For the last time, BURKE DIDN'T DO IT!!

[DocWatson]

There's 4 "flavors" of intruders. An "invited" intruder by definition knows the family well and I'm not sure I even want to call such an individual an "intruder" given that they were invited, but others here seem comfortable with that language. I'm not persuaded by any of the "invited intruder" theories I have seen here.

All other categories are "uninvited." These would include "familiar intruders" i.e., those who had some connection with the family and on-going familarity with the house, e.g., LHP and similar individuals, perhaps even extending to casual workmen who had been there only a few times in their life, but were "invited" on all those previous occasions. Another would be "casually familiar intruders" who really didn't know much about the family but had managed theretheless to either come in contact with the house (e.g., attended the big open house earlier in the month) or with JonBenet (e.g., saw her in the Christmas parade or in local news) and somehow found out where she lived etc. Such individuals would have come to the house knowing what they were after, i.e., with the specific intent of doing something (even if murder wasn't originally intended) to JBR. The final category would be "stranger intruders" who literally randomly targeted the house and only knew that a young girl lived there (e.g., through casual observation of comings and goings) but only came to learn more about the family from an opportunistic sweep of the house while the family was away on Xmas night (any such "stranger intruder" theory has to account for the perp knowing John's name etc.).

When you earlier rejected the idea of stranger intruders I thought you meant that you supported an invited intruder theory. But that seems least supported by the evidence in the sense that the brutality of the murder strongly suggests that whoever committed this crime did so deliberately, not through some accident later covered up. I concur that trying to account for things such as pineapple may make a "familiar intruder" more likely than a pure "stranger intruder" but that doesn't push me in the direction of supporting an invited intruder story.

FWIW, I have seen elsewhere explanations of the pineapple evidence that make it clear that it is not quite as black-and-white as you state. Even though they are improbable, there are explanations that allow for that pineapple to have been ingested prior to leaving for the party and Patsy may well have not known that the kids had helped themselves to it and left the bowl out etc. That is, I don't think a successful theory of the case requires the perp to somehow be involved in getting that pineapple into JBR. If we had bulletproof physiological evidence that the pineapple was consumed after coming home, then it is still conceivable that kids sneaked downstairs and got some (again, improbable) or that we're dealing with a "familiar intruder."

The 2 aspects of an invited intruder theory that make me reject it are: a) motivation of parents: I don't think parents would cover up ESPECIALLY if someone the age of Nathan were involved. They could easily absolve Burke of blame/guilt by placing responsibility on the much older teen/adult who induced their son into such unusual behavior; b) lack of forensic evidence that suggests foresight and sinister motivation. How could young boys especially be so forensically aware etc.?

 

[aRnd2it]

There is no information to suggest "cracked crab" is in her digestive system. Imo, she threw it up. If she picked at food at the Whites until about 8, went to bed at 9:30, where is that food?

There is no information from the Ramseys or anyone who attended the party that she even felt under the weather that night, much less threw up her dinner.
The food she ate at the Whites is in front of the pineapple, it would have continued digesting until the moment of her death. This is the reason that (to support his theory) Lou Smit actually concocted a crazy story about an intruder carrying pineapple up to her room in a tupperware container and feeding it to her.

 

[aRnd2it]

a) motivation of parents: I don't think parents would cover up ESPECIALLY if someone the age of Nathan were involved. They could easily absolve Burke of blame/guilt by placing responsibility on the much older teen/adult who induced their son into such unusual behavior;

The Ramseys would have had no way of knowing that night exactly what would happen to Burke, even if he was only an accomplice. They even tried looking up the word "incest" in the dictionary to find out.

And remember, the motivation of the parents was also to stage a crime to convince Burke that he was not responsible for her death, a nasty intruder was.

b) lack of forensic evidence that suggests foresight and sinister motivation. How could young boys especially be so forensically aware etc.?

Why would you assume it was the boys dealing with the forensics? The parents had at least 6-hours to clean the place up and wipe everything down.

 

[DocWatson]

The idea that parents would look up incest to figure out legal consequences for Burke is ludicrous on its face. And the dictionary is a terrific example of evidence in favor of Ramseys. If you were in their situation and looked up the word in the fashion you state, do you really think you would deliberately dog-ear the page and leave it open to that word for police to find? Parents so clever that they eradicated nearly all incriminating forensic evidence including fingerprints and DNA left by THREE boys? This little bit of evidence is far easier to understand as staging by the PERP, who want to point a finger at John and lead LE astray.

