exactly what allows (and possibly assumes) on one to read between the lines. As a minor would not be charged in a trial, it had to come down to John or Patsy.

 

[Ponytale]

That just doesn’t add up. Not the legalese, but the welfare of Burke as a child.
That the Ramsey’s faced no formal investigation from CPS. Either before or after GJ….
Literally, I am gobsmacked about this. It doesn’t square at all to me.
MOO

IMO, it is an example of what money, power and a good legal team can do. Everything can be explained away and hidden under the rug.
Sadly, we see it happening many times in this case.

 

[Ponytale]

Ugh; knowing CPS the way i do, I would not for a minute doubt they would have shrugged off this murder as a "one off" and elected to leave the 2nd child because of the Ramsey's financial and social status. After all, those kids were fed and clothed and had nice toys too, a vacation home, and a plane. Whats one murder when a 2nd would likely never happen?

Exactly! Plus add a powerful team of lawyers who would stop at nothing.

 

[OneLove]

the coroner who performed the autopsy said the blow to the head happened simultaneously with the strangulation. There was only a think film of subdural haemorrhage about 7-8 cc which is 7 mls, a bit more than a teaspoon and that the 1450 gram brain has a normal overall architecture. There was no swelling. It sounds like the blow to the head couldn’t have been an accident because firstly the coroner said both injuries (blow to the head and strangulation) happened almost simultaneously) and second the brain had very little heamorrhaging and no swelling indicating JonBenet died very soon after the blow to the head via strangulation. Could it be the murder was premeditated and the garrotte was as ready and made before the blow to the head?

Oh gee I'd only read there was about a two hour time lag between the head blow, loss of consciousness, and strangulation. How did that get into the mix? What do we know about JR's temperament?

If they were really simultaneous, my first thought was wondering if the 3 successive calls to 911 played any part in this. And does the grand jury have any further knowledge about this than we do?

I did read a well written postulation that Burke hit her and knocked her out, poked her with his railroad track to see if she'd respond, then told his parents whereupon the cover up began, distinctly engineered to decoy JR's possible sa by use of the paintbrush,shoddy ransom.note, implicating FW, etc. But if JR feared being reported especially after the 911s....if he knew about the 911 calls... and if JR and he got into a fight while he gave her a pineapple bedtime snack while Patsy was either sleeping or packing... can it really have begun and ended with JR??? Thats just so horrifying, much more so than a child's mistake and the adults' stupid cover up.

 

[Lautreamont]

Thanks for that inside look at CPS. I've heard the horror stories we all hear about CPS overlooking a case and the results being a dead child, but I've never known how they work.

An average 4-year turnover says a lot. That's got to be a frustrating career!

Don't believe everything you read about how CPS operates from anonymous people posting on the internet. I have 28 years of CPS knowledge and there's no way a murdered child would be "shrugged off" because a family had social status or money if there are more children in the home. A very intensive risk assessment would be done, there would be multiple case consultations with law enforcement as well as multi-disciplinary teams of people meeting and reviewing the case over an extended period of time before there was any disposition.

 

[Ponytale]

It is illegal for the GJ to discuss this case. Who is interviewing jurors? I can’t find anything on YouTube showing a grand juror being interviewed, but they could be lying, as this case is so sensational that anyone could be making these claims. I’m surprised CO courts would not seek to prosecute a grand juror who sat for an interview, especially on such a high-profile case.

Illegal or not, they are there. One mentioned here before is the 20/20. There is a version with the Jury members face blacked out and voice changed, but also a version with him coming completely public. As I stated, it was a brief interview form a Jury member using his own words with his face seen. The statements that he said are not made a secret. There are quotes from that interview available to read online.

 

[Deleted member 187229]

Oh gee I'd only read there was about a two hour time lag between the head blow, loss of consciousness, and strangulation. How did that get into the mix? What do we know about JR's temperament?

If they were really simultaneous, my first thought was wondering if the 3 successive calls to 911 played any part in this. And does the grand jury have any further knowledge about this than we do?

I did read a well written postulation that Burke hit her and knocked her out, poked her with his railroad track to see if she'd respond, then told his parents whereupon the cover up began, distinctly engineered to decoy JR's possible sa by use of the paintbrush,shoddy ransom.note, implicating FW, etc. But if JR feared being reported especially after the 911s....if he knew about the 911 calls... and if JR and he got into a fight while he gave her a pineapple bedtime snack while Patsy was either sleeping or packing... can it really have begun and ended with JR??? Thats just so horrifying, much more so than a child's mistake and the adults' stupid cover up.

The train tracks had 3 prongs. In order to poke jonbenet and leave two marks you’d have to remove the centre prong. The 2 hour time frame came from Dr Lucy Rorke who explained what would happen after the blow to the head if JonBenet had survived without strangulation. That testimony was confused with what really happened. The misinformation came from James Kolar. Lucy Rorke never examined jonbenets brain. The corroner said the architecture of the brain was normal.
<modsnip - not an approved source>

 

[Ponytale]

I’ve often wonder if it’s possible BR had been a victim of SA himself and perhaps turned around and abused his sister.

I know people don’t like to think about children abusing other children, but unfortunately it happens. Statistically this is true, but I also k ow because it happened to me first hand.

Usually the abusive child, is being abused by someone else, and turns back the abuse on someone weaker as a means to cope with what is happening to them.

What I have read, Patsy's parents, house and upbringing were quite similar to JonBenet. Her mother Nedra also was (Imo quite obsessed) with pageantry, stating that you have to start them at the age of 4 to become someone and having a room in her house devoted to trophies, crowns and photos on Patsy and her sister doing pageants. His father has been under public speculations regarding the abuse, but nothing has been confirmed to support any of this. Donald worked an engineer for Union Carbide Corporation. He seems like a father who is similar to John - not very present and minding his own business. Caring for the finances and not paying much attention to family life.