And as long as the parents are cleaning up so carefully, why in the world would they leave out Burke's knife and any other items that would point inside rather than outside the house? Why leave out a bowl of pineapple that they themselves can't explain (especially since this staged evidence makes it HARDER to support an intruder theory rather than easier?). Why not blatantly leave a door open, etc.? It's precisely because the apparently staged evidence in this case points to the parents rather than an intruder that we should logically be looking in the OTHER direction, AWAY from the direction of the staging since to do otherwise is to look in the very direction the stager wants us to.

 

[aRnd2it]

The idea that parents would look up incest to figure out legal consequences for Burke is ludicrous on its face.

Really?! So you think both John and Patsy would know the complete defination of what "incest" is? Why, do you think they were practicing it?

If you asked 100 people on the street, I'll bet the the vast majority of them do not know if "incest" is forbidden by civil law or just religious law.

The only place the Ramseys had to turn that night to find out more about incest, was their dictionary.

 

[DocWatson]

Really?! So you think both John and Patsy would know the complete defination of what "incest" is? Why, do you think they were practicing it?

If you asked 100 people on the street, I'll bet the the vast majority of them do not know if "incest" is forbidden by civil law or just religious law.

The only place the Ramseys had to turn that night to find out more about incest, was their dictionary.

Yeah, this makes a whole lot of sense. Their daughter is DEAD and they are preoccupied with determining whether sexual behavior leading to the death would somehow put their son in legal jeopardy. Alternatively, their daughter is NOT dead, so they quickly run to the dictionary, find out that incest is against civil law and so they immediately decide to kill JBR (who might otherwise rat out Burke) and then cover everything up. Yeah, that's a theory of the crime we all can take to the bank. ROTFLMAOTIME.

 

[sissi]

There is no information from the Ramseys or anyone who attended the party that she even felt under the weather that night, much less threw up her dinner.
The food she ate at the Whites is in front of the pineapple, it would have continued digesting until the moment of her death. This is the reason that (to support his theory) Lou Smit actually concocted a crazy story about an intruder carrying pineapple up to her room in a tupperware container and feeding it to her.

Under the weather? The child was being tortured and murdered, and you don't consider that a stressful event? Children throw up when they are upset.
If anyone opened a dictionary to incest, a bible to the psalm, left a picture with a heart around John, it would have been part of the "effect" they wanted to achieve...again..no reason for a Ramsey to do this.
They just arrested the BTK!!!!! A 65 ish year old man!! How many years did it take to solve that crime? This one will be solved one day, as well, we just need to be patient.

 

[aRnd2it]

Yeah, this makes a whole lot of sense. Their daughter is DEAD and they are preoccupied with determining whether sexual behavior leading to the death would somehow put their son in legal jeopardy.

Yep, you got it. Nothing they could do for the daughter, so the direction changed to doing everything they could to save Burke. The Ramseys, like 99.9% of the people in Colorado would have had no idea a 9-year old wasn't culpable for a crime.

 

[popcorn]

The dictionary is an irrelevent piece of information. There's no way to date the dog earred page. There's no way to know if incest was the word being looked up. There is no way to determine which word from the 'I' section of the dictionary was the focus. The word could have been on one of four pages that dog ear would access. The writer of the note wasn't a perfect speller. It's curious that information if John or Patsy had any history of misspelling words has never been available. There are 3 words; individuals, instructions, (instruct) and immediate that may have lead the killer to the dictionary. Even enforcement is possible as it have been thought to start with the letter I. It's just as likely a synonym was wanted and not spelling or a definition.

As far as barfing up her dinner there is evidence in that it should have been considered that many children vomit immediately in reflex when they have severe head trauma. This is unique to the pediatric population and a coroner who's work focused on dead adults may not have had a clue. JonBenet had severe head trauma and the correlation must be made. The autopsy did not mention swabbing the oral cavity for gastric juices which would shed light on this issue. It would have been swabbed for semen and there was none. Conceivably the swabs still exist and the secretions are still there but there's a conspiracy to leave the case in limbo. Either because somebody was paid off, or BURKE DID IT.

 

[DocWatson]

Yep, you got it. Nothing they could do for the daughter, so the direction changed to doing everything they could to save Burke. The Ramseys, like 99.9% of the people in Colorado would have had no idea a 9-year old wasn't culpable for a crime.

I believe you didn't get it. If their daughter is DEAD and their son was implicated in that death, they aren't going to be worried about whether the son committed a much more minor crime ("Oh honey, don't worry, turns out incest is not a crime after all. So now we don't need to worry about covering up this DEATH").

As for the relevance of this clue, I thought the dictionary was dog-eared in such a way as to literally "point" to incest on the page (i.e. so that the folded up page came right to that entry). If so, then this is just further evidence of trying to frame the parents and it is the last thing the Ramseys would do even if they had looked up the word. If I am incorrect on this detail, then I concur with Popcorn that the dictionary isn't conclusive evidence. Moreover, as I recall, wasn't Steve Thomas the original source for this leaked tidbit of crime scene news? Not the most reliable source in my book.

But Sissi's also right: the dictionary, if it is evidence at all, is only one of several clues that point TO rather than away from the parents. Criminals aren't typically the brightest bulbs in the box, but in this case, we have a perp smart enough to throw everyone off track for 10 years. That he's not only gotten away with a brutal killing but has seen the emergence of forums like this that blame the parents or Burke has just got to be icing on the cake for him.

 

[TLynn]

Until an intruder theory includes the pineapple (without unreasonable excuses), it's hard to discuss it seriously.

That is the hardest scientific evidence in this case. It is the victim talking to you - she ate pineapple AFTER the White's...it doesn't matter what the heck she ate -

 

[sissi]

Until an intruder theory includes the pineapple (without unreasonable excuses), it's hard to discuss it seriously.

That is the hardest scientific evidence in this case. It is the victim talking to you - she ate pineapple AFTER the White's...it doesn't matter what the heck she ate -

But it isn't scientific at all. It is an assumption, that's all, just another assumption.
The BPD liked it,so it became another factoid, there is no scientific reason to suggest she had a pineapple snack before her murder, her stomach was empty. There is every reason to believe she ate something at the Whites and it should have been in her stomach. Where did it go?

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cach...+time+in+the+stomach+digestion&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

 

[aRnd2it]

there is no scientific reason to suggest she had a pineapple snack before her murder, her stomach was empty. There is every reason to believe she ate something at the Whites and it should have been in her stomach. Where did it go?

Sissi, why don't you read the autopsy instead of making up these wild stories? The food she ate at the White's party was already digested and in her intestine as fecal matter. The pineapple was eaten after they arrived home and had just barely left her stomach. The pineapple was fresh-cut and matched what was in the bowl on the kitchen table. No pineapple (fresh or otherwise) was served at the White's.

If she ate the pineapple as soon as they arrived home, and she died 30 minutes to an hour later, it would have been the right amount of time for it to be digested and appear right where the coroner found it.

 

[sissi]

Sissi, why don't you read the autopsy instead of making up these wild stories? The food she ate at the White's party was already digested and in her intestine as fecal matter. The pineapple was eaten after they arrived home and had just barely left her stomach. The pineapple was fresh-cut and matched what was in the bowl on the kitchen table. No pineapple (fresh or otherwise) was served at the White's.

If she ate the pineapple as soon as they arrived home, and she died 30 minutes to an hour later, it would have been the right amount of time for it to be digested and appear right where the coroner found it.

If she ate the pineapple at 5:30 it can be within scientific boundaries exactly where it was found. No one found cracked crab and no one digests that quickly to have it ,as you say, "fecal matter" within just a few hours.
It's just not possible!

If she ate the pineapple with her murderer at midnight, and was killed at one for example, the pineapple would be in her stomach,if she was killed at three, or four the same.
First, stress slows down digestion, and being female does the same. Most food will remain under the best circumstances four to six hours in the stomach.
The cracked crab should have been in her small intestine if she was killed more than four to six hours after she ate it, but in her stomach if murdered earlier. I stand on this as being more likely...she threw up the cracked crab.

From Science and Nature
Release of food into small intestine

When food has been broken down sufficiently, small amounts are squirted out of your stomach into your small intestine for further processing. This normally occurs within four hours of eating a meal, but can take six or more hours if your meal has a high fat content

 

[aRnd2it]

If she ate the pineapple at 5:30 it can be within scientific boundaries exactly where it was found. No one found cracked crab and no one digests that quickly to have it ,as you say, "fecal matter" within just a few hours.
It's just not possible!

Sorry, you're wrong again. If the dinner was at 6:00 P.M. and she died at 10:00, fours hours is plenty of time for the crab to be in her intestine.
That would also be the perfect time frame for the pineapple to be just leaving her stomach where the coroner found it.