Seems like Patsy, willingly or not, chose the same dynamics regarding her family life that she had been accustomed to.
If we are to believe that she lived her dreams through JB, maybe Nedra lived hers through Patsy the same way.

Thomas's book:
"One room in the large brick home of Patsy’s parents, Don and Nedra Paugh, in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell is a shrine to beauty pageants, filled with pictures and articles and with trophies and crowns won by Patsy and Pam. Nedra seemed obsessed by pageants. Only a few minutes into a homicide interview and she wouldn’t stop talking about beauty contests. She told us that JonBenét had started on the runways at the age of four for exactly the same reason children begin training for the Olympics at an early age. If you don’t start them young, she said, “They fall miserably behind.”"

 

[Ponytale]

Don't believe everything you read about how CPS operates from anonymous people posting on the internet. I have 28 years of CPS knowledge and there's no way a murdered child would be "shrugged off" because a family had social status or money if there are more children in the home. A very intensive risk assessment would be done, there would be multiple case consultations with law enforcement as well as multi-disciplinary teams of people meeting and reviewing the case over an extended period of time before there was any disposition.

But not if the law enforcement (lawyers and why not even the DA himself) are telling you to stop investigating that child. It all comes down to power in this case, and CPS has no power over that.

Yes, in a normal case it wouldn't be shrugged off, but this case has been proven to be nothing like a normal murder case of a random 6-year-old.

 

[Deleted member 187229]

What I have read, Patsy's parents, house and upbringing were quite similar to JonBenet. Her mother Nedra also was (Imo quite obsessed) with pageantry, stating that you have to start them at the age of 4 to become someone and having a room in her house devoted to trophies, crowns and photos on Patsy and her sister doing pageants. His father has been under public speculations regarding the abuse, but nothing has been confirmed to support any of this. Donald worked an engineer for Union Carbide Corporation. He seems like a father who is similar to John - not very present and minding his own business. Caring for the finances and not paying much attention to family life.

Seems like Patsy, willingly or not, chose the same dynamics regarding her family life that she had been accustomed to.
If we are to believe that she lived her dreams through JB, maybe Nedra lived hers through Patsy the same way.

Thomas's book:
"One room in the large brick home of Patsy’s parents, Don and Nedra Paugh, in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell is a shrine to beauty pageants, filled with pictures and articles and with trophies and crowns won by Patsy and Pam. Nedra seemed obsessed by pageants. Only a few minutes into a homicide interview and she wouldn’t stop talking about beauty contests. She told us that JonBenét had started on the runways at the age of four for exactly the same reason children begin training for the Olympics at an early age. If you don’t start them young, she said, “They fall miserably behind.”"

In all fairness, the police probably asked Nedra about the pageants. Isn’t it unethical for an x detective to sell a book for profit about a child murder he investigated?

 

[Ponytale]

That testimony was confused with what really happened.

Where is the factual proof that the testimony that you are stating here is the actual correct one? If someone knows "what really happened" we wouldn't be discussing this case here anymore.

 

[OneLove]

Don't believe everything you read about how CPS operates from anonymous people posting on the internet. I have 28 years of CPS knowledge and there's no way a murdered child would be "shrugged off" because a family had social status or money if there are more children in the home. A very intensive risk assessment would be done, there would be multiple case consultations with law enforcement as well as multi-disciplinary teams of people meeting and reviewing the case over an extended period of time before there was any disposition.

I'm glad to hear in your state there is better oversight than state where I was a social service worker in the 1980s. I think most have seen certain stories of certain cps failures that ended in terrible tragedies. I can tell you that one 13 year old child I had was returned to her alcoholic daddy mentally ill mother home where she continued to be routinely sexually abused by her uncle every weekend until she was pregnant at 14. Another 5th grade boy sleeping in partial car bodies in his home's junkyard full of garbage bags and whiskey bottles because he couldn't stand the screams of his 11 year old sister being raped by drunk daddy trying to build an income stream via baby mill. When she became pregnant and *only* after a dna test proved daddy to be the father did they remove HER from the home (temporarily) but not him. I still remember their names, I still remember their faces, some 35 years later. True that Colorado probably has much better child protective services, even back then, than the poorest deep southern states. I can say with great assurance that in my state even today, were a child murder to happen wherein it was thought an intruder did it and the parents were well off and the kids well taken care of and NO CHARGES WERE FILED against the parents, no, cps would most assuredly NOT be intrusive and thorough in its involvement in the placement of the children. I imagine even cps in Boulder backed off after that one interview after which the Ramseys blatantly refused another.

 

[Ponytale]

In all fairness, the police probably asked Nedra about the pageants. Isn’t it unethical for an x detective to sell a book for profit about a child murder he investigated?

Yes, they did question Nedra.
I doubt that a police officer would feel the need to publish a book for a reason to profit from it - a police officer would rather need to write and publish a book about a child murder case when the facts of the investigation are not presented to the public in a truthful manner.

 

[Deleted member 187229]

Where is the factual proof that the testimony that you are stating here is the actual correct one? If someone knows "what really happened" we wouldn't be discussing this case here anymore.

There’s no proof it was or wasn’t said. The medical side of it indicates kolar was wrong because what he claims isn’t actually what happens with edema. The autopsy report is a direct contradiction to what kolar said in his book. The coroner said the architecture of the brain is normal with 7-8 cc of haemorrhage. The coroner also said the blow to the head and the strangulation happened almost simultaneously. Show me proof dr Rorke said jonbenets brain was that swollen it busted out of the base of her skull and I’ll believe it.