Read the autopsy, then look up digestive rates for active children instead of couch-potato adults - there's a BIG difference.

 

[DocWatson]

Sissi's right. BC is twisting the evidence to claim the pineapple arrived in the small intestine after only 1 hour. Here are several sources saying it takes anywhere from 2-2-1/2 hours for pineapple to be digested:
http://www.naturalways.com/toxic-gut.htm (2 hours for fruit)
http://www.unani.com/digestion_time_of_foods.htm (2-1/4 hours for pineapple)
and I've seen other claims on this forum and others stating the time could have ranged from 2-5 hours.

What conceivable RDI or friendly intruder scenario could account for this? Can you imagine the parents OR a "friendly" intruder (with very sinister intentions) chatting it up with JBR late on Xmas night for a minimum of TWO HOURS before finally accidentally or deliberately killing her? It makes NO logical sense.

Moreover, food takes at least 6 hours to go through the small intestine and reach the large intestine http://www.newscientist.com/lastword/article.jsp?id=lw990. The soft green fecal matter was found in the LARGE intestine. Thus, if you truly believe the crab eaten at dinner turned into fecal matter, you now are forced to place the murder at least 8 hours from when she ate that crab, i.e. at 2 or 3 in the morning.
What credible parent or friendly intruder scenario fits this?

All things considered, it makes more sense to think the pineapple is NOT connected to the crime, that either JBR got up and served herself pineapple that night or, more likely, that in the confusion of Xmas Day, the kids served themselves some shortly before leaving for Xmas dinner, perhaps accounting for why JBR didn't eat crab and/or why she vomited it up if she did. There doesn't necessarily need to be forensic evidence of that vomiting if it occurred at the party. If JBR had eaten pineapple without her mom knowing about it, especially so close to dinner, she might well have felt guilty about this and gone alone to the bathroom etc. After drinking and later presumably brushing teeth etc., there wouldn't necessarily be evidence of this many hours later. Alternatively, unless we have eyewitnesses stating they saw her eat crab (I thought all we knew is that she loved crab), it's equally possible crab never got into her that night and that the soft green fecal matter is whatever she ate for lunch.

Eating the pineapple before dinner is far more consistent with a stranger intruder who was in the house already when they arrived home, waited a "decent interval" for parents to go to bed and then took JBR and killed her, probably around midnight etc.

I find it amusing to see Lou Smit ridiculed right and left for his various theories when he says things people don't like and then later used as an authority when he happens to say something that supports the cockamamie theories trotted out here. The fact that Lou Smit said the pineapple is problematic doesn't make it so. Remember that he continues to support an intruder theories in SPITE of his misgivings about pineapple evidence, so if you're going to rely on him as your authority, you have to take the good with the bad: an intruder did it.

 

[sissi]

Sorry, you're wrong again. If the dinner was at 6:00 P.M. and she died at 10:00, fours hours is plenty of time for the crab to be in her intestine.
That would also be the perfect time frame for the pineapple to be just leaving her stomach where the coroner found it.

Read the autopsy, then look up digestive rates for active children instead of couch-potato adults - there's a BIG difference.

Yes, if she ate the crab at six and died at ten, it would be plenty of time for the cracked crab to enter the small intestine. Was it there???You are suggesting the cracked crab was "already fecal material" and that clearly is impossible!
I happen to know what I am talking about, you perhaps should do the reading that you suggest.
Note,as well, stress slows digestion and children throw up when upset.
It seems very likely that Patsy did not notice the pineapple snack while readying the family to go to the Whites.

BTW I live in "crab country" ,and while most of our bluecrabs are steamed and eaten right out of the shell, cracked crab is not, cracked crab is prepared with a very rich buttery dipping sauce. This fatty meal would also be a bit slower moving through the digestive process.

edit to add.
Simpson case..
Q: ALL RIGHT, SIR. "IF THE STOMACH IS ENTIRELY EMPTY, DEATH PROBABLY TOOK PLACE AT LEAST FOUR TO SIX HOURS AFTER THE LAST MEAL." DO YOU AGREE WITH THAT?

A: AS A GENERAL STATEMENT, YES.

Q: ALL RIGHT. "AND IN ADDITION, IF THE SMALL INTESTINE IS ALSO EMPTY, THE PROBABILITY IS THAT DEATH TOOK PLACE TWELVE OR MORE HOURS AFTER FOOD WAS LAST EATEN." DO YOU AGREE WITH THAT?

My comment, "as a general rule, yes" ..however we know she ate at the Whites ,so once again, where is that cracked crab? It isn't in her stomach, it isn't in her small intestine, so where is it?

 

[sissi]

All of the discussion, as in my post above, on my part is to suggest that pineapple was not the last thing eaten by the child. The numbers, the times for digestion to take place will never stand in any court of law, if they do, someone better damn sight object. There are too many variables known and too many unknowns to scientifically determine a time of death using the child's stomach contents. An empty stomach is more telling than a full one, but even given that, it would be difficult. There have been adults, who have survived massive head injuries, a week later found to have their last meal still in place in the "stomach" . Massive head injuries stop digestion, and stress slows it, so where is that cracked crab?

 

[sissi]

Sissi's right. BC is twisting the evidence to claim the pineapple arrived in the small intestine after only 1 hour. Here are several sources saying it takes anywhere from 2-2-1/2 hours for pineapple to be digested:
http://www.naturalways.com/toxic-gut.htm (2 hours for fruit)
http://www.unani.com/digestion_time_of_foods.htm (2-1/4 hours for pineapple)
and I've seen other claims on this forum and others stating the time could have ranged from 2-5 hours.

What conceivable RDI or friendly intruder scenario could account for this? Can you imagine the parents OR a "friendly" intruder (with very sinister intentions) chatting it up with JBR late on Xmas night for a minimum of TWO HOURS before finally accidentally or deliberately killing her? It makes NO logical sense.

Moreover, food takes at least 6 hours to go through the small intestine and reach the large intestine http://www.newscientist.com/lastword/article.jsp?id=lw990. The soft green fecal matter was found in the LARGE intestine. Thus, if you truly believe the crab eaten at dinner turned into fecal matter, you now are forced to place the murder at least 8 hours from when she ate that crab, i.e. at 2 or 3 in the morning.
What credible parent or friendly intruder scenario fits this?

All things considered, it makes more sense to think the pineapple is NOT connected to the crime, that either JBR got up and served herself pineapple that night or, more likely, that in the confusion of Xmas Day, the kids served themselves some shortly before leaving for Xmas dinner, perhaps accounting for why JBR didn't eat crab and/or why she vomited it up if she did. There doesn't necessarily need to be forensic evidence of that vomiting if it occurred at the party. If JBR had eaten pineapple without her mom knowing about it, especially so close to dinner, she might well have felt guilty about this and gone alone to the bathroom etc. After drinking and later presumably brushing teeth etc., there wouldn't necessarily be evidence of this many hours later. Alternatively, unless we have eyewitnesses stating they saw her eat crab (I thought all we knew is that she loved crab), it's equally possible crab never got into her that night and that the soft green fecal matter is whatever she ate for lunch.

Eating the pineapple before dinner is far more consistent with a stranger intruder who was in the house already when they arrived home, waited a "decent interval" for parents to go to bed and then took JBR and killed her, probably around midnight etc.

I find it amusing to see Lou Smit ridiculed right and left for his various theories when he says things people don't like and then later used as an authority when he happens to say something that supports the cockamamie theories trotted out here. The fact that Lou Smit said the pineapple is problematic doesn't make it so. Remember that he continues to support an intruder theories in SPITE of his misgivings about pineapple evidence, so if you're going to rely on him as your authority, you have to take the good with the bad: an intruder did it.

Excellent post, Doc Watson! I wish I would have noticed it before I wrote mine, you said it best!

 

[aRnd2it]

cracked crab is prepared with a very rich buttery dipping sauce. This fatty meal would also be a bit slower moving through the digestive process.

Butter is grease, Sissi.
I suggest you do a little research on your own. Head out to White Castle and eat a few of their grease-burgers. They don't call them "sliders" for nothing. :bang:

The digestion rates you and DocWatson keep posting are completely bogus. They are based on COMPLETE DIGESTION - not the time it takes for a small amount of fruit to leave the stomach.

It doesn't take "2 - 2-1/2 hours" for pineapple to leave the stomach--if it did, the JonBenet would have a serious condition called "Gastroparesis". Look the condition up, here's what you'll find:

"You will eat a meal that contains barium, thus allowing the radiologist to watch your stomach as it digests the meal." "Gastroparesis is diagnosed if more than half of the food remains in the stomach after 2 hours."

That's TWO HOURS for a barium beefsteak meal, Sissi. Are you really going to try and tell us that pineapple, which is 95% water is going to take anywhere near that long? Try looking up the rate it takes for a liquid to leave the stomach.